Everybody Getting Sick of Obamacare

July 30, 2016 By Susan Shelley 4 Comments

MedizinTo keep a comedy plot moving, things have to go terribly wrong, somebody has to hide the truth, and it all has to come crashing down at the end in something like a spectacular pie fight.

The whipped cream is about to hit the Affordable Care Act.

Covered California just announced that the average cost of premiums for policies sold on the state health insurance exchange will be 13.2 percent higher next year. In 14 other states, premiums for widely sold silver plans will rise an average of 11 percent.

The worse news is why: Health care costs are higher, two temporary programs to reduce risk for insurers are ending, and people signing up have been sicker than expected.

That’s the opposite of what was intended. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to reduce health care costs, outgrow its need for insurer subsidies, and get young and healthy people into the risk pool with its mandate to buy health insurance.

The individual market may have reached the dreaded death spiral — the point where insurance is so costly that only people who are sick will buy it, driving rates even higher.

There’s evidence of this in the latest numbers from the law’s “risk corridor” program, which is supposed to collect money from insurers with healthier customers (lower costs), and give that money to insurers with sicker customers (higher costs). For 2014, the program collected $362 million but owes $2.87 billion. For now, insurers will receive only 12.6 percent of the money they expected.

This has added to financial problems at the nonprofit member-run health plans known as co-ops. In 2014 there were 23 co-ops around the country. Today there are 11 — seven that lost money in 2015 and four that just announced they’re going out of business.

Five health plans have filed lawsuits over underpayments from the risk corridor program, which is set to end this year along with a second program that provides reinsurance. A third program for risk adjustment is permanent, although a Maryland health plan is challenging it in the courts.

Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled in May that the Obama administration is illegally giving money to insurance companies to pay for a cost-sharing reduction program that subsidizes the deductibles and co-payments of low-income people who buy silver policies on the exchanges.

In mid-2013, the administration removed the cost-sharing reduction program from its 2014 budget request and decided to pay for it with money that Congress appropriated for another purpose.

Congress has been trying for over a year to …

Click here to read the full story at the L.A. Daily News

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Bill Would Allow Illegal Immigrants Access to Obamacare in CA

June 12, 2016 By James Poulos 11 Comments

covered caState Democrats forged ahead with legislation designed to fill out Covered California’s enrollment ranks with unlawful and undocumented immigrants.

Following the state Senate, the Assembly has “passed a measure that would remove a critical barrier to Covered California and allow all Californians to access the state health insurance marketplace, regardless of immigration status,” as State of Reform noted. The legislation, introduced as Senate Bill 10 by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, “would authorize the state to apply for a federal waiver that would allow undocumented immigrants to buy unsubsidized health coverage through Covered California.”

“Currently, undocumented immigrants are barred from using the state marketplace under the Affordable Care Act even when using their own money and instead must go directly to a broker or health plan to purchase health insurance. During its April board meeting, a Covered California staff report gave the green light to pursue this waiver from the federal government, and is now awaiting direction from the Legislature and governor.”

Republican rollover

Despite massive Republican resistance to the implementation of Obamacare, with a “repeal and replace” approach adopted by elected officials at the state and federal level, California’s GOP quietly folded in the face of the expansion plan. SB10 sailed through both houses of the Legislature with bipartisan support, as the San Jose Mercury News recalled.

Prior to the vote, key Republicans tried to keep a low profile. Leaders “in both legislative chambers declined to comment on whether the bill has enough support to pass,” according to CALmatters. “But a Republican strategist said the California GOP might be more likely to support the measure than its national counterpart, to avoid ceding the state’s Latino vote to the Democrats.”

The ins and outs of the complex Affordable Care Act have lent some circumstantial evidence to the notion that, despite President Obama’s claims to the contrary, at least some enrollment by the undocumented was envisioned or prepared for. An ACA provision “called the ‘innovation waiver’ allows states like California to change portions of the law as long as the state makes coverage available to more people and as long as the federal government doesn’t get stuck footing the bill,” reported Fox News. And though the impact of that population on Covered California has not been fully estimated, it would be significant: Lara suggested nearly 400,000 unlawful immigrants “would be eligible to receive health insurance,” according to the channel.

