White House Seeks to Ease Obamacare Fraud Fears (244 hits)
Sep 20, 2013 The White House unveiled several steps this week to protect consumers from fraud in the new online health insurance marketplaces, a move that comes after 17 states hostile to the law acted to limit the spread of information about the program, and congressional Republicans raised concerns about the privacy of medical and financial records. "We are sending a clear message that we will not tolerate anyone seeking to defraud consumers in the health insurance marketplace," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Senior administration officials acknowledged the potential for scams with any new government program, including the Obamacare marketplaces that open for enrollment Oct. 1 and are expected to help 7 million Americans get coverage next year. But they stressed that the health law's new "navigators" -- federally-paid groups that help people enroll in coverage -- do not represent a significant risk and that Medicare has used such guides for years without problems or controversy. The announcement was unlikely to appease the law's opponents, however -- among them, Oklahoma's top insurance regulator, John Doak, who has already put navigator groups on notice.
