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OBAMACARE IMPLEMENTATION: THE ROLLOUT OF 

HEALTHCARE.GOV 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 13, 2013 

Serial No. 113–91 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

DOC HASTINGS, Washington 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

KERRY L. BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

MATTHEW A. CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

TONY CARDENAS, California 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

Vacancy 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

STEPHEN CASTOR, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on November 13, 2013 ...................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. David A. Powner, Director of IT Management Issues, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 9 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Mr. Henry Chao, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Deputy Director of the 

Office of Information Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 28 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 30 

Mr. Frank Baitman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology 

and Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 38 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 40 

Mr. Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Office of 

Science and Technology Policy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 44 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 45 

Mr. Steven VanRoekel, Chief Information Officer of the United States, and 

Administrator, Office of Electronic Government, Office of Management and 

Budget 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 46 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 48 

APPENDIX 

A letter to Chairman Issa from Ranking Member Cummings submitted for 

the record by Chairman Issa ............................................................................... 148 

Pages 151-152 of Henry Chao’s transcribed interview submitted for the record 

by Chairman Issa ................................................................................................. 150 

USA Today article submitted for the record by Chairman Issa .......................... 152 

CMS memo dated Sept 3, 2013 submitted for the record by Chairman Issa ..... 155 

House Republican Playbook submitted for the record by Rep. Cartwright ........ 162 

IT Critical Factors Underlying Successful Major Acquisitions Link ................... 179 

(1) 

OBAMACARE IMPLEMENTATION: THE 

ROLLOUT OF HEALTHCARE.GOV 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Issa, Mica, Turner, Duncan, McHenry, 

Jordan, Chaffetz, Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Gosar, Meehan, 

DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Lummis, Woodall, Massie, Collins, 

Meadows, Bentivolio, DeSantis, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, 

Tierney, Clay, Lynch, Cooper, Connolly, Cartwright, Duckworth, 

Kelly, Davis, Welch, Cardenas, Horsford, and Lujan Grisham. 

Also Present: Representative Kelly. 

Staff Present: Richard A. Beutel, Majority Senior Counsel; Brian 

Blase, Majority Professional Staff Member; Molly Boyl, Majority 

Deputy General Counsel and Parliamentarian; Lawrence J. Brady, 

Majority Staff Director; Joseph A. Brazauskas, Majority Counsel; 

Caitlin Carroll, Majority Deputy Press Secretary; Sharon Casey, 

Majority Senior Assistant Clerk; Steve Castor, Majority General 

Counsel; John Cuaderes, Majority Deputy Staff Director; Adam P. 

Fromm, Majority Director of Member Services and Committee Operations; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Meinan Goto, Majority 

Professional Staff Member; Tyler Grimm, Majority Professional 

Staff Member; Frederick Hill, Majority Staff Director of Communications and Strategy; Christopher Hixon, Majority Chief Counsel 

for Oversight; Michael R. Kiko, Majority Legislative Assistant; 

Mark D. Marin, Majority Deputy Staff Director of Oversight; Laura 

L. Rush, Majority Deputy Chief Clerk; Peter Warren, Majority Legislative Policy Director; Rebecca Watkins, Majority Communications Director; Krista Boyd, Minority Deputy Director of Legislation/Counsel; Aryele Bradford, Minority Press Secretary; Yvette 

Cravins, Minority Counsel; Susanne Sachsman Grooms, Minority 

Deputy Staff Director/Chief Counsel; Jennifer Hoffman, Minority 

Communications Director; Chris Knauer, Minority Senior Investigator; Elisa LaNier, Minority Director of Operations; Una Lee, Minority Counsel; Juan McCullum, Minority Clerk; Leah Perry, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel; Dave Rapallo, Minority Staff Director; Daniel Roberts, Minority Staff Assistant/Legislative Correspondent; Valerie Shen, Minority Counsel; Mark Stephenson, Minority Director of Legislation; and Cecelia Thomas, Minority Counsel. 

2 

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order. 

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee exists to secure two fundamental principles: first, Americans have a right to 

know that the money Government takes involuntarily from them is 

well spent and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective 

Government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight and 

Government Reform Committee is to, in fact, protect these rights. 

Our solemn responsibility is to hold Government accountable to 

taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know that the money 

Government takes from them is well spent. It is our job to work 

tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts 

to the American people and bring genuine reform to the Federal 

bureaucracy. 

Three and a half years ago, closer to four, in a partisan vote, the 

House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection Affordable 

Care Act, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. The Act gave this 

Administration more than three years to implement; it gave them 

virtually unlimited money; it ensured them that, for all practical 

purposes, they need not come back to Congress ever again because 

they created an entitlement, one that raised its own money, spent 

its own money, created its own rules. 

The 2400 pages that were passed into law, and then read afterwards, now represent tens of thousands of pages of regulations that 

were created by this Administration based on how this Administration wanted a law interpreted, meaning that legislation created 

three and a half years ago was still being written in late September. 

The cornerstone of the President’s signature achievement included a website, Healthcare.gov. This site, and parallel sites created by some States, were supposed to make it easy to have an online marketplace. It was, in fact, an attempt to duplicate what hundreds, perhaps thousands, of insurance companies, large and small, 

around America do well every day. 

On October 1st, President Obama said using it would be as easy 

as buying an airline ticket on Kayak.com or buying a television on 

Amazon. This is an insult to Amazon and Kayak. On the day of the 

launch, President Obama should have known the harsh lesson we 

have all learned since that time, and that was they weren’t ready. 

They weren’t close to ready. This wasn’t a small mistake. This 

wasn’t a scaling mistake. This was a monumental mistake to go 

live and effectively explode on the launchpad. 

For American people, ObamaCare is no longer an abstraction, 

and it is a lot more than a website. For millions of Americans, it 

is about losing insurance the President promised you can keep, period. For many Americans, it is about premiums going up, when 

you were promised they would go down by $2500. 

Big businesses lobbied and received an ObamaCare waiver this 

year. However, the individual, the taxpayer, the citizen, the only 

real recipient of health care, did not. Individuals still have to pay 

a penalty if they don’t have insurance that meets a Federal standard, a standard of what your Government, your nanny State believes, in fact, you must have. The penalty is still in effect, and 

even if new exchanges don’t function. The penalty is in effect even 

if you planned on keeping the health care you wanted, period, and 

3 

discovered it is now gone, or have yet to discover, because ultimately, if you are on an employer plan, you may not yet have 

found out that your employer either cannot afford or cannot receive 

the health care you have grown accustomed to. 

The specific reason we are here today is a narrow part of this 

committee’s oversight and legislative authority. It is, in fact, to examine the failures of what should have been an IT success story. 

Nearly $600 million, three and a half years, is larger than Kayak 

ever dreamed of having to set up their website. It is larger than 

eBay spent in the first many years of a much more complex site 

that auctions, in real-time, millions and millions of products a year. 

We are here to examine the failure of technology not because the 

technology was so new and innovative, not because this was a 

moon shot, not because we needed Lockheed Martin and Rockwell 

to come in and invent some new way to propel a ship to the moon; 

but because we have discovered, and will undoubtedly continue to 

discover, that efforts were taken to cut corners to meet political 

deadlines at the end, that for political reasons rules were not created in a timely fashion, that in fact the rules that should have 

been created at the time of the passage of the law or shortly thereafter in many cases were still being given to programmers in September of this year. 

Now, I recognize that there are divisions on this committee, as 

there were when ObamaCare became law. Many members, including myself, believe that there was and is a health care crisis in 

America. It is a crisis of affordability. And insurance is simply a 

way to score what that affordability is, not to drive down the cost. 

Many members, including myself, opposed this new law because we 

thought it wouldn’t work and it had no systems to actually reduce 

the cost of health care from the provider. 

My friends on the other side may correctly note, as I will here, 

that many Americans are benefitting from ObamaCare at the cost 

of trillions of dollars over a 10-year period. I certainly hope so. But 

divisions over whether or not taxpayer money taken and pushed 

back out to needy who are trying to afford health care is not the 

subject today. 

Unfortunately, during the first two years of the ObamaCare law, 

under Speaker Pelosi, there was no effective oversight. Oversight 

was shut down during the first two years of the Obama Administration, and the Minority pointing out anything was ignored. Under 

my chairman, we have tried to correct that, but we have been disappointed by continued obstruction by the Minority on this committee, defending the Administration even when it has failed to deliver the relevant documents, and they find themselves objecting to 

hearings, witness requests, and constantly engage in petty 

downplaying of what in fact are a serious problem. 

The Minority today will undoubtedly point out that this must be 

political, that we are not here because only 1100 people at a time 

could get on to a website before it crashed, effectively, when 

250,000 needed to get on it because it was the law and they were 

mandated. We are not here for that reason, the Minority will say; 

we are here because this is political. 

This committee, on a bipartisan basis, has offered legislation 

that, if the Senate had taken up it and the President had supVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:10 Apr 25, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87316.TXT APRIL
4 

ported and signed it and it had been implemented in this project, 

undoubtedly many of the mistakes made we would find would not 

be made. In fact, the lack of budget authority for a single point on 

a project of this sort, conducted and overseen by somebody who had 

a success story in similar operations rising to the level of a $600 

million multi-committee, multi-State website, if that person had 

been there and in charge, I have no doubt that person would not 

be with us today because that site would be up and running. 

On October 10th I joined with Senator Lamar Alexander, a member of the minority in the Senate who finds himself unable to get 

answers, asking Secretary Sebelius to provide documents related to 

Healthcare.gov. Unfortunately, on October 28th, a month in to 

ObamaCare, I was forced to issue a subpoena because of a lack of 

response from the Administration. To date, HHS has not produced 

a single responsive document to this committee. 

In contrast, the committee has received far more cooperation, 

transparency, and document production, receiving over 100,000 relevant documents, from the private sector, from contractors working 

on this project, the very contractors who were blamed on day one 

as their fault, not a single political appointee’s fault, not Obama’s 

fault. 

I know the ranking member and I could fill an entire hearing 

with discussions about our differences, and I have no doubt, in 

short order, he will air many of them. But for this hearing I think 

we can find agreement. The agreement would be simple: whether 

you like ObamaCare or not, taxpayer dollars were wasted, precious 

time was wasted, the American people’s promise of ObamaCare, in 

fact, does not exist today in a meaningful way because best practices, established best practices of our Government were not used 

in this case. 

Now, our Government must quickly grasp the lessons of what 

happened here in ObamaCare’s Healthcare.gov project to better 

and more effectively implement underlying policy changes so this 

won’t happen again. The investigations of this committee have received testimony and have paid documents indicating many problems that led to the disastrous failure to launch on October 1st. 

The committee has learned that numerous missed deadlines and ignoring of integrated security testing requirements are still a problem for this system. 

The ranking member gave to me, and I will put it in the record, 

a letter very concerned that some of the documents we received 

from contractors, if they got in public hands, would be a roadmap 

to the security flaws that exist in ObamaCare’s website today. It 

is our committee’s decision that those documents will not be released, that we will carefully ensure that any material given to us 

by anyone that would help hackers discover more quickly the flaws 

in ObamaCare’s website are not made public. 

But let us understand the ranking member’s statement in that 

letter says more than I could say, and that is, on the day of the 

launch, and even today, there are material failures in the security 

of the ObamaCare website, meaning that even though we may not 

put out the roadmap, hackers, if they can get on a website that 

only accommodates 1100 people at a time, hackers in fact may have 

already or may soon find those vulnerabilities. They may soon find 

5 

your social security number or your sensitive information because 

there was no integrated security testing before the launch. And 

MITRE Corporation and others pointed this out in time for the 

launch to not have occurred until security concerns were properly 

vetted. 

The last known security test conducted by the records we have 

been given—and, again, given by contractors, because the Administration has failed to be in any way honest or transparent in producing documents—show that in mid-September, at least as to the 

Federal marketplace segment of the site, they identified significant 

findings of risk. Documents from the contractor MITRE identified 

a chaotic testing environment. 

According to Mr. Henry Chao, the top operational officer for the 

marketplace, Administration delays in issuing regulations created 

a compressed time frame for building the IT infrastructure. We 

know, for example, that HHS did not issue any regulations in the 

three months prior to November 2012 election. 

Yes, I am saying that it seems sad that you pass a law in the 

first few months of an administration and, yet, it seems that regulations came to a halt so they would not be out there in the marketplace during the President’s re-elect. Two years is too long after 

a law that has mandates before you go and tell the American people and the website producers what they must do. 

This committee has learned that a complete integrated security 

testing did not occur, meaning test the pieces, but do not test the 

entire product was one of the faults at the launch. That heightens 

the risk of unauthorized access, non-encrypted data, identify theft, 

and the loss of personal identifiable information. This is not this 

committee’s opinion; this is testimony. 

The director of CMS stated he was not even aware of some testing results that showed serious security problems in the weeks before the October 1st launch. He testified these results should have 

been shared with him and said the situation was disturbing. HHS 

offered no further explanation for nearly two weeks, until after the 

committee made a redacted version of the key memo public. 

At a briefing last week, Tony Trenkle, CMS Chief Information 

Officer, told investigators he normally signs the authority to operate memos to launch CMS IT projects. In this case, however, and 

wisely, he determined that he would not sign the Healthcare.gov 

document, and in fact required a less qualified and obviously erroneous signature by Marilyn Tavenner to occur on that document. 

Now, that is kicking it upstairs because you know it isn’t any 

good. And although I appreciate a CIO not signing a document for 

a site that wasn’t ready, I think at the same time we must recognize that there should have been public objection to Marilyn 

Tavenner signing that document for a website that clearly was not 

ready for prime time. 

Additionally, today we are hearing from a distinguished panel of 

witnesses, and I recognize some of the witnesses, particularly Mr. 

Park, are busy elsewhere trying to get this site operational. But 

since we have been in the neighborhood of six weeks into the 

launch, I trust that hundreds or, if necessary, thousands of the 

right people have most of their marching orders and that, in fact, 

it is time for Congress, on any committee of jurisdiction, to look 

6 

over the shoulder of the Administration to ask both what went 

wrong and, today, not just ask do you promise, on November 30th, 

to make it right, but will you in fact commit to the changes in law 

that would ensure this doesn’t happen again. 

I don’t hold this committee hearing today to sell IT reform. This 

committee has already done its job to sell IT reform. However, it 

is essential that you understand that when Mr. Cummings and I 

make public billions of dollars worth of failed IT programs, the 

American people often get a small snippet in the newspaper. So 

today I think the American people should know this isn’t the $600 

million unique event. If it were, it would be a different hearing. 

This is part of a pattern that occurs due to failure to adhere to the 

private sector’s world-class standards for web production. This is a 

pattern that includes Schedule C political appointees being more 

involved than career professionals. This is a pattern that has to 

stop. 

Among our witnesses today will be Mr. Dave Powner, a Government Accountability Officer and an expert in, in fact, what those 

practices should have been and what failed on Healthcare.gov. I 

might note for all he is, in fact, a career professional, a nonpartisan, and an individual who doesn’t work for me, doesn’t work 

for the ranking member, but works for the American people. 

I will do the rest of my introduction when the time comes. I now 

will yield to the ranking member. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning to everyone and welcome to our witnesses who are 

here with us today. I want you to know that I appreciate your service and, on behalf of a grateful Congress, we thank you. I thank 

you for your dedication to ensuring that millions of Americans who 

do not have health insurance will be able to obtain quality affordable coverage going forward. This is an incredibly admirable goal, 

and I thank you for everything you are doing to make it a reality. 

Unfortunately, not everyone in this room shares this very important goal. Republicans opposed the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 

voted against providing health insurance to millions of Americans. 

Over the past three years they have voted more than 40 times to 

repeal parts or all of the law and eliminate health insurance for 

people across the Country. Since they failed at these repeal efforts, 

they blocked requests for full funding to implement the law. This 

forced Federal agencies to divert limited funds from other areas. 

Republican governors refused to set up State exchanges, forcing 

the Federal Government to bear more of the workload. And to 

make a political point against the Affordable Care Act, Republican 

governors refused Federal funds to expand their Medicaid programs to provide medical care for the poor, increasing the burden 

on their own State hospitals. To me, this is one of the most inexplicable actions I have ever witnessed from elected representatives 

against their own people, the people who elect them; their neighbors, their family members, their friends, the grocer, the mortician. 

After all of these efforts, House Republicans shut down the entire 

Federal Government for three weeks in October. Three weeks shut 

down the Government. They threatened to default on our national 

debt unless we repealed the Affordable Care Act. Again, this effort 

failed. 

7 

Now they are attempting to use the congressional oversight process to scare Americans away from the website by once again making unsupported assertions about the risk to their personal medical 

information. Let me be clear. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its contractors failed to fully deliver what they 

were supposed to deliver, and congressional oversight of those failures is absolutely warranted. But nobody in this room, nobody in 

this Country believes that Republicans want to fix the website. 

For the past three years the number one priority of congressional 

Republicans has been to bring down this law, and that goal, ladies 

and gentlemen, has not changed. Today they complain that their 

constituents are waiting too long on Healthcare.gov to sign up for 

insurance. But is there a solution to fix the website? No. It is to 

repeal the Affordable Care Act and eliminate health insurance for 

millions of Americans. 

While repealing the Affordable Care Act indeed would reducing 

waiting times on the website, it would increase waiting times in 

our Nation’s emergency rooms. 

Mr. Chairman, over the past month, instead of working in a bipartisan manner to improve the website, you have politicized this 

issue by repeatedly making unfounded allegations. In my opinion, 

these statements have impaired the committee’s credibility. For example, on October 27th, you went on national television and accused the White House of ordering CMS to disable the so-called 

Anonymous Shopper function in September for political reasons: to 

avoid ‘‘sticker shock.’’ That allegation is totally wrong. 

We have now reviewed documents and interviewed the CMS officials who made that decision, and it was based on defects in the 

contractor’s work, not on a White House political directive. 

Last Thursday you issued a press release with this blaring headline: ‘‘Healthcare.gov Could Only Handle 1,100 Users the Day Before Launch.’’ This claim is wrong. You apparently based your allegation on misinterpretation of the documents we received, which 

relate to a sample testing environment. I believe the witnesses will 

expound upon that today. 

Most troubling of all was your allegation against one of our witnesses today, Todd Park, the Chief Technology Officer of the 

United States of America. You went on national television and accused him of engaging in a ‘‘pattern of interference and false statements.’’ Mr. Park is widely respected by the technology community 

as an honest and upstanding professional. In my opinion, your accusations denigrated his reputation with absolutely no, absolutely 

no legitimate basis. As I said to my letter to you on Monday, I believe your statements crossed the line and I think you owe Mr. 

Park an apology, not a subpoena. 

The unfortunate result of this approach is that we may miss an 

opportunity to do some very good work. Our committee has done 

significant substantive and bipartisan work on Federal IT reform, 

and I applaud you for your leadership in that. And I go back to the 

word, it was indeed bipartisan. We joined in to do what this committee is supposed to do, to look at the facts, to seek the truth, the 

whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then bring about reform. 

8 

Under the leadership above you and our Democratic information 

technology expert, Mr. Connolly of Virginia, last March we passed 

the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act. This 

bill would increase the authority of agency CIOs and provide them 

with budget authority over Federal IT programs, including hiring. 

We did that together. We did that in a bipartisan way. We put politics aside, rolled up our sleeves, and worked together to constructively address these challenges. I hope that that is what today’s 

hearing is all about. 

And I again thank our witnesses, who I know are working very 

hard to achieve these goals. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Members may have seven days in which to submit opening statements and other extraneous material. 

I now ask that my entire opening statement be placed in the 

record. Without objection, so ordered. 

I now ask that the letter from Mr. Cummings, dated November 

6, 2013, to me be placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. I will now go to our panel of witnesses. We welcome our first panel of witnesses: 

Mr. Dave Powner is the Director of Information Technology Management Issues at the Government Accountability Office. 

Mr. Henry Chao is the Deputy Director of the Office of Information Services at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 

today probably called CMS for the rest of the day, and Deputy 

Chief Information Officer at CMS. 

Mr. Frank Baitman is the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, normally called HHS. 

Mr. Todd Park is the Chief Technology Officer of the United 

States. 

Mr. Steve VanRoekel is the Chief Information Officer of the 

United States. 

Pursuant to the rules, as many of you who have not been here 

before will see, I would ask that you all rise to take a sworn oath. 

Please raise your right hands. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Now, this is a large panel and it is going to be a long day, and 

I suspect witnesses will be asked questions by both sides of the 

aisle, so I would ask that since your entire opening statements will 

be placed in the record verbatim, that you adhere to the time clock 

and come to a halt as quickly as possible when it hits red. Please 

understand yellow is not an opportunity to start a new subject, it 

is an opportunity to wrap up. 

With that, we will go to our distinguished guest from the GAO, 

Mr. Powner. 

9 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF DAVID A. POWNER 

Mr. POWNER. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and 

members of the committee, we appreciate the opportunity to testify 

on best practices that help agencies deliver complex IT acquisitions. In July I testified before Chairman Mica’s subcommittee on 

15 failed IT projects and other troubled projects, and now we are 

faced with one of the more visible troubled IT projects in 

Healthcare.gov. These complex projects can be delivered successfully when there is appropriate accountability, transparency, oversight, expertise, and program management. 

We issued a prior report that showcases seven successful IT acquisitions and what allowed them to be delivered successfully. This 

morning I would like to highlight best practices from that report 

and others that would have made a difference with Healthcare.gov. 

I would like to start by highlighting the importance of FITAR, Mr. 

Chairman, specifically those sections that increase CIO authorities 

and strengthen IT acquisition practices. 

Starting with accountability. Key IT executives need to be accountable with appropriate business leaders responsible for the 

project. This needs to start with the department CIOs and for 

projects of national importance includes the president CIO. At 

HHS, CIO authority is an issue GAO reported on just last week. 

Transparency. The IT Dashboard was put in place in June of 

2009 to highlight the status and CIO assessments of approximately 

700 major IT investments across 27 departments. About $40 billion 

are spent annually on these 700 investments and public dissemination of each project’s status is intended to allow OMB and the Congress to hold agencies accountable for results in performance. Surprisingly, recent Dashboard assessments on Healthcare.gov primarily showed a green CIO rating. But, interestingly, in March the 

rating was red, so something was wrong at that time. 

Third, oversight. Both OMB, department and agency oversight 

and governance are important so executives are aware of project 

risks and assure that they are effectively mitigated. We have 

issued reports on OMB and agency TechStat sessions highlighting 

the importance of these meetings and their excellent results, primarily halting, rescoping, and redirecting troubled projects. We 

have also recommended that more TechStats needs to occur on 

troubled and risky projects. We are not aware that Healthcare.gov 

was subject to a TechStat review. 

Fourth, expertise. It is extremely important to project success 

that program staff have the necessary knowledge and skills. This 

applies to a number of areas, including program management, engineering, architecture, systems integration, and testing. 

Fifth, program management. Several best practices increase the 

likelihood that IT acquisitions will be delivered on time, within 

budget, and with the functionality promised. This starts with getting your requirements right by involving end-users, having regular communication with contractors throughout the acquisition 

process, and adequately testing the system, including integration 

end-to-end and user acceptance. 

10 

There are a number of key questions that can be asked of any 

IT acquisition to ensure that appropriate accountability, transparency, oversight expertise, and program management is in place, 

and these most definitely pertain to Healthcare.gov. These include: 

What role is OMB playing in ensuring that this major acquisition 

is on track and specifically how involved is the Federal CIO? 

Is the department and agency CIO accountable and actively involved in managing risks? 

Is the acquisition status accurate, timely, and transparent as displayed on the IT Dashboard? 

Are OMB and agency oversight and governance appropriate? 

Were governance or TechStat meetings held with the right executives? 

Were key risks addressed and was there appropriate follow-up? 

Does the agency have the appropriate expertise to carry out its 

program management role and other roles it is to perform? In the 

case of Healthcare.gov, a key question is whether CMS has the capabilities to act as the systems integrator. 

And, finally, is the program office following best practices 

throughout the acquisition life cycle, starting with how the project 

is defined to how it is tested and deployed for operations? This 

would include security testing, assessment, and authorization. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman, OMB and agencies can do more to 

ensure that the Government’s annual 80-plus billion dollar investment in IT has the appropriate accountability, oversight, transparency, and best practices to deliver vital services to the American 

taxpayers. 

This concludes my statement. Thank you for your continued oversight in Federal IT issues. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Powner follows:] 

11 


Insert offset folio 1 here 87316.001

GAO 

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 9:30 am. EST Wednesday, November 13, 2013 

GAO·14·183T 

United States Government Accountability Office 

Testimony 

Before the Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform, House of 

Representatives 

INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY 

Leveraging Best Practices to 

Help Ensure Successful 

Major Acquisitions 

Statement of David A. Powner, Director 

Information Technology Management Issues 
12 


Insert offset folio 2 here 87316.002

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Highlights 

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

Leveraging Best Practices to Help Ensure Successful 

Major Acquisitions 

What GAO Found 

Information technology (IT) acquisition best practices have been developed by 

both Industry and the federal government. For example, the Software 

Engineering Institute has developed highly regarded and widely used guidance 

on best practices, such as requirements development and management, risk 

management, validation and verification, and project monitoring and control. 

GAo.'s own research in IT management best practices led to the development of 

the Information Technology Investment Management Framework, which 

describes essential and complementary IT Investment management disciplines, 

such as oversight of system development and acquisition management, and 

organizes them into a set of critical processes for successful investments. 

GAO also recently reported on the critical factors underlying successful IT 

acquisitions. Officials from federal agencies identified seven investments that 

were deemed successfully acquired in that they best achieved their respective 

cost, schedule, scope, and performance goals. Agency officials identified nine 

common factors that were critical to the success of three or more of the seven 

investments. 

Common Critical Success Factors and Number of Agencies Reporting 

Critical success factor 

Program officials were actively engaged with stakeholders 

Program staff had the necessary knowledge and skills 

Number of 

Investments 

reporting 

Senior department and agencY executives sUP"p"Q~d the "p'ro1llgra~m!.s ________ -"-

End users and stakeholders were involved In the development of requirements 

End users participated in testing of system functionality prior to formal end user accep~~~e~re~s~tin~g~ _____________________ ~ 

Government and contractor staff were consistent and stable 

Program staff prioritized reguirements 

Program officials maintained regular communication with the prime contractor 

Programs received sufficient funding 

Source. GAO analySis of agency data 

Officials from all seven investments cited active engagement with program 

stakeholders as a critical factor to the success of those investments, Agency 

officials stated that stakeholders regularly attended program management office 

sponsored meetings; were working members of integrated project teams; and 

were notified of problems and concerns as soon as possible, 

Additionally, officials from six investments indicated that knowledge and skills of 

the program staff, and support from senior department and agency executives 

were critical to the success of their programs. Further, officials from five of the 

seven selected inveslments identified having the end users test and validate the 

system components prior to formal acceptance testing for deployment as critical 

to the success of their program. These critical factors support the Office of 

Management and Sudget's (OMS) objective of improving the management of 

large-scale IT acquisitions across the federal government; wide dissemination of 

these factors could complement OMS's efforts. 