Federal hurdles

But the political landscape has become uncertain enough at the federal level to create an extra layer of difficulty — and urgency — for Lara and his allies. “The proposal needs federal approval, an involved bureaucratic process that could be thwarted under a new presidency. So California advocates are acting swiftly to get their application to President Obama before he leaves office, and to do so must win support from at least a few California Republican lawmakers,” Capital Public Radio noted. “Lara put an urgency clause on the bill, which requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass the Legislature. At least one Republican state senator has indicated his support” — Andy Vidak, R-Hanford — “a cherry grower in the Central Valley’s Kings County, which has a 53 percent Latino population.”

Even with adequate Republican support for urgency, however, SB10 could be stymied inside the Beltway. Public comment review requirements left some analysts skeptical that the new rules could be approved before a change in administrations, CALmatters reported. “And even if the proposal works its way through that maze and is reviewed by the Obama administration, he said, it may not be approved because of current federal guidelines. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has strict rules for modifying the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They might have been put in place to avoid creating a precedent that opens the door to future changes the current administration would deem” problematic.

This piece was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Californians Struggle to Afford Obamacare Premiums

June 20, 2015 By Chris Reed 8 Comments

covered caIn May 2013, Covered California officials faced sharp criticism over claims that premiums would actually go down for many health insurance purchasers. Forbes.com’s Avik Roy wrote that the agency implementing the Golden State’s version of Obamacare needed to look at its own data, which suggested health premiums would surge at least 64 percent after the regulations in the Affordable Care Act took effect. Bloomberg analysts offered similar criticisms.

Two years later, the Kaiser Family Foundation has issued a report that suggests these warnings were more accurate than the upbeat predictions of Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee. A key finding:

“Among adults who say that they pay a monthly premium for their health coverage, nearly half of newly insured adults (47 percent) say it is somewhat or very difficult to afford this cost, compared to just 27 percent of adults who were insured before 2014. When looking specifically by type of coverage, 44 percent of Covered California enrollees (not all of whom are newly insured) report difficulty paying their monthly premium, versus a quarter of adults with other types of private coverage. Medi-Cal enrollees do not pay monthly premiums for their coverage.”

Cost, not glitches, slowing CA sign-ups

The Kaiser report, which was based on interviews with 4,555 Californians, says the cost factor is the biggest barrier to higher enrollments, not online technical snafus:

“Cost continues to prevent many uninsured adults from seeking coverage. While many people focused on website glitches and administrative barriers during 2014, uninsured adults say that the reason they still lack coverage is because it’s too expensive, with most not even trying to get ACA coverage, and many who did still saying they are ineligible or believe the coverage is too costly.”

The cost of premiums is also prompting Californians to quit Covered California, KCRA TV in Sacramento reported, citing documents showing that 150,000 people dropped their state coverage in 2014.

These developments come in a pivotal year for Covered California — the last year in which federal subsidies will help cover the subsidies provided by the state agency. By law, beginning in 2016, the agency cannot seek state subsidies and must rely only on revenue it generates from premiums. Its goal was to have 1.7 million residents enrolled by Feb. 15, but it fell far short, with 1.4 million signups.

More criticism from national media

Meanwhile, Covered California is again provoking comment from outside of California. A May 31 Columbia Journalism Review essay by Trudy Lieberman criticized coverage of the agency as misleading:

It’s not easy to figure out how to monitor the progress of Covered California, the country’s largest state-run health insurance exchange.

Is it the total number of people who have signed up for an insurance plan on the exchange during open enrollment? The rate at which people renew? The number of new sign-ups in a given year? The number of Latino sign-ups? The number of “covered lives”? The number of Californians who have had coverage through the exchange at any point? Or, simply, the overall rate of uninsured adults across the state?

“In recent months, Covered California has cited each of these measures to tout its success. And though outside analysts have raised some notes of caution, press coverage has largely followed the lead set by the exchange. The result is coverage that has too often been reactive, short on enterprise, and with missed opportunities to ask some necessary questions. Covered California may ultimately have a success story to tell — but it will need to face some sharper skepticism before we can be sure.”

Lieberman wrote that California journalists should spend more time talking to affected state residents about their experiences with the agency and be less inclined to accept Covered California’s characterizations of its record.

Originally published by CalWatchdog.com

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Covered CA Facing 2015 Adjustments

January 21, 2015 By James Poulos Leave a Comment

After posting some of the biggest numbers in the Obamacare firmament, Covered California is putting the squeeze on Golden Staters. Amid concerns that bureaucratic and administrative rules will reverse initial gains, the statewide exchange is stressing the substantial increase in tax penalties facing Californians who don’t get insurance.

