After months of reassurances that the ObamaCare exchanges would be running by Oct. 1, it turns out they're well behind schedule. Truth becomes an even rarer commodity in the Obama administration.
'Yes, we will be ready," said Gary Cohen, who is spearheading ObamaCare implementation at the Department of Health and Human Services. That was in January.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has since repeatedly insisted that "we will launch the health insurance exchanges on time." She was so confident, she said, there was no need for a contingency plan.
But the HHS put up a stone wall whenever Sen. Max Baucus pushed for details on progress made against specific deadlines. "You've never given me any data, you just give me concepts," Baucus complained in April, before issuing his now-famous warning of an ObamaCare "train wreck" come October.
Turns out Baucus was right to be concerned.
Two Government Accountability Office reports released on Wednesday show that the administration and the states are well behind schedule on several fronts, leading the GAO to warn that they might not actually be ready in time.
As the report noted: "Much remains to be accomplished within a relative short period of time."
Since at least last December, for example, HHS officials have been claiming that the massive federal data hub — needed to determine eligibility for coverage and the amount of premium subsidies in the exchanges — was already in the testing phase. To the untrained ear, that would suggest the hub had been completely built.
But the GAO found that HHS has barely begun testing the hub with the eight federal agencies from which it needs to pull data, and is behind on just getting data-sharing arrangements set up with those agencies.
HHS has also missed its deadlines on setting up the so-called Navigators program to guide customers through the ObamaCare sign-up maze.
And states trying to set up their own exchanges aren't faring any better. Despite $4 billion in HHS grants, the 17 states undertaking this task on their own are behind schedule on 44% of key pieces of their exchanges that were supposed to be finished in March.
If these bureaucrats can't even get the exchanges built — despite having 3-1/2 years to do so — why should anyone believe they are qualified to run the entire health care system?Commentary