_____________ United States Government Accountability Office 
13 


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Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the 

Committee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the importance of key aspects of 

the federal government's acquisition of information technology (IT) 

investments. As reported to the Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB), federal agencies plan to spend at least $82 billion on IT in fiscal 

year 2014. Given the size of these investments and the criticality of many 

of these systems to the health, economy, and security of the nation, it is 

important that federal agencies successfully acquire these systems-that 

is, ensure that the systems are acquired on time and within budget, and 

that they deliver the expected benefits and functionality. 

However, as we have previously reported and testified, federal IT projects 

too frequently incur cost overruns and schedule slippages while 

contributing little to mission-related outcomes.' During the past several 

years, we have issued multiple reports and testimonies on federal 

initiatives to acquire and improve the management of IT investments' In 

those reports, we made numerous recommendations to federal agencies 

and OMB to further enhance the management and oversight of IT 

programs. 

1See, for example, GAO, Information Technology: OMB and Agencies Need to More 

Effectively Implement Major ImliaUves to Save Billions of Dollars, GAO-13-796T, 

(Washington, D.C.: July 25, 2013); SecUl" Border Initiative: DHS Needs to Reconsider Its 

Proposed Investment in Key Technology Program, GAO-10-340 (Washington, D.C.: May 

5,2010); and Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellites." With Costs Increasing and Data 

Continuity at Risk, Improvements Needed in Tri-agency Decision Making, GAO-09-564 

(Washington. D.C.: June 17, 2009). 

2see, for example, GAO, InformaUon Technology: Additional Executive Review Sessions 

Needed to Address Troubled Projects, GAO-13-524 (Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2013); 

Data Center Consolidation: Strengthened Oversight Needed to Achieve Billions of Dollars 

in Savings, GAO-13~627T (Washington, D.C.: May 14, 2013); Data Center Consolidation: 

Strengthened Oversight Needed to Achieve Cost Savings Goal, GAO~13-378 

(Washington. D.C.: Apr. 23. 2013); Information Technology Dashboard: Opportunities 

Exist to Improve Transparency and Oversight of Investment Risk at Select Agencies, 

GAO-13-9B (Washington. D.C.: Oct. 16,2012); Data Cen/erConsolidation: Agencies 

Making Progress on Efforts, but Inventories and Plans Need to Be Completed, 

GAO-12-742 (Washington. D.C.: July 19, 2012); Information Technology: Continued 

Attention Needed to Accurately Report Federal Spending and Improve Management, 

GAO-"-831T (Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2011); and Information Technology: Investment 

Oversight and Management Have Improved but Continued Attention Is Needed, 

GAO-l'-454T(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 17, 2011). 

Page 1 GAO-14-183T 
14 


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As part of its response to our prior work, OMS deployed a public website 

in 2009, known as the IT Dashboard, which provides detailed information 

on federal agencies' major IT investments,' including assessments of 

actual performance against cost and schedule targets (referred to as 

ratings) for approximately 700 major federal IT investments. In addition, 

OMS has initiated other significant efforts following the creation of the 

Dashboard. For example, OMS began leading reviews-known as 

TechStat Accountability Sessions (TechStats)-of selected IT 

investments to increase accountability and improve performance. Further, 

in 2011 we reported on the critical factors underlying successful federal 

major IT acquisitions' In that report, we identified seven successful 

investment acquisitions and nine common factors critical to their success. 

As discussed with committee staff, I am testifying today on IT acquisition 

best practices, with a focus on the results of our report on the critical 

success factors of major IT acquisitions' Accordingly, my testimony 

specifically focuses on those success factors and their importance to 

improving IT investment oversight and management. I will also address 

several initiatives put into place by OMS to address the transparency of IT 

investments and to review troubled projects. All work on which this 

testimony is based was performed in accordance with all sections of 

GAO's Quality Assurance Framework that were relevant to our objectives. 

The framework requires that we plan and perform the engagement to 

obtain sufficient and appropriate evidence to meet our stated objectives 

and to discuss any limitations in our work. We believe that the information 

and data obtained, and the analysis conducted, provide a reasonable 

basis for any findings and conclusions in this product. A more detailed 

3According to OMS guidance, a major IT Investment is a system or an acquisition 

requiring special management attention because it: has significant importance to the 

mission or function of the agency, a component of the agency, or another organization; is 

for financial management and obligates more than $500,000 annually; has significant 

program or policy implications; has high executive visibility; has high development, 

operating, or maintenance costs; is funded through other than direct appropriations; or is 

defined as major by the agency's capital planning and investment control process. 

4GAO, Information Technology: Critical Factors Underlying Successful Major Acquisitions, 

GAO-12-7 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2011). 

5GAO-12-7. 

Page 2 GAO·14·183T 
15 


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Background 

discussion of the objectives, scope, and methodology of this work is 

included in each of the reports on which this testimony is based.· 

Information technology should enable government to better serve the 

American people. However, according to OMB, despite spending more 

than $600 billion on IT over the past decade, the federal government has 

achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has 

realized from 1T.7 Too often, federal IT projects run over budget, behind 

schedule, or fail to deliver promised functionality. In combating this 

problem, proper oversight is critical. 

Both OMB and federal agencies have key roles and responsibilities for 

overseeing IT investment management and OMB is responsible for 

working with agencies to ensure investments are appropriately planned 

and justified. However, as we have described in numerous reports,' 

although a variety of best practice documentation exists to guide their 

successful acquisition, federal IT projects too frequently incur cost 

overruns and schedule slippages while contributing little to missionrelated outcomes. 

6GAO~13-524; GAO, Information Technology Reform: Progress Made; More Needs to Be 

Done to Complete Actions and Measure Results, GAO-12-461 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 

26, 2012); IT Dashboard: Accuracy Has Improved, and Additional Efforts Are Under Way 

to Beffer Inform Decision Making. GAO-12-210 (Washington. D.C.: Nov. 7, 2011); 

GAO-12-7; Information Technology: OMB Has Made Improvements to Its Dashboard, but 

Further Work Is Needed by Agencies and OMB to Ensure Data Accuracy. GAO-11-262 

(Washington. D.C.: Mar. 15. 2011); and Information Technology: OMB's Dashboard has 

Increased Transparency and Oversight, but Improvements Needed, GAO~10-701 

(Washington, D.C.: July 16, 2010). 

70MB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federa/lnformation Technology 

Management (Washington, D.C.: December2010). 

8See, for example, GAO, FEMA: Action Needed to Improve Administration of the National 

Flood Insurance Program, GAO-11-297 (Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2011); GAO-10-340; 

Secure Border Initiative: DHS Needs to Address Testing and Performance Limitations 

That Place Key Technology Program at Risk, GAO-10-158 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 29, 

2010); and GAO-09-564. 

Page 3 GAO·14·183T 
16 


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IT Acquisition Best 

Practices Have Been 

Identified by Industry and 

Government and Promoted 

by Legislation 

IT acquisition best practices have been developed by both industry and 

the federal government. For example, the Software Engineering Institute' 

has developed highly regarded and widely used guidance 10 on best 

practices, such as requirements development and management, risk 

management, configuration management, validation and verification, and 

project monitoring and control. This guidance also describes disciplined 

project management practices that call for the development of project 

details, such as objectives, scope of work, schedules, costs, and 

requirements against which projects can be managed and executed. In 

the federal government, GAO's own research in IT management best 

practices led to the development of the Information Technology 

Investment Management Framework," which describes essential and 

complementary IT investment management disciplines, such as oversight 

of system development and acquisition management, and organizes them 

into a set of critical processes for successful investments. This guidance 

further describes five progressive stages of maturity that an agency can 

achieve in its investment management capabilities, and was developed 

on the basiS of our research into the IT investment management practices 

of leading private- and public-sector organizations. GAO has also 

identified opportunities to improve the role played by Chief Information 

Officers (CIO) in IT management." In noting that federal law provides 

CIOs with adequate authority to manage IT for their agencies, GAO also 

reported on limitations that impeded their ability to exercise this authority. 

Specifically, CIOs have not always had sufficient control over IT 

investments; more consistent implementation of CIOs' authority could 

enhance their effectiveness. 

srhe Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development 

center operated by Camegie Mellon University, Its mission is to advance software 

engineering and related disciplines to ensure the development and operation of systems 

with predictable and improved cost, schedule, and quality. 

10See, for example, Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capab!!lty Maturity 

Model® Integration for Development (CMMI-DEV), Version 1.3 (November 2010); and 

Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity Moder Integration for 

AcquiSition (CMMI-ACQ), Version 1.3 (November 2010). 

11GAO, Executive Guide: Information Technology Investment Management, A Framework 

for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity. GAO-04-394G (Washington, D.C.: March 

2004). 

12GAO, Federal Chief Information Officers: Opportunities Exist to Improve Role in 

Information Technology Management, GAO-11-634 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15,2011). 

Page 4 GAO-14-183T 
17 


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Congress has also enacted legislation that reflects IT management best 

practices, For example, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, which was 

informed by GAO best practice recommendations,'3 requires federal 

agencies to focus more on the results they have achieved through IT 

investments, while concurrently improving their IT acquisition processes, 

Specifically, the act requires agency heads to implement a process to 

maximize the value of the agency's IT investments and assess, manage, 

and evaluate the risks of its IT acquisitions,14 Further, the act establishes 

CIOs to advise and assist agency heads in carrying out these 

responsibilities, 15 The act also requires OMS to encourage agencies to 

develop and use best practices in IT acquisition, ,. 

Additionally, the E-Govemment Act of 2002 established a cia Council, 

which is led by the Federal Cia, to be the principal interagency forum for 

improving agency practices related to the development, acquisition, and 

management of information resources, including sharing best practices,17 

Although these best practices and legislation can have a positive impact· 

on major IT programs, we have previously testified that the federal 

government continues to invest in numerous failed and troubled 

projects, ,. We stated that while OMS's and agencies' recent efforts had 

resulted in greater transparency and oversight of federal spending, 

continued leadership and attention was necessary to build on the 

progress that had been made, 

13GAO, Executive Guide: Improving Mission Performance Through Strategic Information 

Management and Technology: Learning from Leading Organizations, GAO/AIMD-94-115 

(Washington, D,C,: May 1994), See also, GAO, Executive Guide: Measuring Performance 

and Demonstrating Resutts of Information Technology Investments, GAO/AIMO-98-89 

(Washington, D.C.: March 1998); and Managing Technology: Best Practices Can Improve 

Performance and Produce Results, GAOfT~AIMD~97~38 (Washington, D.C.: January 

1997), 

1440 U,S,C, § 11312, 

1540 U,S,C, § 11315 and 44 U,S,C, 3506(a)(2)(A), 

1640 U,S.C, § 11302(1), 

1744 U,S,C. § 3603, The Federal CIO is the presidential designation for the Administrator 

of the OMS Office of E-Government, which was also established by the E-Govemment 

Act. 44 U,S,C, § 3602, 

18GAO-13-796T, 

Page 5 GAO-14-183T 
18 


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OMB Has Several 

Initiatives Under Way to 

Improve the Oversight and 

Management of IT 

Investments 

In an effort to end the recurring cycle of failed IT projects, this committee 

has introduced legislation to improve IT acquisition management.19 

Among other things, this legislation would 

increase the authority of agency CIOs, 

eliminate duplication and waste in IT acquisition, and 

strengthen and streamline IT acquisition management practices. 

We have previously testified in support of this legislation. 20 

OMB plays a key role in helping federal agencies manage their 

investments by working with them to better plan, justify, and determine 

how much they need to spend on projects and how to manage approved 

projects. 

In June 2009, OMB established the IT Dashboard to improve the 

transparency into and oversight of agencies' IT investments. According to 

OMB officials, agency CIOs are required to update each major investment 

in the IT Dashboard with a rating based on the CIO's evaluation of certain 

aspects of the investment, such as risk management, requirements 

management, contractor oversight, and human capital. According to 

OMB, these data are intended to provide a near real-time perspective of 

the performance of these investments, as well as a historical perspective. 

Further, the public display of these data is intended to allow OMB, 

congressional and other oversight bodies, and the general public to hold 

government agencies accountable for results and progress. 

In January 2010, the Federal CIO began leading TechStat sessionsreviews of selected IT investments between OMS and agency 

leadership-to increase accountability and transparency and improve 

performance. OMB has identified factors that may result in an investment 

being selected for a TechStat session, such as-but not limited to--

19The Federal information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, introduced as H.R. 1232 

(Mar. 18. 2013), passed by the House on June 14. 2013, as Div. E, H.R. 1960. National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. 

2oGAO-13-796T and Data Centers and The Cloud, Part 11: The Federal Government's 

Take on Optimizing New Information Technologies Opportunities to Save Taxpayers 

Money, Before the HR. Subcommittee on Government Operations of the Committee on 

Oversight and Government Reform, 113th Congo 10-12 (2013) (statement of U.S. 

Government Accountability Office Director of Information Technology Management Issues 

David A. Powner). 

Page 6 GAO-14-183T 
19 


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evidence of (1) poor performance; (2) duplication with other systems or 

projects; (3) unmitigated risks; and (4) misalignment with policies and 

best practices. 

OMS reported that as of April 2013, 79 TechStat sessions had been held 

with federal agencies. According to OMS, these sessions enabled the 

government to improve or terminate IT investments that were 

experiencing performance problems. For example, in June 2010 the 

Federal CIO led a TechStat on the National Archives and Records 

Administration's (NARA) Electronic Records Archives investment that 

resulted in six corrective actions, including halting fiscal year 2012 

development funding pending the completion of a strategic plan. Similarly, 

in January 2011, we reported that NARA had not been positioned to 

identify potential cost and schedule problems early, and had not been 

able to take timely actions to correct problems, delays, and cost increases 

on this system acquisition program. 21 Moreover, we estimated that the 

program would likely overrun costs by between $205 and $405 million if 

the agency completed the program as originally designed. We made 

multiple recommendations to the Archivist of the United States, including 

establishing a comprehensive plan for all remaining work, improving the 

accuracy of key performance reports, and engaging executive leadership 

in correcting negative performance trends. 

Drawing on the visibility into federal IT investments provided by the IT 

Dashboard and TechStat sessions, in December 2010, OMB issued a 

plan to reform IT management throughout the federal government over an 

18-month time frame." Among other things, the plan noted the goal of 

turning around or terminating at least one-third of underperforming 

projects by June 2012. The plan contained two high-level objectives: 

achieving operational efficiency, and 

21GAO, ElectroniC Records Archive: National Archives Needs to Strengthen Its Capacity 

to Use Earned Value Techniques to Manage and Oversee Development, GAO-11-86 

(Washington. D.C.: Jan.13, 2011). 

"OMB, 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology 

Management (Washington, D.C.: December 2010). 

Page 7 GAO-14-183T 
20 


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Prior GAO Work Has 

Reported on OMB's IT 

Investment Oversight and 

Management 

effectively managing large-scale IT programs'» 

To achieve operational efficiencies, the plan outlined actions required to 

adopt cloud solutions and leverage shared services, To effectively 

manage IT acquisitions, the plan identified key actions, such as improving 

accountability and governance and aligning acquisition processes with 

the technology cycle, Our April 2012 report" on the federal government's 

progress on implementing the plan found that not all action items had 

been completed. These findings are discussed in greater detail later in 

the next section, 

We have previously reported that OMS has taken significant steps to 

enhance the oversight, transparency, and accountability of federal IT 

investments by creating its IT Dashboard, by improving the accuracy of 

investment ratings, and by creating a plan to reform federal IT, However, 

we also found issues with the accuracy and data reliability of cost and 

schedule data, and recommended steps that OMS should take to improve 

these data, 

In July 2010, we reported2' that the cost and schedule ratings on 

OMS's Dashboard were not always accurate for the investments we 

reviewed, because these ratings did not take into consideration 

current performance, As a result, the ratings were based on outdated 

information, We recommended that OMS report on its planned 

changes to the Dashboard to improve the accuracy of performance 

information and provide guidance to agencies to standardize 

milestone reporting, OMS agreed with our recommendations and, as 

a result, updated the Dashboard's cost and schedule calculations to 

include both ongoing and completed activities, 

23The plan also outlined five subordinate goals. The h!gh~level objective of achieving 

operational efficiency aligns with the goal of applying light technology and shared 

solutions (e.g., cloud computing, shared services across the government, and 

consolidation of multiple organizations' data centers). The high-level objective of 

effectively managing large-scale IT programs aligns with the other four goals: 

strengthening program management; aligning the budget process with the technology 

cycle; streamlining govemance and improving accountability; and increasing engagement 

with industry, 

240AO-12-461. 

2'GAO-1 0-701 , 

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21 


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Similarly, our report in March 201126 noted that OMS had initiated 

several efforts to increase the Dashboard's value as an oversight tool 

and had used its data to improve federal IT management. However, 

we also reported that agency practices and the Dashboard's 

calculations contributed to inaccuracies in the reported investment 

performance data. For instance, we found missing data submissions 

or erroneous data at each of the five agencies we reviewed, along 

with instances of inconsistent program baselines and unreliable 

source data. As a result, we recommended that the agencies take 

steps to improve the accuracy and reliability of their Dashboard 

information, and that OMS improve how it rates investments relative 

to current performance and schedule variance. Most agencies 

generally concurred with our recommendations and three have taken 

steps to address them. OMS agreed with our recommendation for 

improving ratings for schedule variance. It disagreed with our 

recommendation to improve how it reflects current performance in 

cost and schedule ratings, but more recently made changes to 

Dashboard calculations to address this while also noting challenges in 

comprehensively evaluating cost and schedule data for these 

investments. 

Subsequently, in November 2011, we noted27 that the accuracy of 

investment cost and schedule ratings had improved since our July 

2010 report because OMS refined the Dashboard's cost and schedule 

calculations. Most of the ratings for the eight investments we reviewed 

as part of our November 2011 report were accurate, although we 

noted that more could be done to inform oversight and decision 

making by emphasizing recent performance in the ratings. We 

recommended that the General Services Administration comply with 

OMS's guidance for updating its ratings when new information 

becomes available (including when investments are rebaselined). The 

agency concurred and has since taken actions to address this 

recommendation. Since we previously recommended that OMS 

improve how it rates investments, we did not make any further 

recommendations. 

27GAO-12-210. 

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22 


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Further, in April 2012, we reported" that OMS and key federal 

agencies had made progress on implementing actions items from its 

plan to reform IT management, but found that there were several 

areas where more remained to be done. Specifically, we reviewed 10 

actions and found that 3 were complete, while 7 were incomplete. For 

example, we found that OMS had reformed and strengthened 

investment review boards, but had only partially issued guidance on 

modular development. Accordingly, we recommended, among other 

things, that OMS ensure that the action items called for in the plan be 

completed by the responsible parties prior to the completion of the 

plan's 18-month deadline of June 2012, or if the June 2012 deadline 

could not be met, by another clearly defined deadline. OMS agreed to 

complete the key action ttems. 

Finally, we reviewed OMS's efforts to help agencies address IT 

projects with cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance 

shortfalls in June 2013.29 In particular, we reported that OMS used 

CIO ratings from the Dashboard, among other sources, to select atrisk investments for reviews known as TechStats. 30 OMS initiated 

these reviews in January 2010 to further improve investment 

performance, and subsequently incorporated the TechStat model into 

its plan for reforming IT management. We reported that OMS and 

selected agencies had held multiple TechStat sessions but additional 

OMS oversight was needed to ensure that these meetings were 

having the appropriate impact on underperforming projects and that 

resulting cost savings were valid. Among other things, we 

recommended that OMB require agencies to address their highestrisk investments and to report on how they validated the outcomes. 

OMS generally agreed with our recommendations, and stated that it 

and the agencies were taking appropriate steps to address them. 

2'GAO-13-524. 

3DrechStat sessions are face-toMface meetings to terminate, halt, or turnaround IT 

investments that are failing or are not producing results. 

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23 


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Critical Factors 

Underlying Successful 

Major Acquisitions 

Subsequent to the launch of the Dashboard and the TechStat reviews, 

and to help the federal agencies address the well-documented acquisition 

challenges they face, in 2011,31 we reported on nine common factors 

critical to the success of IT investment acquisitions. Specifically, we 

reported that department officials from seven agencies each identified a 

successful investment acquisition, in that they best achieved their 

respective cost, schedule, scope, and performance goals. To identify 

these investments, we interviewed officials from the 10 departments with 

the largest planned IT budgets in order for each department to identify 

one mission-critical, major IT investment that best achieved its cost, 

schedule, scope, and performance goals. Of the 10 departments, 7 

identified successful IT investments, for a total of 7 investments.32 

Officials from the 7 investments cited a number of success factors that 

contributed to these investments' success. 

According to federal department officials, the following seven investments 

(shown in table 1) best achieved their respective cost, schedule, scope, 

and performance goals. The estimated total life-cycle cost of the seven 

investments is about $5 billion. 

31GAO-12-7. 

32The three departments that were unable to identify an IT investment that met the criteria 

for this engagement were the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, 

and Justice. The Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services each 

identified systems that they stated met our criteria; however, we did not agree that the 

systems selected were mission~critical. Justice stated that it had identified an investment 

that met our criteria; however, it was unable to locate key documentation and evidence 

needed for our review, 

Page 11 GAO-14-183T 
24 


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Table 1: IT Investments Identified as Successful by Federal Departments 

Dollars in miHions 

Total estimated 

Department Managing agency Investment life.-cycfe costs 

Commerce Census Bureau Decennial Response $1,050.0 

Integration System 

Defense Defense Information Global Combat Support $249.9 

Systems Agency System-Joint Increment 

7 

Energy National Nuclear Manufacturing $41.3 

Security Operations 

Administration Management Project 

Homeland U.S. Customs and Western Hemisphere $2,000.0 

Security Border Protection Travel Initiative 

Transportation Federal Aviation Integrated Terminal $472.5 

Administration Weather System 

Treasury Internal Revenue Customer Account Data $1,300.0 

Service Engine 2 (Transition States 

1 and 2) 

Veterans Affairs Veterans Health Occupational Health $34.4 

Administration Record~keeping System 

Source: Agency data 

Among these seven IT investments, officials identified nine factors as 

critical to the success of three or more of the seven. The factors most 

commonly identified include active engagement of stakeholders, program 

staff with the necessary knowledge and skills, and senior department and 

agency executive support for the program. These nine critical success 

factors are consistent with leading industry practices for IT acquisitions. 

Table 2 shows how many of the investments reported the nine factors 

and selected examples of how agencies implemented them are discussed 

below. A more detailed discussion of the investments' identification of 

success factors can be found in our 2011 report. 33 

33GAO-12-7. 

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25 


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Table 2: Number of Selected Investments Identifying Critical Success Factors 

Critical success factor 

Program officials were actively engaged with stakeholders 

Program staff had the necessary knowledge and skills 

Senior department and agency executives supported the programs 

End users and stakeholders were involved in the development of 

requirements 

End users participated in testing of system functionality prior to formal 

end user acceptance testing 

Government and contractor staff were consistent and stable 

Program staff prioritized requirements 

Program officials maintained regular communication with the prime 

contractor 

Programs received sufficient funding 

SOUfCfl:GAOanalysisofagel1cydata 

Number of 

investments 

reporting 

4 

4 

4 

Officials from all seven selected investments ctted active engagement 

with program stakeholders-individuals or groups (including, in some 

cases, end users) with an interest in the success of the acquisition-as a 

critical factor to the success of those investments. Agency officials stated 

that stakeholders, among other things, reviewed contractor proposals 

during the procurement process, regularly attended program 

management office sponsored meetings, were working members of 

integrated project teams,34 and were notified of problems and concerns as 

soon as possible. In addition, officials from the two investments at 

National Nuclear Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border 

Protection noted that actively engaging with stakeholders created 

transparency and trust, and increased the support from the stakeholders. 

Additionally, officials from six of the seven selected investments indicated 

that the knowledge and skills of the program staff were critical to the 

success of the program. This included knowledge of acquisitions and 

340MB defines an integrated project team as a multi-ciisciplinary team ted by a project 

manager responsible and accountable for planning, budgeting, procurement. and Hfe-cycle 

management of the investment to achieve its cost, schedule, and performance goals. 

Team skills include budgetary, financial, capital planning, procurement, user, program, 

architecture, earned value management, security, and other staff as appropriate. 

Page 13 GAO·14·183T 
26 


Insert offset folio 16 here 87316.016

procurement processes, monitoring of contracts, large-scale 

organizational transformation, Agile software development concepts, 35 

and areas of program management such as earned value management 

and technical monitoring. 

Finally, officials from five of the seven selected investments identified 

having the end users test and validate the system components prior to 

formal end user acceptance testing for deployment as critical to the 

success of their program. Similar to this factor, leading guidance 

recommends testing selected products and product components 

throughout the program life cycle.'· Testing of functionality by end users 

prior to acceptance demonstrates, earlier rather than later in the program 

life cycle, that the functionality will fulfill its intended use. If problems are 

found during this testing, programs are typically positioned to make 

changes that are less costly and disruptive than ones made later in the 

life cycle would be. 

In summary, the expanded use of these critical IT acquisition success 

factors, in conjunction with industry and government best practices, 

should result in the more effective delivery of mission-critical systems. 

Further, these factors support OMB's objective of improving the 

management of large-scale IT acquisitions across the federal 

government, and wide dissemination of these factors could complement 

OMB's efforts. While OMB's and agencies' recent efforts have resulted in 

greater transparency and oversight of federal spending, continued 

leadership and attention are necessary to build on the progress that has 

been made. By improving the accuracy of information on the IT 

Dashboard, and holding additional TechStat reviews, management 

attention can be better focused on troubled projects and establishing 

clear action items to turn these projects around or terminate them. 

Further, legislation such as that proposed by this committee can play an 

important role in increasing the authority of agency CIOs and improving 

35 Agile software development is not a set of tools or a single methodology, but a 

philosophy based on selected values, such as prioritizing customer satisfaction through 

early and continuous delivery of valuable software; delivering working software frequently, 

from every couple of weeks to every couple of months; and making working software the 

primary measure of progress. For more information on Agile software development, see 

http://www.agileal!iance.org. 

36Seeltitor example, Camegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity 

Model Integration for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), Version 1.3 (November 2010). 

Page 14 GAO·14·183T 
27 


Insert offset folio 17 here 87316.017

GAO Contact and 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(311295) 

federal IT acquisition management practices. Overall, the implementation 

of our numerous recommendations regarding key aspects of IT 

acquisition management can help OMS and federal agencies continue to 

improve the efficiency and transparency with which IT investments are 

managed, in order to ensure that the federal government's substantial 

investment in IT is being wisely spent. 

Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the 

Committee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to 

respond to any questions that you may have at this time. 

