Today, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education,
called on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to answer questions about the true cost of
implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance Exchanges. Sen. Moran is committed to making certain the Obama Administration is held accountable for its use of taxpayer dollars, especially considering the systemic problems plaguing the ACA website, healthcare.gov.
“Over the past year, $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds have been used to implement the Exchanges. This funding came exclusively from your Department’s internal transfer of funds to the Exchanges – a decision that avoids Congressional approval,” Sen. Moran said in a letter to Sec. Sebelius. “Last week, your Department notified my appropriations subcommittee that an additional $450 million would be transferred to fund the Exchanges in Fiscal Year 2014. I am seriously concerned that taxpayers do not have a full understanding of the costs associated with implementing the Exchanges and the costs to fix the egregious technical problems healthcare.gov is currently plagued by.”
To shed light on the true cost of implementing the ACA health insurance Exchanges, Sen. Moran has asked Sec. Sebelius to respond to a series of questions including exactly how much money has been spent on developing and implementing healthcare.gov, and whether HHS intends to recover payments made to the contractors responsible for the site if they are determined to be at fault.
Sen. Moran requested detailed answers on the steps the Department took to test the website prior to roll-out on October 1, 2013, as well as information on the technical issues that arose during the testing. The senator requests that HHS explain the current technical issues affecting healthcare.gov and how the Department intends to correct these problems. A timeline and detailed cost breakdown for resolving the issues, as well as copies of the contracts responsible for paying the recruited technical experts are also requested.
Additionally, Sen. Moran asked HHS for details of any contingency plans if the technical issues with the Exchanges cannot be fixed in a timely fashion. He believes Americans need to be clearly informed by the Administration how it plans to deal with the ACA individual mandate that requires all Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.
Finally, Sen. Moran has requested HHS to address the legal requirement that the Exchanges verify household income before providing tax credits or any cost-sharing reductions. He requests a detailed description of how the “data hub” will be used to verify an individual’s eligibility and how the Department will verify income for individuals signing up for health insurance through the Exchanges.
Sen. Moran strongly opposes Obamacare and believes the best course of action is to dismantle the ACA and replace it with practical reforms that are workable and will actually reduce health care costs. In July, President Obama acknowledged that a significant component of Obamacare is broken and delayed enforcement of the employer mandate. The following week, Sen. Moran offered amendments in the Senate Appropriations Committee to delay both the employer mandate and individual mandate. Unfortunately, both amendments were defeated in party-line votes.
Additionally, this week Sen. Moran agreed to be an original cosponsor of the “Delay Until Fully Functional Act,” legislation Senator Marco Rubio is expected to introduce this upcoming Monday. This bill would delay Obamacare’s individual mandate until it can be certified that the ACA website and Exchanges are functional. It is blatantly unfair for the federal government to punish individuals for not doing something the government is requiring them to do when the Administration’s incompetence has made it impossible for them to comply. Sen. Moran believes the entire law should be repealed and replaced, but until that happens American individuals and families must be protected from the disasters created by Obamacare.