House Republicans this week blasted the Obama administration'sapproach to implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and communicatingwith the public about implementation.

Democrats on the committee, and a hearing witness who supportsPPACA, or Obamcare, accused the Republicans of trying to achievewith bluster what they could not achieve through the courts or atthe polls.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) said at the hearing Wednesdayon the PPACA employer mandate delay that theObama administration has been giving Congress vague assurances thateverything was going well since the law was enacted.

Then, a week ago, right before the Independence Day holidayweekend, a Treasury Department official revealed the delay of the PPACA provision requiring many largeemployers to provide health coverage in a blog entry, Roskamsaid.

The Treasury Department blogger was, “essentially, whispering,'It's not working,'” Roskam said during the hearing, which wasorganized by the House Ways and Means health subcommittee andstreamed live on the Web. “'Oops! This is a mess.'”

Roskam noted that the Obama administration has suggested thatmembers of the public keep tabs on PPACA implementation by visitingvarious websites.

“It's ridiculous,” Roskam said.

Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) acknowledged that PPACA implementersmight face challenges.

“Things change,” Pascrell said. “Things need to be corrected.”But “the election is over,” he added. “The Supreme Court decisionhas been rendered.”

Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a Washington and Lee University lawprofessor who represents consumer interests in proceedings at theNational Association of Insurance Commissioners, said he believesObama administration officials are not sure whether they canachieve all goals on schedule and are trying to give the actionsmost likely to help uninsured people get coverage the highestpriority.

Jost said that, in addition to helping millions of uninsuredpeople get health coverage, PPACA will strengthen consumerprotection regulations, such as rules requiring insurers to sellcoverage on a guaranteed-issue—mostly community-rated basis—for thepeople who have coverage.

“Thus my son, who will have a pre-existing condition for therest of his life, can rest assured that he—and everyone else withpre-existing conditions—will never be turned down for insurance,”Jost said in a written version of his remarks.

Federal administrations have delayed implementation of laws forpractical reasons for decades, and “there is little evidencethat employers will rush to exist employee coverage” because of thedelay, he added.

The members of Congress who have been trying to starve the PPACAimplementation teams have no standing to criticize administrationdelays, Jost said.

If more delays become necessary, “the blame lies entirely withthose in Congress who refuse to accept the law of the land andprovide adequate resources for … implementation,” Jost said. If youactually care about implementation of the ACA … take actionimmediately to appropriate the money needed to get the jobdone.”

This article was originally posted at LifeHeatlhPro.com, a sistersite of Credit Union Times.