Here are a few tough questions for Obamacare

When House Republicans direct their opposition to Obamacare toward aggressive oversight rather than apocalyptic budget shenanigans, they can do themselves and the country a lot of good.

That was obvious when the House Ways and Means Committee posed some smart, tough questions about HealthCare.gov to Marilyn Tavenner, who, as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is perhaps the person most directly responsible for the fiasco. Yes, there were a few “gotcha” questions meant to showcase individual representatives’ hatred of the health-care law. But for the most part, the queries seemed designed to find a path toward more competent management of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Many of them went unanswered, unfortunately, but here are some important questions they should press again:

— What happened to President Barack Obama’s promise that Americans would be able to keep their doctors and their insurance plans?

— How big is the gap between current enrollment and the level that’s needed to make the exchanges work?

— How can the administration prevent a premium spike for exchange-based plans in 2015 if too few young and healthy people sign up this year?

— If HealthCare.gov isn’t fixed by the Nov. 30 target date, what happens to the people whose current plans expire at the end of the year?

— How will the government prevent people from inadvertently getting subsidies they’re not entitled to?

— Can CMS claw back some of the money it has paid to the contractors most responsible for the website’s problems?

More From The Denver Post: