Lawmakers Call For Investigation Of ‘Do Nothing’ Health Law Workers
GOP Sens. Roy Blunt and Lamar Alexander want an investigation into what's happening at a health law insurance processing center in Kentucky after some employees say they sit idle. Their company, Serco, was awarded up to $1.25 billion to process health law insurance applications.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Workers Hired To Process ACA Applications May Have Sat Idle
Company and government supervisors knew that employees at the tax-funded Affordable Care Act processing center in Wentzville were being paid to do little or no work, former employees said Thursday. And the Missouri facility wasn’t the only one. One worker at the London, Ky., Serco facility told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday that he rarely has any health insurance applications to process (Raasch, 5/16).
Fox News: Lawmakers Urge Probe Of ObamaCare Contractor Paying Workers To 'Do Nothing'
Several lawmakers are calling for an investigation into reports that employees at a center processing applications for health insurance under Obamacare were paid to do nothing. Missouri television station KMOV-TV reported Monday that data entry workers at a Serco Inc. office in Wentzville spent days staring at their computer. The company was awarded up to $1.25 billion to process applications for health insurance through the health care law. Republican Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee sent a letter Wednesday to Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the federal government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in response to the report (5/16).
The Hill: Senators Want Inquiry Into ACA Center Paid To Sit And Hit Refresh
A pair of Republican Senators want an investigation into reports that employees at a Missouri ObamaCare processing center are getting paid to do virtually nothing. Recent reports by St. Louis’s KMOV have revealed employees don't have the workload they expected at the center, which was awarded a $1.25 billion contract to handle paper insurance applications under the Affordable Care Act. However, British outsourcing company Serco, which runs the facility in Wentzville, Mo., has allegedly told employees to stay put and continue refreshing their computers for new cases (Al-Faruque, 5/15).
In other news from Capitol Hill -
CBS News: Could Kathleen Sebelius Be Held In Contempt Of Congress?
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday that she could face consequences -- including a contempt vote -- if her department does not comply with a subpoena issued over six months ago about the rocky Obamacare rollout. After the health care law's debut last fall, which was marred by massive technological glitches, Issa and other Republicans sought documents from HHS related to the problems with the rollout. The Oversight Committee fixed an Oct. 24, 2013 deadline for the department to comply. After that deadline came and went, Issa issued a subpoena on Oct. 30, and HHS vowed to comply (Miller, 5/15).