Becky Yeh - California correspondent (OneNewsNow.com) Friday, October 18, 2013

Analyst: Expect a disaster when gov't takes over healthcare

House Republicans are planning to investigate the October 1 launch of the federal health insurance marketplace under ObamaCare.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and contractors why the launch of the marketplace proved to be disastrous, because prior to that day, officials claimed the technology associated with the marketplace would run smoothy.

USA Today reported Thursday that, according to some technology experts, the federal healthcare exchange was built using technolgy that is at least ten years old.

Twila Brase, co-founder of the Citizens' Council For Health Freedom (CCHF), tells OneNewsNow that while "the exchange rollout is a technological disaster ... it has provided a perfect example of how poorly healthcare would run under the federal government and how insecure our most private data would be."

Users who accessed the federal marketplace, Healthcare.gov, on Day 1 experienced technical issues with the website; and weeks later, those problems have not been resolved. And while Republicans speculated about the readiness of the marketplace leading up to the launch date, officials promised them everything would be operating by October 1.

Brase finds the rough start telling, as she questions how the government expects to control medical treatment when it cannot even get a key ObamaCare feature to work.

"The ObamaCare rollout disaster shows just how disastrous this would be if the federal government is allowed to run our entire healthcare system," she asserts.

Her group warns that the glitches experienced with the enrollment process may jeopardize the private, personal, financial and health information users enter into the system.

"What I see is a federal malfunction leading to delays, denials, errors and data, and no one to talk to when problems occur in enrollment," Brase states. "And that's just enrollment. What will happen when the federal government controls medical treatment, too?"

Officials claim the immediate glitches were due to hastily-crafted software and an untested hub. In fact, CCHF notes that the hub made inaccurate eligibility determinations for federal subsidies, which brings into question the reliability of the entire system.

"If the administration has its way, the exchange will lead to a single-seller system of national healthcare, where everyone has nowhere else to go for insurance," the healthcare freedom advocate explains. "And the exchange will control how doctors practice medicine."

The federal marketplace was supposed to provide 36 states with a one-stop site to comparison shop for health insurance. And though the government had three and a half years to plan for the launch, along with billions awarded in contracts, Brase notes that it still is not operating up to par.

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