Health Law Failings

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I don’t love the ACA.  I guess that is obvious.  I hate fraud and waste even more.   As you can tell with Medicare and Medicaid, that has been happening for decades. So how about the new ACA behemoth?  Well, “the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says its undercover investigators were able to get subsidized health care under fake names in 11 out of 18 attempts. The GAO is still paying premiums for the policies, even as the Obama administration attempts to verify phony documentation.”  No one is profiting on this yet, but trust me, they will find a way.   Here are some other findings:

  • Contractors processing applications for the government told the GAO that their role was not to ferret out potential fraud.
  • Five of six bogus phone applications went through successfully. The one exception involved an applicant who refused to provide a Social Security number.
  • Six online applications were snagged by an identity checking system. But investigators just dialed a call center and all six were approved. That seemed to be an open pathway to coverage.
  • The GAO also tried to check the reliability of counselors providing in-person assistance. In five out of six cases, investigators were unable to get help. In the final case, the counselor correctly told the undercover investigator that their stated income would not entitle them to subsidized coverage.

Fraud and abuse and incompetence cost money.  How much is the ACA going to cost?  You will never know the real answer but it will be astronomical and it will be painful.