WASHINGTON — Marilyn B. Tavenner, the official in charge of President Obama’s health insurance marketplace, told Congress on Tuesday that federal contractors had not met her expectations for the website where millions of Americans are supposed to shop for coverage under the new health care law.
[h=6]Doug Mills/The New York Times[/h]Marilyn B. Tavenner testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Ms. Tavenner said she was working as hard as she could to repair the often-dysfunctional site, which has frustrated consumers trying to see details of the health plans available to them.
“To build the marketplace,” Ms. Tavenner said, her agency “used private sector contractors,” just as it does to administer aspects of Medicare. “Unfortunately,” she said, “a subset of those contracts for HealthCare.gov have not met expectations.”
But while she admitted the failings of the site, Ms. Tavenner, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tried to hold back a bipartisan clamor for a delay in enforcement of the requirement for most Americans to carry health insurance starting next year.
Lawmakers say it would be unfair to punish Americans for going without insurance if they cannot obtain it on the federal marketplace built by dozens of companies under contract with Ms. Tavenner’s agency.
Two of the contractors who worked on the site, testified last week before another congressional committee that the Medicare agency had failed to coordinate the work of dozens of contractors and did not begin “end-to-end testing” of the system as a whole until two weeks before it opened to the public on Oct. 1. The tests, they said, revealed flaws in the software and suggested that the site could not handle large numbers of users trying to log on at the same time.
Ms. Tavenner — like her boss, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and her deputy, Gary M. Cohen — repeatedly assured Congress in the last year that the federal marketplace and its website would be ready on Oct. 1.
Ms. Tavenner said Tuesday that “nearly 700,000 applications have been submitted to the federal and state marketplaces” in the last four weeks.
“This tremendous interest, with over 20 million unique visits to date to HealthCare.gov, confirms that the American people are looking for quality, affordable health coverage,” said Ms. Tavenner, whose agency insures more than 100 million people through Medicare and Medicaid.
The rocky rollout of the new federal insurance program has irked many consumers, caused some to question the competence of federal officials and created a political crisis for Mr. Obama.
“Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site,” Ms. Tavenner said. “Others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion.”
But, she said, “We will address these initial and any ongoing problems, and build a website that fully delivers on the promise of the Affordable Care Act.”
The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, said: “Sooner or later the administration needs to admit the law is unworkable. People don’t have access to health plans, they cannot compare coverage options and the true cost is often underreported or completely hidden.”
[h=6]Doug Mills/The New York Times[/h]Marilyn B. Tavenner testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Ms. Tavenner said she was working as hard as she could to repair the often-dysfunctional site, which has frustrated consumers trying to see details of the health plans available to them.
“To build the marketplace,” Ms. Tavenner said, her agency “used private sector contractors,” just as it does to administer aspects of Medicare. “Unfortunately,” she said, “a subset of those contracts for HealthCare.gov have not met expectations.”
But while she admitted the failings of the site, Ms. Tavenner, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, tried to hold back a bipartisan clamor for a delay in enforcement of the requirement for most Americans to carry health insurance starting next year.
Lawmakers say it would be unfair to punish Americans for going without insurance if they cannot obtain it on the federal marketplace built by dozens of companies under contract with Ms. Tavenner’s agency.
Two of the contractors who worked on the site, testified last week before another congressional committee that the Medicare agency had failed to coordinate the work of dozens of contractors and did not begin “end-to-end testing” of the system as a whole until two weeks before it opened to the public on Oct. 1. The tests, they said, revealed flaws in the software and suggested that the site could not handle large numbers of users trying to log on at the same time.
Ms. Tavenner — like her boss, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and her deputy, Gary M. Cohen — repeatedly assured Congress in the last year that the federal marketplace and its website would be ready on Oct. 1.
Ms. Tavenner said Tuesday that “nearly 700,000 applications have been submitted to the federal and state marketplaces” in the last four weeks.
“This tremendous interest, with over 20 million unique visits to date to HealthCare.gov, confirms that the American people are looking for quality, affordable health coverage,” said Ms. Tavenner, whose agency insures more than 100 million people through Medicare and Medicaid.
The rocky rollout of the new federal insurance program has irked many consumers, caused some to question the competence of federal officials and created a political crisis for Mr. Obama.
“Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site,” Ms. Tavenner said. “Others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion.”
But, she said, “We will address these initial and any ongoing problems, and build a website that fully delivers on the promise of the Affordable Care Act.”
The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, said: “Sooner or later the administration needs to admit the law is unworkable. People don’t have access to health plans, they cannot compare coverage options and the true cost is often underreported or completely hidden.”