The decision to delay the Obamacare health exchange for
small businesses was withheld from the public for at least six weeks,
according to internal e-mails released by a congressional committee
investigating the rollout.
CGI Group Inc.,
responsible for getting the insurance shopping site for small business
open Oct. 1, told the Obama administration in August the marketplace
wouldn’t be completely ready until at least Nov. 15, according to
documents released today by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
The administration was still saying publicly as late
as Sept. 26 that the Small Business Health Options Program was on
schedule. A
news release that day by the Department of Health and Human Services said the SHOP exchange would open Oct. 1.
“We
see more and more evidence that the administration was fully aware its
signature health care law was not ready for prime time,” Representative
Fred Upton, the committee chairman and a Michigan Republican, said in a statement.
CGI workers on Aug. 13 told
Henry Chao,
the deputy chief information officer for the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services responsible for construction of the exchanges, that
the small business site wouldn’t be ready by Oct. 1 and offered an
extended timetable to get the exchange running by Nov. 15, according to
the e-mails. “Can we sign this with blood?” Chao responded. Martin Rich,
a CGI executive, agreed to the delayed dates in a follow-up e-mail.
Mounting Delays
The
administration later delayed the exchange again, saying Nov. 27 that
small businesses won’t be able to use the federal government’s website
to buy health insurance until November 2014 in most U.S. states, and
would instead have to enroll in plans through brokers or directly with
insurers.
Patti Unruh, a CMS spokeswoman, disagreed with the
Republican characterization, saying the e-mails reflected “one piece of
many conversations” about the progress of the small-business exchange.
“The
final decision to delay SHOP enrollment functions was not made until
mid-September, and CMS announced the delay once we had complete
information about what functionality would be available for small
business owners on Oct. 1,” she said in an e-mail.
Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius is scheduled to testify before a panel of Upton’s committee on Dec. 11.
Technical Flaws
The
health insurance websites, for consumers, businesses and
Spanish-speakers, have been plagued by delays and technical problems
that have slowed the introduction of the signature part of President
Barack Obama’s health-care law -- the ability for people to shop for new
health insurance coverage. The consumer site recently underwent a
series of technical fixes. More people signed up in the first two days
of December, the administration said, than in all of October.
The
exchange for small businesses, available for companies with 50 or fewer
full-time workers, were something of an afterthought when Congress
passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. The
administration said April 1 that workers at these companies won’t
immediately be able to pick any health plan they want as the law
intended, and instead will have to sign up for a plan selected by their
employers.
To contact the reporter on this story: Drew Armstrong in New York at
darmstrong17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at
rgale5@bloomberg.net
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