Defending President Barack Obama's much-maligned health care law in Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was confronted Wednesday with a government memo that raised security concerns about the website consumers are using to enroll. The document, obtained by The Associated Press, shows that administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were concerned that a lack of testing posed a potentially ''high'' security risk for the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states. Security issues are a new concern for the troubled HealthCare.gov website.
The federal insurance marketplace was down again Wednesday because of a server problem with an outside vendor, government officials said. The data hub, or the application used to bring together several government agencies to determine a person's eligibility, was up and available again as of about 5 a.m., said Julie Bataille, director of the Office of Communications for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "It is supporting the state marketplaces," Bataille said, although traffic through the server was moving slowly. "The impact we are still seeing is within the federal marketplace application."
The Obama Administration has been claiming that insurance companies will be competing for your dollars under the Affordable Care Act, but apparently they haven't surveyed the nation's top hospitals. Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare. "This doesn't surprise me," said Gail Wilensky, Medicare advisor for the second Bush Administration and senior fellow for Project HOPE. "There has been an incredible amount of focus on the premium cost and subsidy, and precious little focus on what you get for your money."
A conservative group filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to have the federal health care law declared unconstitutional, arguing that the government postponed its so-called employer mandate without the necessary congressional approval. The lawsuit came the same day that a congressional panel grilled Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, over problems that overwhelmed the government website intended to help people shop for health insurance. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is seeking to have the health care law overturned. The group is seizing on a provision that was supposed to go into effect next year but ultimately was postponed for 12 months.
During the past year, anxiety about the onset of Obamacare has created a chill in some parts of the economy. While large health care businesses — insurance companies, for instance, and hospital chains — have poured significant resources into preparing for millions of new customers, countless investors have appeared spooked by the perpetual threats to repeal, or at least revise, the law. According to Thomson Reuters, private equity investment, usually the lifeblood for entrepreneurialism, has dropped by an astonishing 65 percent in the health care sector this year.
Across Laurel Creek and down a dirt road in this sleepy valley town is the modest white house where Steve Day grew up. For more than 33 years, it was where he recuperated between shifts underground, mining the rich seams of the central Appalachian coalfields and doing his part to help make Peabody Energy Corp. the nation?s most productive coal company. Now, it?s where he spends most days and nights in a recliner, inhaling oxygen from a tank, slowly suffocating to death. More than a half-dozen doctors who have seen the X-ray and CT images of his chest agree he has the most severe form of black lung disease.