Yesterday’s congressional oversight hearing on ObamaCare was, to those interested enough to watch, mostly about Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare architect who was caught on video repeatedly bragging to audiences about the level of dishonesty required to pass ObamaCare. Yet the hearing was also called for another reason: the Obama administration had been caught falsifying more enrollment numbers.

To that end Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was also at the hearing to be questioned by the committee. When the enrollment numbers were not meeting their benchmark, the government simply fudged the stats by counting dental plans, thus boosting the numbers by hundreds of thousands of enrollees. There won’t be any real consequences for the government repeatedly lying to the people, and so it won’t stop: central planners cannot keep honest records and still convince the people they are on the right track. Never have, never will.

But Tavenner’s appearance coincided with another revelation that will give her heartburn. The New York Times reports that the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general has concluded his investigation into the availability of doctors for those covered under Medicaid–a major source of insurance coverage expansion under ObamaCare. What he found won’t shock you: enrollees are being lied to, again. The Times explains:

Large numbers of doctors who are listed as serving Medicaid patients are not available to treat them, federal investigators said in a new report.

“Half of providers could not offer appointments to enrollees,” the investigators said in the report, which will be issued on Tuesday.

Many of the doctors were not accepting new Medicaid patients or could not be found at their last known addresses, according to the report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. The study raises questions about access to care for people gaining Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The health law is fueling rapid growth in Medicaid, with enrollment up by nine million people, or 16 percent, in the last year, the department said. Most of the new beneficiaries are enrolled in private health plans that use a network of doctors to manage their care.

Patients select doctors from a list of providers affiliated with each Medicaid health plan. The investigators, led by the inspector general, Daniel R. Levinson, called doctors’ offices and found that in many cases the doctors were unavailable or unable to make appointments.

It’s worth reading the whole story, because it’s just filled with such tidbits. Some are absurd, like the fact that “More than one-third of providers could not be found at the location listed by a Medicaid managed-care plan.” One-third of providers can’t even be found! The rest of the details, though, evince mostly outrage.

What is the result of the fact that Medicaid only pretends to offer health care? Well, the report, summarized by the Times and scheduled for release on Tuesday, offers the kind of brilliant insight we all have come to expect from a federal bureaucracy whose management would have to improve greatly just to be considered mediocre:

“When providers listed as participating in a plan cannot offer appointments, it may create a significant obstacle for an enrollee seeking care,” Mr. Levinson said. “Moreover, it raises questions about the adequacy of provider networks. It suggests that the actual size of provider networks may be considerably smaller than what is presented by Medicaid managed-care plans.”

Yes, when you can’t see your doctor, it “may”–may!–be an obstacle for you. The government apparently believes that Medicaid enrollees consider medical appointments roughly on par with social calls. It “may” be an obstacle to seeking care because, perhaps, the appointment with your doctor was to watch the game together, or some such. If you are actually seeking medical attention, however, the government’s disappearing doctor is always an obstacle.

And I’m not sure it “raises questions about the adequacy of provider networks” so much as it makes declaratory statements about the provider networks, such as: The networks are terrible.

Here’s another one: “a number of obstetricians had wait times of more than one month, and one had wait times of more than two months for an enrollee who was eight weeks pregnant. Such lengthy wait times could result in a pregnant enrollee receiving no prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy.” Completely unacceptable.

The Times, of course, gets a quote from Tavenner in response. Behold: “Inaccurate provider directory data may unnecessarily delay an enrollee from selecting a provider.” Tavenner is, just as a reminder, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. So enrollees are in great hands.

Medicaid is rife with such problems. The government is failing those who come to it for health care. So of course, under Obama, the government decided to put itself in charge of far more of the health sector. It is a general problem that the administration doesn’t know what it’s doing. When that incompetence is applied to health care, it becomes exponentially more dangerous for the citizens the government is supposed to be protecting. Heads should roll. They won’t, but they should.

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