Americans for Tax Reform is proud to support H.R. 4158, the “Special Inspector General for Monitoring the ACA (SIGMA) Act of 2014,” sponsored by Congressman Pete Roskam (R-Ill.)
Obamacare is a giant law which spans many government agencies. Congressional oversight has been stymied by the administration, and taxpayers frankly “don’t know what they don’t know” about how the government is implementing President Obama’s healthcare law. What has leaked out has been a tale of woe involving broken websites, overpaid contractors, and late Friday afternoon bureaucrat resignations.
H.R. 4158 would create an inspector general that could knock on doors across the government, from Kathleen Sebelius’ Department of Health and Human Services, to the Treasury Department, the Social Security Administration, the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans’ Administration, the Department of Labor, and even the Peace Corps. No stone would be left unturned. Reports would start flowing to Congress and taxpayers on a quarterly basis.
This inspector general office would follow in the footsteps of other recent predecessors for Iraq reconstruction, Afghanistan reconstruction, and the TARP bailout. These inspectors general have recovered billions of dollars in savings for taxpayers, and resulted in prosecutions of hundreds of bad actors.
It’s about time taxpayers got to the bottom of how Obamacare is being implemented. H.R. 4158 is a necessary step to get there.