If you or your staffs have any questions about this testimony, please 

contact me at (202) 512-9286 or at pownerd@gao.gov. Individuals who 

made key contributions to this testimony are Dave Hinchman (Assistant 

Director), Deborah Davis, Rebecca Eyler, Kaelin Kuhn, Thomas Murphy, 

Jamelyn Payan, and Jessica Waselkow. 

Page 15 GAO·14·183T 
28 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Chao. 

STATEMENT OF HENRY CHAO 

Mr. CHAO. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of the committee. Since the passage of 

the Affordable Care Act, CMS has been hard at work to design, 

build, and test secure systems that ensure Americans are able to 

enroll in affordable health care coverage. 

I serve as CMS’s Deputy Chief Information Officer and I am a 

career civil servant that has 20 years working at CMS on Medicare 

and Medicaid systems of varying skills. My role has been to guide 

the technical aspects of the Marketplace development and implementation to Federally-facilitated a Marketplace eligibility enrollment systems in the data services Hub. 

I work closely with the private sector’s contractors building these 

IT components of Healthcare.gov. I also work closely with my colleagues in CMS who handle other IT and policy aspects of the site, 

including the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance 

Oversight, which manages the business operations and makes policy decisions that relate to Healthcare.gov; the chief information officer who oversees the account creation on Healthcare.gov through 

management of a shared service called the Enterprise Identity 

Management System; and the Office of Communications, which is 

focused on the call center operations and the user experience aspects of Healthcare.gov. 

To facilitate the various key functions of the Federally-facilitate 

Marketplace, CMS contracted with QSSI to develop the Hub and 

CGI Federal to develop the Federally-facilitated Marketplace. The 

Hub facilitates the secure verification of the information a consumer provides in their Marketplace application with information 

maintained by other Federal data sources such as SSA and IRS. In 

addition to the Hub, CMS contracted with CGI Federal to build the 

Federally-facilitated Marketplace system which consumers use to 

apply for health care coverage through private qualified health 

plans and for affordability programs like Medicaid, CHIP, and advanced premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions. 

The Federally-facilitated Marketplace system consists of numerous modules, each of which was tested for functionality and for security controls. Numerous test cases were used to exercise the endto-end functionality of the system. We underestimated the volume 

of users who would attempt to concurrently access the system at 

any one time initially in October, and we immediately addressed 

the capacity issues in the first few days and continue to actively 

work on further improving performance and creating a better user 

experience. 

Healthcare.gov is made up of two major subdivisions. One subdivision is called Learn and contains information to assist and educate consumers about the Marketplace. In addition, a premium estimation tool was launched on October 10th to allow consumers to 

browse health plans without creating a Healthcare.gov account on 

the Get Insured subdivision of Healthcare.gov, which contains the 

online application for enrollment. 

29 

While the premium estimation tool could only sort consumers 

into two age categories when it was first launched, its functionality 

will be expanded to accommodate additional scenarios to better fit 

consumer shopping profiles. This tool is different from the FFM application because determinations about consumers’ eligibility for insurance affordability programs, Medicaid and CHIP, are specific to 

the characteristics of an applicant and his or her household, and 

could only be calculated when an application is completed, after income, citizenship, and other information is verified. 

I know that consumers using Healthcare.gov have been frustrated in these initial weeks after the site’s launch. While the Hub 

is working as intended, after the launch of the FFM online application, numerous unanticipated technical problems surfaced which 

have prevented some consumers from moving through the account 

creation, application, eligibility, and enrollment processes in a 

smooth and seamless manner. Some of those problems have been 

resolved and the site is functioning much better than it did initially. Users can now successfully create an account, continue 

through the full application and enrollment processes. We are now 

able to process nearly 17,000 registrations per hour, or 5 per second, with no errors. Thanks to enhanced monitoring tools, we are 

now better able to see how quickly the online application is responding and to measure how changes improve user experience on 

the site. 

We reconfigured various systems components to improve site responsiveness, increasing performance across the site, but in particular the viewing and filtering of health plans during the online 

shopping process. We have also made software configuration 

changes that have added capacity to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. 

CMS is committed to creating a safe, secure, and resilient IT system that helps expand access to quality affordable health care coverage. We are encouraged that the Hub is working as intended, 

and that the framework for a better functioning Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility system and enrollment is in place. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Chao follows:] 

30 


Insert offset folio 18 here 87316.018

HENRY CHAO 

DEPUTY CHIEF INFORMATION 

DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 

CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & 

NOVEMBER 13, 2013 
31 


Insert offset folio 19 here 87316.019

U. S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

"Development and Deployment of HealthCare.gov" 

November 13,2013 

Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and members ofthe Committee. 

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 

Services (CMS), in partnership with private sector contractors, has been hard at work to design, 

build, and test secure systems that ensure Americans are able to enroll in affordable health care 

coverage. I serve as CMS's Deputy ChiefInformation Officer (CIO), and I am a career civil 

servant. As Deputy CIO, my role has been to guide the technical aspects of Marketplace 

development and implementation in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and 

agreements. While consumers using HealthCare.gov have been frustrated in these initial weeks 

after the site's October 1, 2013 launch, CMS is working around the clock to address problems so 

that the site works smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of this month. 

Overview of Marketplace Information Technology (IT) 

The Affordable Care Act directs states to establish State-based Marketplaces by January 1,2014. 

In states electing not to establish and operate such a Marketplace, the Affordable Care Act 

requires the Federal Government to establish and operate a Marketplace in the state, referred to 

as a Federally-facilitated Marketplace. The Marketplace provides consumers access to health 

care coverage through private, qualified health plans, and consumers seeking financial assistance 

may qualify for insurance affordability programs like Medicaid, the Children'S Health Insurance 

Program (CHIP), or the advance payment of the premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions 

that can lower consumers' upfront and out-of-pocket costs. 

Marketplace IT System Functions 

To fulfill the functions specified in the Affordable Care Act, Federally-facilitated and Statebased Marketplaces developed eligibility and enrollment, redetermination, and appeals systems. 

In many ways, these systems are similar to what private issuers, Medicare Advantage issuers, 

and State Medicaid agencies currently use to determine eligibility, enroll applicants into health 
32 


Insert offset folio 20 here 87316.020

coverage, process appeals, and perform customer service, as well as prevent fraud, waste, and 

abuse. 

These systems: 

• Determine a consumer's eligibility to enroll in a qualified health plan through the 

Marketplace and for insurance affordability programs; 

• Transmit consumer information to state Medicaid/CHIP agencies or the private, qualified 

health plan issuer they have chosen; 

• Redetermine consumer eligibility status during the year, as needed; and 

• Allow individuals to appeal an eligibility determination. 

Privacy, Security, and Integrity Controls for the Marketplace IT Systems 

A key feature ofthe Marketplace IT systems is that they employ stringent privacy and security 

controls to safeguard consumer data. CMS developed the data services Hub and Federallyfacilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system consistent with Federal statutes, 

guidelines and industry standards that ensure the security, privacy, and integrity of systems and 

the data that flows through them. All ofCMS' IT systems-including Federal Marketplace 

systems ofrecords and systems used to support State-based Marketplaces and Medicaid/CHIP 

agencies-are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974, the Computer Security Act of 1987, and the 

Federal Information Security Management Act of2002 (FISMA). These systems must also 

comply with various rules, regulations, and standards promulgated by the Department of Health 

and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of 

Homeland Security, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 

Key Marketplace IT Functions 

To facilitate the back-end online eligibility and enrollment, redetermination, and appeals 

functions consumers access through HealthCare.gov, CMS developed two key tools, in 

partnership with private sector contractors. CMS contracted with QSSI to build the Hub, which 

provides an electronic connection between the eligibility systems of the Marketplace and State 

Medicaid and CHIP agencies to already existing, secure Federal and state databases to verify the 

information consumers provide in their applications for coverage. In addition, CMS contracted 

with CGJ Federal to build the Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment 

2 
33 


Insert offset folio 21 here 87316.021

system, which consumers use to create an account on HealthCare.gov, verifY their identity, fill 

out an electronic application to determine their eligibility for health care coverage through 

private, qualified health plans, Medicaid, CHIP or other insurance affordability programs, choose 

a health insurance plan and ultimately enroll in health coverage. 

The Data Services Hub 

CMS designed the Hub, a routing tool that helps the Marketplace and State Medicaid and CHIP 

agencies provide accurate and timely eligibility determinations. The Hub verifies data against 

information contained in already existing, secure and trusted Federal databases. CMS has 

security and privacy agreements with all Federal agencies and states connecting to the Hub. 

These include the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department 

of Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicare, TRICARE, the Peace 

Corps and the Office of Personnel Management. The Hub increases efficiency and security by 

eliminating the need for each Marketplace, Medicaid agency, and CHIP agency to set up separate 

data connections to each database. Risk increases when the number of connections to a data 

source increase-which is why CMS has designed the Hub to minimize these risks. The Hub 

provides one highly secured connection among trusted Federal and state databases instead of 

requiring each agency to set up what could have amounted to hundreds of independently 

established connections. Further, the Hub is not a database; it does not retain or store 

information. It is a routing tool that can validate applicant information from various trusted 

Government databases through secure networks. 

Every Federal IT system must comply with rigorous standards before the system is allowed to 

operate. The Hub's independent Security Controls Assessment was completed on 

August 23,2013 and it received an authorization to operate on September 6, 2013. This 

authorization confirms that the Hub complies with Federal standards and that CMS implemented 

the appropriate procedures and safeguards necessary for the Hub to operate securely. 

The Hub and the Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system have several 

layers of protection in place to mitigate information security risk. For example, these 

Marketplace IT systems will employ a continuous monitoring model that will utilize sensors 

3 
34 


Insert offset folio 22 here 87316.022

and active event monitoring to quickly identify and take action against irregular behavior and 

unauthorized system changes that could indicate a potential incident. If a security incident 

occurs, an Incident Response capability would be activated, which allows for the tracking, 

investigation, and reporting of incidents. This allows CMS to quickly identify security incidents 

and ensure that the relevant law enforcement authorities, such as the HHS Office of Inspector 

General Cyber Crimes Unit, are notified for purposes of possible criminal investigation. As with 

all systems, the responsibility to safeguard information is an ongoing process, and CMS will 

remain vigilant throughout operations to anticipate and protect against data security concerns. 

The Marketplace IT monitoring program will continually be reviewed for effectiveness of the 

IT's security controls, through methods that include independent penetration testing, automated 

vulnerability scans, system configuration monitoring, and active web application scanning. 

The Federally-Facilitated Marketplace Eligibility and Enrollment System 

As described above, the Affordable Care Act directs states to establish State-based Marketplaces 

by January 1,2014. In states electing not to establish and operate such a Marketplace, the 

Affordable Care Act requires the Federal Government to establish and operate a Marketplace for 

the state, referred to as a Federally-facilitated Marketplace. CMS contracted with cor Federal to 

build the Federally-facilitated Marketplace system, including the eligibility and enrollment 

system. This system lets consumers establish a HealthCare.gov account that they can return to at 

any point in the application process, and the system connects to the Hub to validate the 

information consumers submit. Once consumer information is verified, the eligibility and 

enrollment system forwards consumer applications to an eligibility tool to determine the 

consumer's eligibility for Medicaid, CHIP, or tax subsidies. For those consumers eligible for tax 

subsidies, it then allows consumers to compare qualified health plans and start to enroll in the 

plan of their choosing, transferring the consumer's information to the issuer to complete the 

enrollment process. 

Separate from the Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system on 

HealthCare.gov is a premium estimation tool, launched on October 10, 2013, that allows 

consumers to browse health plans without creating a HealthCare.gov account. While the tool 

could only sort consumers into two age categories when it was first launched, its functionality 

4 
35 


Insert offset folio 23 here 87316.023

will be expanded to accommodate additional scenarios to better fit consumer shopping profiles. 

This tool is different from the Federally-facilitated Marketplace application because 

determinations about consumers' eligibility for insurance affordability programs, Medicaid, and 

CHIP are specific to the characteristics of an applicant and his or her household and can only be 

calculated when an application is completed-after income, citizenship, and other information is 

verified. 

The Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system consists of numerous 

modules. Each module of this system was tested for functionality. Each interface with our 

business partners and other Federal agencies was also tested. Numerous test cases were used to 

exercise the end-to-end functionality of the system. Given the user experience, we know now 

that we underestimated the volume of users who would attempt to log onto the system at the 

same time, and therefore our testing did not include performance testing at the volume we 

experienced at launch. 

On September 27,2013, CMS granted authority for the Federally-facilitated Marketplace 

eligibility and enrollment system to begin operations, with authority to operate for six months. 

Consistent with security practices as required by FISMA and NIST, CMS identified a number of 

strategies that we are deploying to continue to monitor operations and mitigate any potential risk, 

including through regular additional testing. The authorization to operate the Federallyfacilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system is consistent with NIST guidance. 

FISMA and the NIST Risk Management framework permit agencies to authorize an "authority to 

operate" when there is a risk-mitigation strategy in place. To follow through on the risk 

mitigation strategy identified in the authorization to operate the Federally-facilitated Marketplace 

eligibility and enrollment system, we continue to conduct security testing on an ongoing basis as 

we add new IT functionality. 

Improvements to the Federally-facilitated Marketplace Eligibility and Enrollment System 

While the Hub is working as intended, after the launch of the Federally-facilitated Marketplace 

eligibility and enrollment system, numerous unanticipated technical problems surfaced which 

have prevented some consumers from moving through the account creation, application, 

5 
36 


Insert offset folio 24 here 87316.024

eligibility, and enrollment processes in a smooth, seamless manner. Some of those problems 

have been resolved, and the site is functioning much better than it did initially. We are 

committed to fixing these problems so that the experience using the Federally-facilitated 

eligibility and enrollment system improves for the vast majority of consumers by the end of 

November 2013. 

To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, 

our team called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are 

encountering. We brought on board management expert and former CEO and Chairman of two 

publicly-traded companies, Jeff Zients, to work in close cooperation with our team to provide 

management advice and counsel to the project. We have also enlisted the help ofQSSI to serve 

as a general contractor for the project. They are familiar with the complexity of the system, and 

the work they provided-the Hub-is working well and performing as it should. They are 

working with CMS leadership and contractors to prioritize the needed fixes and make sure they 

get done. 

A number of fixes have already been completed. One place where we have seen a lot of 

consumer frustration is in the ability to successfully create an account. This issue is something 

that we identified on October 1, and we have made significant progress since then to deliver a 

much smoother process for consumers. Users can now successfully create an account and 

continue through the full application and enrollment process. We are now able to process nearly 

17,000 registrants per hour, or 5 per second, with almost no errors. 

The tech team put into place enhanced monitoring tools for HealthCare.gov, enabling us to get a 

high level picture of the Federally-facilitated Marketplace eligibility and enrollment 

system. Thanks to this work, we are now better able to see how quickly pages are responding, 

and to measure how changes improve user experience on the site. 

We reconfigured various system components to improve site responsiveness. This has increased 

performance across the site, but in particular the viewing and filtering of health plans during the 

online shopping process now responds injust seconds. It was taking minutes. We have also 

6 
37 


Insert offset folio 25 here 87316.025

resolved issues with how the eligibility notices are presented to consumers. They now display 

properly at the completion of the application process. 

Other fixes include software configuration changes and optimization that have increased the 

efficiency of system interactions. We also added capacity by doubling the number of servers and 

have replaced the virtual database with a high-capacity physical one. This allowed us to be more 

efficient and effective in our processing time and significantly reduced the account registration 

failures. While significant work remains, these changes are already making the shopping process 

easier for consumers. 

Conclusion 

CMS is committed to creating safe, secure, and resilient IT systems that help expand access to 

the quality, affordable health coverage every American needs. We are encouraged that the Hub is 

working as intended, and that the framework for a better-functioning Federally-facilitated 

Marketplace eligibility and enrollment system is in place. By enlisting additional technical help, 

aggressively monitoring for errors, testing to prevent new issues from cropping up, and regularly 

deploying fixes to the site, we have already made significant improvements to the performance 

and functionality of the system. We expect that over the next few weeks, consumers will see 

improvements to the site each week, and that the consumer experience using the Federallyfacilitated Marketplaces eligibility and enrollment system through HealthCare.gov will be 

greatly improved for the vast majority of users by November 30. 

7 
38 

Chairman ISSA. I know this isn’t questioning time, but if you can 

tell us 17,000 are signing up per hour, then why is a subpoena 

from Ways and Means unanswered as to how many have signed 

up? Please, don’t answer yet. We will get to that. 

Mr. Baitman. 

STATEMENT OF FRANK BAITMAN 

Mr. BAITMAN. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of this committee. My name is Frank 

Baitman, and I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information 

Technology and the Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I am pleased to join you here 

today. 

The Department of Health and Human Services is the United 

States Government’s principal agency for protecting the health of 

all Americans and providing essential human services, especially 

for those who are least able to help themselves. At the Department 

level, the Office of the Chief Information Officer serves this objective by leading the development and implementation of an enterprise-level information technology framework. HHS is committed to 

the effective and efficient management of our information resources 

in support of our public health mission, human services program, 

and the U.S. health system. 

The HHS OCIO is responsible for developing the Department’s 

policy framework for IT, including such areas as enterprise architecture, capital planning, records management, accessibility, and 

security and privacy. For example, the security arena has a healthy 

framework that encompasses the Federal Information Security 

Management Act of 2002, OMB directives, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s guidance on security and privacy, all of which are embodied in the Department’s security policies. 

Our information technology portfolio is sizeable, including support to a number of grant programs that provide IT resources to 

State, local, and tribal governments in support of the programs administered by HHS. The Department’s portfolio also supports everything from common and commodity IT, things like human resources, email, and accounting systems; to the mission systems 

that enable research at the National Institutes of Health; to the 

regulation of drugs and devices at the Food and Drug Administration; and to the treatment of patients at the Indian Health Services’ network of clinics. 

HHS is a large department, with a diverse set of missions. Our 

operating divisions include the Administration for Children and 

Families; the Administration for Community Living; the Administration for Health, Research and Quality; the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 

Services, known as CMS; the Food and Drug Administration; the 

Health Resources and Services Administration; the Indian Health 

Service; the National Institutes of Health; and the Substance 

Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That is what 

makes up HHS. And we manage our IT portfolio through a federated governance structure. The vast majority of the Department’s 

IT resources are dedicated directly to the appropriations made to 

39 

our programs and operating divisions, and our governance structure reflects that reality. Program-level IT decisions are governed 

and reviewed by our operating divisions. 

Each of HHS’s operating divisions has its own chief information 

officer, its own chief information security officer, and an IT management structure; and management of the development of 

Healthcare.gov was comparable to management of similar IT initiatives throughout the Department’s operating divisions. Indeed, 

prior IT initiatives that we are all familiar with, including Medicare.gov and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug program were led 

and developed by CMS, who serves as the business owner and developer of Healthcare.gov’s integrated eligibility and enrollment 

system for the Federally-facilitated Marketplace. 

Since I joined the Department about 18 months ago, we have 

been working to restructure and update our IT governance, bringing visibility into what the Department buys and builds across all 

of our operating divisions, and we are now in the process of putting 

in place three IT steering committees to bring together technology 

and program leaders from across the Department to improve our 

purchasing and management of IT resources. These steering committees take a functional view of our IT portfolio. We have created 

one to oversee health and human service systems, a second to oversee scientific research systems, and a third for administrative and 

management systems. 

This governance structure will improve Department-wide oversight of IT purchases and projects. Secretary Sebelius has been a 

strong advocate for transparency into the Department’s IT portfolio 

and this new governance structure is designed to achieve that outcome. Collectively, these three steering committees will provide Department-wide guidance to the operating divisions’ respective IT 

portfolios and will ensure that we identify and take advantage of 

opportunities to save taxpayer funds. 

For example, we are now in the process of establishing a Vendor 

Management Office to improve the Department’s negotiating position with technology vendors and to make use of enterprise-wide license acquisitions. We are always looking for ways to consolidate 

investment systems or acquisitions to meet the Department’s broad 

IT portfolio needs more effectively and economically. In the fiscal 

year 2014 budget process, HHS identified $250 million in reductions within our IT portfolio attributable to savings in various commodity IT areas. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Baitman, we know how great a job you are 

doing; that is why you are here today. Could you please wrap up? 

Mr. BAITMAN. Sure. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you here today. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Baitman follows:] 

40 


Insert offset folio 26 here 87316.026

FRANK BAITMAN 

DEPU'rY.ASSIST ANT SECRETARY FOR INFORMATION 

u.s. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH 

ON 

OB~ACARE IMPLEMENTATION: THE 

, ",,;'<'; 

U. S. HO~§~~OMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 
41 


Insert offset folio 27 here 87316.027

U. S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

"ObamaCare Implementation: The Rollout of HealthCare.gov" 

November 13,2013 

Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of this Committee. 

My name is Frank Baitman and I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology 

and ChiefInformation Officer (CIO) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

(HHS or Department). I am pleased to join you here today. 

The Department of Health and Human Services is the United States government's principal 

agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, 

especially for those who are least able to help themselves. At the Department level, the Office of 

the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) serves this objective by leading the development and 

implementation of an enterprise-level information technology (IT) framework. HHS is 

committed to the effective and efficient management of our information resources in support of 

our public health mission, human services program, and the United States health system. The 

HHS OeIO is responsible for developing the Department's policy framework for IT, including 

such areas as enterprise architecture, capital planning, records management, accessibility, and 

security and privacy. For example, the security arena has a healthy framework that encompasses 

the Federal Information Security Management Act of2002, OMB Directives, and the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology's guidance on security and privacy, all of which are 

embodied in Departmental policies. OUf information technology (IT) portfolio is sizable, 

including support for a number of grant programs that provide IT resources to state, local, and 

tribal governments in support of the programs administered by HHS. The Department's 

portfolio also supports everything from common and commodity IT-things like human 

resources, email, and accounting systems-to the mission systems that enable research at the 

National Institutes of Health (NIH), regulation of drugs and devices at the Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA), and treatment at the Indian Health Services' network of clinics. 

2 
42 


Insert offset folio 28 here 87316.028

HHS is a large department with a diverse set of missions. Our Operating Divisions include: the 

Administration for Children and Families, the Administration for Community Living, the 

Administration for Health Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration, the 

Health Resources and Services Administration, the Indian Health Service, the National Institutes 

of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. We manage our 

IT portfolio through a federated governance structure. The vast majority of the Department's IT 

resources are directly tied to appropriations made to our programs and Operating Divisions, and 

our governance structure reflects this reality. Program-level IT decisions are governed and 

reviewed by our Operating Divisions. 

Each ofHHS's Operating Divisions has its own ChiefInformation Officer (CIO), Chief 

Information Security Officer (CISO), and IT management structure. Management of the 

development of Health care. go v was comparable to management of similar IT initiatives 

throughout the Department's Operating Divisions. Indeed, prior IT initiatives we are all familiar 

with-including Medicare.gov and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program-were led 

and developed by CMS, who serves as the business owner and developer of Healthcare.gov's 

integrated eligibility and enrollment systems for the Federally-Facilitated Marketplace. 

Since I joined the Department about eighteen months ago, we have been working to restructure 

and update our IT governance-bringing visibility into what the Department buys and builds 

across all of our Operating Divisions. We are in the process of putting in place three IT steering 

committees to bring together technology and program leaders from across the Department to 

improve our purchasing and management ofIT resources. These Steering Committees take a 

functional view of our IT portfolio, creating one to oversee health and human services systems, a 

second for scientific research systems, and a third for administrative and management systems 

and our technology infrastructure. 

This governance structure will improve Department-wide oversight ofIT purchases and projects. 

Secretary Sebelius has been a strong advocate for complete transparency into the Department's 

IT portfolio, and this new governance structure is designed to achieve that outcome. Collectively, 

3 
43 


Insert offset folio 29 here 87316.029

these three steering committees will provide Department-wide guidance to the Operating 

Divisions' respective IT portfolios, and will ensure that we identifY and take advantage of 

opportunities to save taxpayer funds. For example, we are in the process of establishing a Vendor 

Management Office to improve the Department's negotiating position with technology vendors, 

and to make use of enterprise-wide license acquisitions. 

We are always looking for ways to consolidate investments, systems, or acquisitions to meet the 

Department's broad IT portfolio needs more effectively. In the FY 2014 budget process, HHS 

identified over $250 million in reductions within our IT portfolio attributable to savings in 

various commodity IT areas, data center consolidations, simplification of redundant contracting 

vehicles, and the elimination of low-value or underperforming investments. 

Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today. 

4 
44 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Park. 

STATEMENT OF TODD PARK 

Mr. PARK. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting 

me to testify today on the Administration’s ongoing efforts to deliver on the promise of the Affordable Care Act. 

As U.S. Chief Technology Officer, housed at the Office of Science 

and Technology Policy, I serve as an advisor at the White House 

on a broad range of technology policy and strategy priorities, ranging from how technological innovation can help grow the economy 

to how to open up government data to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the private sector to how the power of technology 

can be harnessed to improve health care, aid disaster relief, fight 

human trafficking, and more. In this work, I try to bring the sensibilities of the private sector tech entrepreneur that I have been 

for most of my professional life. 

As you know, October 1st was the launch of the new 

Healthcare.gov and the Health Insurance Marketplace, where people without health insurance, including those who cannot afford 

health insurance and those who are not part of a group plan, can 

go to get affordable coverage. 

Unfortunately, the experience on Healthcare.gov has been highly 

frustrating for many Americans. These problems are unacceptable. 

We know there is real interest from the American public in having 

easy access to the new affordable choices in the health insurance 

marketplace. I believe that as public servants we have a shared 

goal: to deliver to Americans the service they deserve and expect. 

And since the beginning of October I have shifted into working fulltime on the team that is working around the clock to fix 

Healthcare.gov and bring it to the place it should be. 

The team is making progress. The website is getting better each 

week as we work to improve its performance, its stability, and its 

functionality. As a result, more and more individuals are successfully creating accounts, logging in, and moving on to apply for coverage and shop for plans. We have much work still to do, but are 

making progress at a growing rate. 

I will be happy to try to answer any questions you may have 

about Healthcare.gov and the progress the team is making. Thank 

you very much. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Park follows:] 

45 


Insert offset folio 30 here 87316.030

Statement ofTodd Park 

U.S. Chief Technology Officer 

Executive Office of the President 

to the 

Oversight and Government Reform Committee 

U.5. House of Representatives 

November 13, 2013 

Good morning. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the Committee: thank you 

for inviting me to testify today on the Administration's ongoing efforts to deliver on the promise of the 

Affordable Care Act. 

As U.s. Chief Technology Officer, housed at the Office of SCience and Technology Policy, I serve as an 

advisor at the White House on a broad range of technology policy and strategy priorities - ranging from 

how technological innovation can help grow the economy to how to open up government data to spur 

innovation and entrepreneurship to how the power of technology can be harnessed to improve health 

care, aid disaster relief, fight human trafficking, and more. In this work, I try to bring the sensibilities of 

the private-sector tech entrepreneur that I've been for most of my professional life. 