Meanwhile, choices for coverage are shrinking, not expanding.

In order to hold down spikes in the cost of care, Obamacare included insurance subsides calculated according to a family’s expected yearly income. In keeping with federal tax practices, if a family’s actual income exceeds the estimated amount, their subsidy shrinks accordingly — regardless of whether it leaves them in the hole.

According to the Los Angeles Times, analysts now predict that as many as half of all families enrolled and subsidized under Covered CA could face a bill this tax year.

The implications are so serious that Covered CA executives are on edge. They’ve had to pivot swiftly from public relations mode — pushing a traveling awareness campaign designed to boost enrollments — to public warning mode.

“As the health law’s second open enrollment period draws to a close, Covered CA , the largest of the state-run health insurance exchanges set up under Obamacare, is about to start emphasizing the tax penalties one can incur by not getting covered,” Reason’s Peter Suderman observes.

“As the penalty increases,” Covered CA Executive Director Peter Lee said in a statement, “it makes more and more sense for those who have been waiting on the sidelines to get in and get coverage.”

Toby Douglas, director of the Medi-Cal management organization DHCS, put it more bluntly. “This is an important message that should be heard by Californians of all income levels,” he said. “Applying for coverage not only gives you an opportunity to get comprehensive health care; it can help you avoid a penalty that could hurt you and your family.”

A snowball effect

The federal picture is not the only one that matters in California. It turns out that Medi-Cal faces a simultaneous reduction in state reimbursement rates. As David Gorn notes at California Healthline:

“The 10 percent rate cut, approved by the California Legislature in 2011, was held up while the matter was thrashed out in court. Last year, the courts upheld the state’s right to reduce provider reimbursement and health care officials decided to implement the cutbacks in phases. The last phase, which includes primary care providers, went into effect Jan. 1.”

That puts pressure on legislators to pour more state tax dollars into funding Medi-Cal. “More than 11 million Californians are on Medi-Cal — more than 30 percent of the state’s population. Raising rates by any amount, given that huge pool of recipients, would be an expensive proposition,” writes Gorn.

The result is a snowballing budgetary problem, not just for families seeking health coverage but for the state of California. It’s bad timing for Gov. Jerry Brown in particular.

Brown has just come off of a fragile but significant political success — debuting an eye-popping budget plan that’s nevertheless been greeted as relatively well-disciplined, if only by California’s profligate standards. Brown has had to carefully balance competing demands for more cash for statewide interests, from environmentalists to the universal pre-K lobby.

Too hard a push for additional health care funding could foster a political crisis that cuts strongly against Brown’s agenda, which is heavy on infrastructure and fiscal management.

Pressure on the left

Adding more wrinkles to the challenge facing Brown, important constituencies on the political left have imposed increasing burdens on the scope of coverage promised under Obamacare. USA Today reports that perhaps half-a-million unlawful immigrants residing in California will soon become eligible for Medi-Cal, while Sacramento Democrats are working “to extend state-subsidized health insurance to everyone, including those barred from getting covered through the Affordable Care Act.”

Meanwhile, some 280,000 Northern and Central California customers have been put on notice that their coverage may collapse or cost more, thanks to a contract dispute that has Blue Shield of California squaring off against the Sutter Health network. Sutter, earning the sympathy of liberals, insists Blue Shield is to blame for slashing reimbursements and expecting Sutter to somehow absorb the costs.

But the controversy is poised to remind Californians of the intra-party divisions that had Democrats at odds in November over Proposition 45, which would have given the state insurance commission the power to negotiate rates with insurers, including Covered CA itself. Voters rejected it, 59 percent to 41 percent.

Prop. 45 was backed by Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, who was re-elected to his job, and billionaire hedge-fund investor Thomas Steyer, who is contemplating a bid for the U.S. Senate.

Opposition included Diana Dooley, the head of the state’s Health and Human Services Agency and chair of Covered California, a Brown appointee, and the Service Employees International Union, a key Democratic power center.

This piece was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

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Look Who Is Living Like the One Percent

November 19, 2014 By Jon Coupal 5 Comments

The far left smugly promotes a cartoonish image of upper income individuals as those who enjoy limousines, expensive wine, travel and lavish parties.  If one listens long enough to so-called “progressives,” one may begin to imagine that all rich people look like Uncle Pennybags, the little tycoon mascot of the Parker Brothers Monopoly game.

