Every few days, it seems, there’s another hearing into one
problem or another with rolling out the Affordable Care Act. It’s hard to keep
track.
Since late October, by my count, there have been 10 House
and Senate hearings. Eight were by House committees led by Republicans who oppose
the law; two were before Senate panels run by Democrats.
The most memorable of the hearings was Oct. 30 when Health
and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first testified about the HealthCare.gov
debacle. Also buzzworthy was the Nov. 13 hearing of
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The panel subpoenaed Todd
Park, the U.S. chief technology officer, and it was unclear whether he would appear (he
did.)
Here’s a look at highlights from the Hill:
Date: October 24, 2013
Committee: House Energy and Commerce
Title: PPACA
Implementation Failures: Didn’t Know or Didn’t Disclose?
Witnesses: Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president, CGI
Federal; Andrew Slavitt, group executive vice
president, Optum/QSSI; Lynn Spellecy,
corporate counsel, Equifax Workforce Solutions; John Lau, program director,
Serco
Length: 4 hours, 24 minutes
Minority party response and transcript.
Highlight: “Federal officials did not fully test the online
health insurance marketplace until two weeks before it opened to the public on
Oct. 1, contractors told Congress on Thursday,” the New
York Times reported. “While individual components of the system were tested
earlier, they said, the government did not conduct ‘end-to-end-testing’ of the
system until late September.”
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas): Will the gentleman yield?
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.): No, I will not yield to this
monkey court or whatever this thing is.
Barton: This is not a monkey court.
Pallone: Do whatever you want. I’m not yielding.
Watch the hearing:
Date: October 29
Committee: House Ways and Means
Title: Status
of the Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act
Witness: Marilyn Tavenner,
administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Length: 2 hours, 51 minutes
Minority party response.
Hearing highlight: “The federal official who oversees new
health-insurance exchanges apologized
publicly Tuesday for the troubled launch of a Web site that is
supposed to allow millions of uninsured Americans to buy coverage, but she said
the problems are “fixable” and pledged that the site would soon work as
promised,” the Washington
Post reported. “Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee,
Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS), said: ‘To the millions of Americans who’ve
attempted to use HealthCare.gov to shop and enroll in health-care coverage, I
want to apologize to you that the Web site has not worked as well as it should.
We know how desperately you need affordable coverage.’”
Watch:
Date: October 30
Committee: House Energy and Commerce
Title: PPACA
Implementation Failures: Answers from HHS
Witness: Kathleen Sebelius,
secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Length: 3 hours, 34 minutes
Minority party response and transcript.
Hearing highlight: “Health and Human Services
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to Americans
Wednesday for the dysfunctional Web site that has hampered the rollout of the
new national health care law,” USA
Today reported. “‘You deserve better,’ Sebelius
said in testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. ‘I apologize.
I’m accountable to you for fixing these problems.’”
Barton: “Madam Secretary, while you’re from Kansas, we’re
not in Kansas anymore. Some might say that we are actually in the Wizard of Oz
land.”
Pallone (later): “I know we’re not in Kansas, but I do
believe increasingly we’re in Oz because of what I see here.”
Date: November 5
Committee: Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
Title: The
Online Federal Health Insurance Marketplace: Enrollment Challenges and the Path
Forward
Witness: Marilyn Tavenner,
administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Length: 2 hours, 34 minutes
Hearing highlight: “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said Tuesday
that fixes have been made to the federal Web site to improve users’
experiences. She also answered questions about an exchange security breach that
she said is fixed. In the meantime, the Obama administration faces growing
skepticism from those in its own party on the rollout,” Kaiser
Health News reported.
Date: November 6
Committee: Senate Finance
Title: Health
Insurance Exchanges: An Update from the Administration
Witness: Kathleen Sebelius,
secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Length: 2 hours, 35 minutes
Hearing highlight: “Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius sought to reassure lawmakers in a
Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday that fixes — hundreds of them
— are being made to HealthCare.gov, but rejected calls to delay the law
or shut the website down. She also said she expected enrollment
from October to be “quite low,” Kaiser
Health News reported.
