Evan Vucci, File / AP Photo
FILE
- In this Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius arrives in the Rose Garden of the White House in
Washington for and event with President Barack Obama on the initial
rollout of the health care overhaul. As the public face of President
Barack Obama’s signature health care program, Sebelius has become the
target for attacks over its botched rollout. Republicans want her to
resign and even some Democrats _ while not mentioning her name _ say
someone needs to be fired.
..........
October 31, 2013
Another Obamacare shoe drops: Docs not participating
Rick Moran
Obamacare
might be signing up millions of people who never had insurance before
but it is going to be difficult in some places for them to find a doctor
to treat them.
New York Post:
New York doctors are treating ObamaCare like the plague, a new survey reveals.
A
poll conducted by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44
percent of MDs said they are not participating in the nation's new
health-care plan.
Another 33 percent say they're still not sure whether to become ObamaCare providers.
Only 23 percent of the 409 physicians queried said they're taking patients who signed up through health exchanges.
"This
is so poorly designed that a lot of doctors are afraid to
participate," said Dr. Sam Unterricht, president of the 29,000-member
organization. "There's a lot of resistance. Doctors don't know what
they're going to get paid."
Three
out of four doctors who are participating in the program said they
"had to participate" because of existing contractual obligations with
an insurer or medical provider, not because they wanted to.
Only one in four "affirmatively" chose to sign up for the exchanges.
Nearly eight in 10 - 77 percent - said they had not been given a fee schedule to show much they'll get paid if they sign up.
Read More Here
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Evan Vucci, File / AP Photo
FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2013 file photo, Health and Human Services
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius arrives in the Rose Garden of the White
House in Washington for and event with President Barack Obama on the
initial rollout of the health care overhaul. As the public face of
President Barack Obama’s signature health care program, Sebelius has
become the target for attacks over its botched rollout. Republicans want
her to resign and even some Democrats _ while not mentioning her name _
say someone needs to be fired.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/29/5860905/obama-affordable-care-act.html#storylink=cpy
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo
Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday,
Oct. 29, 2013, before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Stressing that improvements
are happening daily, the senior Obama official closest to the
administration's malfunctioning health care website apologized Tuesday
for problems that have kept Americans from successfully signing up for
coverage.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/29/5860905/obama-affordable-care-act.html#storylink=cpy
Health policy cancellations: New blow for admin.
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
The Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013 - 12:21 am
Last Modified: Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 - 12:20 am
WASHINGTON -- Move over, website
woes. Lawmakers confronted the Obama administration Tuesday with a
difficult new health care problem — a wave of cancellation notices
hitting small businesses and individuals who buy their own insurance.
At
the same time, the federal official closest to the website apologized
for its dysfunction in new sign-ups and asserted things are getting
better by the day.
Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner said it's not
the administration but insurers who are responsible for cancellation
letters now reaching many of the estimated 14 million people who buy
individual policies. And, officials said, people who get cancellation
notices will be able to find better replacement plans, in some cases for
less.
The Associated Press, citing the
National Association of Insurance Commissioners,
reported in May that many carriers would opt to cancel policies this
fall and issue new ones. Administratively that was seen as easier than
changing existing plans to comply with the new law, which mandates
coverage of more services and provides better financial protection
against catastrophic illnesses.
While the administration had ample
warning of the cancellations, they could become another public
relations debacle for President Barack Obama's signature legislation.
This problem goes to the credibility of one of the president's earliest
promises about the health care overhaul: You can keep your plan if you
like it.
In the spring, state insurance commissioners started
giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for
2014, since the coverage required under Obama's law is more robust. Some
states directed insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans
that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected.
The
cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders, and they've been
complaining to their lawmakers — who were grilling Tavenner on Tuesday.
"Based
on what little information the administration has disclosed, it turns
out that more people have received cancellation notices for their health
care plans this month than have enrolled in the (health care website),"
said Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich. He cited a news report
of 146,000 cancellations in his state alone.
Read More Here
.........
NPR
New Security Issues Surface For Health Website
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama claimed "full
responsibility" Wednesday for fixing his administration's much-maligned
health insurance website as a new concern surfaced: a government memo
pointing to security worries, laid out just days before the launch.
On
Capitol Hill, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
apologized to frustrated people trying to sign up, declaring that she is
accountable for the failures but also defending the historic health
care overhaul. The website sign-up problems will be fixed by Nov. 30,
she said, and the gaining of health insurance will make a positive
difference in the lives of millions of Americans.
Obama
underscored the administration's unhappiness with the problems so far:
"There's no excuse for it," he said during a Boston speech to promote
his signature domestic policy achievement. "And I take full
responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."
The website
HealthCare.gov was still experiencing outages as Sebelius faced a new
range of questions at the House Energy and Commerce Committee about a
security memo from her department. It revealed that the troubled website
was granted a temporary security certificate on Sept. 27, just four
days before it went live on Oct. 1.
The memo, obtained by The
Associated Press, said incomplete testing created uncertainties that
posed a potentially high security risk for the website. It called for a
six-month "mitigation" program, including ongoing monitoring and
testing.
Security issues raise major new concerns on top of the long list of technical problems the administration is grappling with.
"You
accepted a risk on behalf of every user ... that put their personal
financial information at risk," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told
Sebelius, citing the memo. "Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would
never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an
unacceptable level of security."
Sebelius countered that the
system is secure, even though the site's certificate, known in
government parlance as an "authority to operate," is of a temporary
nature. A permanent certificate will be issued only when all security
issues are addressed, she stressed.
Spokeswoman Joanne Peters
added separately: "When consumers fill out their online ...
applications, they can trust that the information they're providing is
protected by stringent security standards and that the technology
underlying the application process has been tested and is secure.
Security testing happens on an ongoing basis using industry best
practices."
The security certificate is required under
longstanding federal policy before any government computer system can
process, store or transmit agency data. The temporary certificate was
approved by Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, the senior HHS official
closest to the rollout. No major security breaches have been reported.
The
memo said, "From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that
were not tested due to the ongoing development, exposed a level of
uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk for the (federal
marketplace website)."
It recommended setting up a security
team to address risks and conduct daily tests, and said a full security
test should be conducted within two to three months of the website going
live.
A separate page stated that "the mitigation plan does
not reduce the risk to the (website) itself going into operation on
October 1, 2013. However, the added protections do reduce the risk to
the overall Marketplace operations and will ensure that the ... system
is completely tested within the next 6 months."
That page was
signed by three senior technical officials below Tavenner at the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services. All the officials deal with
information security issues.
Republicans opposed to Obama's
health care law are calling for Sebelius to resign. She apologized to
people having trouble signing up but told the committee that the
technical issues that led to frozen screens and error messages are being
cleared up on a daily basis.
Sebelius' forthright statement
about her ultimate accountability for problems with the sign-up rollout
came as Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., peppered her with questions
about the "debacle."
Read More here
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