States retaliate against ObamaCare website developers, halt payments

Several states that paid millions to set up ObamaCare exchange websites but got error-plagued systems in return are starting to fight back, halting payments to the contractors and weighing legal options. 

The same contractor that shouldered a large part of the blame for botching the federal HealthCare.gov is also under fire at the state level, where the company had an array of contracts to set up local ObamaCare exchange sites. CGI Group is facing angry officials in Massachusetts and Vermont who are cutting off payments in retaliation for widespread website problems. 

Massachusetts -- whose government was one of the staunchest supporters of ObamaCare, and whose health plan arguably was the model for the law -- is refusing to pay any more until a working website is delivered. 

A spokesman for the Massachusetts exchange told FoxNews.com that CGI's system is "far from where it needs to be" and the state will apply "nonstop pressure" to fix the problems. 

Spokesman Jason Lefferts explained that while people who are not seeking subsidies can apply online, the system still can't properly calculate subsidies for those who are. The state, then, had to create an alternate system to send those individuals additional paperwork with information about subsidies and plans. Plus, the site continues to experience error messages and log-in issues, among other problems. 

Massachusetts has paid $11 million of its $69 million contract. 

Vermont, too, is withholding $5.1 million to CGI over its failure to meet deadlines, according to a report in the Boston Globe. 

Via: Fox News Politics

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Ills of HealthCare.gov: Insurers say ObamaCare site producing flawed forms

So you think you've succeeded in making it through the ObamaCare website maze, and now you have health insurance? You might want to think again. 

Despite the Obama administration's claim that HealthCare.gov is "vastly improved," insurance companies are still grappling with error-riddled files fed to them from the flawed website. The lingering glitch could cause major problems weeks down the road, resulting in people thinking they've signed up when insurance companies have no record of them doing so. 

These so-called "back-end" problems were largely glossed over when federal health officials confidently claimed over the weekend they had met their own goals for improving the website by Dec. 1. 

Administration officials said early Sunday that they have fixed roughly 400 computer "bugs" and increased capacity so the site can now handle more than 800,000 users daily with an error rate of less than 1 percent. Jeff Zients, the official appointed to fix the ObamaCare site since its disastrous Oct. 1 rollout, said it is "night and day from what it was." 

But insurers continue to deal with the same set of problems that have shaken their confidence for weeks in the system they have to rely on to enroll new customers. 

Via: Fox News

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Report: White House Discussed Scrapping Entire ObamaCare Website

The abysmal rollout of the Obamacare individual mandate last month exposed a website so badly flawed that White House officials considered junking it altogether, according to a detailed account of the inner workings of the healthcare plan's debacle.

 

While President Barack Obama touted publicly that "interest way exceeded expectations, and that's the good news" during the first weekend of the rollout, White House officials were considering another question, The New York Times reports in a front page article Sunday — "Should we just take the website down altogether for a time so it can be fixed?"

The question was dismissed by Todd Park, the administration's chief technology officer, because, he said, HealthCare.com had to be up and running for one simple reason — "To see where the problems are," the Times reports.

Via: Fox News

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Officials say they're 'on track' to meet deadline for ObamaCare fixes

Obama administration officials said Saturday they were "on track" to have the problematic ObamaCare website running smoothly by their self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline.

"With the scheduled upgrades last night and tonight, we're on track to meet our stated goal for the site to work for the vast majority of users," Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesman Aaron Albright told Fox News, in a statement.

Administration officials have since announcing the deadline qualified expectations and outcomes by repeatedly saying the site would work for the “vast majority of people.”

The Washington Post earlier Saturday reported the administration was prepared to announce Sunday that they have met deadlines for improving HealthCare.gov.

Official have said over the past week that the crash-prone site -- which launched Oct. 1 with disastrous results -- will now be able to handle 50,000 users at once. However, technicians failed to reach the deadline to fix at least some of the glitches, according to the newspaper

Via: Fox News

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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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Poll: Uninsured not using ObamaCare site - 18% to be exact

Fewer than a quarter of all uninsured Americans have so far even attempted to visit an exchange site, according to a new Gallup poll.

As the Obama administration struggle to fix problems with the federal health exchange website, the poll found just 18 percent of the exchanges' target audience – the nation's uninsured – have tried to go to an ObamaCare site since it opened on Oct. 1.

Among those uninsured Americans who say they plan to eventually purchase insurance through the exchanges, a slightly higher percentage, 22 percent, say they have attempted to visit an exchange site.

These results undermine the Obama administration's confidence in ObamaCare to reach its target audience. The exchange sites are not only fraught with technical problems that have led to long wait times and error messages for users, but have also failed to generate interest among uninsured Americans.

Polls reveal that the majority of the uninsured are unfamiliar with the sites and have not even attempted to access them.

Gallup previously found in an Oct. 31 survey that just 44 percent of uninsured Americans who plan to get insurance say they will do it through an exchange site. Meanwhile, just one in four say they are more likely to pay a fine instead of purchasing insurance.

Via: The Hill

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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

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