Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama's landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.Do they get to eat lunch with the Prez, too?
They're having his dinner...
Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration's requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president's signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.
Budget? I remember it being "revenue neutral". Or was that only for those that don't contribute to revenue, anyways?
HHS spokesman Jason Young added that a special section in the Public Health Service Act allows the secretary to support and encourage others to support nonprofit groups working to provide health information and conduct other public-health activities.
Sebelius is working "with a full range of stakeholders who share in the mission of getting Americans the help they need and deserve," Young said. "Part of our mission is to help uninsured Americans take advantage of new, quality affordable insurance options that are coming thanks to the health law."
My Daddy taught me you deserved what you could pay for.
Young said that Sebelius did not solicit for funds directly from industries that HHS regulates, such as insurance companies and hospitals, but rather asked them to contribute in whatever way they can.
Who could contribute 2,500 bedpans, fer instance?
But
"To solicit funds from health-care executives to help pay for the implementation of the President's $2.6 trillion health spending law is absurd," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a statement. "I will be seeking more information from the Administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law."
Meredith McGehee, policy director for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which researches government ethics issues, said she was troubled by Sebelius's activities because the secretary seemed to be "using the power of government to compel giving or insinuate that giving is going to be looked at favorably by the government."
The success of the Affordable Care Act largely hinges on whether enough people sign up for insurance coverage. If only a small number of sick people participate, premiums would spike.
Hence, the fine - excuse me - tax, if you don't sign up.
But spreading information about the law to the 30 million uninsured Americans has been a struggle, partly because there isn't enough money to fund the effort, HHS officials have argued.
What about all the folks who lined up the day after it was passed, looking for their free health care? They don't need more information, do they?
So set up a website, Kathleen...
The Affordable Care Act included $1 billion to be used in overall implementation of the law. Congressional Budget Office projections, however, estimated that federal agencies will need between $5 billion and $10 billion to get the law up and running over the next decade.
I wonder how long it'll take to pay off they $10 billion 'investment' in order to achieve revenue neutrality?
And because many states have refused to partner with the federal government in setting up the law, the burden on HHS has grown.
In 2012, budget documents show that HHS pulled hundreds of millions of dollars from programs not specifically earmarked for the Affordable Care Act's implementation. On top of that, the agency announced Thursday that it would use $150 million in Affordable Care Act funds meant to build additional community health centers to train thousands of health-care outreach workers at facilities that already exist.
How will they be able to demonstrate revenue neutrality with the funds shifting around like that? Oh. They can't? So revenue neutral was a ... prevarication?"Investing in health centers for outreach and enrollment assistance provides one more way the Obama administration is helping consumers understand their options and enroll in affordable coverage," Secretary Sebelius said in a statement.
Health insurers plan to run their own outreach campaigns alongside the work of the Obama administration. They have a vested interest in recruiting Americans to enroll in their specific products rather than those of their competitors.
"As open enrollment gets closer, health plans will be engaged in a variety of innovative outreach activities," spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the trade association America's Health Insurance Plans, said.