Analysis: HHS has missed nearly half of healthcare law’s deadlines

The Health and Human Services Department has missed nearly half of its legal deadlines while implementing President Obama’s healthcare law, according to an analysis by the American Action Forum.

HHS has faced 42 statutory deadlines in the roughly two years since the Affordable Care Act became law — and it missed 20 of them, according to the AAF’s count.

The highest-profile item on the list of missed deadlines is the CLASS, or Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, program, which would have provided insurance for long-term care such as nursing-home stays. But HHS decided not to implement the program, saying it simply couldn’t work as it was written.

Aside from CLASS, federal regulators have at least begun work on all of the provisions AAF identified. Several have been finalized, but later than the law had called for.

For example, the statue gave HHS one year to implement new rules requiring insurance companies to provide plain-English summaries of their plans. Largely because of delays from a group of state-level advisers, HHS didn’t issue its first proposals for the policy until months after the work was supposed to be finished.

HHS has generally met its statutory deadlines for big-ticket policies like the creation of new state-based insurance exchanges. The exchanges, however, are still running well behind schedule, driven largely by some Republican governors’ refusal to implement any part of the healthcare law until the Supreme Court decides whether the law is constitutional.

HHS defended ithe implementation process.

“The Administration has met and beaten deadlines required by the Affordable Care Act," an HHS spokesman said in a statement. "As a result, 2.5 million young adults have been able stay on their parents’ health insurance, over 5.1 million seniors who have fallen into the Medicare Part D donut hole have seen prescription drug cost relief, uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions are starting to get life-saving coverage, we have the nation’s strongest Patient’s Bill of Rights in place, and some of the worst insurance industry practices are coming to an end. ”

— This post was updated at 8:24 p.m.

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