When the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, was signed into law in March 2010, one of the Act’s stipulations was that CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) educate consumers about how the law would work. In September 2011, CMS awarded a three year contract to the popular medical website WebMD to fulfill a portion of this requirement. According to CMS documents, the cost of the three year contract came to just under $14 million.
As CMS gears up for the new open enrollment season for Healthcare.gov, a new contract has been awarded to WebMD for another year, this time at an estimated cost of $650,000. The stated purpose of the ACA/Health Care Priorities Educational Initiative, as it is called, is:
The contract award was made with a “Limited Source Justification,” meaning that CMS did not actively solicit bids for the contract from other providers, but rather determined that WebMD alone adequately met the criteria. The documents site as justification for the award without full competition WebMD’s past work and familiarity with the “intricacies of ACA,” the fact that “healthcare consumers and providers have become accustomed to obtaining information regarding ACA and the Marketplaces from the WebMD and Medscape websites,” and the “best reach of [health care providers] for Continuing Medical Education (CMEs) in the industry.”
