The head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agency in charge of the public exchanges defended outreach efforts today on Capitol Hill.
Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, also testified at a House Energy & Commerce oversight subcommittee hearing that the group will ban door-to-door marketing and enrollment volume-based comp plans for navigators and assisters.
HHS is not requiring navigators or assisters to undergo criminal background checks, in part because the department isn't sure whether it even has that authority.
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The Children's Health Insurance Program has been operating for years without background checks, and HHS officials aren't aware of any significant, Cohen said.
CCIIO will be running an ongoing enrollment quality assurance program, which "could include secret shoppers," Cohen said.
Cohen, who looked tired, sometimes had to struggle to get lawmakers to stop talking long enough for him to answer their questions. He noted that he'd been to Capitol Hill to testify for the seventh time since December.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Republicans keep holding hearings attacking the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because they have nothing else to do.
"They want to confuse people," Waxman said. "They want to scare people."
Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, said he has asked Enroll America, an organization promoting the exchanges with no federal funding, to go door to door in his district.
Green said Republican critics of navigators are using fraud fears to disguise their actual motives.
"They really don't want navigators to do their job to sign people up," Green said.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
