The Self-Proclaimed ‘Most Transparent Administration In History’ Lacks Transparency!

Once again, the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration in history” is being less than transparent, this time in its operation of the federal Obamacare exchange website, and that could negatively affect consumers.

In a piece titled, “HealthCare.gov Still Suffers From Lack of Transparency,” ,” The New York Times reports, “[H]ere’s one big hurdle [for the website]: The site still won’t have any tools to allow consumers to see which doctors and hospitals are covered by individual insurance plans. [new Healthcare.gov CEO Kevin] Counihan told [Bloomberg News’ Alex] Wayne that HealthCare.gov would not change to allow consumers to comparison shop on insurance plan networks.

“Plans that limit patients’ choices of doctors and hospitals have turned out to be the signature product of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. . . . The proliferation of these plans is not a surprise. As we’ve written before, the combination of new regulations and insurers’ desire to keep prices low have made the plans, known as narrow networks, an attractive option for insurers seeking to offer affordable choices.”

And some insurers are narrowing their networks even further. As the Los Angeles Times noted last week, “Finding a doctor who takes Obamacare coverage could be just as frustrating for Californians in 2015 as the health-law expansion enters its second year. The state's largest health insurers are sticking with their often-criticized narrow networks of doctors, and in some cases they are cutting the number of physicians even more, according to a Times analysis of company data.”

Consumers, though, are being left in the dark about which doctors are on which plan. As the NYT explains, “[T]here’s no easy way to compare the doctors and hospitals that are covered by plans without researching each one individually — by calling the companies or searching on their websites. Even the dedicated shopper willing to do that extra work may find it frustrating. Insurers may offer different networks for different products, which is not always clear. The lists of hospitals and doctors are also often out of date.” And in California, the LA Times pointed out, “[T]he state's insurance exchange, Covered California, still has no comprehensive directory to help consumers match doctors with health plans. . . . [M]any patients continue to complain about being offered fewer choices of doctors and having no easy way to find the ones that are available.”

The NY Times story also points to some of the practical impacts of the combination of narrow networks and lack of information for the public. “This year, many people appear to have signed up for narrow plans unwittingly. A survey from the health research group the Commonwealth Fund found that about 25 percent of people with new exchange plans didn’t even know whether they’d bought a narrow network plan. . . . Stories like those recently> chronicled . . . of patients surprised to learn after the fact that they had been treated by out-of-network doctors, seem likely to proliferate if poor transparency about networks prevails.”

But it’s not just on the consumer side that the Obamacare exchange lacks transparency. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The new HealthCare.gov is set to open up for broad testing by insurers on Tuesday. But they’re not going to be talking—or tweeting—about it. On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent out an emailed alert that informed insurers that it would require ‘all testers to acknowledge the confidentiality of this process in order to access the testing environment,’ according to a copy viewed by the Journal. . . .

“The agency didn’t require such an agreement of insurers last year ahead of the launch of HealthCare.gov, a CMS spokesman confirmed. Last fall, early hints about the troubled launch of the federal marketplace emerged weeks before it went live on Oct. 1. Insurance executives and other sources pointed to potential problems. . . .

“The email alert spells out exactly what is expected of participants: Insurance-industry officials ‘will not use, disclose, describe, post to a public form, or in any way share Test Data with any person or entity, including but not limited to the media,’ unless the recipient has also agreed to the confidentiality provisions. The new confidentiality agreement isn’t just covering the industry data that will be included in the marketplace’s testing environment. It also covers ‘results of this testing exercise and any information describing or otherwise relating to the performance or functionality’ of HealthCare.gov.”

It sounds like the “most transparent administration in history” doesn’t want stories of more snafus, glitches, and broken systems with the Obamacare websites causing political problems like they did last year.

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