Friday, January 13, 2012

Obamacare Lacking Transparency AGAIN

The five Republicans leading the relevant Committees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate sent a letter to HHS today asking questions about the essential health benefits “bulletin” released just before the holidays.  The letter asks HHS why the Department issued a “bulletin” rather than a proposed rule, and if doing so was designed to avoid issuing a cost-benefit analysis of the impact of the essential health benefits.  The letter also asks why the Department released this critically important “bulletin” on a Friday right before the holidays – the slowest time in the news cycle – and told lobbyists and special interest groups of the substance of the “bulletin” BEFORE notifying Congress.

The letter to HHS comes one week after a Mercatus Center series concluded that the economic analyses included in Obamacare rules published in 2010 was seriously lacking.  And it also comes after Politico in December noted how HHS held a special conference call for “stakeholders,” according to “consumer and patient advocates” (read: pro-Obamacare interest groups), prior to notifying Congress about the proposal.

Recall that this Administration pledged itself to be the “most transparent” in history, promising “an unmatched level of transparency, participation, and accountability.”  Candidate Obama even promised to televise all health care negotiations on C-SPAN.  Today’s letter once again illustrates how far Obamacare has fallen short of Obama’s good government pledges.