The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half of the new health care law's deadlines, from submitting plans for new, value-based Medicare purchasing programs to publishing criteria for determining the medically underserved. A report requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, indicates that the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies missed 18 of 30 deadlines since the Affordable Care Act was passed in March 2010.
In one instance, a National Healthcare Workforce Commission created by the law was appointed but has not been funded and has not submitted two reports that were due on April 1 and Oct. 1.
In another example, the comptroller general didn't submit to Congress a report on seniors' access to vaccines that was due on June 1.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) searched only publicly available sources to determine whether the deadline had been met and indicated “no public information located”
if nothing was found.“that indication does not necessarily mean that an agency or other federal entity has taken no action toward meeting a deadline,” the report said. “It may be that there has been internal activity, but that CRS was unable to locate any public information about that activity.”
