Skip to main content

Request for Navigator Info an Impediment

 |  By Margaret@example.com  
   September 04, 2013

Under the guise of better "understanding the work" health insurance exchange navigators will perform, a request from some GOP members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee carries the whiff of political motivation.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee is turning up the heat on one of its favorite targets—the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. With defunding healthcare reform now an unlikely outcome, E&C has turned its attention to the counselors expected to help the uninsured navigate their way through the health insurance exchanges expected to begin operating in less than one month.

Last week 15 Republican members of the committee signed letters to 51 of the 105 organizations recently named as navigators for the public HIX. The letters demand that the organizations provide extensive information about how their navigator grants will be used, the budget for the grants, employee training, employee supervision, and what safeguards will be in place to protect personal information.

That all sounds quite reasonable on the surface. But the request for information carries the whiff of political motivation.

Under the guise of "understanding the work" the navigators will perform, the letter also asks for "a written description of whether your organization may contact individuals who have utilized you services as a navigator for... fundraising, voter registration efforts, or campaign activities."

Huh?

Finally, the committee wants to see all the documentation related to the navigator grant application itself.

"This would include, but is not limited to, materials your organization submitted in order to obtain the grant, materials provided to your organization upon obtaining the grant, and communications between your organization and representatives from HHS, CMS, CCIIO or any other federal or state entity. This request also includes, but is not limited to, any documents provided by (or communications with), representatives from HHS, CMS, CCIIO, Enroll America, or any other entity including federal or state governments discussing individuals to target or solicit for enrollment under the PPACA including discussions or documents related to geographic area."

Enroll America? That is the 501(c)(3) organization behind the "Get America Covered" campaign, which is funneling tens of millions of dollars into an education and HIX enrollment effort directed at the uninsured. The group has ties to the White House and is unpopular, to say the least, in Republican circles.

The letter also includes a four-page description of how the information requested should be transmitted to the E&C committee, including numbering folders and boxes and providing a written certification that all the related documents have been shared with the committee.

The navigator responses are due to the committee by Sept. 13.

Rep. Harry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking minority member of the E&C could barely contain his frustration. In a letter to Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the E&C chair, Waxman labeled the navigator letter as "an abuse of your oversight authority" and "groundless investigations into civic organizations that are trying to make health reform a success."

He noted that the timing of the letters and the Sept. 13 deadline was "particularly suspect. You are insisting on voluminous document productions... just when these groups need to be focused on their mission of helping uninsured Americans enroll for coverage."

He added that the information requests appear to have been sent "solely to divert the resources of small, local community groups just as they are needed to help with the new healthcare law."

It is hard to say what the E&C Committee expects to accomplish in this move. Whether you support PPACA or not, you must be as tired of this political posturing as I am. The House has had ample opportunity through its hearing process to question leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services about the navigator process. But so many of these hearings are bogged down in partisan politics that they are more political theater than fact-finding efforts.

PPACA is the law of the land. Isn't it time for the House GOP to move on to more pressing issues?

Margaret Dick Tocknell is a reporter/editor with HealthLeaders Media.
Twitter

Tagged Under:


Get the latest on healthcare leadership in your inbox.