Nothing surprises me anymore. The only question is, How long will Congress allow this to go on? I was one of the first people saying we needed to let this unfold, but the damage being inflicted must be mitigated and the on-going destruction of the individual insurance marketplace must be stopped. Now.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is manually fixing thousands of flawed enrollment transmissions sent from HealthCare.gov to insurance companies in October and November, Congress was told Wednesday.
“We are in the process of actually hand-matching individuals to insurance companies,” Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Last week, after weeks of pressure from journalists, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that as much as 25 percent of enrollment transmissions sent from the federal portal to insurers were either garbled or contained bad data.
The department announced Wednesday that that more than 30,000 applications might need to be re-evaluated before the end of the year.
The problem creates the need for federal health officials to reconcile individual enrollment records with a long list of insurers in a process one official described as “very intensive.”
The CMS says the error rate has been reduced to about one in 10 now. However, the administration is expecting millions to flood the exchanges in weeks leading up to the Dec. 23 and March 31 deadlines, which could create thousands of more documents that need to be reconciled.
The process represents the next hurdle for the CMS as it seeks to ensure that every recent applicant at HealthCare.gov can use their coverage starting next year. Without a fully functioning system, policyholders will encounter problems and could be unsure if they’re covered by the insurance they believe they’ve purchased, creating another firestorm for the administration.
And this from Breitbart:
Responding to questions from Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), Sebelius conceded there were Americans who think they are enrolled in Obamacare and may not be because of the “834 errors,” and that the Obama administration is working to make sure Americans people who think they are enrolled in Obamacare are “actually matched with the company.”
Because hand-matching applicants with insurance companies becomes more unfeasible as more applicants roll in, there will be Americans who may not have insurance even after thinking that they have successfully navigated HealthCare.Gov and crossed the finish line to enroll in Obamacare.
In the meantime, Sebelius has now asked for her own department’s Inspector General to launch an investogation into the ObamaCare website. The very same website she’s in charge of! Keep in mind this is very probably about controlling any investigation and perhaps stalling anything Congress may want to do (if they get out of their coma).
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s top health official is asking for an investigation into the administration’s botched rollout of HealthCare.gov.
The website was supposed to have been the online portal to insurance coverage under the new health care law, but technical problems turned it into a frustrating bottleneck for millions of consumers. It’s working better now after two months of repairs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a blog post early Wednesday that she is asking the department’s inspector general to investigate the contracting process, management and performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch.
The announcement comes as Sebelius heads to Capitol Hill for another round of grilling before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Maybe when the IRS starts taking People’s Real Estate because of mistakes made on Tax Returns, we’ll wake up… Maybe…
Ummm, think they’ll be outsourcing this job to China, or maybe India? It just gets more ludicrous by the day. Tammy is right, we have to the keep focus on OCrapoCare, until we get 70% disapproval. I pray it’s sooner, rather than later.
No Kitten: Think Cloward & Piven. These are new FEDERAL jobs right here at home! 30K+ applications need “hand-matching”? That’s 30K+ new federal jobs (one person per application)! And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This is how Obama gets his job numbers up! More IRS employees, more HHS employees, more attendees for Mooch, more vacays in Hawaii, more dogs that just HAVE to accompany them, with their dog-handlers…
I shudder to think of the coming foreclosures. I pray we all help each other.
Remember how everyone screeched about Watergate? As I recall, some duct tape died.
Now, we have so many scandals, lies and outrages, and I worry that people might begin to think this is the New Normal. It is not.
Last time I checked, it was illegal to lie to Congress. These Leftists are craven and despicable. And thank you, Billy Jeff, for lying to a Grand Jury. (also illegal, right?) These Dems sure know how to lower the bar!
“I was one of the first people saying we needed to let this unfold, but the damage being inflicted must be mitigated and the on-going destruction of the individual insurance marketplace must be stopped. Now.”
Tammy, I think ultimately the only way this will be mitigated will be for the private sector to offer competitive medical services that people can afford, which are *not* covered by insurance, since the gov’t has its teeth in the insurance industry, and is refusing to let it go. That’s the only end-run I see around this for now.
I am not for mitigating Obamacare by “fixing” it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s unfixable. Any attempt to do so will only prolong the suffering, and will make conservatives complicit in it. The faster people are confronted with its absurdity, the better, not by hearing us tell them about it, but by them *experiencing* it. The only fix is repeal of this monstrosity, and I think unfortunately the only chance of that happening is if enough people are hurt by it–and yes, that may include a lot of us–that they are shocked out of their fog of delusion about the government’s inherent “goodness.” People have to see what a godawful policy this really is, because too many have been making excuses for it, and this administration, which has allowed it to create hurtful policies that will be affecting us for years to come. The best way for people to learn is to be confronted with the consequences of their mistakes. This government has been a mistake for years. The policies initiated and continued under it have been a mistake for years. People have thought that they can ignore the bailouts, ignore the debt, ignore the dependency, ignore Obamacare, all because they allowed themselves to be misdirected by slanders about a “war on women” and “the 99% vs. the 1%.” It’s best if such stupidity on our part is dealt with by reality. Don’t allow it to be dulled over with morphine. It’s time for this absurdity to end, but the only chance of that is if people get a chance to see it.
I’ve tried explaining it to people, but that hasn’t worked. From what I’ve seen there are mostly two kinds people in this: Those who have already figured it out, and are just as scared and frustrated about it as we are (but they’re in the minority), and those who cannot or will not understand the arguments, because they don’t think they need to. They always think someone will save their bacon, like they always have. In the meantime they believe what they support is just. They don’t care if it really works. I, for one, have had enough of this! The situation has gotten too dire. No more excuses. We as a nation asked for this, and we deserve what we have coming to us. If a majority become interested in policies that will work, I’ll gladly participate in pushing that forward. Until then, I think the pain of dysfunction is going to be the best medicine. If that doesn’t work, then we’re sunk as a nation anyway, and nothing we could do to try to mitigate or “fix” it will prevent its demise. My one hope all along has been that, no matter what people have believed, people are at least not suicidal to their own interests. Maybe that impulse alone will ultimately get us out of this.
This is just the start of the dissolution of America.
HHS will be handmatching the applications. Why not let the insurance companies and health ins. brokers complete the signup process for people and then reverse submit their completed applications to HHS. Reverse handmatched applications should have a higher success rate.
Not wrong to blame all this on what we already know is a rogue Presidency, with a nasty army of liars and drones circling the wagons for him constantly….
BUT!!
I’m blaming BOEHNER, McCONNELL,ROVE, and the rest of the RINOs that DON’T EVEN PUSH BACK or even say ” eek” .
The whole thing makes me sick.
Every day is like the Advent Calendar from HELL!