By Gintautas Dumcius

State House News Service

BOSTON -- With the next open enrollment period set for Nov. 15, Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday said the state's troubled health-care exchange website is fixed, at a cost of an additional $26 million to the state, bringing the federal and state total to $254 million in information technology costs.

The $254 million covers calendar years 2011 to 2015, and is $80 million higher than the original $174 million estimate to build the site, according to a Patrick administration spokeswoman. The state's share of the cost is $42 million, up from the original $16 million.

Addressing attendees of a hearing on health-care cost trends at Suffolk University Law School, Patrick said the additional $26 million is "significant," but "not the hundreds of millions or billion dollar figures that some have bandied about."

In a September report, The Pioneer Institute, a think tank critical of the state's efforts, estimated that taxpayers will have spent $600 million to implement a new health exchange, on top of $540 million for a temporary Medicaid program to insure residents who were prevented from signing up for health insurance due to problems with the website.

Patrick administration officials responded dismissively to the report after its release, and Patrick himself issued a statement condemning the report while traveling on a trade mission.

On Monday, Patrick acknowledged the site was a "terrible disappointment" during last year's transition to the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), but said the state has enrolled more than 400,000 people in both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage programs.

Joshua Archambault, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute, called Monday's estimate "far too narrow."

"It is similar to a student mistaking his out-of-pocket expenses as the only expense for attending the local university," he said.

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Gov: Health-care exchange website fixed