Health insurance companies and some members of Congress are worried about what the next step is after the Affordable Care Act’s implementation.
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
The president has promised to open the exchanges next month, and the Department of Health and Human Services is working to help insurance companies negotiate lower prices for people enrolled in the exchanges.
If there is one thing to take away from the first four months of the new administration, it’s that the federal government has never done anything like this before.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s been relatively easy to implement and to keep pace with, according to the Center for American Progress.
“The only way it could be a disaster is if there were a single glitch or glitch in the implementation, and that’s exactly what we have,” said John R. Hickey, executive director of the Center.
“It was really not a system that people could expect to be perfect.
It was just a very complex, complex system that required some technical expertise.”
Still, some members in Congress want the government to take a much more hands-on approach.
In a report released Tuesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), asked HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to issue an executive order to make sure the government is ready to respond to the health care law’s first major rollout.
Burwell has already promised to make public information about the new exchanges to ensure consumers have access to coverage.
The House committee asked Burwell for a timeline for the rollout, and Burwell responded that she’s working to meet that deadline.
“I know there is a lot of confusion about what is happening,” Burwell said in an interview Tuesday.
“I am not sure we can all agree on that.”
Still in the process of getting things started, the Trump administration has already issued a few clarifying statements, including clarifying that the first exchanges will be open in 2017, and they’ll be subject to a 60-day waiting period before they’re open to people.
The government is also working to create a new website, the HealthCare.gov website, that will help consumers understand the new rules and how to enroll.
Still, the president has also said he will not allow the health insurance industry to dictate the process.
The Affordable Care Amendment is not a new law, but instead a series of amendments designed to address the health costs of the country.
It creates the National Health Insurance Exchange, which is supposed to be the single source of information for people buying health insurance, as well as the National Credit Union Administration, a nonprofit that offers consumers financial help with health care costs.
The ACA also allows for states to set up their own health insurance exchanges, but they’re not subject to the same restrictions as federal exchanges.
The new exchanges will have to compete with one another, and to that end, there’s been some tension between the private sector and the government.
For example, the private insurance companies that are already in the market have said that they are not interested in participating in the exchange because they see it as an intrusion on the free market.
In the past, it was the insurance companies who came in with a list of what they were willing to pay for coverage, which they then negotiated with the federal exchanges to get their prices down, according for example to the Wall Street Journal.
But with the ACA, the health insurers that are competing with the government have been asked to put together lists of what their competitors will be paying for their plans.
It means that the government will be the sole source of pricing information for consumers, and therefore the insurance industry is going to be on the hook to negotiate lower premiums.
Burman has also been asked by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired from Texas, to help guide how states can set up a single-payer health care system.
That’s not entirely clear.
Burstwell is the latest in a long line of officials to come out and say the government shouldn’t be able to dictate pricing, but the president’s comments don’t exactly square with that.
“It’s pretty clear that there are some people who are worried that it will be an intrusion into the free markets, and I think that’s not accurate,” Hickey said.
“We’ve had very good exchanges.
We’ve had some pretty good exchanges, and we’re going to have a very good exchange.”