WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday introduced a bill to create a Special Inspector General (IG) to oversee Obamacare entitled the Special Inspector General for Monitoring the Affordable Care Act (SIGMA Act).

“Obamacare should be repealed in favor of a health care system that reduces costs for patients. While we await the Supreme Court’s latest review of parts of this law to determine if its implementation has been Constitutional, Congress cannot let up on our responsibility to provide oversight,” Roberts said. “As long as this law is on the books, we need a watchdog, namely a Special Inspector General, to investigate its implementation and ensure our taxpayer dollars are being spent within the letter of the law.”

The bill, S.1368, creates a new Special Inspector General, an Obamacare watchdog, with all the appropriate authority to investigate and audit any programs or activities related to Obamacare across the numerous federal departments, state exchanges, and private contractors in its scope.

Roberts said a special IG would coordinate watchdog efforts across the federal government.

“And while all of the federal agencies charged with implementing Obamacare have their own Offices of the Inspector General, they are all investigating this law in their own silos,” Roberts said. “The Health and Human Services Inspector General isn’t talking to the Treasury IG, or the Department of Labor IG, or the Homeland Security IG.”

Identical legislation was also introduced in the House by Congressman Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.).

The SIGMA would have broad authority to review all aspects of the law. Things like:

Changes in the health insurance marketplace – the amount of patients who have seen their premiums and out-of-pocket costs increased and shrinking physician and other provider networks;
The employer mandate – its effect on worker hours and employers’ hiring;
The Healthcare.gov website – its security, functionality, and total costs associated with its development;
Duties of the Internal Revenue Service – plans for calculating subsidy overpayments, how they will notify these individuals and what their plans are for recapturing these overpayments; and
Medicare cuts via the IPAB – they will provide an analysis of the impact on medical outcomes for our seniors as a result of these cuts.
Senator Roberts is an outspoken opponent of Obamacare. Senator Roberts is a senior member of the Senate Committee on Finance and is the ranking member of its Subcommittee on Health Care. He is a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and is co-chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus.