Oregon officials subpoenaed after botched exchange site

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Cover Oregon and the Oregon Health Authority after the state abandoned its botched healthcare exchange website, according to reports.

Oregon was the first state to announce it was abandoning its state healthcare exchange last month and adopting HealthCare.gov. About $130 million dollars had been spent on the site but not a single person was able to enroll.

{mosads}Since then, there have been reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into how the state had managed the exchange and whether there was any wrongdoing.

According to the Oregonian, federal prosecutors and the FBI are asking for a broad range of documents in their subpoena including memos, and emails between the two state bodies that oversaw the health exchange website and officials in charge of disbursing federal dollars towards funding the site.

In particular the Oregonian says “the FBI seems to be interested in whether state officials misled their federal counterparts about progress on the exchange in order to get more federal funding.”

The Oregon U.S. Attorney’s Office says it would not comment on a potential grand jury investigation.

However, Cover Oregon and the Oregon Health Authority have also issued a joint statement saying they take the subpoenas seriously and plan to fully cooperate.