by Jennifer Martinez
The Obama administration has launched a new website that's aimed at taking the guesswork out of finding a health care plan. Called HealthCare.gov, the site is dedicated to helping people navigate their health insurance options and understand the provisions in the recently passed health care reform law.
The website was a requirement listed in the health care law passed in March and the agency had to get the site running by its July 1 deadline. In October, the website will launch a tool that lets people compare pricing of various insurance policy plans they qualify for, a feature that's receiving backlash from some large insurance companies.
Last month, America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's Washington-based lobbying arm, sent a letter to Health and Human Services voicing concerns with the insurance plan information that may be listed in the upcoming feature. For example, the agency asked insurance companies for data about how many claims its health plans deny.
"Providing information about claims denials without providing proper context does not begin to tell the whole story," said AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, who said claims are often denied because a provider sent a duplicate claim or submitted a claim to the wrong health plan.
Currently, the website has a feature that lets people find the public and private health insurance options available to them based on their circumstances and state they live in. After the user completes a short survey about themselves, the tool lists the various health care options they may qualify for.
The site also addresses confusion people may have about what has changed since the health care reform law passed. There's a two minute video explaining the reforms in the law and the site has a tab on the homepage that's dedicated to providing deeper information about the law.
The website also has its own Twitter account @healthcaregov - which had almost 250 followers as of Thursday morning.
"The site makes a system that thrived on complication and confusion easier to understand," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the White House blog. "This kind of transparency helps create informed consumers which increases competition, reduces prices and improves quality."
Though Zirkelbach praised the website on Thursday morning, there's a graphic he found on the site that later upset him. The graphic is of a suitcase stuffed with money that says "Stopping Overpayments to Big Insurance Companies."
"This website is supposed to provide seniors, working families and small employers with objective information on all of their health care options," Zirkbelbach said in an email. "Unfortunately, it also subjects them to campaign-style propaganda."
Comments
Oh goodie, a government website. And, it's going to EXPLAIN the healthcare bill. Let's see that was passed, what? 5 months ago, and of course we already knew what was in it when they voted on it...WHAT? They passed a bill without letting people know what they were sticking them with? I guess that's transparency...TRANSPARENTLY CORRUPT. By the way, how they gonna splain it if the states still have to fill in 1100 fill in the blanks left open in the bill??? HMMMM??
Posted by: Free To Watch Liberals Bankrupt Europe | July 1, 2010 6:17 PM
"A majority of Americans express familiarity with a wide range of provisions of the new health reform law. Among the most widely recognized benefits are the subsidies (72 percent recognize these are included in the law), the provisions requiring guaranteed issue (70 percent), and the ability to keep adult children on their parents’ insurance policy until their midtwenties (69 percent). Also widely acknowledged are the major new mandates and penalties for individuals (67 percent) and employers (70 percent). The only listed item that fewer than half the public recognizes as being in the law is the gender parity provision, which prohibits insurance companies from charging women higher premiums than men (48 percent)."
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8082.cfm
Support for Health Care Reforms continues to creep up, and the implementation of popular measures will only aid and abet that process.
But Hey, how's that whole repeal thingie going, Republicans? Hopefully you'll continue to go all in on that.... along with the pathetically small 27% of the public (the low IQ Republican base nuts) that actually agree with you.
http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/426/kaiserJune10a.png
Posted by: Fat, Drunk and Republican is no way to go through life | July 1, 2010 6:29 PM
That is what all of us have been clamoring for, an open government. This is a beginning and I commend the Obama administration, into its first term of only 17 1/2 months and he fulfilled another campaign promise. No, Republican-Libertarian-T.Baggers he isn't that savior that you so persistently, insist that he is. He is just an American that honors his word and lives up to his promises, when they are achievable. I know one disappointment he is experiencing, at the moment, is the sad fact that the Republicans, in our Senate, left town without helping out the unemployed workers and their families. It was a very sad day in America, on the 4th of July weekend, to witness the Republican-Obstructionists leaving Washington D.C., without helping their fellow American, who are unemployed because of the inept and malfeasance of the Bush&Cheney regime.
That is not the America I have come to know over the past 50 years and it was sad to have to witness such a stunt, showing to our nation, their selfish and destructive, political behavior.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | July 2, 2010 9:01 AM
Oh, great! Just what we need! A government propaganda site paid for with tax dollars. Why do they feel compelled to continue to push for something they've already won? Hmmm.
Posted by: John W. | July 2, 2010 6:00 PM