By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Beware of scam artists taking advantage of the new health-insurance law to peddle phony policies, President Barack Obama's top health official warned consumers Tuesday.

Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued the fraud alert as she also announced new benefits for seniors and people with low income.

If the yearlong congressional saga that produced the sweeping insurance remake was murky and confusing, Sebelius vowed that her process for putting the law into effect will be the opposite - understandable to a typical consumer. "As soon as we know something, we're going to tell you," she promised Tuesday.

She'll have plenty of time to convince the legislation's many skeptics, with four years to go until its major expansion of coverage. In the meantime, expect a steady stream of updates on the nearly $1 trillion, 10-year law, which will eventually provide coverage to almost all Americans. Modest benefits kick in quickly.

Speaking at the National Press Club Tuesday, Sebelius sought to head off a potential consumer problem. After Obama signed the law March 23, there's been a proliferation of scams involving bogus health-insurance policies.

Some of the hustlers are going door to door claiming there's a limited open-enrollment period to buy health insurance now. Not so. Moreover, even after new health-insurance marketplaces open for business in 2014, door-to-door salespeople are unlikely to be part of the outreach. Scam artists have also set up toll-free lines.

Sebelius, a former Kansas governor and insurance commissioner, wrote state officials Tuesday to urge that they investigate and prosecute such scams to the fullest. Federal health-care-fraud investigators are also on the lookout.

"Unfortunately, scam artists and criminals may be using the passage of these historic reforms as an opportunity to confuse and defraud the public," Sebelius wrote to state insurance commissioners and attorneys general.

The new health-care law will ultimately provide coverage to more than 30 million uninsured, but those changes will come slowly, beginning with smaller steps.