Alex Azar, President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, pushed back Wednesday against accusations from Democrats that the administration was working to “sabotage” Obamacare.
“We share the same goals, but we disagree on the approaches and tactics to get there,” Azar said about health insurance coverage.
Azar also appeared to tell Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., that he supported repealing the individual mandate penalties under Obamacare, which require Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine. The repeal provision is in the tax bill that Senate Republicans will vote to amend later Wednesday.
“What I do not support is forcing … Americans to buy a product they don’t want to buy,” Azar said.
Democrats were questioning Azar during his confirmation hearing in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to weigh his nomination to become HHS secretary, in which he would oversee a broad array of agencies as well as the implementation of Obamacare.
Democrats have accused the Trump administration of Obamacare “sabotage” because of Trump’s comments on Twitter about allowing Obamacare to “implode” and in light of changes the Trump administration has made to open enrollment, the period during which customers can sign up for tax-subsidized medical coverage.
The administration cut the funding for advertising of open enrollment and for navigators who help people sign up. It also shortened the open enrollment period from 90 to 45 days, a change that hadn’t been planned until next year’s open enrollment. Trump in October ended cost-sharing reduction payments, which help reimburse insurers for offering lower out-of-pocket medical costs to their customers.
Asked by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., about the cost-sharing payments, Azar replied that the decision was made because of a legal issue. Cutting advertising made sense, he asserted, because the budget should be the same as that involved with Medicare signups. Azar said he believed that health insurers should advertise their products instead.
“At some point, these insurance companies have to do their own doggone job,” he said.
“My point is, if something isn’t working, why are we funding it? If for the navigator program if some of those vendors aren’t delivering, why keep funding it? That would be my perspective.”
Sen. Patty Murray, the top-ranking Democrat of the HELP Committee, said she was concerned about some of the answers from Azar regarding Obamacare. The role of health insurance companies was not to sign up sicker or poorer customers, she said, arguing that was the government’s job.
Azar said several times during the hearing that his answers were hypotheses about why decisions on Obamacare were made, and that he didn’t know because he hadn’t reviewed the documentation at HHS. The decisions may have been associated with budget limitations, he said.
The decisions about Obamacare enrollment were made under former Secretary Tom Price, who was open about his opposition to Obamacare in his former role as a Republican congressman from Georgia. Price resigned from his role last month after it was revealed that the government paid more than $1 million for his travel because he took charter jets rather than flying commercial.
The Trump administration has argued that navigators are ineffective at signing people up for coverage and has said they failed to reach their goals in past years. In 2016, the data show, navigators received $62.5 million in federal grants to enroll 81,426 people, which represents 0.7 percent of total Obamacare enrollees. Seventeen navigators enrolled fewer than 100 people each, and the top 10 most costly navigators spent $2.77 million to enroll 314 people. One grantee received $200,000 and enrolled one person.
Navigators have pushed back on such figures, saying that their role extends beyond signing people up for coverage and includes talking to potential customers about the program and taking calls from those who have questions about how the program works.
Azar stressed that he believed that people should have health insurance they can afford.
“I want the programs to work for people … Of course I do. I want to make sure as many people have affordable insurance as possible,” he said.
Murray, of Washington state, appeared unsatisfied by his responses, saying only that she was “confused” by his answers.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asked similar questions.
“Is your testimony today that this is all in service of the ACA to make it better?” Murphy asked, using the formal name for Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., aimed to draw parallels between Price and Azar, saying their confirmation hearings contained similar answers.
“Tom Price lied through his confirmation hearing, and now you come in here and you say the same things,” she said. “No one should be fooled.”