As you know, October 1" was the launch ofthe new Healthcare.gov and the Health Insurance 

Marketplace-where people Without health insurance, including those who cannot afford health 

insurance, and those who are not part of a group plan, can go to get affordable coverage. 

Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been highly frustrating for many Americans. 

These problems are unacceptable. We know there is real interest from the American public in having 

easy access to the new, affordable chOices in the Health Insurance Marketplace. I believe that as public 

servants, we have a shared goal- to deliver to Americans the service they deserve and expect. And 

since the beginning of October, I have shifted into working full-time on the team that is working around 

the clock to fix HealthCare.gov and bring it to the place it should be. 

The team is making progress. The website is getting better each week, as we work to improve its 

performance, its stability, and its functionality. As a result, more and more individuals are successfully 

creating accounts, logging in, and moving on to apply for coverage and shop for plans. We have much 

work still to do, but are making progress at a growing rate. 

I will be happy to try to answer any questions you may have about HealthCare.gov and the progress the 

team is making. Thank you very much. 

1 
46 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Park. 

Mr. VanRoekel. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN VANROEKEL 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of this committee. Thank you for this 

opportunity to testify on the efforts to improve the management of 

Federal information technology and its relationship to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. 

As the Chief Information Officer of the United States, I serve as 

the Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, a statutorily created office within the Office of 

Management and Budget. My primary duties are: developing and 

issuing Government-wide, broad-brush guidance and policy; overseeing the development of the President’s $82 billion IT budget; 

and convening and facilitating Federal IT stakeholders to collectively address and resolve complex cross-Government issues. 

The results from my office have followed these themes: flat-lining Federal IT spending since 2009, realizing over $1 billion in savings 

since 2012 with our PortfolioStat program, and facilitating and convening agencies to work on crosscutting opportunities and policy 

such as our work on opening Government data, closing and optimizing our data centers, promoting a new wave of cloud computing. 

My office has also done important work in the area of 

cybersecurity, creating new, secure mobile device specifications for 

our Country and protecting Federal IT devices and the network. 

My involvement in the implementation of the ACA also reflects 

from my role as Federal CIO. I acted as a convener and facilitator 

of agencies to work through the technical details of the cross-agency implementation work of the ACA, primarily yielding the crossagency Data Service Hub feature of the overall system. 

As the committee is well aware, before joining the Administration, I worked in the private sector for nearly 20 years, the majority of which was at Microsoft Corporation. I shipped and helped 

launch many complex products and well-known brands, such as 

Windows XP, Xbox, and Windows Server. The launch of each of 

these projects presented its own challenges. Microsoft is still 

patching Windows XP, 12 years after I helped launched it in 2001. 

Continuous improvement is the nature of these efforts. 

As you can imagine, connecting multiple legacy IT systems 

across multiple agencies of the Federal Government is a complex 

task; however, this is no way an excuse for the problems encountered in launching Healthcare.gov. We are taking this unacceptable 

situation seriously and working hard to correct course. 

Since October 1st, I am actively helping in the all-hands-on-deck 

effort to assist the Department of Health and Human Services and 

the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in fixing this system. Given my prior experience in the private sector, I acted as a 

customer advocate, helping to assess and address opportunities to 

improve the customer experience while we fix the website. Outcomes from this work include updates to the home page of 

Healthcare.gov and listing alternative ways to apply for health insurance. Recently, I am involved in the technical aspects of the 

site, including monitoring progress and advising the team. 

47 

We share the deep concern of this committee regarding the current state of Healthcare.gov and we, as a team, are working to improve this site to improve access to affordable healthcare coverage 

as soon as possible. I look forward to continuing this work after 

this hearing. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. VanRoekel follows:] 

48 


Insert offset folio 31 here 87316.031

[EMBARGOED UNTIL 9:30 AM ON NOVEMBER 13, 2013J 

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503 

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN VANROEKEL 

FEDERAL CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, 

ADMINISTRATOR FOR E-GOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, 

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

GOVERNMENT REFORM 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

November 13, 2013 

Good morning, Chainnan [ssa, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the 

Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to testifY on the efforts to improve the management 

of Federal Infonnation Technology (IT) and its relationship to the implementation of the 

Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

As the ChiefInformation Officer of the United States, I serve as the Administrator of the 

Office of Electronic Government and Infonnation Technology, a statutorily-created office within 

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). My primary duties are: developing and issuing 

government-wide, broad-brush guidance and policy; overseeing the development of the 

President's $82 billion IT budget; and convening and facilitating Federal IT stakeholders to 

collectively address and resolve complex, cross-government issues. 

The results from my office have followed these themes flat-lining Federal IT spending 

since 2009, realizing over $1 billion in savings with our PortfolioStat program, and facilitating 

and convening agencies to work on cross-cutting opportunities and policy, such as our work on 

opening Government data, closing and optimizing our data centers, and promoting a new wave 

of cloud computing. My office has also done important work in the area of cyber security 

creating new, secure mobile device specifications for our country and protecting Federal IT 

devices and the network. 

My involvement in the implementation of the ACA also reflects from my role as Federal 

CIO - I acted as a convener and facilitator of agencies to work through the technical details of 

the cross-agency implementation work of the ACA, primarily yielding the Data Services Hub 

feature of the overall system. 
49 


Insert offset folio 32 here 87316.032

As the Committee is well aware, before joining the Administration, I worked in the 

private sector for nearly 20 years, the great majority of which was at Microsoft Corporation. I 

shipped and helped launch many complex products and well-known brands, such as Windows 

XP, Xbox and Windows Server. The launch of each of these projects presented its own 

challenges. Microsoft is still patching Windows XP, 12 years after I helped launch it in 2001 it 

is the nature ofthese efforts. As you can imagine, connecting mUltiple, legacy IT systems across 

mUltiple agencies of the Federal Government is a complex task, however, this in no way excuses 

the problems encountered in launching HealthCare.gov. We are taking this unacceptable 

situation seriously and working hard to correct course. 

Since October 1 st, I am actively helping in the all-hands-on-deck effort to assist the 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 

Services (CMS) in fixing this system. Given my prior experiences in the private sector, I act as a 

customer advocate, helping to assess and address opportunities to improve the customer 

experience while we fix the website. Outcomes from this work include updates to the home page 

of HealthCare.gov and listing alternative ways to apply for health insurance. Recently, I am 

involved in the technical aspects of the site, including monitoring progress of the website and 

advising the team. 

We share the deep concern of this Committee regarding the current state of 

HealthCare.gov and are committed to working with HHS and CMS to improving this site to 

improve access to affordable healthcare coverage as soon as possible. I look forward to 

continuing that work. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the Committee today. 

### 
50 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

I now ask unanimous consent that pages 151 and 152 of Mr. 

Chao’s transcribed interview be placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. I now ask that the redacted document of CGI 

Federal, which we will call Exhibit 1, I guess, be placed in the 

record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. And I now ask that the CMS document entitled 

Health Insurance Marketplace Preflight Checklist September 25th, 

2013 be placed in the record. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman ISSA. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just want to reserve so I can just see the documents, that’s all. 

Chairman ISSA. That is a committee document that both sides 

have. 

[Pause.] 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chao, I am going to ask the clerk to give you 

those documents and, before I start, I am going to give you a very 

brief understanding of what I am going to come back to you on in 

just a few minutes. But you have made testimony, on pages 151 

and 152 of your transcribed interview, in a sequence of events that 

were related to the Minority’s questioning of you as to whether or 

not the Anonymous Shopper function worked on October 1st. The 

other document is related to that checklist, and we want to make 

sure you have that before I ask you any further questions under 

oath. 

While he is reading that, Mr. Park, you are here today, and 

taken away from your other duties, because of a serious concern 

about what you knew and what the Administration may have had 

you say, and I want to give you an opening opportunity to clarify 

that. After the October launch, and I will paraphrase, you basically 

said that the problem with the website was that there were 

250,000 simultaneous users; they could have handled 60,000, but 

that 250,000 simply slowed it down or brought it to its knees. 

With your opening statement, the opening statements of others, 

and what you now know, would you like to please, for the record, 

give us the number of simultaneous users you believe could have 

been handled through the portal on day one? 

Mr. PARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the question. It is the 

nature of this kind of situation—— 

Chairman ISSA. Now, Mr. Park? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. I want to treat you with respect, but I have a 

very few minutes. 

Mr. PARK. Yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. You gave a number. That number was erroneous. It couldn’t handle 60,000 simultaneous users. Documents 

that will be placed in the record show that on September 30th the 

system crashed with 1100, and the goal was to get to 10,000. 

Would you like to tell us for the record, based on your working on 

this, what number the American people could simultaneously be on 

the site working on day one before the system began to time out? 

51 

Mr. PARK. So, to answer as succinctly as I can, thank you for the 

question, the information that we had at the time was that CMS 

had designed the system for 50,000 to 60,000 concurrent users. 

Right now, if you ask me right now, based on what I know now, 

what the system is currently capable of handling, the thing I would 

be comfortable saying is that the system has been comfortably handling, at present, about 20,000 to 25,000 current users. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so it is fair to say, and I will paraphrase, 

on day one, on October 1st, at the launch, some amount, perhaps 

greater than 1,100, which was experienced on September 30th, and 

closer to the goal set on September 30th, which they thought, in 

documents the committee has received, they could get to 10,000 simultaneous. But on day one, on October 1st, when this site 

launched, the site was capable of handling somewhere more than 

1,100, perhaps, but less than 10,000 simultaneous users, and certainly not the 60,000, 50,000, 20,000, or 250,000 that simultaneously tried to use the site. Is that correct? 

Mr. PARK. So there may be a matter of confusion here, which 

CMS may be better positioned to clarify. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. PARK. But I believe that the 1,100 number was for a particular unit of capacity. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. PARK. As opposed to the entire system. But I will defer. 

Chairman ISSA. Right. But the problem is there was a front door, 

and that unit of capacity was limited by the front door. You know, 

I come out of the IT world, I come out of the tech world, but the 

American people can understand that you are only as strong as 

your weakest link. If you have a bottleneck that causes people trying to get through the site to not be able to do it, to time out, that 

bottleneck is what determines it. And since, on day one, only 6 people got to the end, I think that for the American people, understanding that whatever the capacity is today, the capacity was insufficient on day one. Isn’t that correct? 

Mr. PARK. So, sir, just in the interest of providing the most accurate testimony I can—— 

Chairman ISSA. I only want to know on day one was the capacity 

sufficient. 

Mr. PARK. I can’t speak to the numbers that you are talking 

about. But clearly on day one, clearly on day one the system was 

overwhelmed by volume. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. Well, Mr. Park, you are going back to 

something I hoped you wouldn’t do. The volume on day one, and 

maybe the GAO can answer, the volume on day one was not in excess of what was expected, was it? The volume on day one was 

what you would expect if everyone is going on the site to see what 

it is all about after three and a half years of waiting, isn’t it, Mr. 

Powner? 

Mr. POWNER. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have those specifics, but I 

will say this: these volumes we are talking about, if you go to examples like IRS on e-filing and the volume they handle with people 

filing taxes in the eleventh hour, this is the same problem that the 

IRS deals with on an annual basis. What you need to do is you 

need to appropriately plan for your performance in stress-testing, 

52 

and there is fundamental questions whether that was adequate 

here. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, and that is what we are going to discover 

throughout the panel today. 

Mr. Chao, I told you I would come back to you. You testified 

under oath, on pages 151 and 152, on the Minority’s questions, that 

basically, and I will paraphrase because of time, this site, the 

Anonymous Shopper function did not work. Now, we have seen a 

document with CMS on it dated September 25th that said it passed 

that test. Is it that you did not know it had passed the test when 

you made your statement saying that it failed? 

Mr. CHAO. Well, first off, Chairman, I would like to say that after 

working with your staff for eight, nine hours, as well as the Minority staff, going through this transcribed interview, I have not had 

a chance to look at this, so this is the first time I am actually seeing the results of that day, so—— 

Chairman ISSA. Wait a second. Look, your job is to know what 

is in the site. The CMS report that said, and this is September, before the launch, that the test had been passed successfully on the 

Anonymous Shopper. You testified that it wasn’t and that is why 

it was turned off. 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Chairman ISSA. Are you prepared to say under oath that the 

Anonymous Shopper was turned off by your knowledge, not your 

guess, not your hypothetical, but are you prepared to say the Anonymous Shopper was turned off because it failed the test? And that 

would be your knowledge based on what you knew. 

Mr. CHAO. My words were not that it was turned on or off. I 

think that is actually technically incorrect. I said it was not made 

available because it failed testing. So you hand me this page 151, 

152, which I have not reviewed as far as correctness and accuracy, 

and I suppose you are handing me this other document that 

says—— 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chao, what we are doing is we are saying 

that CMS documents show that the Anonymous Shopper tested 

positive, it worked. You said under oath, and I am sorry that you 

may not have remembered what you said under oath, but when the 

Minority asked you what is normally nice questions, self-serving 

questions, help you rehabilitate yourself questions, they are on 

your side, you said effectively that you gave a reason, which the 

ranking member used in his opening statement effectively, that the 

Anonymous Shopper was turned off for reasons other than political. 

Mr. CHAO. Because I have—— 

Chairman ISSA. We believe the Anonymous Shopper, the easy 

front door, the I just want to know what it is going to cost was not 

on, and if in fact if it was on, Mr. Park has said this had different 

components. That portion could have been much more effective. 

The American people could have gotten on and shopped. 

Mr. CHAO. This line of questions that I was answering about 

Anonymous Shopper is in the context of my knowledge, under oath, 

that it did not pass testing, and I have documents that show it did 

not pass testing. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so, when—Mr. Chao, my time has expired, 

but when HHS and CMS deliver us documents showing that it 

53 

hasn’t passed, we can have you back. Right now the documents 

provided to us by the vendor show that it did pass on a CMS document. That document is placed in the record. If anyone else would 

like to understand that you have said it failed test, they said it 

passed test. This Administration, in their absence of transparency, 

has refused to give us the documents showing it failed test, but the 

document we have today, which says CMS all over it, which is in 

the record, says it passed test. It passed the test. You said under 

oath it failed the test. Our problem is the people you work for won’t 

give us the documents so we can fully understand that, just as the 

people you work for won’t answer a simple question to the Ways 

and Means Committee, which is how many people have signed up, 

even under a subpoena. 

With that, I recognize the ranking member to try to rehabilitate 

your testimony. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, let me be clear that we have staff 

who work just as hard as yours. It is not about self-serving, it is 

about getting to the truth, and I would not insult your staff—— 

Chairman ISSA. I wasn’t insulting your staff. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, I take it as an insult. 

Chairman ISSA. What I said was that—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. It is not about self-serving; it is not about rehabilitating. It is about trying to get to the truth, period, the truth 

and nothing but the truth. And I am not going to try to rehabilitate, as you said, Mr. Chao. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, maybe you can get him to give us the documents. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I think in a few moments somebody else on this 

panel will present the documents that there is something that you 

did not disclose just now that will be brought out to show that your 

statements are inaccurate. 

Now, Mr. Park—— 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Of course. Somebody else will bring it up, another member. 

Chairman ISSA. So somebody else will rehabilitate—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. No, no, no, no, no. No. No. No. Again, we will 

show you the document that there are some things that you have 

been blacked out that you have not disclosed, and we will show you 

those in a few minutes. 

Now, if I may proceed. 

Mr. Park, although we have not met before today, I understand 

that you have an outstanding reputation in the IT community. I 

did not know this previously, but the cofounder of your former company is Jonathan Bush, of Athena Health, who is the cousin of 

former President George Bush, is that right? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I have a quote here that Mr. Bush, the cousin 

of the former president, gave to a reporter a few weeks ago, and 

he says this about you: ‘‘Todd is uniquely thoughtful, dedicated, 

and precise. He is a manic problem-solver, blind to partisanship. If 

there is anyone who can fix the problems with the exchanges, it is 

Todd.’’ 

54 

Mr. Bush also said that you are working so hard to improve the 

website that you ‘‘spent the first week of October sleeping on the 

floor of his office as he tried to help get Healthcare.gov off the 

mat.’’ Is that right? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, your reputation certainly precedes you. Unfortunately, however, last week Chairman Issa appeared on Fox 

News and accused you and other political appointees of engaging 

in a ‘‘pattern of interference and false statements related to this 

site.’’ 

That is a serious attack against your integrity. I don’t want to 

get into anyone’s intent or motives here, but I do want to give you 

an opportunity to respond directly. And this is not unusual for me, 

because I realize that we are all on this Earth for a short while 

and that our reputation is all we have. And since those statements 

were made about you, I would like to give you an opportunity to 

respond. 

Mr. PARK. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. And, 

again, I don’t take any of this personally; it is a fast-moving situation with a lot going on. So I would just say this, that it was the 

case, absolutely, that volume was a key issue that hit the site. It 

is still an issue for the site, although we have greatly expanded 

and are expanding the ability for the site to accommodate volume. 

I relayed my best understanding at the time in each of my statements. It is the nature of things that as you do more painstaking 

diagnosis of a system, you learn more about what you need to do 

to fix it, and I can say now that, in addition to volume, there are 

other key issues that have to be addressed with the site in terms 

of its performance, in terms of its stability, in terms of its 

functionality, and there are aggressive efforts happening to do that 

which are making great progress, so it is getting better and better 

each week with the work of a tremendous team led by Jeffrey 

Zients and Ms. Tavenner, of which I am proud to be a small part. 

But you have my assurance that at each part along the way, if I 

am ever asked a question, I will tell you what I know to the best 

of my ability, my best understanding, and that is what I will continue to do as my understanding gets better and better. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, let me ask you this. Did you engage in a 

‘‘pattern of interference and false statements?’’ 

Mr. PARK. No, I did not. I relayed my best understanding at the 

time, and I will continue to do that. As my understanding gets better, I will relay that, absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Before you were subpoenaed to come here today, 

your office wrote a letter describing your extreme demanding workload for the next two weeks and offering to testify in December instead. Was this concern coming just from your office or was it really a legitimate concern of yours that you would be pulled away 

from the website issues to prepare for testifying here today? 

Mr. PARK. So it has never been a question of if I will testify, it 

was just a question of when. It had been the hope of me and the 

team that is working to fix the site that I could continue to focus 

intensely on helping to fix the site this month and come back in 

a few weeks. That being said, I understand that the chairman 

came to a different decision. I respect that decision. I am the son 

55 

of immigrants from Korea. I have incredible love for this Country. 

I have huge respect for the institution of Congress and its role in 

our democracy, and if the committee wanted me to be here today 

and decided I should be here today, then I am happy to be here 

today and make the time to answer your questions. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Although I understand that the website—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I just ask for the same amount 

of time you had. 

Chairman ISSA. I let you ask the last question after your time 

had expired, and it was completed. 

We now go to the gentleman from Florida for five minutes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it was about almost four 

minutes that you exceeded your time by that. Is there—— 

Chairman ISSA. I went to one question after the end, which was 

Mr. Chao, which—— 

Mr. TIERNEY. Four minutes. I am only asking—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, you are not going to run a fair hearing, you 

are just going to go out and do this all the way. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman from Florida is recognized. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for yielding. 

It is kind of interesting to see, as ObamaCare implodes, how everybody is running for cover. Yesterday we saw the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton, throw the current President 

under the bus, so to speak, on this issue. Today we heard the other 

side, Mr. Cummings, our Democrat leader, start out by citing that 

the problem with this is Republican governors, that a lot of them 

opted for an exchange. 

Mr. Chao, are these governors Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, aren’t they all Democrat governors and they opted 

out of the exchange? Are you aware of that? Well, they are, just 

for the record. But it is interesting to see how they run for cover. 

I have a question for all of you. Each of you I want to ask you 

this question. It is obvious that ObamaCare was not ready for 

prime time from both an IT performance ability and also from a security standpoint. Were you aware of that, Mr. Powner, before October 1st? 

Mr. POWNER. GAO did issue a report—— 

Mr. MICA. Were you—okay. 

Mr. POWNER.—in June that there was a lot to do in a compressed 

schedule, correct. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Were you aware of it, Mr. Chao? 

Mr. CHAO. Can you repeat the question again? 

Mr. MICA. That ObamaCare was not ready from an IT operational standpoint and also from a security standpoint for prime 

time on October 1st. Were you aware of it? 

Mr. CHAO. I was aware that there was security testing—— 

Mr. MICA. You were aware that there were problems. Okay. 

Mr. CHAO. And that there were no high findings in security testing. 

Mr. MICA. I said from an operational. So you thought it was operational. 

56 

Mr. CHAO. I am just trying to answer your question. 

Mr. MICA. Well, operational and security. 

Mr. Baitman? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I was aware that various modules that were to be 

part of the system were—— 

Mr. MICA. Weren’t working. 

Mr. BAITMAN.—were being removed. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Park, anything on security? Mr. Park, operational 

and security. 

Mr. PARK. As I recall, sir, no. 

Mr. MICA. OH, OKAY. Mr. VanRoekel? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I am aware that any system, private sector or 

public sector—— 

Mr. MICA. What about the security? 

Mr. VANROEKEL.—needs constant addressing of security. 

Mr. MICA. What about the security issue? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Any system needs constant—security needs to 

be constantly addressed. 

Mr. MICA. Did you review a document prepared by MITRE that 

reviewed—this hasn’t been released yet, but it reviewed the security testing and capability? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. No, sir, I didn’t see that. 

Mr. MICA. You did not see this, September 23rd, that highlighted 

some of the issues? Okay. 

First of all, it looks like political decisions got us into this strait. 

You commented, Mr. Chao, to our committee that you had to have 

regulations in place to go forward to make decisions on the construct, right? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. MICA. And there were regulations that were not imposed, 

and I think you also intimated that some of them were stopped by 

the White House prior to the election. 

Mr. CHAO. No, I did not. 

Mr. MICA. Okay. Mr. Chao, you said the delay in the issuance 

of regulations guidance was a significant problem in compressing 

the time frame and actually the White House pressure to stop 

those regulations coming out before the election, because they 

didn’t want folks to know what was coming. You are not aware of 

that? 

Mr. CHAO. Well, I think you are paraphrasing from my testimony, which I—— 

Mr. MICA. Okay. Well, here is your comment to our staff: You 

can’t test the system without requirements, so if requirements are 

coming in late, then obviously you are going to be a little nervous. 

Was that your statement? 

Mr. CHAO. I think that holds true for any—— 

Mr. MICA. That is what we have. That was your statement. 

Okay, so—— 

Mr. CHAO. My answer in the context was for any development 

project that requires requirements in order to build the system in 

a compressed time frame—— 

Mr. MICA. Did you know that security and the testing was done 

by MITRE, of security, is that correct? 

57 

Mr. CHAO. MITRE and Blue Canopy. 

Mr. MICA. Okay, both respectable firms. And this is the MITRE 

report. MITRE was unable to adequately test confidentially and integrity of the exchange system in full. Are you aware of that? 

Mr. CHAO. Well, that seems actually true and appropriate, because the full system isn’t built. 

Mr. MICA. But it was never fully tested? Has it been tested? 

Mr. CHAO. No. I think what it is referring to is that there are 

other components of the Marketplace program that still need to be 

built. 

Mr. MICA. Sir, can you sit here and tell us that there are not 

heightened risk of unauthorized access, non-encrypted data, identity theft, and loss of personal identifiable information? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CHAO. That was—— 

Mr. MICA. And Mr. Powner, can he also answer to that? 

Mr. CHAO. That was my reply in response to a decision memo in 

which we wanted to generally highlight the potential risk that is 

applicable to any system of this magnitude that is servicing the 

public and collecting information about people. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Powner, if you had anything else, briefly. 

Mr. POWNER. Your staff shared that document with me. I think 

the key is that was an early assessment, not on the complete system, and a key question going forward is what has been done in 

terms of security testing and assessment while the system continues to be built. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Maloney. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you. I would like to thank all of the panelists for their public service and thank the chairman and ranking 

member for this oversight hearing. There is a success story in the 

State that I am privileged to represent, New York State. Nearly 

50,000 New Yorkers have enrolled in health insurance plans 

through the New York State health program. Almost 200,000 New 

Yorkers have completed full applications on the New York State of 

Health. Additionally, the State’s customer service center operators 

have provided assistance to more than 142,000 New Yorkers. And 

the rates for the plans represent a 53 percent reduction compared 

to the previous year’s individual rates, and in addition to the cost 

savings, it is estimated that nearly three-quarters of individual enrollees will qualify for financial assistance. This is according to an 

official State report from New York. So this is certainly good news. 

But we do need improvements on the Federal user experience, 

and I would like to ask Mr. Park have improvements been made 

daily on the website? Are you working to make improvements every 

day? 

Mr. PARK. Thank you so much for the question, and it is terrific 

news coming out of New York. So the answer to your question is 

people are working every day to make things better. I would say 

the site is getting better week by week. Some days are better than 

others, but if you look at the trend line, week over week things are 

getting better. So, for example, one metric of the user experience 

is what is called system response time. This is the rate at which 

the website responds to user requests like displaying a page that 

58 

you want. Just a few weeks ago that rate was, on average, eight 

seconds across the system, which is totally unacceptable. It is now 

actually under a second today. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, that is really good news. How much faster 

can the public expect the website to be? Now you are under a second, is that what you are saying? 

Mr. PARK. On average, yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. On average? 

Mr. PARK. Yes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, can the public expect—can you make it any 

faster than a second? 

Mr. PARK. Yes. The team believes that it can, the team doing 

this, and we are most of the way, I think, in terms of average response time that we want to be. We want to get it down further. 

We are also actually, thanks to—— 

Mrs. MALONEY. So I would say that reducing wait time has become a priority, right? And that certainly will help enrollment 

numbers, don’t you think, Mr. Park? 

Mr. PARK. That is right. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay, great. That is terrific. Now, are accounts 

registering properly at this time? Was that problem solved? 

Mr. PARK. That problem has actually largely been solved. That 

was, of course, a significant problem up front that folks experienced. But thanks to expanded capacity, thanks to system configuration changes and code fixes, that problem has largely been 

solved. People can actually get through the front door and begin 

the application process and start shopping for affordable health options. 

Mrs. MALONEY. So how many registrations can the system handle now? Congratulations on solving that, by the way. 

