Embattled director of Oregon's online health insurance exchanges Rocky King is taking a leave of absence for medical reasons, the Associated Press reports.
The board of Cover Oregon approved up to 12 weeks off for King, who has been criticized for the enrollment system not being ready to launch in October:
Technical problems with Oregon's online health insurance exchange have been an embarrassment to the state.
Emails uncovered by the On Your Side Investigators revealed that King knew back in May that critical coding issues had put the October launch of Cover Oregon in jeopardy. Messages KATU reviewed between state IT experts and the website's main contractor, Oracle, show an almost complete communications breakdown and a failure to meet several testing deadlines.
The botched rollout also forced people to apply using paper applications. The state has scrambled to hire or reassign nearly 500 people to process applications by hand.
King claimed to reporters his health had been an issue for years but did not pick the date for his medical leave until last week.
