A board member for Your Health Idaho, the state’s Obamacare exchange, was awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $375,000, and then resigned from the body that same day, according to the Associated Press.
Frank Chan, the 19-member volunteer board’s technology chairman and an appointee of Republican governor Butch Otter, resigned last Wednesday to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to his fellow board members. Chan will receive $180 an hour to oversee the exchange’s tech vendors while they attempt to replace the disastrous federal software system with a state-run successor.
Usually, Idaho requires public contracts worth more than $25,000 to be awarded competitively, but the exchange is allowed to set its own procurement policies. Amy Dowd, the exchange’s executive director, said she awarded Chan the contract without seeking other bids in the interest of expediency. (The exchange hasn’t yet formalized its contracting policies.)
The board chairman, Stephen Weeg, insisted that moving quickly on the matter was the right call, saying the exchange is “operating under an incredibly tight time frame.”