HealthCare.gov has a new czar to replace fix-it guy Jeff Zients: Microsoft veteran Kurt DelBene.
As Zients leaves to lead President Obama’s economic council, DelBene will take over management of the federal insurance marketplace Wednesday December 18, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced in a blog post.
The former head of Microsoft Office and current husband of Washington State freshman Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (another Microsoft veteran), he faces perhaps not the immediate crisis of widespread dysfunction that Zients corrected but the long-term goal of ensuring a smooth experience for at least 80 percent of users — especially young Americans, who according to one recent survey mostly plan to stay away from exchanges for now at least.
DelBene will be serving as HealthCare.gov czar through the first round of enrollment, having comitted to leading the multi-agency, multi-contractor team for at least the first half of 2014, Sebelius noted.
“He will be a tremendous asset in our work,” with “proven expertise in heading large, complex technology teams,” Sebelius wrote. “The President and I believe strongly in having one person, with strong experience and expertise in management and execution, who is thinking 24/7 about HealthCare.gov.”
As the site has progressed from the early days, as the subject not only of criticism and frustration but also of jokes on the likes of the Daily Show (“I’m gonna try and download every movie ever made, and you’re gonna try and sign up for Obamacare, and we’ll see which happens first”), Sebelius said that DelBene’s responsibilities “will reflect an evolution of focus as we move on to the next phase.”
First, Sebelius wrote, DelBene, who also previously worked for McKinsey & Company and Bell Laboratories, will offer management, operations oversight and advice on additional enrollment channels, field operations and marketing.
Second, she said, he’ll be tasked with making sure that the HealthCare.gov team executes the plan put in place by Zients, “so that we can ensure the site’s performance is strong through the close of open enrollment on March 31, 2014.” That will include ensuring system stability, redundancy, capacity and security and improving the user interface.
DelBene spent much of his career at Microsoft, joining in 1992, leading the large revenue generator of the Office division and also overseeing the company’s launch of key software programs into the cloud, with Office 365. At the age of 52, DelBene retired from Microsoft this past July amid a company reorganization.
Whatever his long-term plans, DelBene has the chance to leave a significant mark on Healthcare.gov, in particular with the “additional enrollment channels” that Sebelius mentioned. Gary Lauer, the CEO of eHealthInsurance, has been clamoring to have HHS tap “web-based entities,” like his own company, to serve as brokers, essentially online exchanges that would help reduce the load on Healthcare.gov and state exchanges, while potentially bringing in some commissions from insurers.
