E-Newsletter

Obamacare Implementation Failures – Website and Rural America

Since the launch of the health care reform law’s exchanges on October 1, we have seen many reports of significant problems with the law’s website and, even worse, health insurance plans that are more expensive and/or have significantly higher deductibles.  Furthermore, an October 24 piece in Forbes* stated that more Americans (over 500,000 individuals) in 3 States have had their insurance policies cancelled than have “filed” applications (476,000 applications) in all 50 States.

This is all very troubling, and has led to increasingly frequent calls for delays of or changes to the law– even among people like Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV).

Americans are seeking answers as to who in the federal government was aware of technical issues, when these issues came to light, who made the decision to delay items like the law’s Spanish language platform, etc.  I hope that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will have the answers to these important questions and others during the times that she testifies before Congress.

Didn’t Know or Didn’t Disclose?

On Thursday, October 24, the Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing seeking to find out what has been happening with Obamacare’s implementation.  Several of the top contractors working on the health care law’s website testified at this hearing.

The contractors told us that HHS was responsible for comprehensive, “end-to-end” testing of the system before it went live.  Witnesses said that the federal government didn’t conduct that final testing until just two weeks before the October 1 launch.  According to CNN,** Andrew Slavitt of Optum/QSSI testified that “The system didn’t receive adequate end-to-end testing.”  Cheryl Campbell of CGI Federal told us of a last minute change by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that prevented people from checking out Obamacare before having made a final decision as to what plan is right for their family.  Although Ms. Campbell said she was never given a reason for this last minute change, it appeared to me to be a political decision so that the American people wouldn’t get sticker shock when they saw how much Obamacare will actually cost them. 

Is it really that so many of these issues weren’t known, or is it instead that they weren’t disclosed?  I fear it is the latter, but am hopeful that the Administration will provide some clarity on this and the many other questions that remain unanswered.

New York Times: “Health Care Law Fails to Lower Prices for Rural Areas”

A recent story in the New York Times*** highlights a major concern I share with many others from rural areas – that “…evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans.”

In this story, Wyoming’s insurance commissioner Tom Hirsig said, “I think the problem was that the Affordable Care Act was designed for where the majority of the people live, in the big cities where there’s a lot of competition among health care providers.”

Our neighbor West Virginia is mentioned in this story as one of those States suffering from lack of competition. "It is also difficult to attract new insurers to areas where the population has health problems," the authors wrote.  "Only one carrier, Highmark Blue Cross, is offering coverage in West Virginia, which has high rates of obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes."

Here in Southwest Virginia, many localities will have severely limited competition.  Nine localities will have no competition in at least one of the two categories, with only one insurance company in either the Individual and/or SHOP (small business) exchanges.  Those localities are Bland, Bristol, Buchanan, Carroll, Grayson, Lee, Scott, Tazewell, and Wythe.

No Republicans voted for Obamacare.  At the time, then-Ninth District Representative Rick Boucher voted no, saying of Obamacare “… Because of massive funding reductions for Medicare, it would adversely affect the quality of care received by Southwest Virginia senior citizens. It would result in health insurance premium increases for those who have insurance. It contains unacceptable special benefits for some states at the expense of the others. It does not correct the unwarranted disparities in Medicare reimbursements that penalize rural areas. …”

While he and I disagreed on many issues, on this one, we agreed.  It’s a shame more rural Democrats didn’t have the same vision.

As always, if you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671.  To reach my office by email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. 

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* http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/24/more-americans-have-had-their-insurance-canceled-under-obamacare-than-have-filed-an-exchange-account/
** http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/politics/congress-obamacare-website/
*** http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/business/health-law-fails-to-keep-prices-low-in-rural-areas.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

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