It’s been reported previously that the administration’s touted alternatives to enrolling in Obamacare — paper and phone applications — are hitting the same snags that Healthcare.gov is. Newly released internal memos, however, reveal that officials knew as far back as Oct. 11 that the alternatives aren’t really viable at all, and that the paper ones exist mostly to make people feel like they’re accomplishing something.
First reported by ABC News, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released documents Monday showing that a federal agency tasked with helping implement much of Obamacare knew that all avenues of the application process were hamstrung. In short, ‘all roads lead to Healthcare.gov;’ no matter how one applies, the enrollment process’ ultimate destination is through the web portal, whether it’s a customer interacting with the website directly, a call center employee on the other end of the phone inputting a caller’s personal information, or a worker receiving a paper application to do the same.
What’s more, one of the memos cops to the fact that the paper applications practically function as a self-esteem booster for frustrated customers, and little more.
“The paper applications allow people to feel like they are moving forward in the process and provides another option,” the memo from the Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight says. “At the end of the day, we are all stuck in the same queue.”
A different memo dated Oct. 15 goes on to detail that in light of individuals beginning to give up on the enrollment process, Obamacare ‘navigators’ had turned more to paper applications “to protect their reputations as people in the communities who can help, even though the paper applications will not have a quicker result necessarily.”
In an Oct. 21 speech — days after the aforementioned memos were dated — the president promoted paper and phone applications as reliable, working alternatives to Healthcare.gov.
“Yesterday, we updated the website’s home page to offer more information about the other avenues to enroll in affordable health care until the online option works for everybody,” Obama said in his remarks. “So you’ll find information about how to talk to a specialist who can help you apply over the phone or to receive a downloadable application you can fill out yourself and mail in.”
Turns out that those options serve little practical purpose, since they ultimately lead to Healthcare.gov, no matter how indirectly.
ABC News’ Jon Karl, who reported the memos, pressed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the issue in an animated exchange during the daily briefing Monday afternoon. In the back and forth, Carney said that the phone system was set up to alleviate Americans from the dissatisfaction they had experienced with the website.
“They can get on the phone and call, and the paperwork is filled out for them, and the process is taken over from there,” Carney said to Karl in a booming voice.
“And when do they enroll?” Karl asked back, steering the conversation toward the basic point of the application process: enrollment.
“When their paperwork is processed through Healthcare.gov,” Carney replied, “but they don’t have to go online to do it, is the point, Jon. That was the whole purpose of while we are fixing the website, making it meet the standards that we set, that Americans had this alternative way with beefed up staffing and new rules allowing the call centers to do this, the individuals on the call in centers to do this, to provide that relief to Americans who are frustrated by the experience.”
(h / t to The Blaze for the briefing video.)
This piece has been updated to include new information.