Mr. PARK. So I believe that the latest number the team reports 

is about 17,000 registrations an hour, and the plan is to actually 

up that in terms of new accounts being created. Then, of course, 

people who have registered previously are coming back and coming 

back and coming back to keep working on their application, shop 

for plans, etcetera. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And how are you reaching out to people who may 

have been discouraged and encouraging them to come back and try 

again? Is there any effort to reach out to them or just the notices 

that it is happening? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, ma’am. So CMS is currently engaged in an effort 

to begin to reach out to folks who actually got stuck in the application process and encouraging them to come back and make it 

through the front door and start applying for coverage. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Are there resources there to help people navigate 

the process? I am hearing they are confused often. Is there any resources there to help them figure it out? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, ma’am. There is Help text, there is also the call 

center, and the team is also working quite vigorously to keep improving the user interface and the flow so that you need less help, 

so that it is more and more clear to you at particular points what 

to do. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And how are you assessing or distributing the 

feedback that you are getting from users that have used the system 

59 

and want to tell you how they can make it faster? But I don’t see 

how you could make it any faster than a second, quite frankly. But 

how are you communicating that feedback from users? 

Mr. PARK. You can make it faster, by the way, and so people are 

working on that. But there is feedback coming from a variety of different sources; from users, from folks in the field, from the call center, from testers, and that is actually being fed into a list dynamically kept on an ongoing basis of things to do in priority order to 

make the website better and better. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And I understand that the Hub, the data Hub is 

working well. Is that correct? 

Mr. PARK. The Hub has worked extremely well from day one. It 

supports actually not just the Federal Marketplace, but all the 

State Marketplaces, including New York’s great success; and that 

continues to hum along very nicely. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, thank you. My time has expired and I see 

that sleeping on the floor is paying off in your hard work. Thanks. 

Mr. PARK. The team. It is the team. I am just part of it; the team 

is doing the work. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Your team. Congratulations. Thank you. 

Mr. PARK. The team. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady. 

We now go to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. While I am 

very skeptical about the Government’s ability to run our health 

care system, what I am more concerned about or object to more is 

all the sweetheart insider deals that Government contractors get 

under these programs and all the people and companies that are 

getting filthy rich off of these programs. 

I have an estimate here on the cost of all the technology, the estimate of OMB as of August 30th, before all the problems surfaced, 

and they said we would spend $516.34 million on the technology. 

Now we have seen estimates way above that. So I have a question 

about that, about how much all this is going to cost us to straighten this out and are these going to be continual costs each year? Are 

we going to have to spend more and more and more on the technology? 

But secondly, and a greater concern, I have two stories here, one 

from The Washington Post about 10 days ago and one from CBS 

News a couple days later, and they say the Administration knew 

three and a half years in advance that these problems were going 

to occur. The Washington Post story says in May 2010, two months 

after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aids were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, 

and Peter Orzag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, 

had just received a pointed four page memo from a trusted outside 

health advisor that warned that no one in the Administration was 

up to the task of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies translating the 2,000 page statute into 

reality. 

So what I am asking, and I welcome comments from anybody on 

the panel, how much is all this going to cost to straighten out these 

problems that we now know that we have? And, secondly, how long 

60 

is it going to take, when the Administration or you all have had 

three and a half years warning that this was going to happen? How 

much longer is it going to take to straighten all this out? 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Powner, you seem to be giving the best answers. 

Mr. POWNER. I can comment on the cost figure, what we know 

to date. If you look at OMB documentation, there are exhibits 

where you report spending by fiscal year, and through the fiscal 

year 2013, so by the end of September, it was north of $600 million 

spent. Now, I will caveat that by saying that did include IRS costs 

associated with that and some other Government agencies; it 

wasn’t just all CMS and HHS. 

But your question about what it is going to cost to fix, that is 

where we are kind of blind to that, and I think that is a key question, how much that will end up being. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Does anybody know? If we have spent $600 million already, and it is not working, does anybody have any 

idea how much all this is going to cost us in the end? Nobody 

knows? 

Then go to the second question. How long is all this going to 

take? If you have had three and a half years to get ready for this 

and we had all these promises about you can keep your plan, you 

can keep your doctor, your health care cost premiums are going to 

go down by as much as $2500, and we now know that all that was 

false or incorrect, how much longer is it going to take, another 

three and a half years to get this straightened out? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I think it is important to note, sir, that Americans are getting insurance today, that the system is passing 

through and people are registering. The focus today, as I said in 

my opening statement, is about continuous improvement and making sure that we make that even better and stronger, and that 

more and more people—— 

Mr. DUNCAN. Millions are getting their policies canceled and 

more are getting sticker shock because of premium increases, too. 

But I am just wondering. What I am asking about is all the technology. If we have had three and a half years that the Administration has known that this was going to happen, and they couldn’t 

fix it in three and a half years, how much longer is it going to take 

us? 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Chairman ISSA. You know, we have two distinguished individuals 

from the private sector, and I would suspect that at Athena and 

at Microsoft they knew what their burn rate was, they knew what 

their time was. In fact, neither of their companies would exist if 

they had launched their product quite like this. Even Windows 

Vista launched better than the Obama website. 

But the gentleman could include their experience in the private 

sector, if they would like to compare this launch with the launch 

of each of their companies. 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I think it is important to note on this the way 

that Federal budgeting and Federal IT is managed and empowered, 

and I think FITAR actually emphasizes this, as well as many of 

the memos and things that I have put out, is empowering agencies 

61 

to do their mission work, to execute against the budget. We formulate the budget within the Office of Management and Budget, and 

then the Congress and the appropriators actually grant that budget 

to the agencies to then execute; and the tools that we build to 

track, spend, to make sure that diligence is happening on that are 

all about empowering the agency to make those smart decisions 

about what they do. So in the private sector it is not directly parallel because you are not, from our position, on the ground actually 

running these programs day-to-day. 

Chairman ISSA. You are begging an angel capitalist to give you 

one more chunk of money that he may or may not give you. 

With that, we go to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia 

for her five minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And although you have 

called witnesses who are being asked to fix a plane while it is in 

the air, I do believe oversight is appropriate in light of the round 

of surprises we have had. 

Let me try to clear something up, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chao got 

a round of questions about the preflight checklist, and I do have 

a document that said testing successfully, yes. I don’t know if that 

means conducted a test or what, because if you look more deeply 

into the document, and you didn’t have this before you, where you 

have the CGI checklist, that defect report, it is entirely consistent, 

Mr. Chao, with what you have said because this defect report says 

there were 22 defects. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentlelady make that document available? 

Ms. NORTON. I would be glad to make this available to you and 

to the press. 

I am also troubled by how the committee often pulls the White 

House into these matters without any evidence. The White House, 

in this case, the rollout is accused of not knowing enough and now 

they have been accused of directing matters with respect to the 

Anonymous Shopper function. Even the chairman has said that 

publicly on television. 

So I would like to ask Mr. Chao about that issue. And the question really has to do with whether you were forced to register and 

then shop, whether that change was made from shop, then register 

to register, then shop; whether that change was made because of 

the involvement of the White House in any way. 

Mr. CHAO. Absolutely not. It was a decision made on the results 

of testing. It would be pretty egregious, and I understand that a 

lot of folks are wondering why the website is functioning the way 

it is, but to consciously know that it failed testing and to then put 

it into production for people to use is not what we do. We use the 

best available information, and if the test results show that it is 

not working, we don’t put it into production. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. NORTON. I certainly will, Mr. Chairman, if you will make 

sure I get my time 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. 

Would you stop the clock? 

You know, the gentlelady’s information, I have been told, the one 

that you are referring to, is in fact a roll up to the decision that 

62 

it had passed. In other words, your document is not inconsistent 

with it. I think Mr. VanRoekel made it clear that they are still fixing XP, after they no longer support it. So I think the conclusion 

of the document is clear. You are asking Mr. Chao. He is still saying that this thing failed the test, when it in fact documents show 

it passed the test. Was it perfect? No. But if you could only get six 

people registered on day one and only 240 registered on day two, 

some might say that the website was not passing the test in those 

first two days either. So hopefully that document, you can make it 

available to all of us, but I have been told that that is simply part 

of the supporting documents for the conclusion that CMS has in 

their own documents, which is that that portion which was excluded, and we have been told in testimony that, in fact, they were 

told by people at CMS to turn it off and that those people were 

being instructed by people at the White House. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me clear that up, Mr. President. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Ms. NORTON. I mean Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I just want you to understand that contractors 

told us—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, let’s look at the document. 

Let’s have people look at the fine print and decide when these 22 

defects were noted, because I got it in black and white here. 

Now, you say the White House did not say to turn off the Anonymous Shopper, Mr. Chao, was that your testimony? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Because the allegation of the chairman was that 

the White House ordered it because they wanted to avoid sticker 

shock. I remember seeing that on, I think, television. Now, just let 

me say something about sticker shock. I had a staff member go on 

just to test the DC Health Link, which is where we all will have 

to go, and she found that the same—there are 267 different policies, insurers on DC Health Link, and she found that the same 

Blue Cross Blue Shield she is now getting from the Federal employment program she can get for between $160 and $220 less. So 

if there is sticker shock, at least some people are finding sticker 

shock works the other way. 

But I want to drill down on this decision from the White House. 

Was there White House directive that because—the decision came 

not because—I want to make sure your testimony remains, because 

there has been some difference the chairman cited—that there was 

no White House directive, but the reason for pulling the Anonymous Shopper was because the function failed testing, does that 

continue to be your testimony? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. If we would have put it into production, even 

though it is anonymous shopping nor browsing, it requires some attributes about your preferences, your demographics to approximate 

potentially what premium tax credit ranges you would qualify for 

so that you can then move into shopping or plan compare. It didn’t 

work in either calculating the approximate premium tax credit, nor 

did it work in plan compare, so if we allowed people to go through 

that, they would have gotten erroneous information and that would 

have been much worse than not having it at all. 

63 

Ms. NORTON. I have already pointed to a document. By the way, 

this document is from September. 

Now, did you get—— 

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s time has expired. Would you 

briefly finish? 

Ms. NORTON. Did you get any direction from the White House to 

disable or to delay the shopper function and were there any political considerations that went into your decision to do so? 

Mr. CHAO. None whatsoever. I look at the facts of whether a system is going to be ready. And, of course, not everything is always 

100 percent perfect, and there are certain tolerances, but in this 

case it failed so miserably that we could not consciously let people 

use it. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

We now go to the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry. 

Could you yield for just 10 seconds? 

Mr. MCHENRY. Happy to. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Chao, if it couldn’t calculate the prices properly, is it your 

testimony that when people went through the back door, those six 

that got through on the day one, that it did calculate what their 

plan and let them shop through another part, a completely different portal? 

Mr. CHAO. If you don’t go through what was—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, no, no. I have taken six seconds from the 

man and I don’t want to go passed a few seconds. 

Mr. CHAO. If you fill out an online application and you put your 

information in, you get an eligibility determination, you ask for financial assistance—— 

Chairman ISSA. Yes, you go through everything. But you are saying you didn’t get the right price through the same software that 

would determine the right or wrong price—— 

Mr. CHAO. No. Anonymous shopping was using different software. 

Chairman ISSA. Oh, yeah. Okay. That remains to be seen. 

Mr. McHenry, thank you. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Chao, all my constituents care about and 

want to know is when they log on, is their data, all their personal 

identifiable information, is that as secure as if they do online banking. 

Mr. CHAO. It was designed, implemented—— 

Mr. MCHENRY. I mean, that is a yes or no question. 

Mr. CHAO. It was designed, implemented, and tested to be secure. 

Mr. MCHENRY. So it was fully tested in best practices under the 

Federal Government standard for IT proposals. 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. MCHENRY. It was? 

Mr. CHAO. It was security assessment testing conducted by 

MITRE and another company. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So it is fully tested as the other IT projects 

you have overseen into that same standard. 

64 

Mr. CHAO. I am trying to understand what you mean by fully 

tested. It was tested—— 

Mr. MCHENRY. Fully tested? Holy cow. This is like a new low. 

Okay, then let me use the—— 

Mr. CHAO. There are a lot of—— 

Mr. MCHENRY. Best practices are a complete integrated testing, 

is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. It is tested and prescribed under the FISMA framework and NIST controls that are specified as a standard. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So why did your boss resign? 

Mr. CHAO. He didn’t resign. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So due to security readiness issues—— 

Mr. CHAO. I think he decided to make a career change, which I 

can’t speak to. 

Mr. MCHENRY. I think it was a fantastic time to hightail it out 

after this great rollout. So let me ask another question. So Marilyn 

Tavenner signed the authority to operate memorandum. Traditionally, would your office sign a memorandum or have you signed previous memorandums on authority to operate? 

Mr. CHAO. Myself, I have not. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Has your boss, or previous boss? 

Mr. CHAO. Not that I know of. But I do not manage the ATO 

sign-off process, that is done between the chief information officer 

and the chief information security officer. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. And they would traditionally do it, not the 

CMS administrator. 

Mr. CHAO. I think you would have to ask them. 

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. Fantastic. We plan to do that. 

Let me ask you, Mr. Park, you said on USA Today, on October 

6, ‘‘These bugs were functions of volume. Take away the volume 

and it works,’’ referring to Healthcare.gov. It was in the fourth 

paragraph. Do you still stand by that statement? 

Mr. PARK. Thank you for the question. What I was specifically 

referring to—— 

Mr. MCHENRY. No, no. Do you still stand by—— 

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to submit this for the 

record. 

Have you seen this USA Today—— 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. And the question is on the statement, not on 

what you would want someone else to believe today. 

Mr. MCHENRY. These bugs were function of volume. Take away 

the volume and it works. Do you still stand by that? 

Mr. PARK. So I stand by the fact that the bugs that the reporter 

was referring to, which were issues users were experiencing in account creation up front, were in fact functions of volume. What I 

will say now, based on additional understanding, is that in addition 

to volume, which was a challenge, the account creation process 

was, later on, also affected by particular functionality bugs, which 

have been fixed, most of which have been fixed, along with volume 

capacity expansion and other system configurations—— 

Mr. MCHENRY. So, Mr. Park, let me tell you a story. I have a 

woman named Sue who logged on. She filled out everything else. 

She did not fill out her middle initial. She got a processing error. 

65 

She went back to try to fix it, put in the middle initial. She had 

to wait 48 hours to get another update. Turns out that her income 

was not verifiable because she put in a monthly income. She calls 

a navigator, the navigator says, yeah, we have some problems with 

that; maybe you can do it on an annualized basis. Well, unfortunately, she couldn’t get back into the system, so then has to call 

back for another navigator and the navigator says, gosh, we have 

a little issue here, so let me try an annualized income and put it 

in on the back end that navigators can do. She is still waiting. She 

started on October 1st. She is still waiting to be successfully logged 

in to this website that you said these bugs were functions of volume; take away the volume and it works. 

This is such a deeply flawed data rollout, and my constituents 

are most concerned about trying to sign up, much less when they 

do sign up that they don’t have their data stolen. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Park, you can answer, if you see a question there. 

Mr. PARK. That would be great. Thank you. So I was actually 

talking specifically about issues with account creation. There are 

issues downstream as well, and, again, each time I speak with you, 

each time I speak, I will relay the best understanding I have and 

try to be as precise as I can be. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

We now go to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me begin on 

a bipartisan note. Mr. Chairman, you and I helped write, joining 

together, the FITAR Act requiring reform of Federal IT acquisition. 

Mr. VanRoekel, you seem to have been equivocal, maybe, at our 

last meeting in January when you testified here, but I want to read 

to you a statement by the President of the United States. He said, 

just recently, one of the lessons learned from this whole process on 

the website is that probably the biggest gap between the private 

sector and the Federal Government is when it comes to IT; how we 

procure it, how we purchase it. This has been true on a whole 

range of projects. 

A reasonable inference from that statement could be drawn that 

perhaps we do need some more legislation, some new legislation to 

free up some of the moribund rules—— 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. If we could freeze my time. 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. I couldn’t agree with you more that, 

in fact, one of the lessons that I hope all of us take out of this hearing today is that we have two people from the private sector who 

know that they would never do a process like this one was done, 

and yours and my legislation is really about trying to create at 

least a modicum of similarity in IT procurement in the Federal 

Government the way it is done in the private sector. And I thank 

the gentleman for his comments. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chairman. 

So I commend to Mr. VanRoekel the statement of the boss. 

Mr. Chao—— 

Chairman ISSA. So now I am the boss? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No. Well, you are too. 

66 

Chairman ISSA. Oh, you mean the President. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The other boss. 

Chairman ISSA. Ah, yes. His boss. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The big boss. 

Mr. Chao, during your interview with committee staff on November 1, you were presented with a document you had not seen before 

and it was titled Authority to Operate, signed by your boss on September 3rd, 2013, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The Republican staffers told you during that 

interview that this document indicated there were two open highrisk findings in the Federally-facilitated Marketplace launched October 1, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. This surprised you at the time. 

Mr. CHAO. Can I just qualify that a bit? It was dated September 

3rd and it was referring to two parts of the system that were already—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. You are jumping ahead of me. We are going to 

get there. 

So when you were asked questions about that document, you told 

the staffers you needed to check with officials at CMS who oversee 

security testing to understand the context, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. The staffers continued to ask you questions, 

nonetheless, and then they, or somebody, leaked parts of your transcript to CBS Evening News, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. It seems that way. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Since that interview, have you had a chance to 

follow up on your suggestion to check with CMS officials on the 

context? 

Mr. CHAO. I have had some discussions about the nature of the 

high findings that were in the document. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. And this document, it turns out, discusses 

only the risks associated with two modules, one for dental plans 

and one for the qualified health plans, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And neither of those modules is active right now, 

is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So the September 3rd document did in fact not 

apply to the entire Federally-facilitated Marketplace, despite the 

assertions of the leak to CBS notwithstanding, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. That is correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And these modules allow insurance companies to 

submit their dental and health plan information to the Marketplace, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. That means those modules do not contain or 

transmit any personally identified information on individual consumers, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So, to be clear, these modules don’t transmit any 

specific user information, is that correct? 

67 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So when CBS Evening News ran its report based 

on a leak, presumably from the Majority staff, but we don’t know, 

of a partial transcript, excerpts from a partial transcript, they said 

that security issues raised in the document ‘‘could lead to identity 

theft among buying insurance,’’ that cannot be true based on what 

we just established in our back and forth, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. That is correct. I think there was some rearrangement 

of the words that I used during the testimony and how it was portrayed. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. So to just summarize, correct me if I am wrong, 

the document leaked to CBS Evening News did in fact not relate 

to parts of the website that were active on October 1, they did not 

relate to any part of the system that handles personal consumer information, and there, in fact, was no possibility of identity theft, 

despite the leak. 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chao. 

I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield your 26 seconds? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Have you read the November 6th letter from the 

ranking member to me? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. In fact, I think I cosigned that letter. 

Chairman ISSA. Oh, that is good. So the gentleman is well aware 

that even today there are significant security leaks that the ranking member was concerned, if discovered, would allow hackers to 

take people’s private information, that there is a security risk, and 

that was cautioned by you not to let that out. Susannah will give 

you the answer, if you will just let her. Okay, I hear none. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am sorry, I am not following the quote. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, I was trying to let the staff speak to you, 

but the bottom line is that there are security risks today, according 

to you and the ranking member. This website still has 

vulnerabilities, if discovered, that would lead to personal information coming out, is that correct, in your letter? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, that may be, but I am talking 

about a deliberate leak that, frankly, distorted reality based on two 

modules that were inactive and using that misinformation to suggest that it applied to, in fact, the active website. 

Chairman ISSA. But end-to-end security problems in your letter 

do apply to the active website, right? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, they may, Mr. Chairman, but right now my 

questioning to Mr. Chao had to do—— 

Chairman ISSA. No, I understand you are rehabilitating Mr. 

Chao. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, I am not. Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman ISSA. But the question is—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, let’s be fair. I am 

trying to get the facts on the record and correct a deliberate smear 

against Mr. Chao. Not to rehabilitate him, but to, in fact, get the 

truth out because someone deliberately leaked something and distorted it, Mr. Chairman, in the name of this committee. 

Chairman ISSA. No, I appreciate your concern. My concern is—— 

68 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am glad you do, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA.—Mr. Chao had the MITRE report and it is that 

report that, even redacted, you didn’t want released because it 

shows a roadmap to the vulnerabilities of the site as it is today. 

That is your letter. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I began my questioning by acknowledging our joint bipartisan effort to in fact try to legislate reforms in IT acquisition. That is an acknowledgment on my part, 

and yours, that, in fact, the Federal IT acquisition process is broken, whether it is this example or some other. So I have no desire, 

no motivation to hide anything. But I am concerned at a pattern 

of calling people to give us testimony and cherry-picking their testimony to make a political point that, frankly, does not serve this 

committee well in terms of its oversight role and does damage to 

good public servants’ reputation. 

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate the gentleman’s bipartisan efforts. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the chair. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Jordan is recognized. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. Chao, a week ago the President was interviewed last Thursday and was asked about Secretary Sebelius, and the President defended his health secretary—I am quoting from the Chuck Todd 

interview—defended his health secretary, argued that the website 

bugs aren’t necessarily her fault. ‘‘Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t write 

code. She wasn’t our IT person.’’ 

Who is the IT person? Who is the person in charge? Who is the 

person responsible? Who is the one who signed off on this before 

it went public? 

Mr. CHAO. The person that is responsible is our administrator, 

Marilyn Tavenner. 

Mr. JORDAN. And did she base her decisions on the memo you 

sent her on the 27th, is that right? Isn’t that the Authority to Operate memo? 

Mr. CHAO. I think that is—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I mean, the President talked about IT person. Ms. 

Tavenner is not an IT person. Who is the IT person? Is that Mr. 

VanRoekel? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t know. 

Mr. JORDAN. Is that Mr. Park? Is it Mr. Chao? Which of you is 

that person? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t know, I didn’t speak to the President. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, but he refers to a person. Who would it be? Who 

is the IT person in charge? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t know what the President was referring to. 

Mr. JORDAN. Let me start with slide C3, if I could. The final report came out October 13th, after October 1st. I just want to read 

the first: MITRE was unable to adequately test the confidentiality 

and integrity of the exchange system in full. Lower down: Complete 

end-to-end testing of the application never occurred. 

Doesn’t that raise concerns? Did you know about this before October 1st, Mr. Chao? 

Mr. CHAO. I think that is taken out of context. 

Mr. JORDAN. It is pretty plain language. Didn’t test it; no endto-end testing; done before October 1st. And yet the IT person in 

69 

charge, whoever the President is referring to, somebody said it is 

okay to start this thing. 

Mr. CHAO. I say it is taken out of context because there are still 

quite a few—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. VanRoekel, did you know the results of the 

MITRE testing before October 1st? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I haven’t seen this document, so I would love 

to—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, you have the fancy title; you are the Chief Information Officer of the United States of America. That is a pretty 

big title. And you didn’t know about this before the biggest domestic policy program website in the history of this Country ever is 

launched, and you didn’t know about this? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Sir, I haven’t seen this document. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, that scares us. 

Mr. Park, you are supposed to be the guy who is going to solve 

everything; you are Clark Kent coming out of the phone booth here. 

Did you know about this before October 1st? 

Mr. PARK. I did not. 

Mr. JORDAN. And why is it—— 

Mr. CHAO. Would you like me to explain why—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I would like someone to tell me why you didn’t 

know that end-to-end testing wasn’t done—— 

Mr. CHAO. It is not about not knowing; it is that, for example, 

the first payment to the insurance companies, the issuers, are not 

going to occur until sometime in the first part of January. We are 

still building the system. 

Mr. JORDAN. We just had this. The system all works together. It 

wasn’t tested all at once. 

Mr. CHAO. We are still building parts of the system to calculate 

payment, to collect the enrollment data from all the marketplaces 

and to make that payment—— 

Mr. JORDAN. So there is more system to be built. So we can expect more problems in the future to add to the problems we have 

already seen. 

Mr. CHAO. Security testing is ongoing. 

Mr. JORDAN. Let me ask you this. This, to me, seems to be the 

billion dollar question. Why didn’t you delay this? You guys knew 

there were going to be problems. You hadn’t done end-to-end testing. Some of your testing we hoped that the tests would work when 

we presented it to the White House. Why didn’t you delay this? Mr. 

Chao, why wasn’t it delayed? 

Mr. CHAO. That is not my decision to make. 

Mr. JORDAN. This, to me, is the thing. The chief technology people don’t know, but October 1st is October 1st, a date that is in the 

law? It is not. It is just a date—let me cite you this here. The 

Washington Post article—and I know I only have a minute, but 

The Washington Post article I think is important. David Cutler 

sent a memo to the White House, says, you know what, don’t keep 

the political people in the White House, Nancy Ann DeParle, 

Jeanne Lambrew in charge, bring in outside people. Larry Summers agreed with that assessment; Peter Orzag agreed with that 

assessment, but the President says no, we are going to keep NancyAnn DeParle in charge of this, kept the political people in charge. 

70 

In your testimony to the committee, Mr. Chao, you said this, 

when asked about October 1st, my marching orders were get the 

system up by October 1st, right? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Why? If you have all these problems, why not wait? 

Mr. CHAO. I didn’t ask why. I said that was my—— 

Mr. JORDAN. And what I am suggesting is the folks at the White 

House knew this thing had problems, evidenced by the testing that 

wasn’t done end-to-end. They, for political reasons, had picked this 

date, so for political reasons they had to adhere to this date, and 

the end is, the end result is Americans’ personal information is put 

at risk. 

Mr. CHAO. I tried to correct your perception of what this excerpt 

was from. It is about a long chain of systems that need to be built, 

and this is a point in time. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I have two seconds. Let me just finish with this. We have asked, you and I have asked Ms. DeParle, 

Ms. Lambrew to come in front of this committee next week, and 

the letter we got back yesterday was they are not going to come; 

and they are the people we need because they are the political people in charge. They are the ones who determined October 1st was 

the date they needed to move forward on, and they are the ones 

who I think ultimately are responsible for putting at risk Americans’ personal information. 

With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Mr. Powner, there were all these questions and you seemed to 

have an answer you wanted to give on this end-to-end testing before it was done. Do you want to weigh in at this point? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, I would just reiterate the point that the security testing was done early, on an incomplete system, and the fundamental question is what is being done now and how adequate is 

that to date. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, there has been a lot of information over the past 

several weeks regarding the security of Healthcare.gov and whether consumers who use this system are at risk. I would like to hear 

from the witnesses about this matter and separate fact from fiction. 

Mr. Chao, the Federal Information Security Management Act, 

known as FISMA, requires agencies to protect information systems. 

FISMA specifically requires an authorizing official to sign off before 

an agency begins operating a system. In the case of Healthcare.gov, 

we have a memo that was signed by Administrator Tavenner on 

September 27, 2013, entitled ‘‘Federally-Facilitated Marketplace.’’ 

This memo says that the security contractor ‘‘has not been able to 

test all of the security controls in one complete version of the system.’’ It also says this resulted in a ‘‘level of uncertainty that can 

be deemed as a high risk.’’ 

Mr. Chao, can you explain how CMS tested various components 

of the system for security risk? 

