<\/p>\n
\nThe letter from Washington arrived on Laura Line’s desk Wednesday, three weeks after her nonprofit won a federal grant to help consumers make sense of the health-insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act and four weeks before they were to open for business.<\/p>\n
It gave her nine days to provide Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce with all details and documents, electronic and paper, in her possession and not, involving the $953,716 her organization is getting to assist with health-insurance enrollment in 10 Pennsylvania counties.<\/p>\n
"The letter doesn’t concern us; it just adds to our workload," said Line, corporate assistant director for health care at Resources for Human Development, a national social services organization based in Philadelphia. "We are working at an incredible pace to try to be ready for Oct. 1," she said. "It will definitely distract us from what we are trying to do, which is to get health-insurance coverage for uninsured and underinsured residents who qualify in the marketplace."<\/p>\n
Republicans said the letter was an attempt to protect tax dollars and personal medical information. Democrats said it was intended to sow confusion and undermine health reform.<\/p>\n
The vitriol and hyperpartisanship that accompanied President Obama’s health overhaul at first seemed to be largely rooted in Washington, where it was passed on party-line votes in 2010 and largely upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012. When that decision made optional the law’s main provision for insuring low-income people – an expansion of Medicaid – much of the battle shifted to state capitals.<\/p>\n
Now, with the six-month open-enrollment period approaching for the insurance-exchange marketplaces, opponents are aiming at community organizations that will be working with consumers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n