HHS chief: How can we improve transparency?

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell is doubling down on her effort to improve the department’s “culture of transparency” as it tries to recover from its latest public relations blow over inflated enrollment figures.

{mosads}In an email Sunday evening, Burwell asked all managers to hold meetings to brainstorm ways “to strengthen this culture of increased transparency, ownership, and accountability” and to report their suggestions to senior leaders.

The message comes days after a GOP-led investigation found that HHS had miscounted 400,000 healthcare plans, helping push the enrollment count just past the administration’s much-touted target of 7 million.

Within hours of the findings going public, Burwell said the department had made an “unacceptable” mistake, which she reiterated in the letter.

“One of our most important obligations to the American people is to report information and data accurately. We are working quickly to understand what happened and to improve our processes in order to prevent similar mistakes from occurring again,” Burwell wrote in the email, which was obtained by Vox.

Still, the department faces new scrutiny during an already rough month for ObamaCare. The Obama administration has been pummeled by newly unearthed comments from a former adviser, Jonathan Gruber, who said the healthcare law passed because of the “lack of transparency” to the public.

The comments were particularly bad for Burwell, who has spent her six months in office touting transparency. “I believe strongly that a hallmark of effective leadership and management is instilling a culture of transparency, ownership and accountability. As leaders, we all must have a sense of urgency in promoting these cultural values,” she wrote in the email.

Department officials will likely be grilled about the error at a hearing by the House Oversight Committee, which led the investigation, on Dec. 9. Gruber was also invited to testify and has until Monday to accept.