Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius faces the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning at 10. It will be painful to watch or a good bit of sport, depending on your opinion of the Affordable Care Act.
Wonder if she will be asked (as CMS chief Marilyn Tavenner was yesterday) if she has signed up for healthcare through the federal exchange? You can watch the hearing live on the House website and read the secretary’s prepared testimony here.
We asked readers and colleagues what one question Sebelius has to answer today. Here is what they said.
“…do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”
– Roy J. Orr, Business Development and Supply Chain Services at Salem Health
“Why are so many claims that were made before the ACA was passed not true?” Specifically, ability to keep existing insurance, choice of docs, cost of insurance. Pathetic. I’m for insuring all but shouldn’t be at detriment to rest.”
– David Lee Scher MD, @dischermd
“What specific incremental improvements are going to be made in the next 4 weeks? I want to hear about the little issues that are gonna get fixed in the next four weeks and that will give me confidence that we’re going to get there.”
– Rick Altinger, CEO of Glooko, Inc. (Altinger watched his brother sign up and said he was able to, but there were usability problems.)
“I’m less concerned about success of healthcare.gov and more the success of healthcare. Zero actual ACA success stories so far. Why?”
– Dan McQueen, Clinical Systems Analyst, IT Professional, and Nurse for Beth Israel Deaconess
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“Once the website issue is resolved, what is HHS plan to reach out to all consumers, including those newly covered under ACA, to inform them about their new rights under HIPAA to electronically access their health information and to let them know about programs (Meaningful Use) and initiatives (Blue Button) available to them to best make use of these records and manage their care?”
– Nina Hein, project manager, Humetrix
Several people asked about the security of everyone’s data.
“Since the logistical items will simply take time and organizational effort to resolve (but are definitely resolvable), the largest remaining question in my opinion is whether or not the patient information will be secure. Because of the sheer size of their data collection, and in light of the subcontractor issues they have had, what measures have they taken or will they take to ensure that the protected health information is secure?”
– Andrew Ellis, Corporate Attorney at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati
“I would ask how she plans to protect the information that the Department of Health and Human Services gathers from the millions of people who sign up for the exchange? With all the bugs and problems that currently exist, we already know that HHS can’t get the website to run correctly, let alone provide the American people with confidence that when they sign up their information will be protected. Protecting the privacy of millions should be a high priority, and she needs to explain how HHS will develop a roadmap to ensure this happens. It’s quite obvious that there has been little thought put into this problem prior to launching the health exchanges, and it’s a large part of the reason there has been so much backlash.”
– Brian Dean, privacy manager at SecureState
Kev Coleman, the head of research and data at HealthPocket, could not hold himself to just one question.
- Has a non-governmental third party thoroughly validated the security measures implemented within the exchange software and its associated data center environment?
- Was CGI the first choice to build the federal exchange and, if not, why was the vendor decision changed?
- Leading up to the October 1 launch, did CGI discuss the possibility of changing what features would be delivered, increasing staff in order to deliver features, or extending deadlines to deliver features?
- What usability tests were performed on the federal exchange prior to launch and what were the results?
Neither could Jonathan Govette, co-founder at referralMD.
- What hosting site did you choose for database and how was it tested to insure scaling? Was there a private beta (open to public, not just your staff) before launch day to test for bugs and design flaws?
- How was feedback gathered on the project, can you release the project stories?
“With any software release to the public there are bound to be glitches, that is the common nature of launch day,” he added. “But the question is why are non-IT people assigned to such important roles without the backing of talented programmers leading the team is beyond me.”
And perhaps the best question that will not get asked:
“Any technologist will tell you there must be a soft launch prior to any “going live.” My question, why did they rush going live when they knew it wasn’t ready? People aren’t buying insurance until Jan 2014 so it just seems they missed a major opportunity to actually deliver value from day 1. With all the millions that is being spent on this why didn’t they have enough man (or technology) power to push the system to its limit?”
– Clark Lagemann, COO of Myhint.co
