Some back-end portions of HealthCare.gov won’t be fully functional until mid-January, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress Wednesday, but she assured them that customers enrolled on the federal website will get full coverage — and their promised subsidies — starting on January 1.
“The financial management system, which is getting the insurance companies their money for accelerated tax credits and cost-sharing, is due to go into effect in mid-January,” Sebelius told a subpanel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She explained, “This is reimbursing insurance companies — it has nothing to do with enrollment.”
If a customer enrolled in Obamacare is eligible for subsidies, those government payments go directly to the insurer, and then the insurer passes on the savings to the customer in the form of lower premiums. HHS is still working to fully automate that payment system to insurers, Sebelius explained. Until then, insurers participating in the Obamacare marketplaces have signed off on a system to ensure they’re paid in a “timely fashion.”
Politico April 28, 2014
HEALTHCARE.GOV BACK END STILL M.I.A. – Big, important pieces of the federal exchange system are still nonexistent without a clear timetable for completion. Although they haven’t garnered the type of attention that the public failure of the Obamacare enrollment site did in the fall, the missing pieces – intended to automate the enrollment process and transfer of billions of dollars in premiums and tax credits – are critical to the long-term functionality of the health law. Although senior officials initially expected them to be ready in the fall, and then January and then March – they’re now eyeing summer for a full build-out. And even that timeline may be slipping.
🔴How would you like to be dealing with the federal government as an insurance company? Enrollment constantly pushed back, but not your deadline to submit next years premiums. Plus it’s questionable when and how you will be paid for millions of new and in many cases high risk subscribers. Sounds like a good deal to me. 🔴
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 