9/8/2014

Healthcare.gov Upgrades Are Priority for New Health and Human Services Chief - NYTimes.com

http://nyti.ms/1xzStv2

POLITICS

N YT NOW

Healthcare.gov Upgrades Are Priority for New

Health and Human Services Chief
By ROBERT PEAR

SEPT. 8, 2014

WASHINGTON Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of Health and

Human Services, said Monday in her first major speech that she wanted to
move beyond the politics of health care and work with members of both
parties to improve the management and operation of HealthCare.gov, the
website used by millions of people to sign up for insurance coverage.
What Ive told my team is that were not here to fight last years
battles, she said. Were here to fight for affordability, access and
quality.
With midterm elections two months away, Ms. Burwell said she
wanted to shift the conversation to areas of potential agreement. Polls
consistently show that the public remains more negative than positive on
the Affordable Care Act, but that Americans want Congress to improve the
law rather than to repeal it.
The American people are sending a very clear message that they want
us to work together on health care, Ms. Burwell said, in remarks at
George Washington University.
Ms. Burwell said that since she took office in June she has heard the
same message from many people: Enough already with the back-andforth on the Affordable Care Act. We just want to move forward.
The next open enrollment period begins Nov. 15 and runs through
Feb. 15, half as long as the first sign-up period.

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9/8/2014

Healthcare.gov Upgrades Are Priority for New Health and Human Services Chief - NYTimes.com

Shortly after Ms. Burwell finished her speech, she announced that the
Obama administration was awarding $60 million in grants to 90
organizations that would counsel consumers on health insurance. Such
counselors, also known as navigators, were indispensable in helping
consumers use balky federal and state websites in the first enrollment
period, which ran from October of last year through March of this year.
Last year the government awarded $67 million in navigator grants to
105 organizations, many of which had subcontractors.
The Obama administration said it would require all navigators to take
additional training courses and be recertified if they wanted to advise
consumers in the coming open enrollment period. The new curriculum
includes courses on how to verify a persons immigration status, how to
count household income and how to help college-age students enroll in
coverage.
Among the larger new recipients of grants are the University of South
Florida, which is receiving $5.4 million for a statewide consortium of 12
organizations; United Way of Tarrant County, serving the Fort Worth area
($4.6 million); Legal Aid of North Carolina ($2.3 million); and the Ohio
Association of Foodbanks ($2.2 million).
Smaller grant recipients include the Arab Community Center for
Economic and Social Services, in Dearborn, Mich.; Planned Parenthood
organizations in Iowa and Montana; the Beaufort County Black Chamber
of Commerce in South Carolina; and Primero Health, a Latino community
organization in Texas.
In her remarks, Ms. Burwell drew implicit contrasts with her
predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, who supervised the disastrous debut of the
health care website last fall. Ms. Burwell repeatedly emphasized her
management skills, honed as president of the Walmart Foundation and as
director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under
President Obama.
Ms. Burwell promised a new era of transparency and candor and said
her goal was to answer letters from Congress within 30 days. But in

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Healthcare.gov Upgrades Are Priority for New Health and Human Services Chief - NYTimes.com

response to questions, health officials said they were unable to update the
enrollment figures issued on May 1, when they reported that eight million
people had signed up for private insurance through the federal and state
marketplaces.
Within hours of Ms. Burwells speech, Republican leaders of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee sent her a letter demanding
detailed information on state-run exchanges that experienced severe
problems. The lawmakers first requested the information in early June.
Five of those states Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota
and Oregon received a total of more than $1 billion in federal grants.

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