Tag: Oversight

Dark days ahead for ObamaCare

By Elise Viebeck – 11/29/14 06:13 AM EST

The Obama administration is facing a slew of healthcare challenges as the winter holidays approach.

While this fall has been a far cry from last year, when HealthCare.gov was melting down, 2014 has brought wholly unexpected problems to the fore for federal health officials and the White House.

Take the conflict surrounding Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare consultant whose suggestion that a “lack of transparency” and voters’ “stupidity” helped the law pass, went viral.

Though Democrats have sought to distance themselves from Gruber, his remarks have become a new flashpoint in debate over healthcare reform, invigorating GOP critics as the party prepares to take control of the Senate.

Gruber has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Dec. 9, in a final hearing for outgoing chairman and relentless administration antagonist Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

The gathering, also set to include Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, is sure to prove a distraction for the White House as officials try once again to keep a lid on opposition to the law.

Here are four additional challenges that the administration faces on healthcare this winter.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/225348-dark-days-ahead-for-obamacare

Issa calls Gruber to testify before Oversight
By Sarah Ferris – 11/21/14 09:47 AM EST

The House Oversight Committee is asking embattled former ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber to testify at a hearing next month on the “transparency failures” of the administration’s healthcare law.

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sent a letter to Gruber on Thursday, about two weeks after videos surfaced in which the adviser suggested that a “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” helped Congress pass ObamaCare.

The chairman also invited Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), whose own investigation found that the Obama administration had inflated its enrollment numbers by about 400,000 people, helping to lift it past the much-touted 7 million goal.

“The American people deserve honesty, transparency and respect from those who forced the federal government into their healthcare,”  wrote Issa in a statement Friday.

“I expect Mr. Gruber and Administrator Tavenner to testify publicly next month about the arrogance and deceptions surrounding the passage and implementation of ObamaCare,” he added.

The hearing will take place December 9, the last week of the lame-duck Congress, in what would likely be the outgoing chairman’s last Oversight hearing.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/224981-jonathan-gruber-asked-to-testify-at-house-hearing