Obama resists deadline delay
Aides: Holding off health law sign-up may hurt insurers
WASHINGTON — Even with its health insurance marketplace floundering for the fourth week, the Obama administration is resisting what some Democratic allies contend is the most logical response to the problem: giving consumers more time to sign up.
According to insurers and the White House, delaying the deadline could undermine efforts to lure a broad, young and healthy mix of consumers to the market. That would end up costing insurers, and possibly taxpayers, money.
The case against a delay was outlined in a memo circulated to lawmakers by the insurance lobby last week. The document from America’s Health Insurance Plans warned that a delay could have a “a destabilizing effect oninsurance markets, resulting in higher premiums and coverage disruptions for individuals and families.”
For now, the administration is sticking with the insurers. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday called delaying the tax penalties for those who miss the deadline premature. Testifying before a House committee, Sebelius said she was confident the site would be running smoothly by the end of November, giving consumers four months to enroll before the current March 31 deadline.
President Barack Obama made the case Wednesday in Boston, where he argued that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2006 law — the model for Obama’s own law — experienced a similarly slow rollout and went on to success.
Obama also took it upon himself to make sure the glitch-marred website, which has made signing up for insurance difficult, is repaired quickly.
“There’s no excuse for it, and I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP,” he said.
There is more than policy keeping the administration from pursuing what some argue is a simple fix. House Republicans have long pushed to delay the mandate.
Any concession on the point would hand an “I told you so” moment to the GOP, only weeks after the White House and Democrats watched the government shut down rather than agree to Republican demands to suspend the mandate for a year.
The politics of the issue could change quickly as Democrats face pressure to showthey are responding to public frustration with the website. Ten Democratic senators — six of whom are up for re-election in 2014 — have signed a letter asking the White House to extend the date beyond March 31.
Advocates for the extension note the administration has already pushed back the date by six weeks in an attempt to align mismatched deadlines outlined during the rule-making process.
Another limited extension is unlikely to change consumer behavior much, some experts opposed to a delay concede.
“To change sends a message: Don’t worry about signing up quickly. So there is an impact, but it depends a lot on how long an extension it is,” said Linda Blumberg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute.
Blumberg said it’s too soon to know whether an extension is necessary. Any decision should come only after insurers know who is signing up and whether they are seeing too many sick customers to be able to deliver on the premiums they’ve promised. There are two major provisions already built into the law to help insurers adjust for risk pools, she noted.
Obama advisers made similar arguments. Extending the enrollment period by a few months or a year increases the possibility that people will wait until they’re too sick to sign up, increasing the costs for everyone else, said Chris Jennings, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton now working on Affordable Care Act implementation.
Enforcing the requirements for insurers without enforcing those for individuals would compound the destabilizing effect, said Jennings.
“No one will sell you house insurance when your house is on fire,” he said. “If you want to ban discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, then youhave to have everyone in the pool. That’s why you need the individual responsibility requirement.”
Critics of the president’s law are reviving the push to undo the mandate. Romney issued a statement Wednesday suggesting a number of changes, including “carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally.”