Mother Jones
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On Wednesday, Department of Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified before the House energy and commerce committee regarding problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Here are the highlights, both factual and theatrical:
1. Sebelius says she’s responsible for healthcare.gov’s failures. At a similar congressional hearing last week on the failures of the federal exchange website, contractors that built the digital infrastructure blamed HHS leadership, but not Sebelius herself. “Hold me accountable,” she said Wednesday. “I’m responsible.” But Rep. Greg Harper (R-Miss.) pressed Sebelius to place blame squarely on President Barack Obama. “No sir, we are responsible,” Sebelius answered. Harper kept pushing. Sebelius finally retorted: “You clearly—whatever. Yes, he is the president. He is responsible for government programs.”
2. Why some Americans may be losing coverage: It’s complicated. GOP members on the committee emphasized the president’s long-standing promise that “If you have a plan you like, you can keep it,” and then argued that many Americans are now seeing their insurance plans canceled. But as Sebelius further explained, if you had a plan that you liked before the Affordable Care Act passed, you can keep it, because it was grandfathered in. If your insurance company changed the plan after the law went into effect, however, it is no longer exempted and has to comply with new protections offered under the Affordable Care Act, such as the prohibition against dropping a patient once he’s sick, or charging a woman more because she’s a woman. Plans that don’t comply must be canceled—but as Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) pointed out, that’s a good thing, because such plans don’t provide adequate coverage anyway. “The notion that people are being turned way from an affordable plan the provides good quality care is preposterous,” he said.
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