The Obama Administration unveiled new draft forms Tuesday for people to apply for insurance coverage under the Obama health law, releasing signup applications which are much shorter and less complex than an earlier version that drew criticism from backers and critics alike of the health reform law.
"Consumers will have a simple, easy-to-understand way to apply for health coverage later this year,” said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner of the new forms.
The roll out was accompanied by a P.R. push by supporters as well.
"The revised Affordable Care Act application forms deserve applause because they will streamline the enrollment process and make it consumer-friendly," said Ron Pollack of Families USA, which has long been in favor of the changes under the Obama health law.
The first forms, released in January, but only discovered by reporters in March, ran 21 pages and over 60 pages - and they included a 12 minute video just to help you navigate them; these forms are much shorter at 5 and 12 pages, though it wasn't immediately clear if more details would still be needed to determine eligibility.
The short form is only for single people who don't get insurance through their job, the longer form is for those with families.
Not only are the forms shorter, but there are some language changes as well, like on the family form, which directly raises the issue of immigration status in a way that did not happen in the original draft application:
"Families that include immigrants can apply. You can apply for your child even if you aren’t eligible for coverage," the form states. "Applying won’t affect your immigration status or chances of becoming a permanent resident or citizen."
You can take a look at the forms:
+ The "short form" can be found here. It is titled, "Application for Health Coverage & Help Paying Costs (Short Form)."
+ The form for families is at here. ("Application for Health Coverage & Help Paying Costs.")
+ There is another more generic health insurance application form at here. ("Application for Health Coverage.")
The issue of implementation came up at President Obama's news conference on Tuesday, as Mr. Obama acknowledged some of the changes will make people "nervous and anxious" over how it is done.
Here is that exchange with Chuck Todd of NBC News:
Q Mr. President, thank you. Max Baucus, Democratic Senator, referred to the implementation as your health care law as a potential train wreck. And other Democrats have been whispering nervousness about the implementation and the impact -- and it’s all self-centered a little bit -- the impact that it might have on their own political campaigns in 2014. Why do you think -- just curious -- why does Senator Baucus, somebody who ostensibly helped write your bill, believe that this is going to be a train wreck? And why do you believe he’s wrong?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that any time you’re implementing something big, there’s going to be people who are nervous and anxious about is it going to get done, until it’s actually done.
But let’s just step back for a second and make sure the American people understand what it is that we’re doing. The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- has now been with us for three years. It’s gone through Supreme Court tests. It’s gone through efforts to repeal. A huge chunk of it has already been implemented. And for the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, they’re already experiencing most of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act even if they don’t know it. Their insurance is more secure. Insurance companies can’t drop them for bad reasons. Their kids are able to stay on their health insurance until they’re 26 years old. They’re getting free preventive care.
So there are a whole host of benefits that, for the average American out there, for the 85 to 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, this thing has already happened. And their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better, more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.
The implementation issues come in for those who don’t have health insurance -- maybe because they have a preexisting condition and the only way they can get health insurance is to go out on the individual market, and they’re paying 50 percent or 100 percent more than those of us who are lucky enough to have group plans; people who are too poor to get health insurance and the employers don’t offer them. Maybe they work for a small business and this small business can’t afford right now to provide health insurance.
So all the implementation issues that are coming up are implementation issues related to that small group of people, 10 to 15 percent of Americans -- now, it’s still 30 million Americans, but a relatively narrow group -- who don’t have health insurance right now, or are on the individual market and are paying exorbitant amounts for coverage that isn’t that great.
And what we’re doing is we’re setting up a pool so that they can all pool together and get a better deal from insurance companies. And those who can’t afford it, we’re going to provide them with some subsidies. That’s it. I mean, that’s what’s left to implement, because the other stuff has been implemented and it’s working fine.
The challenge is that setting up a market-based system, basically an online marketplace where you can go on and sign up and figure out what kind of insurance you can afford and figuring out how to get the subsidies -- that’s still a big, complicated piece of business. And when you’re doing it nationwide, relatively fast, and you’ve got half of Congress who is determined to try to block implementation and not adequately funding implementation, and then you’ve got a number of members of -- or governors -- Republican governors -- who know that it’s bad politics for them to try to implement this effectively, and some even who have decided to implement it and then their Republican-controlled state legislatures say, don’t implement, and won’t pass enabling legislation -- when you have that kind of situation, that makes it harder.
But having said all that, we’ve got a great team in place. We are pushing very hard to make sure that we’re hitting all the deadlines and the benchmarks.
I’ll give you an example, a recent example. We put together, initially, an application form for signing up for participation in the exchanges that was initially about 21 pages long, and immediately everybody sat around the table and said, well, this is too long. Especially in this age of the Internet, people aren’t going to have the patience to sit there for hours on end. Let’s streamline this thing. So we cut what was a 21-page form now down to a form that’s about three pages for an individual, a little more than that for a family -- well below the industry average. So those kinds of refinements we’re going to continue to be working on.
But I think the main message I want to give to the American people here is, despite all the hue and cry and “sky is falling” predictions about this stuff, if you’ve already got health insurance, then that part of Obamacare that affects you, it’s pretty much already in place. And that’s about 85 percent of the country.
What is left to be implemented is those provisions to help the 10 to 15 percent of the American public that is unlucky enough that they don’t have health insurance. And by the way, some of you who have health insurance right now, at some point you may lose your health insurance, and if you’ve got a preexisting condition, this structure will make sure that you are not left vulnerable.
But it’s still a big undertaking. And what we’re doing is making sure that every single day we are constantly trying to hit our marks so that it will be in place.
And the last point I’ll make -- even if we do everything perfectly, there will still be glitches and bumps, and there will be stories that can be written that say, oh, look, this thing is not working the way it’s supposed to, and this happened and that happened. And that’s pretty much true of every government program that’s ever been set up. But if we stay with it and we understand what our long-term objective is -- which is making sure that in a country as wealthy as ours, nobody should go bankrupt if they get sick, and that we would rather have people getting regular checkups than going to the emergency room because they don’t have health care -- if we keep that in mind, then we’re going to be able to drive down costs; we’re going to be able to improve efficiencies in the system; we’re going to be able to see people benefit from better health care. And that will save the country money as a whole over the long term.
Q Do you believe, without the cooperation of a handful of governors, particularly large states like Florida and Texas, that you can fully implement this?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s harder. There’s no doubt about it.
Q But can you do it without them?
THE PRESIDENT: We will implement it. There will be -- we have a backup federal exchange. If states aren’t cooperating, we set up a federal exchange so that people can access that federal exchange.
But, yes, it puts more of a burden on us. And it’s ironic, since all these folks say that they believe in empowering states, that they’re going to end up having the federal government do something that we’d actually prefer states to do if they were properly cooperating.