The myth, as perpetrated by progressives, is that the wealthy got to the top by cheating the little guy, gaming the system and evading taxes.  Of course, under this view, the rich are unquestionably evil and the very rich are known as the “One Percent.”  You don’t get any more evil than members of the One Percent.  (Unless, of course, an extremely wealthy individual devotes millions of dollars to advance Al Gore’s view of global warming, in which case they get a pass and advance directly to Go).

Given this myth – and its perpetuation by main stream media – it is ironic how many of those associated with government, most of whom share the far left ideology, are living like the cartoon version of the One Percent.

A recent news report from the Associated Press reveals that California’s health insurance exchange, Covered California, has awarded $184 million in no-bid contracts, including several worth a total of $4.2 million that went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose founder has strong professional ties to Covered California’s Executive Director Peter Lee.  Other no bid contracts were awarded to a subsidiary of a health care company Lee once headed.

Isn’t this the kind of insider dealing that the radical left accuses the “Evil Rich” of using to build their fortunes?

Then there is what CBS investigative reporter David Goldstein discovered about the lifestyle of some California State University administrators. Seems they have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, donated for the purpose of supporting students’ educations, on amusements like fancy parties, alcohol, season tickets to the Hollywood Bowl and top restaurants.   No doubt members of the One Percent will be asking why they were not invited.

Showcasing the hypocrisy of some who vilify the wealthy is a very public critic of the One Percent, Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, who takes down almost $560,000 in yearly compensation.   Her union paid nearly $120,000 to a limousine service last year, according to federal financial disclosures.

Then there are the two-dozen Sacramento lawmakers winging their way to posh resorts in Maui to attend “conferences,” with expenses being paid for by special interests with business before the Legislature.  Living large, indeed.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Kevin de Leon was sworn in as state Senate leader at a ceremony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles to which 2,000 guests were invited.  Invitations to the event called it an “Inauguration.”  Usually Senate leaders are sworn in at a low key ceremony on the Capitol steps.

After the ceremony, guests attended a reception in a blocked-off street outside the concert hall where free food and drinks were provided.  Sounds like de Leon just picked up the Chance Card allowing him to advance to Boardwalk, the most expensive property on the Monopoly board, where he will, no doubt, rub elbows with Uncle Penneybags.

So all this talk about how those in the private sector are greedy and those in the public sector are altruistic is, quite simply, balderdash.  The sad fact is that the public sector is just an inviting environment for self-serving behavior – if not more so.  The difference, of course, is that we the taxpayers pay for the latter.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — California’s largest grass-roots taxpayer organization dedicated to the protection of Proposition 13 and the advancement of taxpayers’ rights.

This piece was originally published on HJTA.org

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One Year Later, Glitches Still Plague Covered CA

November 4, 2014 By Joseph Perkins Leave a Comment

“Here we go again with the same nightmare as a year ago. [I’m] truly fed up with Covered California’s technical incompetency.” So complained Igal Koiman, a health insurance broker, in remarks published this week in the Sacramento Business Journal.

His frustrations echo those of many other brokers throughout the state who fear the Covered California website will be no less glitch-ridden on Nov. 15, when open enrollment begins this year, than it was 19 months ago, when the state’s online Obamacare health exchange stumbled out of the starting gate.

Koiman related that, for the past two weeks, he has been unable to update plans for his established clients. When he contacted Covered California for help, he received an email reply informing him, “We do not currently have an ETA as to when this enrollment error will be corrected.”

These are the kind of system failures that have persistently plagued CoveredCA.com since its rollout. Indeed, the website has crashed numerous times, not just for hours, but for several days.

The Covered California website was developed by the consulting firm Accenture, which in 2012 received a $359 million state contract to not only build the site, but to operate it during its first three-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, Accenture brought on CGI Federal as a subcontractor for CoveredCA.com.

Both firms have recent troubling track records.

Accenture in 2011 paid $63.6 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit charging the firm received kickbacks for its recommendations of specific hardware and software to the federal government, fraudulently inflated prices and rigged bids on federal IT contracts.

Tony West, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said of the lawsuit:

“Kickbacks and bid rigging undermine the integrity of the federal procurement process. At a time when we’re looking for ways to reduce our public spending, it is especially important to ensure that government contractors play by the rules and don’t waste precious taxpayer dollars.”

