HHS Tells Congressional Republicans to Grow Up


Today brings a shot across the bow from the Obama administration. Not against Syria, though. It’s against congressional Republicans, who sent a letter last week to all the organizations that had won grants to become Obamacare “Navigators.” The letter demanded that the grantees answer a long list of questions just as they’re ramping up for the October 1 rollout of the exchanges and preparing for their primary task of helping people navigate the various Obamacare websites, explaining the subsidies and benefits, and assisting with signups.

It was pretty plain from the start that Republicans didn’t actually have any serious questions for these folks. They just wanted to put yet another roadblock in the way of a successful rollout of Obamacare—and while they’re at it, perhaps do a favor for their insurance agent friends who are afraid that navigators might actually provide good advice and allow people to shop around more effectively. So today, Sarah Kliff reports, HHS pre-empted the whole thing with a letter to Republicans answering their questions on behalf of navigators everywhere.

“We are concerned about the timing of your inquiry given its potential to interfere with the Navigators’ ability to carry out their crucial efforts in assisting Americans who lack health insurance,” wrote Jim Esquea, assistant secretary for legislation at HHS, making it clear that he understood perfectly well that the “potential to interfere” was the whole point of the questionnaire in the first place. He finished off the letter with yet another not-so-subtle fuck you: “We trust that our response fully addresses your questions,” he wrote, knowing that Republicans don’t actually care about the substance of his answers even an iota. They just thought they were being clever.

Poor Esquea probably had to work the weekend to put all this together, but I suppose that’s the life of an assistant secretary for you. What’s more interesting, perhaps, is that it’s increasingly clear that Republicans have settled on long questionnaires as yet another obstructionist strategy more generally. It began earlier this year in the Senate with a series of insanely long questionnaires for a variety of President Obama’s nominees, culminating with the spectacular list of 1,000 questions they had for Gina McCarthy, Obama’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Apparently everyone was so pleased with how this worked that the House decided to get in on the action too. Thus the smug questionnaire they sent to all the Navigator organizations.

The ball is now back in the Republicans’ court, and I have no doubt that we’re going to hear plenty of yelps today about how Obama is dissing Congress and is betraying the constitutional separation of powers, etc. etc. The usual. But it won’t do any good. They were caught being too clever by half, and they know it.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate