Obama Administration Slashes Obamacare 'Navigator' Training Requirements

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-administration-slashes-obamacare-navigator-training-requirements_745726.html

The problems keep stacking up for the partial implementation of Obamacare on October 1. The Wall Street Journal reports this week that the Department of Health and Human Services has cut back on the number of training hours required for the Obamacare "navigators," federal workers who under the health care law are tasked with helping consumers purchase insurance through the state exchanges. Here's the Journal:

Grants to hire and train the workers aren't expected to be released for another two weeks for the 34 states where the federal government is running all or part of the marketplaces, which will offer insurance to those who don't get it on the job or from Medicare or Medicaid. That leaves just 32 business days to hire and train thousands of helpers in these states.
"It's definitely a tight timeline, and there's a lot to do before Oct. 1," said Jen Bersdale, executive director of Missouri Healthcare for All, a nonprofit advocacy group helping coordinate outreach activities in the state. "I imagine some people will be working overtime to do it."
People will be able to sign up for coverage on a website or through a call center. The navigators will reach out to the uninsured and help people understand the rules and paperwork. The federal funding for the navigators is expected to be funneled mainly through nonprofit health groups, which will employ the helpers.
The navigator issue is one of many bedeviling federal and state officials working to launch the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's health law this fall. Delays in issuing some rules and implementing the law have officials scrambling to get ready for October.

Navigators? To be clear, this is not an issue of "fairness" (hey, life ain't fair), it's an issue of accountability. And it's also an issue of gross negligence:

"Grants to hire and train the workers aren't expected to be released for another two weeks ... That leaves just 32 business days to hire and train thousands of helpers in these states."

And I'm sure that the mad rush to cram as many of them as possible - trained or not, qualified or not, honest or not - won't result in even more confusion and opportunity for identity theft and fraud, not to mention potentially catastrophic results when folks learn that the person on whose advice they relied were grossly under-trained.

But hey, it's only $54 million, right?