And Christopher R. Thyer, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, said:

“We strive each and every day to bring justice to the citizens of the Eastern District of Arkansas. … Fraudulent business practices that steal hard earned and much needed tax dollars from appropriate use will not be tolerated. The United States Attorney’s Office is committed to pursuing these cases to the full extent of the law.”

Subsidiary

CGI Federal is a subsidiary of the Montreal-based CGI Group, which in 2012 was fired by the provincial government in Ontario after the IT firm failed to fulfill its contract to build an online medical registry for the province’s diabetes patients.

According to the Washington Examiner:

“In Canada, eHealth, the Ontario provincial agency, scrapped its high-profile online medical registry for diabetes sufferers and treatment providers, and canceled CGI Group’s $46.2 million contract, on Sept. 5, 2012. The company was 14 months behind schedule when it was given notice of termination by the Ontario government agency.

“In the meantime, a group of other Ontario IT companies successfully replicated the registry, rendering CGI’s project obsolete.

“Because the contract terms stipulated payment only upon delivery of a satisfactory final product, the province has refused to pay CGI.

“CGI has not publicly discussed the eHealth failure, but has taken legal action, including filing a defamation suit against eHealth and the Toronto Star newspaper.

“CGI has received bipartisan condemnation from Ontario government officials for its failure on the registry.

“’They did not meet the requirements of their contract which was faced with many layers of delays, which caused great angst among the health care providers who are trying to do their best,’ Frances Gélinas, a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament, told the Washington Examiner.

“’They basically said, “This is not working.” CGI is not delivering what we need,’ Gélinas said. Gélinas also serves as a health policy spokeswoman for the NDP, an opposition Canadian political party.”

Terminated

In January, CGI’s U.S. contract to build and maintain HealthCare.gov, the federal Obamacare website, was terminated in the wake of the site’s disastrous rollout. The firm the Obama administration chose to pick up where CGI Federal left off was none other than Accenture.

The partnership of Accenture and CGI Federal on the Covered California website does not inspire confidence that the online portal will be good to go a mere two weeks from now.

The more likely scenario is that the persistent glitches that afflicted CoveredCA.com during its first year of operation, that caused repeated shutdowns of the state-run Obamacare exchange, will continue apace in year two.

This piece was originally published on CalWatchdog.com

 

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Covered CA Dissects Prop. 45, Doesn’t Oppose It

October 16, 2014 By Dave Roberts Leave a Comment

Officials at the Covered California insurance exchange, the state’s implementation of Obamacare, worry passage of Prop. 45 could damage its operations, potentially affecting insurance coverage for millions of Californians. But the board has chosen not to notify California voters of their concerns by formally opposing Prop. 45.

“The initiative could seriously undermine the work that we have underway, our operations, and could compromise the terrific movement and progress that we are making with implementing health reform in California,” said Covered California Board Member Kimberley Belshé at the board’s recent meeting (webcast here).

Board Member Diana Dooley agreed. “I personally have very serious concerns about the interaction of the plain language of this initiative and the work that we’ve invested in making the Affordable Care Act real in California and to some considerable degree somewhat successful,” she said.

Those concerns were confirmed in a report by Executive Director Peter Lee, which found, “Proposition 45 could have a significant detrimental impact on Covered California’s operations….”

Prop. 45

Known as the Insurance Rate Public Justification and Accountability Act, Prop. 45 would require health insurance rates to be approved by the state insurance commissioner, similar to the car insurance rate approval mandated by Proposition 103 in 1988.

Lee’s Prop. 45 analysis cited several concerns:

  • “Covered California’s role as an active [insurance] purchaser could be significantly undermined if health plans negotiating with Covered California are reluctant to consider or negotiate on factors other than price because of uncertainty about the subsequent price that will be approved (or ordered) by CDI [California Department of Insurance].
  • “If for any reason a new rate were not approved in time for open enrollment, plans would ‘default’ to the old rate for the entire next year.
  • “Current timelines under Proposition 103 [if applied to medical care under Prop. 45] would provide significant disruption to the offering of plans for the annual open enrollment.
  • “One risk that Covered California needs to be concerned about is the potential of health plans withdrawing in advance of or during the rate regulation process. To the extent a mandatory intervenor hearing process is unresolved in time to meet the open enrollment deadline, a plan’s proposed rate could not go forward.
  • “Almost 90% of Covered California’s consumers receive federal subsidies to reduce their net premiums…. [I]f the rate change sets a new ‘second lowest silver’ plan, some consumers could see their costs increase due to the adjustment of the prices used for the tax credit calculation and the potential reduction of the purchasing power of the tax credits.”

