House Republicans still want to know how HealthCare.gov is doing.
Questions about site activity came up several times today during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act exchange program implementation.
Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was the only witness.
Managers of most state-based exchanges have released reports on the number of visitors to enrollment sites, the number of applications started or completed, the number of applications processed, and, in some cases, the number of consumers who’ve actually enrolled in coverage.
CMS, the arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services overseeing the exchanges, has released no clear information about HealthCare.gov since the enrollment system went live.
“We will release our metrics in mid-November,” Tavenner said.
Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., asked Tavenner who in the administration had decided to wait until mid-November to release site data.
“This was a group decision,” Tavenner said. Tavenner declined to name other people involved in that decision. She said the group included members of the White House budget office and domestic policy staff.
Tavenner said CMS now believes it can have HealthCare.gov working smoothly most of the time by the end of November.
One lawmaker, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., read a list of answers Tavenner had given assuring lawmakers at earlier hearings that HealthCare.gov work was on track.
Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, wondered about Tavenner’s prediction that the site will work well in four weeks, “Why should the American people believe you now?”
Tavenner said most of the earlier site-related questions – and her answers – dealt with work on the data services hub at the heart of the exchange site. That part, she said, has been working well.
CMS can predict that it will have the site fixed in four weeks because it now understands how much capacity it needs, and has added that capacity, and because it now has a list of the functional glitches, Tavenner said.
Several Democrats at the hearing said the Republican strategy of killing PPACA at any cost was getting in the way of efforts to identify and fix HealthCare.gov problems.
Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., told Tavenner, “Do you understand that they don’t want you to succeed? We’re looking for problems to fix. They’re looking for problems to exploit.”
Tavenner declined to say what kind of patch CMS might offer if consumers without coverage still have trouble using HealthCare.gov to enroll in plans for 2014 after Dec. 15.
Consumers can enroll in coverage through both call centers and in-person assisters, Tavenner 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.
