Goodhair Announces New Obstruction Of Obamacare Signup

Dylan Scott of TPM, yesterday:

Joining a growing conservative movement around the country, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) made a move Tuesday that's likely to impede efforts to sign up the uninsured for health insurance under Obamacare starting next month.

Perry sent a letter to the Texas Department of Insurance outlining new rules for Obamacare's so-called navigators, organizations assigned to help people sign up for coverage, the Texas Tribune reported. Those rules include: 40 hours of mandatory security training on top of federally required training. He also wants navigators to pass a state-administered exam and be subjected to background checks.

...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lambasted Perry's move as a transparently political attempt to impede Obamacare's implementation...

In fact, an HHS official told TPM, part of Perry's guidance — which requires navigators to retain information about consumers who sign up for coverage — would actually violate the privacy regulations established for navigators by HHS.

"This is blatant attempt to add cumbersome requirements to the Navigator program and deter groups from working to inform Americans about their new health insurance options and help them enroll in coverage," HHS spokesman Fabian Levy said in a statement. "This is clearly an ideologically driven attempt to prevent the uninsured from gaining health coverage."

...

(Bolds mine. - SB)

Bad-faith actions by state-level executive branches can effectively throw a spanner in the works of a federal system like ours. It is increasingly obvious that this is the intention of the GOP in Texas and other Republican-dominated states regarding Obamacare. Who would have thought that a GOPer would operate in bad faith... [/sarcasm]