“Working Together To Screw People Over”: The Republican Team Effort On Obamacare Obstruction
When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, you have to give Republicans credit for sheer sticktoitiveness. They tried to defeat the law, but it passed. They tried to get the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional, but that didn’t work. So now, as the open-enrollment period for the exchanges approaches on October 1, they’re thinking creatively to find new ways to sabotage the law. Sure, at this point that means screwing over people who need insurance, but sometimes there’s unavoidable collateral damage when you’re fighting a war.
Their latest target is the Obamacare “navigators.” Because not just the law but the insurance market itself can be pretty complicated, the ACA included money to train and support people whose job it would be to help people get through this new system, answering consumers’ questions and guiding them through the process. Grants have been given to hospitals, community groups, charities like the United Way, churches, and the like in the 34 states that are relying on the federal government to operate their exchanges in whole or in part. You can see the problem: If there are folks out there helping people get health coverage, that will mean that people will get health coverage. And that won’t do.
So Republicans are implementing a joint federal-state subversion campaign. On the federal level, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have sent threatening letters to recipients of the navigator grants, demanding copious documentation on everything they’ve done having anything to do with the program (Jonathan Cohn explains here). Not because there’s been any suggestion of fraud or incompetence—don’t forget, at this point all the navigators have been doing is getting ready for open enrollment when they’ll have to start helping people—but on the apparent theory that if you can harass them enough, it’ll keep them from doing their jobs.
Meanwhile, on the state level, Republicans are finding whatever ways they can to get in the navigators’ way. Just get a load of this despicable toad: http://youtu.be/0fm-2J4F4v4
That’s Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, a former chemical company salesman and Republican state legislator, who I guess ran for insurance commissioner because he cares so much about people. He explains how when it comes to Obamacare, he’s doing “everything in our power to be an obstructionist.” He then explains, to the laughs and cheers of this Republican crowd, how a new law requires the navigators to get licensed by his department, with the clear implication that they’ll make it as difficult as possible.
In fact, 16 Republican-controlled states have passed laws imposing requirements on the navigators over and above what the federal government is already requiring. And guess who’s writing these laws? Lobbyists for insurance agents and brokers, who worry they’ll lose business if people can just call up a toll-free number and have somebody explain to them how to get insurance on their state’s exchange.
Remember, what they’re trying to do here is make it as hard as possible for people to get insurance. It’s as simple as that. The more people they can keep from getting insurance, in this case by keeping them from getting the information they need to buy insurance on the exchanges, the easier it will be for them to argue that the Affordable Care Act is a failure. And what about the human suffering that will cause if they’re successful? The diseases that go undiagnosed because people avoid going to the doctor, the uninsured families bankrupted when struck with an accident or illness? Too bad. Because screw you, Obama.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, September 4, 2013
“A Thuggish Abuse Of Power”: Republicans’ Devious Plan To Slow Down Obamacare Enrollment
Republican lawmakers who had criticized the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for improperly targeting conservative nonprofits for additional scrutiny kicked off an investigation last week into community-based groups who received Navigator grants to help uninsured people enroll in the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, demanding that the organizations answer detailed questions and produce thousands of reams of documents.
Fifteen Republican members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, including Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), are requesting detailed responses and thousands of pages of documents from approximately 60 percent of Navigator-recipients across the country by Sep. 13.
The tactic is reminiscent of the kind of practices Republicans had condemned over the summer, after news broke that the IRS subjected certain groups applying for 501 C4 nonprofit tax status to long, intrusive, questionnaires about their filings. Upton personally called such tactics a “thuggish abuse of power” and “simply un-American.”
But according to the GOP-backed letter, groups scrambling to begin enrolling individuals in coverage on Oct. 1, will have just two weeks to provide detailed written descriptions of their employees and activities, interactions with the Department of Health and Human Services, and “all documentation and communication related to your grant.”
Last month, the Obama administration distributed $67 million in federal grants to more than 100 hospitals, universities, Indian tribes, patient advocacy groups and local food banks “to help people sign up for coverage in new online health insurance marketplaces.”
The effort is just the latest attempt by Republicans to undermine enrollment in the Affordable Care Act. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have previously sent letters seeking information to entities tasked with educating the public about the law, opened investigations into public relations companies that had been contracted to promote the law on popular television shows, and warned the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) against encouraging enrollment in the law.
An HHS spokesperson strongly condemned the committee’s request to Politico, noting, “This is a blatant and shameful attempt to intimidate groups who will be working to inform Americans about their new health insurance options and help them enroll in coverage, just like Medicare counselors have been doing for years.”
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, September 3, 2013
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