Really, now we’re going to make estimated payments to insurance companies because healthcare.gov doesn’t even have a payment system?
Megyn Kelly discussed this tonight. (Video added at bottom of post.)
Here’s the Reuters report, Short-term fix eyed for another problem with U.S. healthcare website:
Dec 3 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s administration has found a short-term fix to pay insurance companies for plans selected on HealthCare.gov, the not-yet-complete government website used to shop for insurance required under Obama’s healthcare program.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not yet finished building the part of the website that would transfer billions of dollars in subsidies for plan premiums and cost-sharing payments to insurance companies.It is part of a long technical to-do list that has so far focused on fixing the errors and lag times in the part of the website used by consumers….The administration is planning a “workaround” for payments, said Daniel Durham, vice president for policy and regulatory affairs at America’s Health Insurance Plans.Health plans will estimate how much they are owed, and submit that estimate to the government. Once the system is built, the government and insurers can reconcile the payments made with the plan data to “true up” payments, he said.“The intent is to make sure plans get paid on time, which is a good thing,” Durham told Reuters.The fix puts an additional “burden” on insurance companies, already taxed by having to double-check faulty enrollment data from the HealthCare.gov system.Now, companies need to quickly put together financial management systems to make the payment estimates, so they can be paid beginning in January, he said.”They have to recognize that plans are already quite stressed and introducing this at the last minute just adds substantial burden for plans to deal with,” Durham said….”They cannot survive if they don’t get paid. And even the larger carriers, it can only go on for so long,” Lucia said. “The last thing we need is for a carrier, especially a large carrier, to walk away from this.”
John Ekdahl asks:
Oh, they will, they will.
(Featured image: Liberal bloggers at White House 2010)
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