COURT WON’T HEAR CASE
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to reconsider the part of President Barack Obama’s health care law that requires employers to provide basic health insurance for their workers or pay a tax penalty. The justices dismissed an appeal brought by Virginia’s Liberty University, a conservative Christian school, that contends the “employer mandate” is unconstitutional. Last year, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld the “individual mandate,” the part of the law requiring people to either obtain insurance or pay a tax penalty. At the time, the court did not consider the law’s parallel requirement that employers with more than 50 full-time employees must provide basic insurance. But in July, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Liberty’s claim and said the federal government could regulate employers under its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case allows that ruling to stand.
— Chicago Tribune
President Barack Obama’s new and improved health care website faces yet another test in just a couple of weeks, its biggest yet. If HealthCare.gov becomes overwhelmed by an expected year-end crunch, many Americans will be left facing a break in their insurance coverage.
Until now, the main damage from the website’s technology woes has been to Obama’s poll ratings. But if it jams up again, it will be everyday people feeling the consequences.
Some of those at risk are among the more than 4 million consumers whose individual policies have been canceled because the coverage didn’t comply with requirements of the new health care law. A smaller number, several hundred thousand, are in federal and state programs for people whose health problems already were a barrier to getting private insurance before the overhaul.
“The chances are almost 100 percent that someone who would like to continue coverage next year and intends to secure it is not going to be able to do it,” said Mark McClellan, who oversaw the rollout of the Medicare prescription drug benefit under President George W. Bush.
“It’s important to recognize that none of these programs are going to work perfectly from the start and a big part of implementation is having mechanisms in place that anticipate problems and help mitigate their effects,” added McClellan, now a health care policy expert with the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.
But on Monday, administration officials projected renewed confidence that it is past the worst of its technology troubles. White House spokesman Jay Carney declared that the federal site serving 36 states got 375,000 visitors by noon.
Even as fixes continued on back-end features of the system, enrollment counselors said the consumer-facing front end was working noticeably better — though still not free of glitches or delays. As Carney acknowledged, some of Monday morning’s visitors were shuttled into a queue and advised when to return for speedier service. That is actually an improvement to handle high volume, he said.
In the central Illinois city of Mattoon, enrollment counselor Valerie Spencer said she and her team finally signed up their first client in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Now they have a half-dozen success stories and dozens of consumers with appointments to finish applications.
The health care law offers subsidized private insurance to middle-class people who don’t have access to job-based coverage. The White House is aiming for 7 million people to enroll in private plans through new state-based marketplaces, known as exchanges. Low-income people will be steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states that have agreed to participate. People have until Dec. 23 to sign up for coverage that starts on Jan. 1.
“It’s crunch time and a lot of people are really nervous,” Spencer said.
An even bigger enrollment surge is expected the first part of next year, ahead of a March 31 deadline to avoid the law’s tax penalties for those who remain uninsured.
In Beverly Hills, Fla., north of Tampa, self-employed real estate appraiser Tom Woolford said he was finally able to get all the way through the process Sunday and enroll in a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. But nothing happened when he clicked a link to pay his first month’s premium.
“As far as I know, I am in orbit someplace and nobody’s got a transponder on me,” said Woolford, who was otherwise pleased with the plan and his costs. He said he will give it a week and see if the insurer reaches out to him.
Private insurers, however, complain that much of the enrollment information they have gotten on individual consumers is practically useless. It is corrupted by errors, duplication or garbles. Efforts to fix underlying problems are underway, but the industry is is growing increasingly concerned.
Over the weekend, as government officials trumpeted improvements to the website, the leading industry trade group pointedly called attention to the data mess. The president of the largest health insurance trade group said the website fix will not be complete until the entire system works from end to end. Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, raised the prospect that consumers might not be able to get access to needed benefits Jan. 1.
“There really needs to be an intense focus now on the back end of the process,” said Joel Ario, who oversaw initial planning for the insurance marketplaces in the Obama administration and is now a top consultant with Manatt Health Solutions.
Administration spokeswoman Julie Bataille said that is already happening. More than 80 percent of insurers’ problems were due to one bug that affected Social Security numbers, she said, and it has been fixed.
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