Democratic Unease Grows on Health Law - Lawmakers Cite Website Woes in Call for Delay in Penalties for the Uninsured

From The Wall Street Journal:

The hard line Democrats have drawn against delaying a core element of the federal health law has begun to crack, as problems with the new federal insurance website prompted calls for President Barack Obama to delay penalties on people who don't carry health coverage.

Democratic leaders in Congress and Mr. Obama have defended the minimum penalty of $95 in 2014 as crucial to inducing uninsured Americans to sign up for coverage, and the party held firm against Republican demands to delay or eliminate the coverage requirement that provoked this month's partial government shutdown.

Late Wednesday, the Obama administration said it would establish what amounts to a six-week extension in the time people have to obtain insurance coverage before incurring a penalty, responding to what some have described as a lack of clarity in the law over the deadline.

The penalty for failure to carry insurance is at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Insurers say individuals—particularly younger, healthier people—must be coaxed to buy insurance so that carriers aren't left with a risk pool of predominantly older and sicker people.

The federal government is running exchanges on behalf of 36 states that chose not to operate them directly. The 14 states that opted to run their own exchanges have generally had fewer problems, although that varies among the states.

Two Democrats who long have opposed the penalty called Wednesday for it to be delayed. In doing so, Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Rep. John Barrow (D., Ga.) joined a longtime supporter of the law, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), who on Tuesday had urged the White House to consider extending enrollment deadlines and waiving the tax penalty for consumers who don't sign up for insurance.

In clarifying the penalty deadlines Wednesday, the administration said people won't incur the penalty as long as they sign up for coverage by March 31, 2014, the last day of the official open-enrollment period. A complicated wrinkle in the law had suggested that most people would have to sign up by Feb. 14 to avoid a penalty for the year.

Comments from some Democrats suggested that they were worried that the administration could change course even as they were defending the individual mandate and the deadlines in the law. "I am perfectly willing to defend technological glitches, but I think if there's any contemplation of a mission change we should know about it," said Rep. Richard Neal (D., Mass.).

Supporters of the health law noted Wednesday that this isn't the first time a large government program has gotten off to a rocky start. Commerce committee Democrats released a six-page memo detailing how the rollout of the Medicare prescription drug plan in 2005 also ran into problems which required some short delays.

"The problems that occurred during the implementation of Medicare Part D do not excuse the difficulties that the public is experiencing with the HealthCare.gov website. But they do illustrate that stumbles during the launch of major programs have occurred in the past and have been successfully overcome," the Democratic memo says.