close to home

President Barack Obama steps out of the home of Paul and Frances Brayshaw for a backyard discussion on health care reform at a private residence September 22, 2010 in Fall Church, Virginia

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Politico: “Dozens of financial grants have been distributed to states and health providers to implement new programs, such as money to fund state-led reviews of insurance premium changes. Employers have gotten money to keep early retirees on their insurance plans. More than a million seniors have gotten $250 checks to help fill the missing ‘doughnut hole’ of prescription drug coverage. A Web portal with insurance options for every ZIP code in the country was put together in mere months. Insurers have been banned from canceling coverage once an insured person gets sick.

“And the Department of Health and Human Services has methodically met a series of early implementation deadlines — even winning praise from some on the other side of the issue. ‘They are working exceedingly hard to understand all the operational issues,’ said Karen Ignagni, president of the group America’s Health Insurance Plans, who credited HHS for ‘making sure that implementation [is] workable.’ ”

Drew Altman, the president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told POLITICO: “The politics are as ugly as ever. … On the other hand, the actual implementation of the law — delivering major elements of the law within the tight timetable required under the law — has been going extremely well.”