Mr. CHAO. In general, in most large IT projects that require several what we call environments that are used to move from a develVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:10 Apr 25, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87316.TXT APRIL
71 

oper’s machine in writing code and to test that locally, and then to 

put it into a larger environment to test with other code, and you 

go through this step-wise process of constructing the system. I 

think what the statement reflects is that in any situation similar 

to the Marketplace systems, security people have to test when they 

can and when they have a window. As I mentioned, there is a compressed time line, and that compressed time line affords some ability for security testing to occur as the software is being developed 

through its life cycle. 

I think what the memo was just trying to say, and it was erring 

on the side of caution, that as software is continuously being developed, it was tested in three cycles. So by the end of three cycles 

it had fully tested the necessary functions to go live on October 1st. 

There are, as I mentioned earlier, other system functions that are 

yet to be built and will continue to have security testing conducted. 

So security testing is a point in time. Risk acceptance of that security testing results is a point in time. And then in that memo you 

will also see that we have applied various mitigation steps to try 

to offset the potential risk that was identified. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you know of any other IT systems, in your experience, that were authorized without completing full system security 

testing? 

Mr. CHAO. I think that there is a slight art in the wording of 

that. I think every system the Federal Government puts into live 

production needs to have sufficient security testing, per FISMA and 

OMB and NIST requirements. Whether we tested in three cycles, 

whether we tested annually or every three years, testing is an ongoing and ever-present, kind of part of the process. When we are 

testing the controls for a portion of a system that is ready for a 

particular delivery date, we fully test those. For a portion of the 

controls for a part of the system, as I mentioned earlier, in which 

we do not have to make payment on October 1st, that is then tested at a later date, when that function is ready and needed in order 

to go into operation. So it is an iterative ongoing process. 

Mr. DAVIS. Has a security team been established? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Has CMS been performing weekly testing? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. I have no further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 

We now go to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the chairman. 

I thank you all for being here. 

Mr. Baitman, I would like to start with you. Since the end of August, how many times have you personally met with Secretary 

Sebelius? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I am not sure, probably once or twice. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And when was the last time you met with the 

secretary? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I believe that it was during the shutdown. The secretary had regular meetings with senior leadership. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you met one time in October? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I believe so. 

72 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you met one time. You are the chief information officer. You met one time in October with the secretary. My 

understanding is you engaged a hacker to look at Healthcare.gov, 

correct? 

Mr. BAITMAN. CMS asked us to help them with various things. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But you engaged a hacker to look at the system. 

Mr. BAITMAN. We engaged someone who is called an ethical 

hacker who is on my staff. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. An ethical hacker. When did they start their 

hacking? 

Mr. BAITMAN. It was during the shutdown. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And how long did it take him to complete his 

hacking exercise? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I think it is an ongoing activity. But he is actually 

based in Atlanta. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And then he gave you a report. How many serious 

problems did he find? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I don’t know if I would call them serious. I think 

that there were something like 7 to 10 items on that report. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you had 7 to 10 items of hacking, some of 

which you don’t believe are serious, but some are obviously serious. 

What percentage of those have been fully rectified? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I turned those over to CMS for their review. Some 

actually weren’t systems issues, they included things like physical 

security as well. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you have no follow-up? You have no idea what 

percentage of those hacking incidents were rectified? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I believe CMS got back to my staff last week and 

said the majority of those had been remediated. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You don’t know what percentage. It is not 100 

percent. 

Mr. BAITMAN. I don’t believe it is 100 yet, no. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. So you shared that with CMS. Did you share that 

with Secretary Sebelius? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I have not. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. You are the chief information officer for the 

Health and Human Services. 

Mr. BAITMAN. These are fairly technical items. The appropriate 

place to share them is with the system owner. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But it is not safe and secure, and I guess that is 

the fundamental concern, is even after the October launch, you are 

the chief information officer, you get a hacker who in a couple days 

finds probably 10 or so problems and challenges. It is that easy to 

get in and hack the information. That is the concern. 

Mr. Powner, is this ready? Following up on Mr. McHenry’s question, is the site, in your opinion, currently as safe and secure as 

an online banking site? 

Mr. POWNER. I would have to look and assess the security. And 

all that stuff that MITRE did and the authority to operate is preliminary because it was on—I mean, MITRE said that they didn’t 

test the interfaces. The interface testing needed to occur. So all 

that stuff that is preliminary raised issues, but, again, we—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Would you put your information in there? 

73 

Mr. POWNER. I would have to see what the security testing and 

assessment has been since then before I was comfortable. I haven’t 

seen it yet, so we are going to look at it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Well, the answer is not yet yes. 

Mr. Chao, would you put all your personal information about you 

and your loved ones in it? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. In fact, I have recommended my sister, who is 

unemployed right now, to actually apply. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Did she successfully register? 

Mr. CHAO. I haven’t talked to her lately; she has been out of the 

Country. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Interesting. And you have this report, then, from 

Mr. Baitman, about the hacker’s report? 

Mr. CHAO. I do not personally, but as I mentioned earlier, there 

are security teams in place, including permanent security staff 

under the chief information security officer that coordinates with 

franks. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Chairman, this is something we obviously 

have to follow up on. 

Mr. Park, you are a very bright and talented person. The Federal 

Government is lucky to have somebody of your caliber engaged in 

this process, and it actually gives me comfort that you are looking 

at this and spending some time in it, but I have a fundamental 

question that I want to ask you. Have you ever shopped on Amazon.com? 

Mr. PARK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Have you ever showed on eBay.com? 

Mr. PARK. Actually, no. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. We are going to have work with you on that one. 

Chairman ISSA. As a Californian, I am personally offended. 

Mr. PARK. I would like to. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Let’s go back to the Amazon experience. When 

you put something in your shopping cart, is that considered a sale? 

Mr. PARK. No. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chao, you have been fairly defensive about 

things being out of context, so I am going to ask unanimous consent that the CMS document of September 3rd, 2013, the memorandum, be placed in the record in its entirety. But before I do 

so,—well, without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. But I want to make something clear. We had 

previously redacted information. Is there anything in that memo 

that you believe needs to be redacted? Because otherwise we will 

put it in in its entirety so there’s no question about that. 

Mr. CHAO. I would have to review it. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, it is in the record now. By close of this 

hearing, if there is something that needs to be redacted, I need to 

know, because I will consider redacting it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? 

Chairman ISSA. Yes. 

74 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted to make sure there was no sensitive information in there. 

Chairman ISSA. Well, that is the problem. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am just trying to obey the law, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. This thing is already in the record. If we choose 

to redact something—the question is that there are numerous 

things that give us sightings of lines in September 3rd that clearly 

this thing wasn’t ready for security on September 3rd. And when 

our people questioned you about September 27th and there was no 

end-to-end and security concerns, you want to say you were taken 

out of context, but both September 3rd and September 27th, what 

we find is that there was no end-to-end testing, and any point of 

vulnerability is a point that could access people’s private information. 

Isn’t that true, Mr. Powner? So the absence of end-to-end testing 

means that anything that can reach into the database, in fact, 

could be a significant security risk to people’s personal information, 

and has nothing to do with whether or not a module is about shopping, isn’t that true? 

Mr. POWNER. That is correct. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay. 

Yield back and at this point I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cooper, next. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am worried that the 

net effect of this hearing might be to exaggerate the security difficulties of the website. I serve on the Armed Services Committee, 

and our own Pentagon is attacked many thousands of times a day, 

sometimes by foreign powers. So the entire Internet could and 

probably should be more secure. So we have to acknowledge some 

system problems for the whole Internet, and then there are other 

issues we can deal with. 

Another concern I have is the witnesses are being badgered, and 

I would like to offer witnesses, perhaps Mr. Baitman, perhaps Mr. 

Park, Mr. Chao, and others an opportunity to respond, because I 

believe in fairness, and the American people do not want to see a 

kangaroo court here. And the way this hearing has been conducted 

does not encourage good private sector people to want to join the 

Federal Government. 

I personally had the privilege of hearing Mr. Park speak in 

Nashville, Tennessee a couple years ago. He spoke before a hardcore private sector, pro-capitalist, business audience, and they told 

me they had never heard a speaker who understood business better, who got it; and it was a real tribute to me that someone of your 

caliber was willing to work for the Federal Government, because 

that instilled faith in the process, because we are the best Nation 

on Earth. We have to act like it. We do face problems sometimes, 

but the American spirit is the can-do, we can fix it attitude, not 

the blame game, not the bickering game. 

So if there are witnesses who would like a chance to say a few 

words in public, because you have been treated unfairly, in my 

opinion, and I would like to have this be an equal playing field. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? Have I cut off anyone’s answer here today? 

Mr. COOPER. Will I be able to keep my time? 

75 

Chairman ISSA. Of course. 

Mr. COOPER. You cut off the ranking member of this committee 

at the beginning of this hearing. 

Chairman ISSA. I cut him off a minute into question and answer, 

after he had exceeded his five minutes. But no witness here today 

has been cut off. 

Mr. COOPER. But, Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman ISSA. Every witness has been allowed to complete their 

entire answer. 

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Chairman, but using—— 

Chairman ISSA. I just want to understand. Kangaroo courts is 

quite an accusation, and I hope the gentleman from Tennessee, 

when he uses the term kangaroo court in the future, will think better of making an accusation. No witness has been cut off. Every 

witness has been allowed to complete their entire answer in every 

case. We went about six minutes before I asked Mr. Baitman to 

simply conclude. That is the closest thing to anything. So this is 

not a partisan hearing. I will not have it accused of being a partisan hearing. We have a website that the American people have 

seen doesn’t work. We are trying to get to an understanding of why 

it didn’t work so that it doesn’t happen again. And these happen 

to be experts, and for the most part we are relying on them to be 

the people fixing it. 

The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a hearing on a 

broken website by a broken committee, and the air is thick with 

innuendo. When the chairman discusses rehabilitating witnesses, 

that implies they need rehabilitating, when in some cases the witnesses have perhaps already been abused, sometimes by leaks, 

whether deliberate or not. So let’s focus on fixing the problems. 

And I think Mr. Baitman was about to speak. 

Mr. BAITMAN. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. There is one thing I would 

like to clarify in response to my comments to Mr. Chaffetz. We 

found vulnerabilities with the system, and there will always be 

vulnerabilities. Every system that is out there, systems that are 

live, systems that we trust right now, banks, online shopping sites, 

all have issues because they are continually making changes to 

their code. That introduces vulnerabilities. And it is up to us on a 

continual basis, as Mr. VanRoekel pointed out, all software goes 

through continuous improvement. So what we are doing right now 

is continually improving our software and on an ongoing basis 

identifying vulnerabilities that exist. 

Mr. COOPER. Any other witness? Mr. Chao? 

Mr. CHAO. What I would like to say is that if I come across as 

being defensive, I apologize, but I am being defensive not in terms 

of me; I am being defensive in terms of the truth. And I believe 

that that is what this committee is trying to get to. In fact, I think 

that is what you said in the beginning. So when I detect that there 

is distortions or misuse or unrevealed things about that I spent 

nine hours with your staff basically being deposed, I am going to 

be defensive because that is not the truth. That is all I want to 

make clear about my defensiveness. 

Mr. COOPER. Any other witness like to make a point? 

76 

This committee has many talents and it has broad investigative 

jurisdiction. To my knowledge, and I could be wrong because my 

colleagues have many talents, to my knowledge, none of us could 

do a website on our own. We are not software engineers. You 

could? 

Chairman ISSA. I think, unfortunately, you have several hear, including one who made a living doing it. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, none of us would want to certainly be engaged 

in this task. Are you volunteering to work for—— 

Chairman ISSA. None of us want to own this particular website. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, yeah. But it is easy to criticize. It is hard to 

perform. And as the gentleman, Mr. VanRoekel, pointed out, even 

Microsoft, with Windows XP, is still revising it 12 years later. Software is an iterative process. The Internet is not perfect, but it is 

still one of the great technological accomplishments of mankind. It 

is transforming the planet, and in a good way overall, but there are 

glitches and we work on those. 

So when we swear witnesses, as we do, when we put them in a 

very uncomfortable position, deliberately, in some cases when we 

subpoena then unilaterally, that creates tension, and it is actually 

going to slow the fix of the website. So I worry about that. 

And the chairman and Mr. Connolly have already collaborated on 

what sounds like an excellent bill to fix overall Federal IT. I was 

very impressed when Mr. VanRoekel pointed out that is an $82 billion issue. What we are talking about here today, at least from the 

August cost estimate, is 0.6 percent of that. Why don’t we focus on 

the larger issue and fix it? Because, as I said earlier, it is much 

better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. 

Chairman ISSA. If the gentleman would yield, maybe we can 

close on a positive note. Both Mr. Powner, who has constantly 

talked about stress-testing end-to-end, and Mr. VanRoekel, who 

knows very well that Microsoft never put a new operating system 

that wasn’t stress-tested end-to-end; it still had bugs, it still had 

vulnerabilities. And by, the way, whenever you add a new driver, 

a new something else, you create a potential new one that has to 

be tested. But stress-testing end-to-end was something that this 

committee wanted to know at the onset, why it hadn’t been done, 

because it is a best practices, which GAO has very kindly made 

clear. I believe it is already in the record, but if it is not, the nine 

points that GAO had made in their report of best practices that 

were not followed. 

So Mr. Connolly and I, Mr. Cooper, we are trying to get to where 

best practices will always be used. And in this case, not because 

of these individuals, per se, they are here as experts, but this development over three and a half years shortcutted some best practices, and it is not the first time and it won’t be the last time, but 

it is one where, as I said in the opening statement, it is so important, when the American people are focused, for us to say you can 

expect better from your Government in the future; and I don’t 

mean on Healthcare.gov, I mean on all of that $82 billion worth of 

IT. 

And I appreciate your comments to that end. 

Mr. COOPER. Mr. Chairman, let’s see about getting your bill to 

the floor. 

77 

Chairman ISSA. Boy, I tell you, that is something we all would 

like to do, so I am going to talk to leadership—— 

Mr. COOPER. You are in the majority party. 

Chairman ISSA. You know what? I tell you what. I will get it to 

the floor in the House. If you will help me in the Senate, we will 

get this done. 

Mr. COOPER. I have lots of influence in the Senate. I would be 

happy to help. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. With that, we recognize the gentleman from 

Michigan, who knows a great deal about health care websites from 

his State, Mr. Walberg. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. 

And to the panel as well, thank you for being here. You have 

plenty to do. We wish you didn’t have to be here today, but when 

I receive letters on top of letters and contacts in six town hall meetings that I held last week, live town hall meetings, like this one 

from Rachel Haynes in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, where she talks 

about the fact of cutting off from her insurance, her husband and 

five children, she says this: I hated the idea of getting on to 

Healthcare.gov website, as I believe insurance is a private matter. 

I did it anyway. The website did not work, so I called a number. 

And she goes on to tell of talking with a person on the phone and 

ultimately being hung up on. 

That is the reason why this hearing is important. Frankly, Mr. 

Chairman, I believe that this whole act that was put into law 

under the cover of darkness with the simple votes from the other 

side of the aisle who now take offense at us having hearings like 

this on problems and doing proper oversight is the reason to have 

this hearing today, because people like Rachel Haynes and her 

family are concerned not only about security, but right now that is 

one of the biggest concerns on a website that doesn’t work for her. 

I want to go back to some of the concerns in the MITRE report 

and I want to ask the first question. Mr. Chao has already, in earlier statements to questions just before me, indicated, when asked 

why he didn’t push back on opening this thing up on October 1st, 

he didn’t ask why. So I am going to go to Mr. Baitman, because 

I think that is an important question that should have been asked, 

why. Why do we have to open up on October 1st? 

But the question I would ask here, Mr. Baitman, MITRE was responsible for conducting the security control assessment for the 

Federal exchange, is that correct? 

Mr. BAITMAN. That is my understanding. 

Mr. WALBERG. According to MITRE, the final security assessment for the Federal exchange occurred from late August through 

mid-September. Is that your understanding? 

Mr. BAITMAN. It is. 

Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Baitman, to the best of your knowledge, did 

MITRE conduct a complete integrated security test of the Federal 

Marketplace? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I can’t answer that; I don’t have visibility into it. 

78 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, I would like a document put up that deals 

with this test and the outcome, if I could have this particular document. Okay. If you see there, FFM, the website, the Marketplace, 

complete percentage, 66 percent complete. That is it. Sixty-six percent complete. This document was obtained by the committee. We 

have in place—let me ask this question, Mr. Baitman. Is it a problem that MITRE wasn’t fully able to test one-third of the Exchange? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I can’t answer that. This project was run and managed by CMS. They are responsible for the security. 

Mr. WALBERG. In the security control assessment dated October 

11th, 2013, and of which a preliminary copy was given to CMS, on 

September 23rd, 2013, MITRE writes that they are unable to adequately test the confidentiality and integrity of the health insurance exchange system in full. They go on to say MITRE also writes 

the application at the time of testing was not functionally complete. 

Mr. Powner, what are the dangers of conducting a security assessment on an incomplete system? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, you could have vulnerabilities that go untested. Also, too, on this document—see, there are a lot of dates that 

don’t add up. My understanding is that MITRE conducted their security assessment in August and September, and it was later September. So there is data all over the place. The bottom line to your 

point, though, is it wasn’t done on a complete system. 

Mr. WALBERG. MITRE has told, Mr. Powner—— 

Mr. CHAO. Excuse me. I just want to point out that that is a 

CGI-provided document, that is not from CMS. 

Mr. WALBERG. Yes, I understand that. MITRE has told committee staff that to their knowledge, there has not been a comprehensive test of the entire system. One of the dangers posed by 

not conducting a complete, integrated security tests of all the system components, Mr. Powner? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, in order to ensure that your data is secure 

and the system is safe to use, you want to test on as complete a 

system as possible. 

Mr. WALBERG. Then based on what you know, were Americans’ 

sensitive personal information at risk when Healthcare.gov opened 

on October 1st, 2013? 

Mr. POWNER. I don’t know what happened from mid-September 

on. That is the only caveat I would like to say, because there was 

testing done through mid-September, and I am blind to what happened during that period of time. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired, if you could 

wrap up very quickly. 

Mr. WALBERG. Last question. Can you ensure the American people that the website will work on November 30th? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman may answer. 

Mr. WALBERG. Asking Mr. Powner. 

Mr. POWNER. That is not my responsibility. 

[Simultaneous conversations.] 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. If anyone else 

wants to answer November 30th, they may. Mr. Park, will it work 

on November 30th? Properly, fully? 

79 

Mr. PARK. The team set a goal of having Healthcare.gov function 

smoothly for the vast majority of Americans. The team is working 

incredibly hard to meet that goal. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. WALBERG. With secure information? 

Mr. PARK. With secure information. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. The gentleman from Nevada. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking 

member and to the other committee members, to our witnesses. 

This is an important hearing. Our constituents are rightfully concerned about their right to be able to access affordable health care 

on the website, Healthcare.gov. And while the rollout has been 

problematic, what has been more troubling is the fact that this has 

been turned into more of a game than it has been about how we 

can work together to fix the problems of the site. 

My concern is one of security of personal information. I also sit 

on the Homeland Security Committee, we are having a hearing 

also this morning on this subject. So I want to ask about the potential security risks to consumers. Mr. Chao, do you agree that protecting personal identifiable information on Healthcare.gov is important and is something that can be achieved? 

Mr. CHAO. I think that is something that we as CMS and as a 

Federal agency comply with, FISMA and OMB and NIST specifications for securing people’s data, and then following HIPAA’s requirements for confidentiality, integrity and availability of data. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Can you explain how CMS protects consumer information, how that is safeguarded by CMS? 

Mr. CHAO. I think one of the things that is very obvious when 

you come to Healthcare.gov, and if you go to, in my opening remarks I mentioned there are two sides to it, or two legs. If you go 

to the Get Insured side, one of the first things that you have to do 

is to register to establish an account. And we mentioned that registrations are up to about 17,000 per hour right now. That registration process allows you to establish what we call a level one assurance of assurance account, which is based upon the National Institute of Standards and Technology. That is very similar to something like what you would establish in terms of opening up a Gmail 

or Yahoo account, just very basic information. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Okay. Let’s move on to the next question. We are 

very limited on our time. 

Mr. CHAO. So basically the answer is, it is about authenticating 

you, it is about, are you who you say you are before we let you into 

the system. And that is one major step in ensuring that people’s 

privacy is protected, so that they only see their own data. 

Mr. HORSFORD. And is Healthcare.gov any more or less risky to 

consumers than other sites, including private company information 

in the banking world or using credit cards to purchase information 

over the internet? 

Mr. CHAO. I can’t speak for what privacy frameworks and programs apply to private sectors. But for the Federal government, we 

follow the FISMA guidelines and the requirements set forth by certain OMB directives. And we use independent security testing contractors to ensure that we comply. 

80 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. Park, you have spent some time with this 

website. Have you been able to understand the security features 

that are inherent in it? 

Mr. PARK. That hasn’t been my particular focus on the team, no. 

There is a CMS security team dedicated to security matters. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Based on your review of that, do you believe the 

site poses any unreasonable risks to consumers? 

Mr. PARK. I haven’t actually, again, dived into that personally. 

But my understanding is that CMS is applying its information security best practices to the protection of the site. CMS has a great 

track record in protecting the privacy of Americans. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Mr. VanRoekel, I understand you worked on the 

data Hub. Can you explain why you believe consumers should have 

confidence that their information is secure as it passes through the 

Hub? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I didn’t actually code the Hub itself, so I didn’t 

do the day-to-day. But one thing that should be pointed out is that 

cyber security is part of everything we do. You almost can’t buy a 

keyboard in government now without having cyber security considerations on that. And we have built a culture of assessment and 

mitigation that is all about assessing the level of risk, it is low to 

high. And then you put into place technology to mitigate that risk, 

to make sure that we are protected. 

The standards that we abide by are the NIST standards which 

are actually co-developed with the private sector. So the banking 

industry, financial industry, insurance industries outside of government actually use the same standards as government does, and we 

hold government to those standards, and often in many cases lead 

those industries in the ability to do these things. 

The other aspect of this is, this is ongoing. You hear, I am sure, 

in the Homeland Security Committee, a lot around the fact that we 

have cyber security in what we do there, you have to do ongoing 

tests. You have to rapidly respond and assessments are never done. 

You have to just stay vigilant in those cases. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would just say that 

this is not about playing offense or defense. It is about us getting 

this job done on behalf of the American people and working together. I am rather insulted by this House Republican playbook—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. HORSFORD.—where it talks about ObamaCare—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized. 

Mr. HORSFORD.—the loss of insurance and what this means. This 

is not—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman from 

Oklahoma is recognized. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank 

you. This is not a day that is probably a fun day for you, you probably didn’t get up and go gosh, I can’t wait for this day. I get that, 

and I want to say thank you, because all of you are professionals 

that have given to public service. You all could make a lot more 

money in the private sector and you have chosen to serve people. 

We all have differences on opinion on direction and that kind of 

81 

stuff, but I want to say thank you to you as well for what you are 

doing, because you have made a conscious choice in that. 

Let me walk through a couple of things just to be able to get to 

some of the reality on it. About an hour and a half ago I went on 

my iPad, went to Healthcare.gov and hit this button that says create account. It doesn’t go anywhere. It just changes colors and does 

nothing. So I reloaded on this and for about an hour and a half I 

have just occasionally hit that button. 

This is the frustration, the struggle of a lot of folks out there. 

Then you all have the frustration, we get that. We have questions, 

though, as we walk through this process of now what happens. 

Mr. Park, you were asked a question earlier about the November 

30th time line. I assume Mr. Zients has laid that out there at the 

end of November, when everything would be ready and available. 

You said it is our goal. Can you give me more specifics? Are we 

going to hit November 30th? 

Mr. PARK. Thank you for the question, and thank you for your 

kind words at the beginning as well. 

The goal that has been laid out is not for the site to be perfect 

by the end of November. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Functional, so people can log on? 

Mr. PARK. So that the vast majority of Americans will be able to 

use the site smoothly. That is the goal we are gunning for. We are 

working very hard to get here. 

Mr. LANKFORD. So here is the issue. Around 5 million people 

have received a cancellation letter. I have multiple constituents 

that have sent me copies of their letters, all of them end with, your 

insurance policy concludes December 31st. If they cannot get on 

and log into the site by December 15th, they will not have access 

to insurance January 1st and they will be uninsured. People who 

are currently insured will not have insurance as of January 1st. 

So I understand the deadline is out there for March 31st, and all 

this kind of stuff on it. Those individuals who have received it by 

the millions cannot get insurance and on January 1st will be uninsured. 

So I get that is the goal. But the reality is racing at us. And the 

comment has been made on it that we are trying to fix a plane that 

is in the air. I fully understand the complexities of that. The challenge of it is that many of us had said, park the plane for a year, 

let’s get it right before we launch this thing. That is not your fault, 

you all are dealing with the realities that are on the ground. But 

that is something that we are trying to communicate on this. 

Mr. Chao, let me ask you something. September 27th, the ATO, 

the authorization to operate, in some of the committee staff that 

you had mentioned, that was a very long day as well, you visited 

with committee staff on it. During that conversation, there was a 

back and forth on this ATO coming out that Mr. James Kerr and 

yourself, that you had edited there, since Marilyn Tavenner. In 

that memo, you wrote, ‘‘Due to a system of readiness issues, the 

security control assessment was only partially completed. This constitutes a risk that must be mitigated to support the marketplace 

day one operations.’’ You were asked by staff, what are some of 

those risks that are out there, that are kind of the unknowns on 

it, that have to be mitigated. During that conversation, you had 

82 

listed things like unauthorized access, not encrypting data, identity 

theft, misrouted data, personal identifiable information, those are 

the kinds of the great unknowns of this, at that point. 

Then, am I tracking this correctly? Do you remember this? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. Those are examples that I was asked to provide. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Sure. The problem is that you are trying to mitigate on things that you don’t know. I understand about mitigating 

on a risk. You mitigate on things that you know, is that correct? 

So on day one, Marilyn Tavenner is signing a document saying, 

there are risks that are out there. Some of those that you had listed, we are going to have to mitigate on those. Were we mitigating 

for every possibility on it? 

Mr. CHAO. I think what you do is, on a risk-based approach, you 

look at the probability of a particular risk occurring and you 

prioritize. For example, one of the mitigation steps was to conduct 

weekly security testing and to report back to the Administrator on 

the result of that security testing. 

Mr. LANKFORD. During that testing process, did you find that 

some data was misrouted? Once it was launched? Are insurance 

companies getting information that is incorrect? 

Mr. CHAO. There are cases in which insurance companies were 

getting data that were not incorrectly routed to them, but incorrectly formatted within the transaction. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Do you know who briefed Marilyn Tavenner on 

the security risks? Because obviously she had to sign off on this 

document. Do you know who sat down with her and briefed her on 

the security risks, here are all the things we are trying to walk 

through? 

Mr. CHAO. It was our chief information officer and chief information security officer. 

