Report: Trump administration needs to step up on ‘Obamacare’

WASHINGTON » A congressional watchdog said Thursday the Trump administration needs to step up its management of signup seasons under former President Barack Obama’s health care law after mixed results last year in the throes of a failed GOP effort to repeal it.

The report from the Government Accountability Office is likely to add to Democrats’ election-year narrative that the administration actively undermined “Obamacare” without regard for the consequences to consumers.

The nonpartisan GAO was more nuanced. On one hand, it found problems with consumer counseling and advertising and recommended such basic fixes as setting enrollment targets. On the other, it credited administration actions that did help people enroll, such as a more reliable HealthCare.gov website and reduced call center wait times.

Sign-ups for 2019 begin this November.

The report found that:

— The Health and Human Services Department under Trump broke with its own previous practice by failing to set enrollment targets for last year. The watchdog recommended that HHS resume setting goals, a standard management tool for government agencies. Without setting numeric goals, HHS won’t be able to measure whether it is meeting “its current objective of improving Americans’ access to health care,” the report said. The administration responded that it does not believe such targets are relevant.

— HHS used “problematic” and “unreliable” data to justify a 40 percent cut in funding for enrollment counseling programs known as Navigators. HHS responded that it’s making changes to how those counseling programs are evaluated. But it has cut funding again, by about 70 percent.

— When HHS slashed money for open-enrollment advertising by 90 percent overall, officials said they were doing away with wasteful spending. But an internal study by the department had actually found paid television ads were one of the most effective ways to enroll consumers. The budget for TV ads went from $26.6 million in the Obama administration’s final year to zero under President Donald Trump.

“This independent and nonpartisan GAO report confirms that the Trump administration’s sabotage of our health care system is driving up costs for consumers and leaving more Americans without health insurance,” said a statement from a group of Democratic lawmakers led by Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey.