Hearing Description:
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee and recounted the process in which the government has improved Healthcare.gov. She also announced she is asking the Inspector General to investigate what went wrong in the creation and launch of the website as well as what processes they could improve in the future.
Hearing Date: December 11, 2013
Hearing Summary: Prepared for AAPS by the Market Institute
The Health subcommittee recently held a hearing to question Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the failings of Healthcare.gov and the status of the Affordable Care Act. Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA) said in his opening statement that we have seen from the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov defied every promise HHS and the Administration made the preceding year. Millions of Americans are being harmed this law and many do not trust the Administration after so many broken promises. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) said in his opening statement Oversight has seen communications emanating from HHS that shows the frantic scrambling to get Healthcare.gov ready, which goes against what the agency and Administration was telling Congress in the lead up. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said in his opening statement that it boggles his mind that they think the ACA is turning the world upside down. The law is working and his constituents have told him how important it is to them.
The lone witness, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary at HHS testified in her opening statement that the launch of Healthcare.gov was marred by numerous software bugs and flaws. In mid-October the website was assessed by both the government and private sector when it was found that the site was fixable through technical improvements, changes to management approach, and an increased focus on improvement. With a new management structure and continuous data on the performance of the system, the team now has the capacity to rapidly respond to any incidents and to better understand root causes. The new management system and instrumentation have helped improve site stability, lower the error rate to less than 1 percent, increase capacity to allow 50,000 concurrent users to simultaneously use the site and for 800,000 or more consumers to visit the site daily. Now that the website is working well, she is announcing an investigation into the creation and management of Healthcare.gov. A new position of Chief Risk Officer will be created at CMS to minimize future risk.
In response to questioning, Kathleen Sebelius said:
- The program is more than 3 million off target enrollment thus far
- She is not sure what the right balance is between millions of people receiving new health coverage versus delaying the launch of Healthcare.gov
- The back-end processes are currently being built
- They are in the process of hand-matching individuals with insurance companies in regards to the 834 form that has been error-filled
- Medicaid has played a critical role in aiding lower income Americans with health coverage, at a lower cost than private insurance
- There is nothing in the law that denies Americans access to their doctors. The private insurance market changes provider networks on an almost daily basis
Hearing Website: http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearing/ppaca-implementation-failures-whats-next
Link Testimony:
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