Mr. LANKFORD. Two other quick questions. Is there a way to be 

able to track what personal information any employees can see 

while they are working on this? Obviously you had a lot of contractors involved in this, now we have added even more contractors 

trying to learn all those contractors, who they even are. Is there 

a way to be able to track? Because now there is personally identifiable information in the system as well. Is there something in place 

that tracks what people who are working on the back end of the 

site can see as far as personally identifiable information? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. There are system logs. For example, if you call 

the call center and the call center representative is—— 

Mr. LANKFORD. I am talking about people working on the back 

end. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman’s time is expired. You can finish 

the question. 

Mr. CHAO. In certain cases, yes. Like if you are in a testing environment. Very few people touch a production environment. So they 

wouldn’t even have access to that live data. Sometimes when we 

use testing data, you want to see the results, so you do have developers having access to that information. But it is not live people’s 

data. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma. 

For the record, Mr. Chao, I wanted to point out, those items that 

you identified as particular inherent risks were identified by you 

83 

prior to the September 3rd memo that was introduced. I know the 

gentleman from Virginia had indicated that it was after that 

memo. But for the record, you indicated those prior to that memo 

being introduced by committee. 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t quite understand what you are trying to say 

there. Because the question was asked, what examples, and it was 

in the context of the September 27th memo. You are saying September 3rd. 

Mr. MEADOWS. You mentioned these risks because of the failure 

to do integrated security testing. 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t believe I said failure. 

[Simultaneous conversations.] 

Mr. CHAO. This is the problem, I don’t have the transcript in 

front of me, I cannot confirm with you. I was not given an opportunity to make corrections, if there were corrections to be made. So 

you can tell me what you want, but all I can say is to the best of 

my knowledge, I don’t recall saying that. I need to see my transcript. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman from Vermont, the distinguished 

gentleman from Vermont is recognized. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I want to join Mr. Lankford in thanking each of you, Mr. 

Powner, Mr. Chao, Mr. Baitman, Mr. Park, Mr. VanRoekel, for the 

incredible effort that you are putting into trying to fix a very serious problem. Thank you. 

Second, you don’t have to be an opponent or a supporter of the 

health care law to acknowledge that there are significant rollout 

problems associated with the website. Those of us who are supporters, and I am a very strong supporter of the health care law, 

are absolutely committed to providing the support you need to 

make this thing work. 

There are really four issues that we have that are rolling around. 

One is, the website, what we have to do to fix it, and it has to be 

fixed. Two is, what is the impact of these cancellation notices that 

a lot of Americans are receiving. They thought they had health are, 

they were assured that they could keep the policy that they had. 

And the problem gets compounded if the website is not working. 

And then third is the individual mandate that is the subtext of the 

debate, but that is essential to the law, but in order to make that 

work, the website has to work. And the fourth is the IT purchasing, 

are there some lessons that we can learn. I tend to think that it 

is really important to move ahead on the Issa-Connolly legislation. 

So that is the context that we are in. You are here to help us 

fix the problem. We have to get that done. 

So I want to start by just asking you, Mr. Park, if you could 

make some comments about, you would be repeating a little bit, 

but what are the specific things we can do to get this fixed? And 

I understand all of us would like to have a hard and firm date 

where everything is going to be perfect. But what we are dealing 

with is the real world, and we want it to be functional for the vast 

majority of Americans. So what are the ABCs that you need to do 

and hopefully not require you to sleep on the floor in the office at 

night? 

84 

Mr. PARK. Thank you so much for the question . The team is taking all the right steps under the leadership of Jeffrey Zients and 

Ms. Tavenner. So first of all, the team has implemented monitoring 

cross the site, improved monitoring to actually understand performance of the system, and where are the issues and where to focus. 

Secondly, with the help of that data, the team has undertaken 

an aggressive program of improvements to actually improve the 

stability and performance of the site through tuning, system configurations, capacity expansion, et cetera, which has resulted in, 

among other things, the site being more stable, system response 

times going down, as I mentioned, from 8 seconds to less than a 

second. 

Thirdly, the team is working on functionality bugs. So high priority issues with respect to the user interface and user experience. 

And that is actually being pursued very aggressively of course as 

well. 

Then finally, there is a bunch of work underway to keep improving the software release process. So you can actually fix these 

issues faster and faster at a growing clip. 

Then you have QSSI having been brought in by Administrator 

Tavenner as the general contractor to manage this effort. And so 

it is all moving at increasing speed. 

Mr. WELCH. How are we going to address the problem that Mr. 

Lankford had getting on the website, where he hit the enter button 

and it didn’t work for an hour and a half? 

Mr. PARK. There has been a lot of progress on that front, and 

many more folks can get in now than previously, through both the 

ability for that particular component of the system to handle more 

volume through capacity expansion and software optimization. And 

also through bug fixes that have been applied. But actually, if Congressman Lankford would be so kind, I would love to follow up 

with you afterwards just to understand your specific situation. And 

then we can actually use that to inform the troubleshooting and 

the fixing. 

Mr. WELCH. I would really like it if you did, because that is a 

fair question. 

Mr. LANKFORD. If the gentleman would yield for just one second. 

Mr. WELCH. Yes. 

Mr. LANKFORD. It is pretty straightforward. I just got to that 

page and hit the button, it changed colors and did nothing. So it 

is nothing more than that, as far as moving in to just to log in to 

create an account. 

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Powner, do you have some concrete suggestions 

about what we can do as a Congress to make it more efficient and 

more effective when we are making significant IT purchases on behalf of the American taxpayer? 

Mr. POWNER. I have a couple very specific suggestions, and I am 

going to go back to my oral statement. We are down in the weeds 

on what needs to be done to fix it, and the program management 

needs to be in place. But the IT dashboard, there are 700 major 

IT investments. This is one of them. It was green. Given the late 

start, the compressed schedule and the complexity, does anyone 

think it was really a green project? I don’t think so. It should not 

85 

have been green. There should have been flags on the dashboard 

and better transparency. 

The other thing is proactive governance. We look at the IT reform plan, things in the FITAR bill legislation. Proactive governance is very important. It is great and I am pleased that Steve and 

Todd and everyone is involved now. But we need that governance 

up front on important projects, not when things go in the tank. We 

need it up front. It is the same thing with when projects go in the 

tank, we get engaged with the contractor more. Why don’t we engage with the contractor, engage with the right executives, up front 

instead of when we have problems? I know there are a lot of 

projects and a lot of priorities. But we need to find a way to tackle 

that better. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Vermont. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Meehan, is recognized. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the chairman, and I to want to join in this 

sentiment, that I appreciate that you are legitimately trying to 

work on this. We all are. And I happen to chair the Cyber Subcommittee on Homeland in addition, and have great concerns and 

frustrations. I think I reflect many of the people out there that 

with the concept of frustration, because in many ways, when I talk 

to my folks at home, this isn’t about a website, it is about trust. 

It is about this inherent trust that they have in the relationship 

with their doctor is now being impacted. And the very trust they 

have in the ability for this system not only to operate but to operate securely. 

Now, I know this is sort of outside, I was stunned when I heard 

the question the other day that the Secretary said yes, we can have 

felons that are operating as navigators. What is going to be done 

from this point forward to assure that no felon will be used as a 

navigator anywhere in the United States? Mr. VanRoekel? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. In the context of this system, that is sort of a 

health policy decision, it is not a tech decision. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chao, is there anything that can be done? Will 

you participate in getting something done? 

Mr. CHAO. I think CMS is actively performing background investigations. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, that is not what the Secretary said. Look, 

please look into that for me. That is not my line of questioning, but 

I move into this whole issue of trust. Again, trust, we had Ms. 

Tavenner and you before our committee testifying about the readiness in July and August of this, to ready to go. I just look at the 

background of, this is the IG’s report to Congress on FISMA. One 

of the things that Ms. Tavenner and you were talking about was 

compliance with FISMA and therefore, when you look at HHS, the 

IGs came out, the second worst score in every agency across government, HHS. A 50 percent compliance with FISMA. The second 

worst in all of government. 

So we are already dealing, again, with a question of trust. So let 

me just get to the heart of our engagement. Because I was so frustrated, I couldn’t understand how an IG’s report, Mr. Chao, could 

have suggested that there were great concerns about the ability to 

be ready in time to conduct the testing. And you assured me at 

86 

that time that they were on schedule and you were going to meet 

all the requirements for the testing, as did Ms. Tavenner. 

Now, we were told before the marketplace systems were allowed 

to operate, they had to comply with all of the rigorous standards. 

Yet at the same time that you were testifying before me, I had a 

Washington Post story that was saying staffers were aware by late 

2012 that the work of building the Federal exchange was lagging. 

Employees warned at meetings late last year and in January that 

so many things were behind schedule, there would be no time for 

adequate end to end testing of how the moving parts worked together. 

So how was it done, then, that in this short time frame, where 

their own employees are saying it couldn’t be done, the IG said 

that there were tremendous concerns about the ability to do the 

testing, somehow the day before our committee had you before us, 

there was a report from the Secretary that said, all of our marketplace systems are allowed to operate and begin serving consumers, 

and I am pleased to report that the Hub completed its independent 

security control assessment on August 23rd? 

Mr. CHAO. The Hub was tested first, and it was completed in August, as you mentioned. I think the remainder of August and into 

September, we concluded the third round of testing for the marketplace systems, particularly for the functions that were needed for 

October 1st. 

Mr. MEEHAN. How could you do the testing on the system? Because you have reported, but here is the document that came out 

from CGI. At the very time you were saying to me that this was, 

this had been certified as complete, by the certifying agency and 

Tavenner was here testifying that it was done, you have at the 

same time an internal memo from CGI saying that the FFM schedule was only 51 percent completed, on the same day you are telling 

me that the certification has been finished. How can you complete 

and certify when they haven’t even built more than half of the system? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t know what document you are holding, but I 

am assuming that in August, 51 percent is about where we were 

at. Remember, we still have other key functions, such as payment, 

risk adjustment, reconciliation. 

Mr. MEEHAN. How do you give certification when it is only 51 

percent complete? 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. CHAO. Because you test the components, the parts of the system that go into production and that are actually interacting with 

the public. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

We recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chao, do you feel you have had adequate opportunity to answer that last question? Or do you have other things you want to 

add? 

Mr. CHAO. I think I got my last word in. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thanks. So earlier this morning, at the beginning 

of the hearing, Chairman Issa asked you about the anonymous 

shopper function. Do you recall that? 

87 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. You said you had decided to direct CGI to disable 

it because of defects, and Chairman Issa challenged you and accused the White House of ordering the action for political reasons. 

Do you recall that? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. TIERNEY. No. 

So during that phrase, also I think Chairman Issa handed you 

a document, and I think it is probably still with you there. 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And the chairman gave you the document that said 

it showed that there were no defects in the system. It does say that 

the function is anonymous shopper, does say the CGI said it tested 

successfully. Then he has blown up a box, over a number of the 

other statements made on the right hand side of that box. It just 

says 9/22 this feature will be turned off on day one, October 1. 

Now, I have given you a sheet there, I believe staff has given you 

a sheet there that is clean from those boxes, and just as the original document without the chairman’s blowups on there obstructing 

any of the other materials. Do you have that document? 

Mr. CHAO. I think so. Is it this one? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes. So that is the original document. ON the bottom right, will you read for me the last, the statement there starting with defects identified? 

Mr. CHAO. Defects identified by CMS being treated as critical 

target fixes for 9/12. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And that is, in fact, what you testified to, right, 

that you had found defects? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. As you read up from that box, you found that there 

were defects that you decided to disable the shopper function and 

focus instead on plan compare? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Why did you do that? 

Mr. CHAO. Because if given the opportunity to choose a more critical function, plan compare is much more critical in the path of a 

consumer being able to enroll in health care as compared to the 

ability to browse. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So you thought that was the best priority and you 

focused attention on that? 

Mr. CHAO. At that time, yes, given the CGI resources that were 

available. And actually, there was a subsequent date, I think, I 

would have to locate the documentation. We did do another round 

of testing post-9/12 and it was still failing. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So you disagree with CGI, they thought it tested 

successfully and you instead had this ongoing belief that it tested 

unsuccessfully, there were defects and that is why you made the 

decision to switch your priorities to the other? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct, because the report that I would look at is 

from our ACA independent testers, not from CGI. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And, in fact, that is why the shopper function was 

disabled, correct? 

88 

Mr. CHAO. Correct, based on the report from the independent 

testers. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So when Chairman Issa stated on national television that the White House ordered you as CMS to disable the 

shopper function in September for political reasons to avoid consumer sticker shock, that is not true, is it? 

Chairman ISSA. I object. The gentleman may not mischaracterize 

my statement. 

Mr. TIERNEY. The gentleman may not object in the middle of 

somebody else’s questioning. If questions go through the chair, 

which you don’t currently occupy, and I will continue my questioning of Mr. Chao. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Chairman, point of privilege. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The gentleman is recognized. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is repeatedly disparaging and 

mischaracterizing what I have said. Could the chair please direct 

all members, if they want to allege a quote, ensure that it is a 

quote and not in fact a characterization that is inaccurate, as the 

gentleman’s is? 

Mr. MEADOWS. The chair would remind each and every member 

here to direct their comments, without personality, and directing 

those comments to make sure that they are reflected as to not 

make a personal attack. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, that is well said. I don’t know of any personal 

attacks, so I assume you are directing that at somebody else. 

But I will read a quote on October 27th, from Chairman Issa on 

national television. Here it is: ‘‘Contractors have already told us 

that, in fact, people represented that the White House was telling 

them they needed these changes, including instead of a simple ’let 

me shop for a program then decided to register’ they were forced 

to register and go through all the things they have slowed down 

in the website before they could find out about a price.’’ 

The contractors the chairman referred to were CGI, but CGI officials have denied ever saying such a thing. Nevertheless, he went 

on to claim the White House, ‘‘buried the information about the 

high cost of ObamaCare’’ in order to avoid consumer ‘‘sticker 

shock.’’ And that is not why you made the decision to disable that 

program of anonymous shopper, is it, Mr. Chao? 

Mr. CHAO. Just as I answered before, absolutely not. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. I yield back. No, I yield to my colleague. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just want to address this to Chairman Issa. 

When speaking to Mr. Connolly earlier, you referred to a letter 

sent to you on November 6th. It is not a letter I sent jointly with 

Mr. Connolly, so he did not read that letter. That letter was about 

MITRE security testing document provided to the committee. 

MITRE told us that like any website security documents, they are 

sensitive, and their release potentially could give hackers hints on 

how to break into the system. 

So I asked you to treat those documents with sensitivity, to consult with me before making them public. You tried to use my letter 

to argue that the system is not secure, but that is not what I said. 

Every security testing document for every IT system, no matter 

89 

how secure the system is, is sensitive. Every security testing document could give ill-meaning individuals help in causing mischief. 

These documents do not mean there are problems with the security of the system. I just wanted to clear that up. And I yield back. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I yield back as well. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. The gentleman’s time is expired 

Mr. Chao, I know that you have made a number of comments 

with regard to your sworn testimony and what you recall or don’t. 

I would make it available to you for your reference there at the 

desk, if you would like to have that, in case there are other questions that are asked regarding that. 

Mr. CHAO. Thank you, but I probably would need some time to 

go over it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you need time to review what you have said 

previously on the record? 

Mr. CHAO. It was nine hours worth of interview questions. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. As soon as the hearing is over, if you would 

like to come back and review this, we will be glad to make it available to you. 

With that, I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 

DesJarlais. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. I know 

that the hearing is getting long and here has been a lot of questioning going on. But there is no doubt that eh American people 

want some answers about this huge investment in a rollout of a 

website that certainly didn’t go as planned. It has been a learning 

experience, it has been an educational experience. 

Mr. Park, looking back, knowing what you know how, looking at 

the rollout in October, give a letter grade to the rollout of 

ObamaCare, A through F. 

Mr. PARK. That is an interesting question. In terms of the rollout 

of the website, it has obviously been really, really rocky. I kind of 

hesitate to assign a letter grade to it. But it is what nobody wanted. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. I think the people appreciate honesty. You don’t 

have to fail it, but what do you think it was, A through F? 

Mr. PARK. I think it depends on the user. There were some users 

able to get through, and there were other users, a lot of users who 

couldn’t. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. So you are not going to give it a grade? 

Mr. PARK. I think that kind of oversimplifies it. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Maybe. But there are a lot of people watching 

who want answers. And this is a complex issue. So just maybe for 

simplification, they would like to know that a lot of people who are 

responsible for rolling this out don’t think that it went very well. 

To listen to this hearing, it doesn’t really sound like a lot of you 

think it was that abysmal of a failure. This hearing started out 

with the ranking member talking about how this is a Republican 

issue, how we are out to destroy health care or the health care law, 

how we are trying to repeal it, how we are trying to not have this 

hearing to see if we can make this succeed. 

Bottom line is, a lot of money was invested in this and people 

do want answers. So it is complex, but yet in a simple fashion I 

think people would like to hear that hey, we screwed up. 

90 

Mr. Chao, could you give it a letter grade? 

Mr. CHAO. I agree with Todd that it is highly subjective. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay. Fair enough. 

Will anybody give it a letter grade? 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. Perhaps we could have it as a pass-fail, a little 

less subjective. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Yes, that would be less complicated. Would you 

give it a pass or a fail, Mr. Park? 

Mr. PARK. Again, I don’t want to reduce it to something that— 

just to be clear, all of us are frustrated about how the site rolled 

out. None of us think it went well. All of us think it was incredibly 

rocky and we are incredibly focused on trying to fix it and make 

it better. And it is getting better week after week after week. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay, so knowing what we know now, Mr. 

Chao, you testified that you were given your marching orders, but 

yet, I don’t think the October 1st date was immovable. Would you 

agree with that? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t have the luxury of determining what date is 

movable or not movable. I was given October 1st as a delivery date, 

and that is what I targeted. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Knowing what you know now, would you have 

pushed harder to have the date moved back? 

Mr. CHAO. That is pure speculation. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. How can it be speculation? You know what you 

know now. 

Mr. CHAO. Because I wasn’t in a position to choose a date. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. I am asking today, sitting here today, testifying 

in front of this committee, knowing what you know now, would you 

have pushed harder to move the date back? 

Mr. CHAO. I go by what I said. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. So you would let history repeat itself. 

Mr. CHAO. That is not what I said. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Mr. Park, would you have—— 

Mr. CHAO. That is not what I said. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay, Mr. Park, would you, knowing what you 

know now, ask to have this delayed or pushed back? 

Mr. PARK. I don’t actually have a really detailed knowledge base 

of what actually happened pre-October 1. I don’t know what levers 

were available. So I would hesitate to make any point now. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. So once again, we spent over a half a billion 

dollars of taxpayer money and no one who is responsible for the 

rollout is willing to say that we should have done things differently. The President doesn’t know it, but first of all, we were 

trying to save the American people from a bad law by all that we 

just went through over the past few months. And really, we were 

trying to save the President from himself. He needed to sit down 

and talk with us about delaying this, and nobody sitting on this 

panel, after seeing what a failure this has been over the past 

month, is willing to step up and say, yes, we should have delayed 

this. Is that what I am hearing? I didn’t give everyone a chance. 

Does anyone want to speak to that? 

91 

Chairman ISSA. Perhaps the GAO could comment on whether or 

not this was a site that in retrospect should have been launched 

on October 1st and serviced that full six people while millions of 

people were unable to get through. 

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, knowing what we know now, a delay in 

rollout would have made sense. But the thing is, we are not privy 

to who knew what when in terms of the test results and all that 

kind of stuff. That is where we don’t have insight into that. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Okay, well, a lot of these regulations, Mr. Chao, 

were delayed until after the election. Do you have any reason why 

a lot of the regulations that probably caused a lot of these problems 

were delayed until after the election? 

Chairman ISSA. [Presiding] The gentleman’s time is expired. The 

gentleman may answer. 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t have the scope, it is not within my scope to 

cover when regulations get released or not. 

Chairman ISSA. Does anyone know? Mr. Park, you were chief 

technology. Mr. VanRoekel, your organization owned the question 

of whether or not in a timely fashion these regulations were created. 

Mr. VANROEKEL. No, that is actually a mischaracterization of my 

organization’s role. We and my team are tech policy people, not 

health policy people related to regulations. 

Chairman ISSA. But whether the trains run on time, where there 

are things implementing laws, isn’t that what OMB does? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. My role in OMB is to set government-wide policy to look at government-wide communication of budget. 

Chairman ISSA. So we should get the OMB director in here and 

find out why after three and a half years things weren’t done so 

that this could be launched for the American people in a timely 

fashion. I guess we could get a couple of OMB directors. 

The gentleman’s time is expired. The gentleman from Missouri 

is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for attempting to get answers to your questions on Healthcare.gov. My questions today will focus on the Federal contract between CMS to CGI 

Federal, to set up Healthcare.gov. If any other witnesses, including 

Mr. Powner, care to comment on my question, please feel free to 

jump in. 

Mr. Chao, in your testimony today you stated that CMS contracted with CGI Federal to build a federally-facilitated marketplace system, including the eligibility and enrollment system. According to the Washington Post, this contract is worth $93.7 million. 

How much money from this contract has already been awarded 

to CGI? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t have the exact figures. 

Mr. CLAY. What incentives and disincentives were in the contract 

for CGI Federal to successfully fulfill their contract to roll out 

Healthcare.gov? 

Mr. CHAO. I think as with, starting at the highest level of the 

Federal Acquisition Regulation has very specific guidance about 

contracting and the contracting framework in which you will then 

92 

award IT contracts, with specifications for something like the marketplace. 

Mr. CLAY. And they are still working on the website, CGI Federal? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes. 

Mr. CLAY. And they have been paid how much to this point? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t have the exact figures in front of me. 

Mr. CLAY. And are you pleased with the product you received 

from CGI Federal? 

Mr. CHAO. I think as Todd mentioned, we are all—— 

Mr. CLAY. Look, we have a responsibility as an oversight committee, and that is to protect taxpayer dollars. And so I am asking 

specific questions about the taxpayers’ dollars. Perhaps Mr. Powner 

can shed some light on that. Have we paid CGI Federal yet? 

Mr. POWNER. I don’t know specifically what went to CGI. We do know that the government has paid IT funding over $600 million. 

That is what we do know. 

Mr. CLAY. Okay, tell me about the structure of the contract, then. 

If they perform, then they should get paid, correct? 

Mr. CHAO. I think how this contract is formulated is that there 

is a performance element to it. So there is a based set of costs that 

are factored into performing the work. 

And then during certain review periods, they could receive a performance kind of incentive. But I would have to get back to you on 

exactly how that works, because I don’t run the contract. 

Mr. CLAY. Would you share with this committee how they are 

going to be paid for the work performed already? Are they still 

working on Healthcare.gov? Since they messed it up in the first 

place, are they still on it? 

Mr. CHAO. They are the contractor that does the development, as 

well as ongoing operations and maintenance. So yes, they are still 

working on it. 

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Powner, can you shed some light on this? 

Mr. POWNER. Yes. I would just like to say that we sit here and 

talk about contractor fault, government fault, government is at 

fault here too on the requirements point of view. It is clear that 

from a requirement perspective there is fault on the government 

side. Congressman Clay, we went through this with the Census Bureau, with the handhelds, same situation. 

Mr. CLAY. Same situation. 

Mr. POWNER. Same situation. 

Mr. CLAY. But we corrected it. 

Mr. POWNER. Ill-defined requirements, we overspent, we came in, 

fixed it. But it is the same situation, ill-defined requirements, questions, there are all kinds of questions across the board. 

Mr. CLAY. Okay. I have been told that this was simply lazy Federal contracting. What are the failures of CMS in policing the CGI 

contract to ensure that the rollout of Healthcare.gov would be a 

success? What are the failures? Can anybody tell me? I’m going to 

go back to CMS. 

Mr. POWNER. Executive oversight. I think there is a fundamental 

question. There are to be investment boards in place with these 

agencies and departments. The questions are, what meetings occurred, who attended, what risks were discussed, what follow-up 

93 

occurred, how timely were those meetings. That is really what we 

need to look at. 

Mr. CLAY. Well, and from a taxpayer perspective, these are millions of dollars going to a failed product. I don’t think they are 

happy. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CLAY. I don’t have time. 

Chairman ISSA. I would ask unanimous consent the ranking 

member have 30 seconds. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Park, we have had a lot of bad news in this 

hearing. Can you just again tell us where we are and the progress 

we are making, you are making? 

Mr. PARK. It is the progress the team is making, I am just a 

small part of the team. But the team is working really hard to 

make progress week after week, just some numbers, which are always helpful, right? As I mentioned previously, the average system 

response time, which is the time it takes a page to render a request 

to be fulfilled of a user was eight seconds on average a few weeks 

ago, it is now under a second. Another measure is the system error 

rate, which is the rate at which you experience errors in the marketplace application. That was over 6 percent a few weeks ago, now 

it is actually at 1 percent and actually getting lower than that. 

So really good progress, still much, much more to do. A lot of 

work to do. But there is a system and a pattern of attack in place, 

as I mentioned earlier, around monitoring, production stability 

work, functional bug fixing and improvement of these processes. 

Mr. CLAY. Would the ranking member yield? 

Chairman ISSA. The Chairman would yield to the gentleman 

from Missouri. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Park, what contractors 

are working on fixing the site? Isn’t CGI one of them, CGI Federal? 

Mr. PARK. CGI is one. And CMS of course is the manager of all 

the contracts, they could give you the most comprehensive answer. 

But CGI is one, yes. 

Mr. CLAY. Thanks. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank all of you, and Mr. Park, in case it isn’t 

said again in this hearing, we believe that what you are doing 

today is important. I think what GAO has said is, there wasn’t a 

single point of contact, an expert in charge in a timely fashion that 

would be accountable and coordinate that would, if you will, sleep 

on their floor if that is what it took, before October 1st. So that is 

the big reason we are here today, but I think that is where GAO 

is making the point to all of us that the next time there is one of 

these, we need to have somebody, perhaps not of your stature, but 

as close as we can come, there in the months and years preceding 

it. 

We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Park, do you agree that there is a difference between an innocent misstatement of a perceived fact and a deliberate attempt 

to deceive? 

Mr. PARK. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. So do I. When did you first realize that you couldn’t 

keep your health insurance even if you did like it, period? 

94 

Mr. PARK. Again, that is kind of a health policy matter, that is 

really outside my lane. 

Mr. GOWDY. You don’t know when you first realized that you 

couldn’t keep your health insurance, even if you liked it, period? 

Mr. PARK. I don’t recall, no. 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you agree with me that credibility or the lack 

thereof in one area of life can impact credibility or the lack thereof 

in another area of life? 

Mr. PARK. I suppose it could. 

Mr. GOWDY. In your written testimony, you wrote, ‘‘As you know, 

October 1st was the launch date of the new website, 

Healthcare.gov.’’ And I did know that. I just didn’t know why. And 

I am going to read to you a quote from Secretary Sebelius. She 

said, and I will paraphrase it initially, that she was hurried into 

producing a website by October 1st because the law required it. 

