Private contractors in charge of the new federal health-insurance Web site told a House committee Thursday that they did not have enough time to thoroughly test the system before its problem-riddled rollout early this month.
Executives of two of the four companies represented at the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said they needed “months” to conduct the testing, rather than the two weeks or less they were given before the Oct. 1 launch.
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The contractors — CGI Federal, Optum/QSSI, Serco and Equifax Workforce Solutions — were called to explain the problems in view of previous testimony as recently as September that things were going smoothly and the project appeared on track.
In fact, the Web site for the new health insurances exchanges, HealthCare.gov, crashed almost immediately after it opened, when millions of uninsured people were supposed to be able to log on and sign up for coverage that starts next year.
[Read live updates on the House hearing.]
In opening statements Thursday, Republicans on the committee denounced the problems with the Web site as symptomatic of more widespread difficulties with the Affordable Care Act. Democrats said the site’s glitches should not detract from the overall success of the new law and charged that Republicans were less interested in fixing the problems than in undermining the law.
In one testy exchange during questioning of the company executives, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) derided the hearing as a “monkey court,” chastising Republicans for raising privacy concerns that he said were specious.
“You are trying to scare people so they don’t apply” for health insurance on the exchanges, he said. He said Republicans want to undermine public trust in the law in an effort to delay or repeal it. His outburst came after two Republicans alleged that the federal marketplace does not adequately protect people’s medical privacy.
President Obama’s new health-care law requires that almost all Americans carry health insurance or face a fine starting in 2014. But the administration said Wednesday night that it would give people an extra six weeks — until March 31 — to obtain coverage before they incur a penalty. Officials denied that the extended deadline is related to the many technical problems with HealthCare.gov, saying instead that it is intended to clear up a timing confusion about the 2010 health-care law.
Since the troubled launch, officials have identified other problems with the site, and many users have been locked out or encountered other errors. Officials have mounted what they termed a “tech surge,” enlisting top technology talent, to address the issues.
In written testimony submitted before the hearing, CGI, the main contractor building the Web site, took partial blame for some of the site’s defects. But the company also pointed the finger at a federal agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which it said had ultimate responsibility for ensuring the project’s success.
CGI also blamed another contractor, Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), a subsidiary of Optum based in Columbia, Md., for building the component that caused the initial bottleneck. QSSI has denied sole culpability for that part’s failure.
Executives of two of the four companies represented at the hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said they needed “months” to conduct the testing, rather than the two weeks or less they were given before the Oct. 1 launch.
'; function init(){ setInterval(updateFeed,30000); loadFeed(); } function getLinkHTML(post){ return headlineTemplate.replace("{{link}}",post.link) .replace("{{timestamp}}",getTimestamp(post.timestamp)) .replace("{{title}}",post.title); } function formatJSONDate(date){ return (date + (new Date().getTimezoneOffset()*60))*1000; } function getCachebustingToken(){ var cacheToken = (new Date()).valueOf(); return Math.floor(cacheToken/(cacheBustingInterval*1000))*cacheBustingInterval; } function loadFeed(){ $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: dataSource + getCachebustingToken(), dataType: dataType, cache : true, jsonpCallback: callbacks.liveblogFeedLoaded, success: callbacks.liveblogFeedLoaded }); } function liveblogFeedLoaded(data) { var postsData = [], postsHTML = []; if(dataType === "xml"){ //parse data from rss feed $(data).find("item").each(function (index, item) { postsData.push({ link : $(this).find("link").text(), timestamp : $(this).find("pubDate").text(), title : $(this).find("title").text() }); }); } if (dataType === "json"){ //parse data from json liveblog feed for (var i = 0; i 7) longTimestamp = true; } lastUpdated = postsData[0].timestamp; $linklist.html(postsHTML.join("")); if (longTimestamp) $linklist.addClass("long"); } function updateFeed(){ $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: dataSource + getCachebustingToken(), dataType: