Hearing Description: The Energy and Commerce committee, subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations met to question Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Insurance Oversight Director Gary Cohen on the status of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He reported the website Healthcare.gov, has vastly improved and enrollment numbers are up significantly. They are also pleased with the number of young people signing up for health coverage, which they report is in line with the percentage of the general population.
Hearing Date: January 16, 2014
Hearing Summary: Prepared for AAPS by the Market Institute
The Energy and Commerce committee met to get an update on the status of the Affordable Care Act implementation from Health and Human Services. Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA) recounted in his opening statement quotes from the lone witness, Gary Cohen, where he said the exchanges would be ready on October 1st. The Chairman spoke of emails the committee found between CMS officials that cited concern the website would crash on take-off. Either Mr. Cohen knew of the problems with the website and did not share them with Congress, or he had no idea of the problematic development. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) said in her opening statement that while the start of Healthcare.gov was rocky, she is skeptical that Republicans actually want to see the healthcare law work. She is interested to learn from the Administration what is being done to enroll young people in the exchanges because without them, the health care law will not work.
The first witness, Gary Cohen, Director for Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid testified in his opening statement that the problems faced on launch of open enrollment were much greater than anyone had expected. However, they have rolled up their sleeves and solved the problems, piece by piece. Software and hardware fixes have been made leading to an error rate well below 1%. By the end of December, 2.2 million people have selected health coverage from the state and federal exchanges. They are proud to see many of the Affordable Care Act’s key reforms now in place, and while more work remains, they are encouraged that those who already have health insurance will have better, more reliable coverage.
In response to questioning, Gary Cohen said:
- He gave the best information available to him when he reported to the committee last year that the website would be ready
- There were recommendations in the McKinsey report that they did implement prior to launch that was supposed to increase the likelihood of success
- If they can maintain the current pace of sign-ups and see an uptick in March, as expected, HHS will be encouraged
- HHS CTO Henry Chao told Gary Cohen prior to a late September hearing that the website would be functional
- The automatic process for processing payments is still being built
- CMS will look into any case of “Navigators” going door-to-door looking to sign people up for health coverage
- He is aware of people that are now paying more for health coverage after receiving a notification letter from their insurance carrier
- The online capability for SHOP has been delayed for a year due to the time needed to get the system working correctly
- 3.9 million people have signed up for Medicaid as of late November, but he is not aware of how many are newly eligible for the program
- There have been no successful attempts at hacking the system
Hearing Website:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearing/2014-seeking-ppaca-answers
Link to Testimony:
Gary Cohen, Director
Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
