Kathleen Sebelius arrived for her tongue-lashing in the U.S. House of Representatives bearing an apology.
“Blame me for the debacle,” the secretary of health and human services said Wednesday of the faulty website that has bedeviled the first month of enrollment in the new health care law.
But the avalanche of complaints from Republicans and some Democrats went beyond error messages. Millions of people on the individual health insurance market are being forced to change policies, contradicting President Barack Obama’s repeated promises that if you like your insurance plan you can keep it. Data security questions abound.
And many members of Congress want Sebelius and Obama to join them in being forced by the law to buy a plan on state-based health exchanges rather than keep their federal employee plans.
Republican U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta, who has called for Sebelius to resign, wanted to know whether the people whose individual policies are being changed will get a special “hardship waiver” from the requirement that they buy insurance.
“Many of those individuals, half of them, will be eligible for financial help getting a new plan, and they have many more choices in the marketplace,” Sebelius said. “So we will not have a blanket exemption.”
“Sounds like a hardship to me,” Gingrey replied.
The travails of the individual market involve new requirements imposed by the law known as Obamacare on insurance plans. For example, restrictions such as lifetime spending caps and discrimination based on pre-existing conditions are now banned, and all plans must offer comprehensive coverage that includes prescription drugs and mental health services.
Plans that have changed since 2010 — and in the high-turnover individual market, this is true in most cases — must conform, meaning many plans will be eliminated. Some insurers are sending letters saying their customers must buy more expensive plans, but the law also creates a new marketplace where people can shop for plans and are eligible for government subsidies if their incomes are low enough.
The cancellation notices are not hitting the vast majority of policyholders, who get coverage through their employer or the federal government, via Medicare, Medicaid or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The online marketplace for the uninsured to buy plans has experienced crashes and severe delays, which Sebelius promised would be fixed by the end of November. People who tried to sign up at healthcare.gov during the hearing encountered the message: “The system is down at the moment.”
U.S. Rep. John Barrow, an Augusta Democrat who voted against the law but says he wants to fix it rather than repeal it, said the website’s struggles mean the Obama administration should delay the requirement that individuals buy health insurance.
“My constituents are already losing confidence in the federal government’s ability to pull this thing off, and I think the only way to restore their trust is to delay the individual mandate penalties until we’re sure the system is going to work,” Barrow said. “It’s not fair to penalize consumers when their noncompliance is not their fault.”
The administration has so far resisted the idea. The insurance mandate is essential to controlling costs, as it requires healthier people to join the insurance market and offset the cost of insuring sicker people.
Open enrollment on the health exchanges lasts through March, after the administration this week extended the deadline. People who do not sign up for health insurance next year face a fine of $95 or 1 percent of taxable income, whichever is higher.
Many of the Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee rushed to Sebelius’ defense, singing the praises of the health law.
“We’re going to end the worst abuses of the insurance companies,” said U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
The dozens of House members at times seemed to be engaging in metaphor one-upmanship, aiming for YouTube and cable news glory.
“Some people like to drive a Ford and not a Ferrari; some people like to drink out of a red solo cup and not a crystal stem,” said U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “You’re taking away their choice.”
Addressing Sebelius’ position as former governor of Kansas, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, took the opportunity to quote from “The Wizard of Oz”: “We’re not in Kansas anymore. … Some might say that we are actually in ‘The Wizard of Oz-land,’ given the parallel universes we appear to be habituating.”
U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., selected a fairy tale. “Unlike Chicken Little, my Republican colleagues are actually rooting for the sky to fall.”
Sebelius sought to reassure lawmakers that the sky was firmly in place for the health law itself. On the technical problems, she said her department’s actions will speak louder.
“I know the only way I can restore confidence that we will get it right,” she said, “is to get it right.”
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