Defying Obamacare: ‘Send them the bill,’ NM insurance official says

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog

SANTA FE – One New Mexico insurance official has had it with the botched Obamacare rollout.

Worried that time is running out for some 1,500 patients in New Mexico’s high-risk pool and frustrated with healthcare.gov, Jason Sandel suggests defying an edict from the Affordable Care Act to move those patients into individual policies by Dec. 15.

“Keep them in the (high-risk) pool and send the bill to the federal government and tell them to pay for them,” Sandel, vice-chairman of the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool board, told New Mexico Watchdog on Wednesday night.

“I’m advocating not to transition them. It’s every state for themselves at this point,” Sandel said in a telephone interview. “We have to protect New Mexicans.”

As New Mexico Watchdog reported last week, of the roughly 10,000 patients in the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool some 1,500 hold federal policies, which will be terminated because of provisions within Obamacare.

For their new policies to be in effect by Jan. 1, people must sign up for individual policies with the federal government by Dec. 15.

But Sandel said many haven’t been able to sign up for individual policies because of the troubled website.

Saying, “I’m still staying awake at night concerned about the 1,500 people in New Mexico transitioning from the pool to the federal site,” Sandel is becoming increasingly convinced the troubles with the website won’t be fixed by the end of this month, despite promises from the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Tuesday, the Washington Post cited an unnamed official who believes the website’s software problems are so stubborn the system is unlikely to be working at full capacity by Nov. 30.

Even if healthcare.gov were fully operational by the month’s end, 1,500 people in New Mexico would have barely two weeks to transition and sign up for new policies under the ACA.

“I’m not willing to transition people to a system that is simply not functioning,” Sandel said.

Sandel admits his proposal to simply defy the federal government is a bold one — “I guess it’s my bit of civil disobedience,” he said — but the recommendation is on the agenda for the next meting of the high-risk insurance board, scheduled Dec. 5 in Albuquerque.

“These are (potentially) critically ill New Mexicans,” Sandel said. “My dad raised me to believe we should keep our promises, and I intend on keeping true to our promise to these people.”

Contact Rob Nikolewski at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @robnikolewski