Gov. Peter Shumlin made a special trip to the offices of Vermont Health Connect on Wednesday to raise the spirits of the frontline workers.
Vermont’s online health insurance exchange has been riddled with problems since its launch in 2013. And the project doesn’t exactly get a lot of good press.
But Shumlin says the issues aren’t the fault of rank-and-file employees at Vermont Health Connect. And with a key May 31 deadline bearing down, Shumlin dropped by the Essex Junction headquarters on Wednesday to offer some words of appreciation.
“Well you know they’re working 24/7 to try to get this website to work for us. And with all the talk about the disappointment in the website, we sometimes forget there’s very skilled people up there working very hard to try and make this technology work,” he said. “And I just want to go and thank them.”
Shumlin says Vermont Health Connect is on track to have key functions ready to go by the end of May. If the administration misses the deadline, lawmakers have threatened to abandon the state-run exchange.
