WASHINGTON, DC - As part of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s rigorous oversight of the new health care law, committee leaders are seeking information on the delays and missed deadlines that have plagued the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s implementation. In a letter to Gary Cohen, Deputy Administrator and Director at the Centers for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA), and Vice Chairman of the Health and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittees Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) requested information on the administration’s plan to complete many outstanding tasks before full implementation of the law begins on Jan. 1, 2014.
The members wrote, “Over the last year, the administration has struggled to meet the many demands and deadlines of the PPACA. In some instances, the deadlines put in place by the PPACA have been delayed or rescinded once it was evident the law’s requirements were unworkable…
“…Recently, the PPACA encountered perhaps its most serious setback yet when the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) was delayed until 2015 due to the agency’s inability to ‘meet tight deadlines’. The program was supposed to create an insurance market specifically for small businesses offering a variety of health care choices, yet now states will have no option but to limit the insurance available to a single product."
In addition to inviting Gary Cohen to appear before the subcommittee on April 24, the members requested CCIIO provide documents, timelines, analysis, or presentations on the agency’s plans to implement the law. The leaders set a deadline of April 23, 2013, for CCIIO to comply.
