Posted on 11/19/2013 1:19:32 PM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
A crucial system for making payments to insurers from the federal Obamacare marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday.
The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning that a significant fraction of that online insurance marketplace has yet to be constructed.
(Read more: Low-bamacare enrollment)
Getty Images Henry Chao, deputy CIO and deputy director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of Information Services, testifies during a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We still need to build the payments system to make the payments [to insurance companies] in January," Chao said during testimony. That so-called financial management tool was originally supposed to be part of HealthCare.gov when it launched Oct. 1, but officials later suspended its launch as part of their effort to get the consumer interface part of the site ready.
Chao on Tuesday said other areas that need to be built include "the back-office systems, the accounting systems."
Overall, Chao said, about 30 percent to 40 percent of the federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be developed. Chao is deputy chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that operates HealthCare.gov.
Chao said the consumer part of that website, which enrolls people in Obamacare insurance plans, is totally built.
(Read more: Obamacare IT Chao warned of 'plane crash' for HealthCare.gov) "The online application, verification, documentation, plan compare, generating enrollment, that's 100 percent," Chao said.
But the revelation startled some observers. "That's like setting up an online bank without setting up a way to make deposits," an industry source told CNBC.
"The parts of the marketplace that were essential for consumers to be able to apply for eligibility and select a plan were live on Oct. 1," said Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for HHS. "The additional functionality that has not been launched has to do with pieces that are not needed until 2014."
HealthCare.gov is comprised of "distinct pieces of functionality that, together, make up the full integrated system—plan management, eligibility and enrollment and financial management," Peters continued.
"As we have said, CMS prioritized essential functionality to be live on Oct. 1 to ensure that consumers would be able to apply for eligibility and select a plan. Other functionality will come online over time. This is a complex project with a short timeline—and as such issues were prioritized to meet the Oct. 1 launch date. As part of this prioritization, back-end tools, including financial management, monthly enrollment reconciliation and risk adjustment, which are not consumer facing and not essential until 2014 will be rolled out in the coming months." The financial management tool manages the payment processing between marketplaces and issuers. Monthly enrollment reconciliation refers to the tool that makes sure there is agreement between the enrollment numbers maintained by HealthCare.gov and the same numbers maintained by the insurers. And the risk adjustment program gives monetary payments to insurers that disproportionately attract people with chronic conditions, and others whose uses of insurance could end up costing insurers more money than they take in in premiums.
Chao and other Obama administration officials have been lambasted since Oct. 1 for the glitch-laden launch of HealthCare.gov, which with just 27,000 people enrolled in 36 states over one month has grossly underperformed original expectations. The administration had originally estimated that 7 million people would enroll in Obamacare insurance plans by March 31, but that goal remains in peril.
Oh, you actually want to pay for your Obamacare insurance plan ?
Another problem that could easily be solved by hiring clerks.
Imagine a warehouse sized building full of federal clerks lazily writing out checks to insurance companies.
More Democrat voters, better employment stats.
Schadenfreude overload...and not covered by Obamacare
IIRC in order to be covered on 1 Jan, the first payment will have to have been received mid December, otherwise coverage will not begin until February.
So, if they aren’t even planing on going live with payments until after the 1st of January, when will the first policies become effective? AND - Do the sheep actually signing up for these policies KNOW this?
Why on earth would someone (Obama, or someone reporting to him) release something which was so manifestly incomplete? The only reason I can come up with is that Obama and crew (Jarett, etc) have skated and BS’d all of their lives and it’s worked out ok until now.
So......to follow up....
if:
you have to pay before you are enrolled.....
and the payment part of the website isn’t built yet....
Funny, why doesn’t anyone come right of and say it. All the Obamacare website does is collect private information for whatever they want to use it for.
Obama takes the money, insurers do not get paid. Sounds about like a single payer system.
People have been defrauded.
It was never intended that they would be paid.
Obambi would fix it himself but this job is above his pay grade.
This “thing” should be rescinded,and fast.
What a joke.
.
bump
This is incredible....really, they never even intended for this to get to the point where people actually paid their bill?
Obamacare collects customers payments, but doesn't have a system to pay the insurance companies.
Somebody give Obama a newspaper, he ain't gonna be happy.
But they made sure tihey got individual’s fiancial info alright.
There’s your sign. It was never intended to work.
Where’s our 600+ Mil Mr Resident?
We need that You-Tube Hitler guy on one of these Congressional Committees. The guys we have are too reserved and well mannered. This level of incompetence and malfeasance (and utter waste of taxpayer dollars) need a full, public, dress down.
Sure as hell some politician will find a way to steal the money and put IOU's in it's place.
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