Obama administration knew of key Obamacare delay in August, emails say

House Republicans released emails Friday that suggest the Obama administration knew as early as August that the small-business exchange tied to Obamacare would not be ready on time.

“Despite this knowledge, the Obama administration waited to finalize the delay until November 27, as Americans across the country were off celebrating Thanksgiving with their loved ones,” the Energy and Commerce Committee said in a press release.

The emails from between July 26 and Aug. 13 suggested the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services knew the federal insurance marketplace, or SHOP, that assists firms of less than 50 workers would not be available until mid-November at best. But they said at the time it would be ready Oct. 1 and did not announce any type of delay until late September.

One email from the lead vendor, CGI Federal, suggested a timeline that started with webinars on Oct. 1 and ended with the SHOP portal going live on Nov. 15.

“Can we sign this with blood?” Henry Chao, the project manager at CMS, wrote back.

Last week, the administration announced a one-year delay of the SHOP feature.

“As the paper trail broadens, we see more and more evidence that the administration was fully aware its signature health care law was not ready for prime time,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Repbulican, said. “The documents we are now reviewing tell a much, much different story than what officials testified to Congress.”

Via: Washington Times

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OBAMACARE WEB OFFICIAL: 60 TO 70 PERCENT OF WEBSITE STILL UNBUILT

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) asked Henry Chao, Deputy Chief Information Officer and Deputy Director of the Office of Information Services Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, about the status of the Healthcare.gov website. Chao revealed that 60 to 70 percent of the Obamacare exchanges website still had to be built. “We’re sitting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent,” Chao said.

“Let me get this correct,” Gardner asked incredulously, “60 to 70 percent of healthcare.gov still needs to be built?” Chao answered, “Healthcare.gov, the online application, verification, determination, plan compare, getting enrolled…that’s 100 percent there.” But he admitted, “There is the back office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems, they still need to be built.”

Later, Chao claimed that there was 30 to 40 percent remaining to be tested.

Gardner asked how those systems would be tested. “In the same exact manner we tested everything else,” Chao answered. He stated that testing would be “ongoing” based on bill schedule.

Via: Breitbart

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The plot thickens: ObamaCare website project manager claims he wasn’t told that security flaws posed “limitless” risk

It’s Henry Chao, who warned people back in March that he was “nervous” about the state of Healthcare.gov’s development and hoped that using the site wouldn’t be “a third-world experience.” Eight months later, that’s exactly what it is: The front end barely functions, the back end is a ripe target for thieves, and the people in charge are either dangerously ignorant about its operations or covering up what they knew. Money quote from CBS’s story about this:

Chao said he was unaware of a Sept. 3 government memo written by another senior official at CMS. It found two high-risk issues, which are redacted for security reasons. The memo said “the threat and risk potential (to the system) is limitless.” The memo shows CMS gave deadlines of mid-2014 and early 2015 to address them…

It was Chao who recommended it was safe to launch the website Oct. 1. When shown the security risk memo, Chao said, “I just want to say that I haven’t seen this before.”

A Republican staff lawyer asked, “Do you find it surprising that you haven’t seen this before?”

Chao replied, “Yeah … I mean, wouldn’t you be surprised if you were me?” He later added: “It is disturbing. I mean, I don’t deny that this is … a fairly nonstandard way” to proceed.

Note well: The estimated fix for the unspecified security problems was the middle of next year at the earliest. HHS says they rolled out the site on October 1 even though it wasn’t functioning because they thought they could fix it on the fly relatively quickly after launch. This memo proves that that’s a lie.

Via: Hot Air

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As Obamacare Tech Woes Mounted, Contractor Payments Soared

As U.S. officials warned that the technology behind Obamacare might not be ready to launch on Oct. 1, the administration was pouring tens of millions of dollars more than it had planned into the federal website meant to enroll Americans in the biggest new social program since the 1960s.


A Reuters review of government documents shows that the contract to build the federal Healthcare.gov online insurance website - key to President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform - tripled in potential total value to nearly $292 million as new money was assigned to the work beginning in April this year.

The increase coincided with warnings from federal and state officials that the information technology underlying the online marketplaces, or exchanges, where people could buy Obamacare health insurance was in trouble.

In March, Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the lead Obamacare agency, said at an insurance-industry meeting that he was "pretty nervous" about the exchanges being ready by Oct. 1, adding, "let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience." 

At the same event, his colleague Gary Cohen said, "Everyone recognizes that day one will not be perfect."

The contract to build Healthcare.gov, issued to the CGI Federal unit of Montreal-based CGI Group, has come under scrutiny after the site, offering new subsidized health insurance in 36 states, stalled within minutes of its Oct. 1 launch, leaving millions of Americans unable to create accounts or shop for plans.

In its third week of operations, the website continues to experience problems, which government officials say they are working day and night to repair. Even allies of the Obama administration have been highly critical, with former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs calling it "excruciatingly embarrassing" and calling for "some people" to be fired.

Via: Newsmax

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