dataType, cache : true, jsonpCallback: callbacks.liveblogFeedUpdated, success: callbacks.liveblogFeedUpdated }); } function liveblogFeedUpdated(data) { var postsData = [], postsHTML = []; if (dataType === "xml"){ //parse data from rss feed $(data).find("item").each(function (index, item) { if($(this).find("pubDate").text() != lastUpdated){ postsData.push({ link : $(this).find("link").text(), timestamp : $(this).find("pubDate").text(), title : $(this).find("title").text() }); } else { return false; } }); } if (dataType === "json"){ //parse data from json liveblog feed for (var i = 0; i lastUpdated){ postsData.push({ link : (data.customFields.permalink) ? postLink+"#"+data.id : postLink+"#"+data.id, timestamp : data.addedTimestamp, title : data.webHeadline }); } else { break; } } } if (postsData.length){ for (var i = 0; i 7) longTimestamp = true; } lastUpdated = postsData[0].timestamp; if (longTimestamp) $linklist.addClass("long"); var animationQueue = []; $.each(postsHTML.reverse(), function(id, value) { var newElem = $(value).prependTo($linklist).hide(); newElem.find("li").css("opacity", 0); animationQueue.push(newElem); }); animateElems(animationQueue); } } function animateElems(elems){ if (elems.length) { var $elem = $(elems.shift()); $linklist.find("div:last").slideUp("slow",function() { $(this).remove(); }); $elem.slideDown("slow",function() { $(this).find("li").animate( { opacity: 1 }, function() { animateElems( elems ); } ); }); } } function getTimestamp(dateString) { var currentTime = new Date(dateString); var hours = (currentTime.getHours() > 12) ? currentTime.getHours() - 12 : currentTime.getHours(); if (hours == 0) hours = 12; var minutes = (currentTime.getMinutes() 11) ? "PM" : "AM"; return hours + ":" + minutes + " " + ampm; } init(); })(jQuery);]]>
More from PostPolitics
Glenn Kessler The estimates you have heard may be much too high.
Niraj Chokshi The spotlight is on the law’s contraception mandate.
Sean Sullivan The House speaker has a new dilemma.
CALCULATOR | Use this tool to figure out how much health coverage might cost you on the new online marketplaces under the new health-care law.Read more
The contractors — CGI Federal, Optum/QSSI, Serco and Equifax Workforce Solutions — were called to explain the problems in view of previous testimony as recently as September that things were going smoothly and the project appeared on track.
In fact, the Web site for the new health insurances exchanges, HealthCare.gov, crashed almost immediately after it opened, when millions of uninsured people were supposed to be able to log on and sign up for coverage that starts next year.
[Read live updates on the House hearing.]
In opening statements Thursday, Republicans on the committee denounced the problems with the Web site as symptomatic of more widespread difficulties with the Affordable Care Act. Democrats said the site’s glitches should not detract from the overall success of the new law and charged that Republicans were less interested in fixing the problems than in undermining the law.
In one testy exchange during questioning of the company executives, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) derided the hearing as a “monkey court,” chastising Republicans for raising privacy concerns that he said were specious.
“You are trying to scare people so they don’t apply” for health insurance on the exchanges, he said. He said Republicans want to undermine public trust in the law in an effort to delay or repeal it. His outburst came after two Republicans alleged that the federal marketplace does not adequately protect people’s medical privacy.
President Obama’s new health-care law requires that almost all Americans carry health insurance or face a fine starting in 2014. But the administration said Wednesday night that it would give people an extra six weeks — until March 31 — to obtain coverage before they incur a penalty. Officials denied that the extended deadline is related to the many technical problems with HealthCare.gov, saying instead that it is intended to clear up a timing confusion about the 2010 health-care law.
Since the troubled launch, officials have identified other problems with the site, and many users have been locked out or encountered other errors. Officials have mounted what they termed a “tech surge,” enlisting top technology talent, to address the issues.
In written testimony submitted before the hearing, CGI, the main contractor building the Web site, took partial blame for some of the site’s defects. But the company also pointed the finger at a federal agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which it said had ultimate responsibility for ensuring the project’s success.
CGI also blamed another contractor, Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), a subsidiary of Optum based in Columbia, Md., for building the component that caused the initial bottleneck. QSSI has denied sole culpability for that part’s failure.