Warn voters?

The Covered California board members could have laid out their concerns in a resolution opposing Prop. 45 to help voters make a better informed decision ahead of the Nov. 4 election. But they unanimously declined to do so.

“I think the beauty and the right kind of influence of this board is to remain as apolitical as possible,” said Board Member Robert Ross. “I’m philosophically opposed to taking any formal position on this ballot measure or any other. I think there’s plenty of politics to go around. Let it go on and let’s try to keep it out of the deliberations of this body.”

The board’s decision to remain neutral on Prop. 45 was welcomed by more than a dozen Prop. 45 supporters who spoke at the meeting.

“People will differ in their analysis of whether Prop. 45 will make the world better for consumers or not better,” said Betsy Imholz, representing Consumers Union. “But one thing is indisputable, that the insurance industry is unanimously and vociferously opposed to it. Were you to align with that position, I think it would create a bad public image.

“And were it to pass, I think the public would be watching closely and questioning your implementation of the act. You don’t need that. None of us needs that. We just want to move forward with the very successful work that you’ve been doing over the past several years.”

Elizabeth Pataki, a retired intensive care nurse representing the California Alliance for Retired Americans, agreed.

“Since Covered California is prohibited under California and federal law from spending taxpayer money to campaign for the ballot initiatives, and since you negotiate with the powerful health care industry to ensure Californians must buy health care and have access to that care, as such it’s very important that you avoid taking sides and getting involved in a political fight with consumer advocates on one side and the health care industry on the other,” she said.

“We need Proposition 45 because there have been 185 percent increases in rates, which have caused severe difficulties. Those severe difficulties include working people and retired people going bankrupt. Proposition 45 will apply the same rates as car coverage. It does not undermine the Affordable Care Act. And it’s public, it’s transparent, it’s open. The public can see what’s happening.”

Concerns

Only one person argued that the board should make its concerns public about Prop. 45.

“We have substantial experience with Prop. 103,” said Steve Young, representing the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of California. “From our position, Prop. 45 was a sham. What it is represented to be is not in fact what it would be. We believe and are sure that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the Prop. 103 rating law, or especially the public intervention process, has done anything to lower insurance costs in property casualty insurance.

“Our view is Covered California itself already has done and will continue to do more to temper and lower insurance costs for California consumers than Prop. 45 ever could. So our view, while we certainly understand your position, is that it would be appropriate for you to call a pig a pig, and take a position against Prop. 45.”

Although the Covered California board has sought to stay above the political fray, it has found itself mired in it anyway.  Consumer Watchdog, which is leading the campaign for Prop. 45, on Monday sent a letter to Attorney General Kamala Harris seeking an investigation of the agency’s no-bid contracts and suggesting Covered California is in collusion with insurance companies against Prop. 45:

“Covered California has refused for months to release information requested by Consumer Watchdog under the Public Records Act concerning the agency’s communications with insurance industry executives about Prop. 45 …. Californians deserve to know the truth about hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid contracts and industry influence at Covered California before they vote November 4th.”

Dooley responded to criticism at the September Covered California meeting. “I … am deeply troubled by the politicization of the work that we’ve done and the suggestions that necessarily come up in a political campaign,” she said. “And the characterizations that have been made and may continue to be made that we are not a sufficient steward of consumers.

“I kind of take personal offense at that because I’m here because of my consumer commitment. And I think we have established a reputation of openness and evidence of consumer protection.”

Covered CA problems

In other action at the meeting, Lee told the board that many Californians who called Covered California in the previous month were put on hold for as long as 40 minutes while those whose citizenship was in question were moved to the front of the call line.

The number of suspected illegal residents, who were in danger of losing their insurance eligibility, had grown to 148,000. Prioritizing their cases reduced that to just 10,474 clients whose legal residency is still in question, according to a press release.

Lee told the board that, although the law requires illegal residents be dropped from coverage after 90 days, Covered California has extended their coverage “well beyond that.”

This article was originally published on CalWatchdog.com.

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