HHS Releases Taxpayer Funded Propaganda, Ignores States’ Questions

WASHINGTON, DC – In a mere two months, states will be required to submit an application detailing whether they plan to establish the insurance exchanges mandated in the president’s health care law; for those states that choose not to take on this regulatory burden, the alternative will be a federally run system. Similarly, states will soon be forced to decide whether to undertake a massive expansion of the Medicaid program that could increase state costs by at least $118 billion. However, HHS has yet to outline the rules of the road, leaving states with many unanswered questions. In August, the Energy and Commerce Committee pushed CMS to answer outstanding questions from members of Congress, the Republican Governors Association, and the National Association of Medicaid Directors regarding the law’s state exchanges and Medicaid expansion rules by September 3. The deadline has come and gone and still no word.

This week, we received some insight into how the politicos at HHS are spending the time that is not being used to respond to state and congressional requests. Using taxpayer-funded resources, HHS released a new report that reads like propaganda clearly designed to sell the unpopular health care law to the American people. The substance of the HHS report is debatable, and the fact that the administration is prioritizing propaganda over providing states important guidelines to implement the law is of even greater concern.

The regulatory uncertainty is crippling states’ ability to plan for the very near future. Perhaps the administration should spend more time answering the questions of our nation’s governors who are faced with the onerous mandates required by this administration and less time pushing out dubious reports designed to sell an unpopular law.

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