Oversight Report on Obamacare Navigator Program Reveals Mismanagement and Lax Oversight, Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, 12/16/2013

"WASHINGTON – The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today released a new staff report on the Obama Administration’s Navigator and Assister program in conjunction with today’s field hearing in Dallas, Texas. The report explains how the Administration’s serious mismanagement of these outreach programs exposes Americans to fraud and poses a threat to the safety of consumers’ personal information.

The Navigator program was created by ObamaCare as an outreach program to encourage and facilitate enrollment in health insurance exchanges. The Assister program was created by the Administration with dubious legal authority as a way around ObamaCare’s clear statutory prohibition on using federal exchange establishment funds on Navigators.

Months before the launch of ObamaCare on October 1, the Oversight Committee initiated an investigation into potential problems with the Navigator and Assister program. The Committee released a preliminary staff report in September that highlighted the significant risks for fraud, abuse, and misinformation due to the lack of background checks, inadequate training standards, and weak Administration oversight plan for Navigators and Assisters.

The new report makes clear that U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials lacked a contingency plan for the Navigator and Assister program after HealthCare.gov failed, leaving consumers open to the risk of identity theft due to confusion surrounding enrollment for health exchanges."

Link to the entire Congressional report appears below:

http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-report-obamacare-navigator-program-reveals-mismanagement-lax-oversight/