As the debut of Obamacare nears in less than 10 months, officials responsible for implementing the complicated law are starting to warn that it will be a mess.
"We know it's going to be messy," said Jeffrey Crowley, a former top Obama aide on the team that spearheaded development of the Affordable Care Act. "There are going to be things that come up that are unanticipated," he added.
Discussing Obamacare Monday at a Center for American Progress seminar on the law's impact on HIV/AIDS and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the president's former director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy and senior advisor on disability policy added, "if we do everything we can possibly think of, it's still going to be a messy transition, but we'll end up in a better place."
Added Kali Lindsey, director of legislative and public affairs at the National Minority AIDS Council, "one of the realities of the Affordable Care Act is that everything is not going to be perfect when it's implemented on day one."
One element of confusion will be providing healthcare to immigrants. Undocumented workers were not covered by Obamacare, but federal officials are rushing to win approval of immigration reform that will expand coverage to illegals.
