Finance Hearing Statement: Reviewing HealthCare.gov Controls

WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) issued the following statement on the Senate Finance Committee’s hearing on HealthCare.gov.

“I believe that if something isn’t perfect, we should work together to make it better, and that is certainly the case for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The health care reform law isn’t perfect, but it’s providing access to health care for millions of Americans, while improving health outcomes and driving down overall costs. It’s absolutely clear that we’ve made significant progress in improving our country’s health care system, but it’s also absolutely critical that we continue to identify ways to improve programs that aren’t working as well as they could be.

“I look forward to hearing from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) today about its recent review of HealthCare.gov and learn more about how we can strengthen our efforts to provide health insurance to more Americans. However, the GAO itself has noted that its findings are based on a very small set of invented scenarios and, therefore, are not generalizable or representative of a typical experience with the federal marketplace.

“Millions of Americans are enrolling in health insurance plans through the state and federal marketplaces, so we must be attentive to the security and efficiency of the sites they’re using. I am hopeful that the committee’s attention to this issue will encourage my Republican colleagues to begin working with us to find productive and sensible ways to guard against bad actors, and improve the state and federal marketplaces for the millions of Americans now relying on them.”

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