Ignore the Missing $15 Billion

Last week, I was reading an article on MSNBC. Just to be clear – this isn’t Fox News. The article (read it here) addressed the cost of premiums in a plan particularly geared toward people with pre-existing conditions. The goal is to provide their insurance at the same rate a healthy person would pay. But the big shocker according to the headlines: It could be costly!

Now it seems to me that this has been a concern all along. Where was this guy when other people outside the government administration were saying this? When I first read the article, I genuinely thought the reporter was shocked to learn this news. And perhaps he was. But I guess not everyone knows this yet, or it wouldn’t be news.

Toward the end of the article, I noticed that $5 billion has been allocated toward these plans. But here’s the alarming part because according to the author, “Technical experts who advise Congress and the administration have warned the funds could be exhausted as early as the end of 2011.” Surprise, surprise, the officials avoided the question. But that’s a big problem, potentially to the tune of $15 billion, or perhaps more. If we run out of money, how are we going to pay for it? And who are these technical experts, and why didn’t the say something sooner?

So that’s the first question I needed answered. (My next blog will go into the second question, but both questions went to the same person.)

If you read yesterday’s blog, this is one of the questions I wanted answered by Bayh’s office. Of course, the person I spoke to didn’t seem to know anything and he told me to call HHS (Health and Human Services).

On Thursday, I did just that. I called the HHS Hotline, only to be redirected to another phone number. After listening to a lengthy explanation, I was told to call back during normal business hours (which were what?) and not to leave a message. Huh? Maybe their mantra should be, “You have questions, we won’t answer the phone, and we’ll delete any message you leave.”

Today (Friday), I decided to call back. The same message. So I went to the Hotline number again to find out what the hours were. (I did check the website, but couldn’t find any listed.) And here’s our fine government at work:

“Didn’t you write down that phone number yesterday?”
“Yes, but they aren’t answering. I would like to know their hours of operation?”
“My job is only to give you the phone number, and I did that.”
“Yes, but they aren’t answering the phone. I need to know their hours so I know when I can call.”
“That’s not my job. I’ll transfer you now.”
“Can I speak to your…” (music on line)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m persistent, especially when treated this way. I remembered from the past two messages at HHS that there was a phone number for a press contact, so I listened to the entire message a third time until I got that number. And I called them.

The lady was helpful, but couldn’t answer my questions. She did give me a name and phone number of a person I could contact, though. And to protect his identity, for now, I’ll just use his initials, BB. (If I don’t hear back from him, I’ll consider posting his name and phone number here for everyone to call.)

BB answered immediately, and after reading him the quote from the article, I asked him my first question: “What are we going to do if we run out of money?”

The answer was quite simple.

“At this point, it’s too early to get alarmed about it. We’ll worry about it if it happens.”
“So you don’t have a backup plan?”
“I didn’t say that. There are some things the Secretary can do if we have problems.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, we don’t need to worry about it at this point.”

Don’t we ever learn anything? If BP wanted to drill for more oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and someone asked what they’d do if some accident created a major oil leak, what would we do if they said, “Well, we haven’t even built anything yet. It will be several years before there’s a problem. We can look at it then.”? It wouldn’t matter what we would do because it would be too late. Let’s wake up!

So I continued my line of questioning. “Well, if the experts are off by a magnitude of 100%, that will only get us through 2012. We still won’t make it to 2014.”

“The Secretary has some options if that should happen.”

As tax-paying citizens, I believe we have a right to know what those plans are. We’ve been told we need to keep our politicians honest, to hold their feet to the fire. So why can’t I know what the options are?

This much I do know, though. If there aren’t some plans in the works, we’ll be gushing dollars a lot faster than any oil spill ever did.

And check back tomorrow for the second question.