The Obama administration will announce measures to reassure Americans about the privacy and security of the rules they submit when they join insurance under President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, officials said on Wednesday.
The administration plans to promote a toll-free telephone number to report fraud or attempted identity theft under the law, and expects to launch measures equivalent to a web based identification-verification system to preserve taxpayer-funded subsidies from going to criminals, officials said.
Online medical health insurance exchanges, a key means to enroll an estimated 7 million uninsured Americans for next year, are to open across the country on Oct. 1, and the administration is scrambling to surmount political and operational obstacles to get them running on time. People have until March to join coverage next year.
Technology experts have cited the opportunity of fraud and abuse as factors that may complicate or delay the implementation of the exchanges, and opponents of the law have seized on those worries.
Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Edith Ramirez and other federal and state officials were to talk about the privacy and security issues at White House meeting on Wednesday, officials said.
That should be followed by events this week at the Justice Department and at the Federal Trade Commission aimed at reassuring Americans that their personal information could be safe and to publicize how you can report criminal activity, they said.
Republicans are waging a dogged fight against the Affordable Care Act, mostly is called Obamacare. They've got made delaying or defunding Obamacare a top priority and wish to make that a condition for passing federal government spending bills or an increase contained in the nation’s debt limit.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, in August expressed concern regarding the potential for privacy violations, and Florida recently placed restrictions on counselors trained to aid people enroll in healthcare, citing concerns concerning the theft of non-public information.
Implementation of Obamacare so far were faced a series of delays. Most recently, the administration held back the signing of final agreements with insurance to be sold on the exchanges, probably due to technology problems.
Administration officials have said repeatedly that the marketplaces would begin on time. But the Oct. 1 deadline has begun to falter in some places at the state level, with Oregon announcing plans to scale back the launch of its own marketplace.
Meanwhile, California has said it'll be ready for full enrollment in time.