Date: November 13
Committee: House Oversight and Government Reform
Title: Obamacare Implementation: The Rollout of HealthCare.gov
Witnesses: Frank Baitman, deputy
assistant secretary for information technology, Department of Health and Human
Services; Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer and deputy director of
the Office of Information Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services;
Todd Park, U.S. chief technology officer, Office of Science and Technology
Policy, The White House; Steve VanRoekel, U.S. chief
information officer and administrator, Office of Electronic Government, Office
of Management and Budget; David Powner, director,
Information Technology Management Issues, Government Accountability Office;
Richard A. Spires, former chief information officer, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security; Karen Evans, partner, KE&T Partners, LLC
Length: 5 hours, 24 minutes
Minority party response
Hearing highlight: “A top White House technology official
told a House committee Wednesday that HealthCare.gov can
currently handle up to 25,000 Web site users at the same time. White House
chief technology officer Todd Park said technology teams were working
aggressively to fix the website and get it working “for the vast majority” of
Americans by the Nov. 30 deadline set by the administration,” The Wall
Street Journal reported. “The federal agency running HealthCare.gov,
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, originally envisioned a site
with capacity to handle up to 60,000 concurrent users, Mr. Park said. Heavy
usage of the site is expected near the Dec. 15 deadline for people to sign up
for coverage effective Jan. 1.”
Watch (in three parts):
Date: November 14
Committee: House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health
Title: Obamacare Implementation Problems: More than Just a Broken
Website
Witnesses: The Honorable Michael J. Astrue,
former commissioner, Social Security Administration; Avik
Roy, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; Roger Stark, M.D.,
health care policy analyst, Washington Policy Center; Sabrina Corlette, research professor, Health Policy Institute,
Georgetown University; Marilyn Dixon-Hill, registered nurse and clergy person,
Camden Bible Tabernacle
Length: 2 hours, 26 minutes
Minority Party response and transcript.
Watch:
Date: November 19
Committee: House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations
Title: Security
of HealthCare.gov
Witnesses: Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer and
deputy director of the Office of Information Services, Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services; David Amsler, president and chief
information officer, Foreground Security, Inc.; Maggie Bauer, senior vice
president, health services, Creative Computing Solutions, Inc.; Jason Providakes, senior vice president and general manager,
Center for Connected Government, MITRE Corporation
Length: 3 hours, 15 minutes
Minority Party response
Hearing highlight: “Henry Chao, the Obama administration
official who oversaw the technical development of the federal health insurance
marketplace, said Tuesday that his team has yet to complete 30 to 40 percent of
the overall project,” the Washington
Post reported. “Speaking before a subcommittee of the House Energy and
Oversight Committee, Chao
said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is still working
on a number of “back office” aspects of the project, including a system to send
payments to insurance companies.”
Watch:
Date: November 22
Committee: House Oversight and Government Reform
Witnesses: Dan Waters, president, Dan Waters &
Associates, Hickory, NC; Joel Long, President, GSM Services, Gastonia, NC; Tav Gauss, CEO, Action Group Human Resources Solutions;
Sherry Overbey, director, Belmont Crisis Pregnancy
Center; Jason Falls, owner, Falls Insurance, Kings Mountain, NC
Hearing highlight: “As the Affordable Care Act rollout
continues to plague the Obama administration, Americans are feeling the impact
of the bill across the country, according to testimony by local residents at a
field hearing Friday,” ABC
News reported. “The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee packed
the courthouse here for the first of four field hearings scheduled in the
coming weeks to scrutinize the implementation of the president’s signature
bill.”
Date: November 25
Committee: House Oversight and Government Reform
Topic: Field
Hearing: Obamacare Implementation: High Costs, Few
Choices for Rural America (Gainesville, Ga.)
Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Ornstein’s “Healthy buzz” blog. Has your insurance been canceled? Have you tried signing up for
coverage through the new exchanges? Help us cover the Affordable Care Act by sharing your insurance story.
