Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington by Sharyl Attkisson

Author:Sharyl Attkisson [Attkisson, Sharyl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

| The Politics of HealthCare.gov |

(and Covering It)

It’s Thursday, October 31, 2013, and it’s about to be a very scary Halloween for the Obama administration. I’m working the monstrously frightening Obamacare launch.

The administration is withholding most of the relevant public information, whether it’s regarding HealthCare.gov’s tenuous security, failed tests prior to the rollout, or dismal enrollment figures. The key to getting real facts is going to be the congressional committees that have the power to demand documents and issue subpoenas.

Republicans must sense an advantage. This is the most self-assured and aggressive I’ve seen them behave since Senator Obama became president. Previously, Republican house speaker John Boehner has tempered many of his colleagues’ attempts to exploit the administration’s vulnerabilities. He slow-walked their demands for a joint select committee to investigate Benghazi. He delayed subpoenas on Fast and Furious. But the Republican response to the HealthCare.gov susceptibilities is different. Full speed ahead.

Of course, if history accurately predicts the future, the Obama administration will thumb its nose at Congress and its document demands for as long as possible. There are few repercussions to this approach. Republicans usually wring their hands but don’t do much about it. The media shrugs its collective shoulders but stays mute. And the only true enforcement authority is the very administration that’s committing the offenses.

But there are other keepers of revealing information: government contractors that worked on HealthCare.gov. Some of them aren’t so cavalier about ignoring requests from Congress. Some of them will turn over relevant materials. I need to stay close to the essential congressional committees that stand the best chance of getting information that can be released to the public. They’re all in the House: Oversight, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce. My producer Kim Skeen and I hit them up with phone calls and emails. Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce have good background material and context to balance all the information the Obama administration is releasing, but there’s nothing particularly noteworthy from them . . . yet.

But I haven’t heard back from Oversight. Four days pass and they still haven’t responded to my emails and calls. Sometimes that means they’ve got nothing. But it can also mean the opposite. I’m left to guess.

Everyone wants to know what the early Obamacare sign-up figures are. They’re significant because trusted experts I’ve consulted, including well-informed insiders, say the business model relies on two simple factors: the number and quality of customers. First, there needs to be seven million enrollees by March 31, not counting Medicaid customers. That’s roughly 38,000 a day. Second, there needs to be the right mix: plenty of healthy, young enrollees—“young invincibles,” in insurance industry jargon—to balance the cost of older and sicker customers. If either measure falls short, it could jeopardize the entire program. At the very least, premiums skyrocket.

There should be nothing secretive about how many Americans are enrolling: the figures belong to the public. And unlike Benghazi and Fast and Furious, the government can’t withhold the information on the

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