U.S. says HealthCare.gov enrollment appeal hearings to begin soon

The Obama administration on Monday said it will soon begin hearings to resolve problems for people who enrolled in health insurance through the Obamacare website HealthCare.gov, only to encounter errors including unnecessarily high costs. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the lead agency responsible for implementing the healthcare reform law, issued a statement saying it was reaching out to consumers with error-ridden enrollments to help them complete applications for coverage without a formal appeal. The statement came in response to a Washington Post report that said about 22,000 Americans have appealed to CMS for help fixing enrollment mistakes that have led to excessive charges, enrolled them in the wrong health plan, or denied them coverage altogether. The appeals have hit a technological dead end, the newspaper reported, because the administration has yet to complete the technology infrastructure necessary to manage the appeals process.