At top right, Cheryl Campbell of CGI, the main contractor on the health exchange, and Andrew M. Slavitt of UnitedHealth Group, faced questions from Representative Joe Barton, lower right.
WASHINGTON — Federal officials did not fully test the online health insurance marketplace until two weeks before it opened to the public on Oct. 1, contractors told Congress on Thursday.
While individual components of the system were tested earlier, they said, the government did not conduct “end-to-end testing” of the whole system from start to finish until late September.
The disclosure came at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating problems plaguing the federal marketplace, or exchange, a central pillar of Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul.
Cheryl R. Campbell, a senior vice president of CGI Federal, a unit of the CGI Group, the main contractor on the federal exchange, said that end-to-end testing of the full integrated system first occurred “in the last two weeks of September.”
Another witness, Andrew M. Slavitt of UnitedHealth Group, said, “We didn’t see end-to-end testing until a couple days leading up to the launch” of the federal marketplace on Oct. 1.
UnitedHealth, one of the nation’s largest insurers, owns Quality Software Services, which was in charge of “identity management,” including the use of password-protected accounts, in the federal marketplace.
Ms. Campbell and Mr. Slavitt said they would have preferred to have months of testing, as required by industry standards for a project of such immense complexity. The federal exchange must communicate with other contractors and with databases of numerous federal agencies and more than 170 insurance carriers.
The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been tarnished by technical problems that have made it difficult for consumers to shop in the federal marketplace serving 36 states.
Ms. Campbell said that CGI continually reported to top officials at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, including Michelle Snyder, the chief operating officer of the agency, and Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer. Those officials made critical decisions about the federal exchange, Ms. Campbell said.
In response to questions, Ms. Campbell said, “We were not responsible for end-to-end testing” of the whole system. The Medicare agency, known as C.M.S., was responsible, she said.
Mr. Slavitt said that his company had tested computer code for the federal marketplace and had found problems. “We informed C.M.S. that more testing was necessary,” he testified.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed anger during the hearing at the performance of contractors hired to build the online health insurance marketplace, which is still limping along after three weeks.
Lawmakers said they were dismayed because the contractors assured the committee on Sept. 10 that they, their computer systems and the online federal marketplace were ready to enroll millions of Americans eager to buy insurance, subsidized by the government.
“Why did they assure us that the Web site would work?” asked Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the committee. “Did they not know? Or did they not disclose?”
“This is more than a Web site problem,” Mr. Upton said. “The Web site should have been the easy part. I’m also concerned about what happens next. Will enrollment glitches become provider payment glitches? Will patients show up at their doctor’s office or hospital only to be told that they aren’t covered, or even in the system?”
The hearing room was packed with spectators eager to witness the confrontation between lawmakers and business executives whose companies have received tens of millions of dollars to build the federal marketplace, or exchange.
Politics pervaded the session. Republicans said that technical problems crippling the federal Web site epitomized fundamental flaws in the 2010 health care law, Mr. Obama’s most significant legislative achievement.
Democrats said that the law was fundamentally sound, but that the Web site needed to be fixed immediately so people could get the insurance promised to them.
