Even as the Obama administration struggles to deal with the approaching end of open enrollment for health care exchanges, one critical part of the website has yet to be fixed.
Earlier, administration officials had predicted ObamaCare could be seriously jeopardized if the key back end of healthcare.gov were not fixed ahead of the March 31 enrollment deadline.
The back end of the website is the two-way connection between the government and insurance companies aimed at telling each other who signed up for what.
"Insurance executives just see this as a major nightmare," says Robert Laszewski of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "I mean, when are we finally going to be able to reconcile all the data, to know who is really covered, who is really paid, and what the insurance companies should be paid for?"
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, raised concerns over it at a recent hearing with Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“The number that's really important," Doggett said, "is not how many people have enrolled, but how many people have paid their premiums that are actually getting in exchange-base coverage. A number," he said pointedly, "we've never been given."
Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin says,"Nobody knows.There remains no clear information about who has paid the premium and as a result, who the insurance companies need to get reimbursed for."
Though some analysts believe the administration knows a lot more than it is saying, officials deny having any reliable information.
Industry sources and surveys show that while officials boast 5 million sign ups, about 1 million of them are not paying premiums, and therefore not officially enrolled.Read the rest of the story HERE and view a related video below:
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