The Government Accountability Office said Thursday the Trump administration must improve its stewardship of Obamacare’s exchanges, giving Democrats a new opening to advance the argument that Trump is “sabotaging” the law.
The report gives fodder to Democrats’ attacks that the administration is undermining Obamacare by cutting outreach funding in the hopes the law’s insurance exchanges will fail. Democrats have used the cuts to pummel Republicans in political attacks ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
In a joint statement, Democrats Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said that the report “confirms that the Trump Administration’s sabotage of our health care system is driving up costs for consumers and leaving more Americans without health insurance.”
The Democrats had asked for the GAO to review the Trump administration’s oversight of Obamacare’s exchanges after the administration implemented drastic cuts to outreach funding.
The Trump administration cut outreach funding for 2018 open enrollment to $10 million, from $100 million in 2017. It also reduced funding by 42 percent for navigators, nonprofits that sign up people for Obamacare.
The Trump administration oversees the operations for healthcare.gov, which residents in 38 states use to sign up for Obamacare plans. The remaining 12 states and the District of Columbia run their own exchanges.
[Also read: Trump administration gives $8.6 million to states to help with Obamacare]
GAO said that the Trump administration needed to set a goal for enrollment, which the Obama administration did but Trump abandoned for the 2018 open enrollment period.
“Setting numeric targets would allow HHS to monitor and evaluate its overall performance, a key aspect of federal internal controls,” the report said.
Overall there were 11.7 million people who signed up for Obamacare for 2018 coverage during open enrollment last year, below the 12.2 million that signed up for 2017 coverage.
While the administration said it wanted to improve the consumer experience on healthcare.gov, the GAO found the follow-through was wanting. For instance, Health and Human Services didn’t “measure aspects of the consumer experience it had identified as key in 2017, such as successful outreach events.”
GAO also dinged HHS’ allocation of funding for navigators. The agency spent $37 million for the 2018 open enrollment for navigators. The Obama administration gave navigators $63 million for open enrollment for the 2017 coverage year.
But the Trump administration used unreliable data for allocating the $37 million to navigators.
“The lack of quality data may affect HHS’s ability to effectively manage the navigator program,” GAO said.
HHS sought to dole out funding based on how many people navigators signed up for Obamacare plans. Navigators have said that signing up people for Obamacare is only one of its duties, which also include signing up people for Medicaid.
HHS has decided to cut the navigator program even more for the 2019 coverage year, planning to spend only $10 million on navigators.
GAO, which talked with navigators and other stakeholders such as insurers to make the report, called for three changes: Setting a numeric target for enrollment, improving navigator funding data and improving the user experience on healthcare.gov.
HHS agreed with the navigator and user recommendations but disagreed with the recommendation on setting an enrollment target.
