ICYMI: Obamacare’s Drumbeat of Bad News

The implementation clock keeps ticking for the President’s health care law (t-minus 43 days and counting), and the law’s problems keep piling up. A Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that even moderate Democrats are steadily and increasingly turning against President Obama’s health care law. The U.S. Government Accountability Office predicts the Administration’s missed deadlines and program delays show potential for “implementation challenges going forward.” And the costs keep piling up.

But the President and his top health care advisor, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, continue to assert that Obamacare’s exchanges will be ready on October 1. July’s stunning employer mandate delay and income verification announcements call their claims into question. Week after week, Americans are seeing an alarming pattern of delays, glitches, and bumps plaguing an Administration struggling to implement Obamacare before the October 1, 2013 deadline.

Consumer Out-Of-Pocket Costs Cap Delayed

In 2009, President Obama promised his health care plan would “place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.” But last Tuesday, the New York Times revealed that the Obama Administration had covertly delayed, until 2015, the provision capping consumers’ out-of-pocket spending.

Some employers have different insurance policies – for instance, one for major medical and another for prescription drugs. Obamacare requires all of those benefits be placed under the same out-of-pocket cap ($6,300 per year for an individual and $12,700 per year for a family). The Administration’s delay allows the cap to apply to each coverage area separately. The policy change has been described on the Labor Department’s web site since February, “but was obscured in a maze of legal and bureaucratic language that went largely unnoticed.” The obfuscation is reminiscent of when the Administration announced the delay of the law’s employer mandate in a blog post by an Assistant Secretary of Treasury. And three days after that, buried in 606 pages of regulations, the Administration also quietly revealed that state exchanges would not be required to verify either people’s annual household income or if they get affordable insurance coverage from their employer.

Weakens Navigator Training and Taps Slush Fund to Pay for It

On August 15, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced $67 million in Obamacare Navigator grants will go to 105 different groups in the 34 states with a federal or state partnership exchange. These include community groups, health care providers, business groups, and Planned Parenthood affiliates. The Administration originally said navigators would need 30 hours of training and have to pass a certification test. Unable to guarantee training can be completed before the exchanges open, the Administration slashed that requirement by one-third – to only 20 hours. HHS has yet to finalize its navigator training materials and tests.

CMS had planned to spend $54 million on navigator grants to sell Obamacare to the American people. Over budget, the Administration tapped the health care law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) to send an additional $13 million to the program. Even one of the law’s staunchest supporters says the PPHF was never intended to be used as a slush fund to implement the health care law. The American people deserve to know exactly how much it is going to cost to implement the health care law. Unfortunately, the “most transparent Administration in history” doesn’t want to open up its books and show them.

Beware: Here Come The Obamacare “Con Artists”

Consumer privacy experts are predicting that the President’s health care law will trigger increased identity theft and insurance scams as millions of Americans sign up for government approved health care.

A fraudster can claim to be anyone, including an Obamacare navigator who helps people buy insurance on an exchange. Americans will have to give these navigators personal health and financial information, and many states don’t even require criminal background checks for navigators.

In a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 13 state attorneys general expressed concern that the Obama Administration has failed to adequately protect consumer privacy in the insurance exchanges. The AGs note that navigators are not appropriately trained to protect the private data (such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and tax return information) they must enter into insurance applications. In the meantime, reports also surfaced that Obamacare’s central “data hub,” where all this personal information is to be stored, will not be tested for security until just one day before enrollment begins.

Keep Your Insurance Plan or Your Doctor? Not So Fast

The President and Washington Democrats want the American people to think that insurance coverage offered in the health care law’s exchanges will look identical to generous employer sponsored insurance options offered in today’s market. But health insurance companies will offer new plans in the exchange that have very restrictive provider networks to keep costs low. Many companies are finding the move necessary because the law has so many expensive requirements that it leaves them few options for keeping down premiums.

The President pledged: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” Now CBO estimates seven million hard working Americans will lose the employer-provided coverage they have today. These people, and their families, will be forced to enter the health law’s exchanges that may limit the health care provider choices they have available today.  

Four years ago the President sold his health care law by making one promise after another. Today people see the Administration unilaterally rewriting the law in a desperate attempt to meet deadlines – no matter the cost. Rather than own up to the law’s failures, the President goes back to what he does best: campaigning. His slick Washington spin is cold comfort to the 23-year old California waitress who said: “Part-time work is a lot better than no work … But it’s not what I expected two years out of college. I can’t believe I voted for this. This is not the change I wanted, and it feels like there’s no hope.”

In a recent press conference, the President, instead of putting the health care of Americans as the priority, defended his law by accusing Republicans of a so-called “ideological fixation.” The lack of leadership is astonishing. The law is unworkable, particularly with this President and Washington Democrats.

It is time to permanently delay Obamacare for all Americans.