Obama administration was warned of healthcare.gov liabilities in March

Senior White House and Department of Health and Human Servicesofficials were told last spring of problems that could derail the launch of healthcare.gov, according to a report compiled for the Obama administration and obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Even though senior administration officials repeatedly gave assurances about the readiness of the Obamacare website, they were privately told by outside consultant McKinsey & Co. of risks threatening the functionality of the online marketplaces.

A 14-slide presentation warned of “insufficient time and scope of end-to-end testing,” that the website would launch at “full volume” rather than staggered over time, so-called “stacking” of all phases and “significant dependency on external parties/contractors.” The report also flagged “multiple definitions of success” and “evolving requirements” for the website.

According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which provided the report to theExaminer, White House and HHS senior officials were briefed on the findings between March 28 and April 8.

White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park attended a meeting about the report on March 28. Among those present at an April 4 briefing were Health and Human Services SecretaryKathleen Sebelius and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. Jeanne Lambrew, Obama's health policy adviser, and then-White House deputy chief of staff Mark Childress were briefed on the report April 8 at the White House, according to the House committee.

For weeks, President Obama has been on the defensive over the problem-ridden healthcare.gov website and his broken promise that all Americans could keep their current insurance plans under Obamacare. The president's approval ratings have hit all-time lows in a series of recent polls.

White House officials, however, dismissed GOP attempts to pounce on the previously undisclosed report.

“As we have said many times now and as has been frequently reported, flags were definitely raised throughout the development of the website, as would be the case for any IT project this complex,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

White House doesn't say whether Todd Park will testify Wednesday

White House press secretary Jay Carney called the Republican-issued subpoena of Chief Technology Officer Todd Park an “unnecessary step,” declining to say whether the central figure in the construction of healthcare.gov would testify before lawmakers on Wednesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, has demanded that Park discuss the botched rollout of the federal health care website with lawmakers during a hearing Wednesday.

Just a day away from the House Oversight hearing, Carney said it was “not a matter of if, but when” Park would testify. Obama’s top spokesman said the administration would respond to the request but did not telegraph whether it would be honored.

Before taking his current job, Park was tasked with developing the Obamacare website for the Department of Health and Human Services. Even in his new post, his biggest job is now fixing that same website.

Via: Washington Examiner

Continue Reading....

White House blocks tech chief from testifying on Obamacare

The Obama administration is refusing to make Todd Park, one of the chief technology officials repairing HealthCare.gov, available for a hearing next Wednesday with House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.

They say he’s too busy right now fixing the Obamacare enrollment portal.

“Mr. Park is open to testifying at a hearing before your committee and to providing an appropriate pre-hearing briefing for you and your staff,” Donna M. Pignatelli, assistant director for legislative affairs, wrote in a letter to the chairman. “However, because Mr. Park is currently occupied full-time on the critically important work of improving the website for the millions of Americans seeking affordable health insurance options, his testimony needs to be scheduled at a time that is less disruptive to that work.”

(PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about Obamacare website)

Park is devoting “nearly all of his attention and expertise” to helping CMS, Pignatelli wrote. “Pulling him away from that work even for a short time at this stage would be highly disruptive and would risk slowing the progress that has been made thus far to fix identified issues with the website.”

Park could provide an interesting look inside HealthCare.gov’s problems. He was central to the development of HealthCare.gov as the chief technology officer at HHS. But he left the agency in March 2012 for the White House, where he is the chief technology officer.

(PHOTOS: House hearing on Obamacare website)

The letter from the White House to Issa was dated Nov. 6 — the day before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced the hearing.

Issa’s committee released the hearing notice earlier Thursday, saying it was to investigate the “operational challenges in the development of HealthCare.gov” and whether IT best practices were followed.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama: 'I am sorry')

The committee released a witness list that included Park, HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology Frank Baitman, CMS Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao, U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel and David Powner, director of IT management at the Government Accountability Office.

The White House suggested rescheduling for the beginning of December.

Via: Politico

Continue Reading.....

ObamaCare website could only handle 1,100 users day before launch, docs show

The problem-plagued ObamaCare website was only equipped to handle 1,100 users a day before it was launched, documents released by the House Oversight and Reform Committee reveal.

The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that the website’s repeated crashes were due to unexpectedly high traffic. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park said on Oct. 6 that the website was expected to draw around 60,000 simultaneous users but instead drew many more, around 250,000.

However, a Healthcare.gov testing bulletin from Sept. 30, the day before the site’s launch, states that the website began to run into trouble with far fewer users.

“Currently we are able to reach 1,100 users before response time gets too high,” the bulletin states.

The bulletin says that the goal moving forward was to “conduct more thorough testing with (the Federally Facilitated Marketplace) to reach targets of up to 10,000 concurrent users in the next few days.”

The document’s release follows testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Wednesday, in which she acknowledged that the early enrollment figures for ObamaCare scheduled to be released next week will be “very low” due to the website’s problems.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....