Now I will read you the direct quote. ‘‘In an ideal world, there 

would have been a lot more testing. We did not have the luxury 

of that, with a law that said it is go-time on October 1st.’’ 

Mr. Park, I don’t know what ideal world she is referring to. So 

I am going to stick with the one we are in. What law was she referencing? What law required this website to launch on October 1st? 

Mr. PARK. I can’t really speak for Secretary Sebelius. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am not asking you to speak for her. I am asking 

you, what law was she referring to? Is there a law that required 

this website to launch on October 1st? 

Mr. PARK. Again, that is a health policy, legal matter. 

Mr. GOWDY. It is actually a legal question. Do you know if there 

is a law that requires this website to launch on October 1st, or do 

you know whether it was just an arbitrary date that the Administration settled on? 

Mr. PARK. I actually do not. 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you find that to be important, whether or not 

we really had to go October 1st, given the fact that we weren’t 

ready to go October 1st? Would you find that relevant, whether or 

not we actually had to launch a substandard product? 

Mr. PARK. Sir, I am, respectfully, just a technology guy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Don’t short yourself. You are the smartest one in the 

room. 

Mr. PARK. That is not true, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Trust me. I have been in this room for a while. It 

is true. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GOWDY. There is no law that requires that. So what Secretary Sebelius said was patently false. There is no law that required a go-time on October 1st. 

But I want to move to another component of her quote. Some of 

us don’t consider testing to be a luxury. But let’s assume arguendo 

that she is right, that additional testing would have been a luxury 

that would have been nice to have. How much more testing would 

you have done prior to launching? 

Mr. PARK. I am not even familiar with the development and testing regimen that happened prior to October 1. So I can’t really 

opine about that. 

95 

Mr. GOWDY. Let me ask you this. Because you are the smartest 

one in the room, and very good at what you do, where the heck 

were you for the first 184 weeks? If you are being asked to fix this 

after October 1st, in a couple of weeks, where were you for the first 

184 after the so-called Affordable Care Act passed? Where did they 

have you hidden? 

Mr. PARK. Sir, in my role at the White House as USCTO in the 

Office of Science and Technology Policy, I am a technology and innovation policy advisor. So I had a broad portfolio of responsibilities. 

Mr. GOWDY. But you are obviously good enough that they 

brought you in to fix what was broken. It has been called a train 

wreck. That is not fair to train wrecks. It has been called other 

things. They brought you in to fix it. Why didn’t they bring you in 

to start it? Why are you doing a reclamation project? Why didn’t 

you build it? 

Mr. PARK. I am part of an all-hands-on-deck effort to mobilize 

across the Administration to actually help under Jeff Zients’ leadership. And in the lead-up to October 1, that wasn’t part of my role. 

Mr. GOWDY. When will it be operational to your satisfaction? 

Mr. PARK. We have a goal that the team is pursuing with tremendous intensity. 

Mr. GOWDY. How many more weeks? Because I am going to get 

asked when I go home. I know you can appreciate that. I am going 

to get asked. When will it be operational? When will it be as good 

as it can get? Because you will concede the first 184 weeks did not 

go swimmingly. Is it going to be another 184 weeks? 

Mr. PARK. Sir, I think the honest answer is that there is a team 

of incredibly dedicated public servants working hard on it. 

Mr. GOWDY. I get all that. I am looking for a number. We can 

interpret the poem later. I am looking for a number. 

Mr. PARK. They are working hard to have the site functioning by 

the end of this month smoothly for the vast majority of Americans. 

That is the goal. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. I might stipulate for the record that Mr. Park was at HHS at the time of passage, and for that roughly first two years. So his expertise does 

come out of the origin of ObamaCare. 

Mr. GOWDY. My question, Mr. Chairman, was simply if he is 

good enough to be brought in to fix it after the locomotive has 

crashed off the mountainside, where in the hell was he for the first 

184 weeks when it was being broken? Why wait until it has 

crashed? If he is a savant, and I am convinced he is, where has he 

been? I know the Obama girl was missing. I think they found her, 

actually, the lady from the website, I think they found her. But 

where has he been? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. We now go to 

the gentleman from Texas. Would the gentleman yield for just 10 

seconds? 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Certainly. 

Chairman ISSA. I want to make a statement, and Mr. Gowdy, you 

are right on that they should have had the A team on this and 

some of the people here today clearly were there for the train 

wreck. I want to note that Mr. Park’s duties did not include overVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:10 Apr 25, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87316.TXT APRIL
96 

seeing this website, and I do appreciate the fact that it appears as 

though in 60 days they are going to make right what wasn’t ready 

on October 1st. I think that is what the gentleman wants to be able 

to explain back home, is that we have been told that November 

30th, this will work reasonably well. In other words, a 60-day delay 

or less could have allowed this to be launched in a timely fashion. 

I thank the gentleman and ask that his full time be restored. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

I do want to follow up on that, Mr. Park. There are a lot of hedge 

words in there, vast majority of Americans, mostly working. Am I 

going to be able to go to the IRS and say, it didn’t work for me, 

I couldn’t get my insurance, I am not going to be fined? You have 

to tell us when it is going to be in good shape. Can you give us 

a date? Is the end of the month realistic? 

Mr. PARK. The team is working really hard to hit that goal. That 

is what I am able to say right now, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. As a former web developer, that is what I was 

telling clients when we were going to miss a deadline, we are working real hard to meet it. And I am a former web developer, certainly nothing of this scope. But with $600 million I probably could 

have put together a team to do it, and do a better job. 

But I am not going to throw the contractor under the bus. I think 

it is too much money, a lot of issues there. But one of the biggest 

struggle we had when we were developing websites was getting 

stuff from the client, whether it was their copy for the text of the 

website or whether it was the specifications. The copy we could 

change pretty quick, we could just cut and paste it out of the email 

into an HTML editor or content manager. 

But when the actual specifications for how it goes change up to 

the last minute, it is very difficult to do. Mr. Chao, how late were 

there substantial changes being ordered to the website? Do you 

have a time frame how long before that October 1st launch? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t think there were any substantial changes ordered. It was more a standard practice of looking at how much 

time you have left, watching your schedule very closely and the priorities that are set by the business. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And then figuring out which corners to cut. 

I want to follow up on a couple of questions that some other folks 

asked that I didn’t think got completely answered. Mr. Jordan 

asked you, Mr. Chao, if it was thoroughly tested. You said yes, it 

was thoroughly tested. Mr. Jordan didn’t ask the next follow-up 

question, how did it do on those tests, did it pass? 

Mr. CHAO. If I said thoroughly, I apologize. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Maybe he said it was tested. 

Mr. CHAO. It was tested under the prescribed, we were talking 

about security testing. So I was saying that it was tested under the 

prescribed security controls. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And let me follow up with Mr. Park on something Mr. Lankford asked. He was concerned about either members 

of your team or other folks having access to sensitive data. Those 

days you were sleeping on the floor, could you have walked in to 

a server with a thumb drive and walked out with people’s personal 

information like Mr. Snowden? Are those security risks there? 

Mr. PARK. No, I could not have. No. 

97 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. That is a little bit reassuring. 

Let me also ask Mr. Chao or Mr. Powner, with respect to the private sector, if there is a data breach or a compromise, your credit 

card information or your personal information gets released, there 

is a Federal law requiring notice. I just got a notice from a major 

software company that my credit card had been compromised. Will 

we find out if our information on Healthcare.gov is compromised? 

Is there a notice requirement? Is there something in place? Will we 

know if that information has been hacked and is public? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes, there are actually several laws and rules that 

apply, particularly with disclosing any incident or breach that involves a person’s information. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Okay, so there are no special exemptions in 

ObamaCare. We will hopefully find out. 

Again, I am just concerned. We are at a time right now where 

the trust in government has never been lower. We have the whole 

NSA–Snowden incident, we have the IRS looking at people for political purposes. You will excuse me if I am concerned that we have 

a massive website that is a target for hackers that a lot of people 

have information to that by definition reaches out and touches the 

IRS and Social Security computers. Whenever you connect computers together you open pathways to hackers. So I am very concerned about the security issues. I just want to make sure we are 

going to know if there are some problems that they are not going 

to be swept under the rug for political purposes. 

Mr. CHAO. We worked closely with Frank Baitman’s security operations at the Department level as well as extensive computer 

testing. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And finally, Mr. Chao, you stated earlier in 

your testimony that the anonymous shopping feature, which I 

would love to see, I don’t think it is even in place now, but it was 

disabled before the election. We can talk about political purposes 

or not. 

Chairman ISSA. I think the gentleman is saying before the October 1st launch. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. It was deleted. Why wasn’t the October 1st 

deadline push back because it didn’t work? Why wasn’t the whole 

thing delayed? When you delayed the anonymous shopping part, 

the part we all feel most safe about, going and finding out how 

much it will cost without revealing personal information, you delayed that, why didn’t you delay the whole thing when you knew 

it wasn’t going to work? 

Mr. CHAO. I think anonymous shopper was a very narrow slice 

of looking at what the tradeoffs would be in putting something into 

production as opposed to—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Again, I am sorry, I am out of time. But I do 

want to say, with my lack of trust in the Federal Government now, 

I am loathe to put my personal information in and would love to 

shop anonymously, just like I did on some of the private exchanges 

in Texas as I look for what I am going to about my personal health 

care. I don’t think you have to give up your personal information 

to get prices for something. You don’t have to do it on an airline 

website, you don’t have to do it on Amazon and you shouldn’t have 

to do it on Healthcare.gov. 

98 

I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Is the gentlelady from New Mexico prepared to go? 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I believe so. 

Chairman ISSA. You are recognized. Thanks for coming back. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Absolutely, thank you. 

Actually, before we start, I realize I wasn’t here for this statement, but I want to echo what my colleague Congressman 

Lankford said about gaps in coverage. Coming from a State with 

nearly 25 percent uninsured, two things have occurred. One, people 

who as of October 1st couldn’t get on the website and are continuing to follow this issue very closely, their individual or family 

plans expired or were expiring and so they went off the exchange, 

because they can’t get on, and purchased brand new policies for another year. Unlike the small businesses, they are in that now for 

a year. And they are paying much higher rates than they would 

have could they have gotten on the individual exchange, because 

New Mexico is a partnership State. 

Then second, as December 15th looms ever closer, we know that 

that is another important deadline for many individual plans. We 

have the same issue and I am very concerned about that, and I appreciate that it was brought up. So I told you about what we are 

working through. We have been fighting for a long time in New 

Mexico to find ways to have access to affordable coverage. I need, 

we need, my constituents need this website to work. We need to enroll in the exchange. I know you have heard all day long that we 

are all frustrated. They are frustrated, I am frustrated. And while 

I wish that we had better solutions for them earlier on, my biggest 

concern is that we are reaching a critical point in the implementation time line. 

In order to ensure that there is no gap in coverage between plan 

years, individuals and families who would like to choose a plan 

from the exchanges, as I said earlier in my remarks, have to be enrolled by December 15th. Your stated goal of fixing the website by 

the end of November leaves very little room for error. And I know 

it is not easy. But while you are here, I just want to make sure 

that for the record, we are emphasizing that there is real urgency 

here. 

Mr. Park, I think that you have a deep appreciation for how 

transformative good technology can be. But I would like to know 

if this is a time constraint that you are aware of, and also more 

broadly if you feel the same urgency that I do about getting the site 

operational for as many users as possible. 

Mr. PARK. Absolutely. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. All right, then, I can imagine that leaving 

your office for at least an entire day would have pretty important 

impacts on your work fixing the website. What would you be doing 

if you weren’t here today? 

Mr. PARK. I would be working with the team on the site. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So Mr. Park, I wish that you were working 

on Healthcare.gov, on the website, right now. And part of this committee’s job is to ensure that you have all the tools and resources 

that you need to do your job. What else can we do to assist you 

to get this done? 

99 

Mr. PARK. Well, again, I am a small part of the broad team that 

is working incredibly hard, led by Administrator Tavenner and Jeff 

Zients, and the CMS team. I would say just one member of the 

team who could be responsive to that. And there are requests for 

assistance, that would be correct. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Great. I think we are going to need more 

clarity about that. I also agree with this committee’s efforts to talk 

about reforming IT procurement. I don’t know if today is the day 

to try to deal with those best practices. Given that States do it 

poorly and the Federal Government is doing it poorly and that we 

have spent millions I guess, the whole Country analysis, billions of 

dollars on IT projects that haven’t done well anywhere in the public center. We have to figure out a better way to do that. I hope 

that this committee will continue to lead that effort in a bipartisan 

way. 

But I want to go back to the situation that we are in. I want to 

be results-oriented. I want to solve these problems. I feel like we 

shouldn’t’ be pulling a surgeon from the operating room today. So 

thank you, Mr. Park. I yield back. 

Mr. PARK. May I just make one more statement? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I just wanted you to yield. 

Mr. PARK. So do you yield? 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I do. 

Mr. PARK. I just wanted to actually not lose the second to last 

thread that you started, which was IT procurement. I think that 

is a phenomenally important issue. This committee has done terrific work on it, I think you can actually do more. So I would love 

to see a high energy bipartisan effort attacking this issue from 

multiple dimensions. I know less about it than many people on this 

committee. What I do know is that there is not a single silver bullet. There are decades of practices and rules and laws that have actually led to where we are now. But I think with a concerted effort, 

high energy effort, bipartisan effort that we could actually take this 

out and deliver better, faster, higher return results to the American people. 

Chairman ISSA. I ask unanimous consent the gentlelady have an 

additional 30 seconds. Without objection, so ordered. And would 

you yield to the ranking member? 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to just get to the bottom line here. What 

will happen is that people are sitting there, and I agree with the 

gentlelady, looking at results, when we go back to what happened 

with Lankford and he was trying to get on the page, Mr. Park, and 

he couldn’t get there, could you talk about that for a minute? Because that is real. 

And there are probably people watching us right now who are 

trying to get on the page. Can you tell us what you are doing and 

how that affects things like that? Because they have reporters now 

that sit on telecasts, and they say, I waited an hour, I waited two 

hours. So tell us how that relates to what you are doing, so our 

constituents can have some kind of assurances that things are 

going to get better. Do you follow me? 

100 

Mr. PARK. Absolutely, sir. Thank you for the question. 

I will just answer it quickly, because I know we have limited 

time. One, there have been dramatic improvements in the ability 

to, as a consumer, create an account and get on the site. And all 

the metrics that we are seeing, that has been a function of basically improving the ability of that pat so it can handle volume 

through capacity expansion, software work and also fixing bugs. So 

many, many more people are actually able to get through now than 

at the beginning. 

That being said, it is not perfect yet, so I actually would really 

love to follow up with the Congressman to understand his particular use case and dial that back to work with the team. 

Also, there are folks who early on got caught in the middle of 

that cycle and are stuck there. Those are folks that CMS is now 

reaching out to, as we talked about earlier in the hearing, to actually get them through the process cleanly. So it is an issue that actually I think has been in large part addressed but there is still 

work to do. I do want to follow up with the Congressman and understand the specific use case he has had and his situation so we 

can figure that out. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Now as we go to Mr. Massie, who from a standpoint of his education and known IQ, could in fact rival you as the smartest guy 

in the room. 

Mr. MASSIE. No, I am from the trade school that is a mile down 

the river from your arts school that you attended. 

Chairman ISSA. You had better share that with the rest of the 

world. 

Mr. MASSIE. I went to MIT, you went to Harvard. 

Mr. PARK. You could definitely kick my butt, sir. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MASSIE. Maybe we could share some numbers later. I am 

sure we share an affinity for numbers. 

But first I want to talk about the final security control assessment that was prepared by MITRE, and just read a little bit of 

that. It says MITRE was unable to adequately test the confidentiality and integrity of the HIX access in full. The majority of 

MITRE’s testing efforts were focused on testing the expected 

functionality of the application. Complete end-to-end testing of the 

application never occurred. 

So this was MITRE’s final security control assessment. And we 

are throwing around a lot of three-letter acronyms, HIX, CMS, 

ATO. But I have a document that has CYA written all over it here, 

Mr. Chao. You wrote a letter, and this is the final ATO, or authority to operate, to Marilyn Tavenner, which she signed off on. In 

this letter, you stated, ‘‘Due to systems readiness issues, the SCA,’’ 

and that is security control assessment, ‘‘was only partly completed. This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated 

to support the marketplace day one operations.’’ 

In this sentence here, and this was written on September 27th, 

or certainly signed off on September 27th, were you trying to tell 

your boss that there is a risk and I am not going to accept it, but 

you must accept this risk, we can either delay the date or we can 

accept the security risk? 

101 

Mr. CHAO. I think I was outlining more of a generalized risk acceptance with a fairly significant rollout of the marketplace system. 

Mr. MASSIE. But that risk existed because there had never been 

an end-to-end security test on this, is that true? That is basically 

what the letter states here. 

Mr. CHAO. I think in previous testimony I have also said that 

end-to-end is a highly subjective term. 

Mr. MASSIE. If it is subjective, how are you going to get it done 

in 60 to 90 days? 

Mr. CHAO. It depends on the scope of what you are trying to put 

in production. 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, the scope is, is our data safe? Is the personal 

information that Americans enter into the system going to be safe? 

For instance, in this same letter, and it is a very short letter, 

signed by Marilyn Tavenner on September 27th, you suggest that 

we conduct a full security control assessment, so I will let you define what that is, in a stable environment, which implies that you 

don’t have a stable environment right now, where all security controls can be tested within 60 to 90 days of going live on October 

1st. 

Here is what troubles me about this letter. You are basically saying, look, we can go live but there are going to be security risks. 

But let’s test it on real people’s data, on real personal information. 

Let’s test it for 60 to 90 days. 

Mr. CHAO. No, that is not what I said. That is not what the 

memo alludes to. When we do security testing, we don’t do it in 

terms of using live people’s data. We do security testing in a preimplementation environment prior—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, I would contend we are beyond pre-implementation. We are testing this in the real market and it is failing. 

You said that the format of this ATO is not typical, is that true? 

Mr. CHAO. It is true. 

Mr. MASSIE. So you have never seen that sort of format before. 

Is it a problem that you were not given the final security control 

assessment prior to authoring the ATO, authorization to—— 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t think that is necessarily a problem, because 

my staff were copied on it. 

Mr. MASSIE. But you didn’t get to see it. You said, actually I 

didn’t get a copy of the final ATO. 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Mr. MASSIE. Those are your words. 

Mr. CHAO. Because I was with the information systems security 

officer in Herndon when these tests were being conducted. It was 

determined that there was no high finding—— 

Mr. MASSIE. As the person with responsibility for the authorization to operate, I think you should have been at your desk reading 

the final security control assessment. 

Mr. CHAO. I was there in person. 

Mr. MASSIE. But I am glad to see that you covered yourself by 

putting this sentence in here. 

Mr. CHAO. That was not to cover myself. That was a decision 

memo between her and I. 

102 

Mr. MASSIE. Are any among you today willing to bet your job 

that thousands of people’s personal data won’t be released because 

of implementation of this website? 

Chairman ISSA. That is certainly a yes or no question. 

Mr. MASSIE. That is a yes or no question. 

Mr. CHAO. They are trying to ask us to predict something that 

security vulnerabilities are as, some folks have mentioned before, 

it happens every day. That is why we do security testing. 

Mr. MASSIE. Obviously from the documents here, you weren’t 

comfortable with this, you were trying to transmit to your boss, let 

me just read your words again, ‘‘This constitutes a risk that must 

be accepted and mitigated to support the marketplace day one operations.’’ In other words, to launch this thing by October 1st you 

were telling your boss she is going to have to accept some risks 

that are not normal for this. 

[Simultaneous conversations.] 

Chairman ISSA. Quickly. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

Mr. MASSIE. Okay. Mr. Park, we have Mr. Chao saying 17,000 

users an hour can subscribe. And we have Mr. Lankford who has 

been waiting for over an hour and a half. We have five orders of 

magnitude difference between those two numbers. Which is closer 

to the truth? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman may answer. 

Mr. MASSIE. How many people an hour are able to enroll in 

healthcare? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman previously said 17,000. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. PARK. Seventeen thousand registrations for new account per 

hour is the number that we have. 

Mr. MASSIE. I imagine you have a war room somewhere where 

you are directing these operations and you have some big number. 

The only number that matters, how many are enrolling? How many 

are enrolling right now per hour? Can you tell us? 

Mr. PARK. Actually what the war room tracks—— 

Mr. MASSIE. Just a number. Come on. We both love numbers. 

Chairman ISSA. Let the gentleman answer. Your time is expired, 

please. It is a Harvard-MIT problem, I think. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PARK. In terms of enrollment numbers, those are going to be 

released by the Administration shortly. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Affordable Care Act was passed into law in 2010. It seeks 

to increase competition in the marketplace, to help bring down 

health care costs. It ends the practice of denying coverage to those 

with pre-existing conditions, bans annual and lifetime limits on 

health care benefits, it also enable parents to keep their children 

on health care until they are 26 years old, and it makes small businesses eligible for tax credits to ease the burden of employee coverage. 

The law also works to strengthen Medicare and will make prescription coverage for seniors more affordable. These tax credits are 

desperately needed in my district, where nearly 9.4 percent of my 

103 

constituents live below the poverty line; 70,000, that is 10.5 percent, do not have health insurance in my district, including 6,500 

children. They will be able to utilize the subsidies offered under the 

Affordable Care Act finally to get health care. 

Now, I also want to get to the bottom of what is going on with 

this website, Healthcare.gov, and I support oversight hearings for 

that purpose. However, this hearing, like so many previous hearings this committee has held, is clearly an extension of the politically motivated repeal or delay agenda that some of my friends on 

the other side of the aisle have been pushing since this law was 

first passed in 2010. 

It seems to me that if the chairman really were so worried about 

getting this website fixed, so that people could actually access affordable health care, he would not have subpoenaed Mr. Park to 

come in and testify today. In fact, Mr. Park agreed to testify before 

this committee just two and a half weeks later. But the chairman 

refused that offer and subpoenaed him anyway. The chairman’s 

subpoena, combined with the constant releasing of partial transcripts, taking witnesses’ quotes out of context, it seems like it is 

part of a predetermined political strategy rather than a constructive effort to conduct responsible oversight as this committee is 

supposed to do. 

In fact, although the chairman claimed otherwise in his opening 

statement here today, the House Republican Conference is politicizing this issue. And here is the proof. They have issued a playbook to Republican Members, and they actually call it that, a playbook, right on the cover of the thing. It doesn’t say how to fix problems with the website or improve the process, or work to ensure 

Americans health care. It tells them how to exploit any challenges 

or glitches for their own political gain. 

I am not saying all Republicans are doing this. But it certainly 

seems to me in this forum that the chairman of this committee is. 

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman like to place that into the 

record? Because I haven’t seen it. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. It is my hope that we can have oversight without this kind of gamesmanship and partisan politics as this committee has been able to do in the past. I really would like to get 

to the bottom of what is going on with the website, because I want 

my constituents to be able to sign up for quality, affordable health 

care. 

Mr. Chao, on November 7th, Chairman Issa issued a press release with the headline ‘‘AACA Testing Bulletin: Healthcare.gov 

Could Only Handle 1,100 Users Day Before Launch.’’ He then accused Jay Carney and Mr. Park of making false statements to the 

American people by suggesting that officials estimated capacity at 

about 60,000. That is what the chairman said, ‘‘Jay Carney is being 

paid to say things that aren’t so. But in this case, Todd Park and 

other people who knew the facts, who had to know the facts, and 

the facts were from documents we received from lead contractors 

that slowed down to an unacceptable level at 1,100 users. Well, in 

fact, Todd Park was telling us that at 60,000 was the target and 

at 250,000 they just couldn’t handle it.’’ 

104 

As the basis for that allegation, the chairman quoted from a testing document that he released which says this, ‘‘Ran performance 

testing overnight in IMP1B environment, working with CGI to tune 

the FFM environment to be able to handle maximum load. Currently we are able to reach 1,100 users before response time gets 

too high.’’ 

Mr. Chao, it is my understanding that the IMP1B environment 

was only a sample testing environment, not a test of the full production capacity of the entire website. Am I correct in that? 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired, but the gentleman may answer. 

Mr. CHAO. You are correct, the what we call implementation 1B 

environment is about 10 percent the size of the full production environment. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. We now go to the gentleman, Mr. 

Meadows. Mr. Meadows, would you yield for just 10 seconds for a 

comment? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Certainly, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. I never could quite understand how this thing 

could handle 60,000 simultaneous users but only do six in a day. 

So maybe unlike some of the smart people here, I just don’t get it. 

But six in a day doesn’t seem like 60,000 simultaneous users. I 

thank the gentleman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank each one 

of you for coming to testify. Mr. Park, you are not old enough probably to remember this, but I remember the Six Million Dollar Man. 

You are now the $600 million man, because you are coming in to 

fix all this. So we are hopeful that you, based on the people that 

I represent, that you are successful by November 30th. 

We do want to ask you, though, how do we define success? Because the talking points are all that it is going to be fixed for the 

vast majority of Americans as they go on. And we see Mr. Lankford 

here, he can’t get on. So what is success? Is it a 98 percent without 

wait time? How do we define success so on December 1st, we will 

know whether you were worth $600 million or not? 

Mr. PARK. Thank you for your comment sand your question. First 

of all, I am just a small part of the team working to fix this. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what is success? 

Mr. PARK. Success is, first of all the site will most definitely not 

be perfect. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But when the President asks you, were you successful, how do you define success? 

Mr. PARK. First of all, on a system that is stable, so it is actually 

up and running consistently. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What percentage of the time? Ninety-eight percent of the time? 

Mr. PARK. One proxy that we are using actually is, for its performance in general is response time and error rate. And if the system actually has issues and goes down then actually these things 

can then exacerbate those rates. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am going to run out of time. What I would ask 

you to do is, for the record, get to the committee what we can look 

105 

to so we can disseminate to all of America on what success is, so 

on December 1st, we will all know. 

Mr. PARK. I will take that back, absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right, thank you. 

Mr. Chao, much of your testimony is, I have read some of your 

testimony and it seems to be a little different. But I also know that 

you had several meetings, ongoing meetings with White House 

staff over this process, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. I accompanied Marilyn Tavenner and other directors, 

such as Gary Cohen. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how many times were you at the White 

House? 

Mr. CHAO. Over the course of three years, maybe less than two 

dozen times. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Because the logs suggest 29 times, is that correct? 

Would that be in the ballpark? 

Mr. CHAO. That might not be accurate, because some meetings 

were—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Who conducted these meetings? Jeanne 

Lambrew? 

Mr. CHAO. I believe her name is pronounced Lambrew. There 

were meetings conducted by her. Also, I met with Steve VanRoekel. 

Mr. MEADOWS. In those meetings? So you all were a part of those 

meetings? 

Mr. CHAO. No Steve chaired a—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am asking about the White House meetings. So 

there were 29 White House meetings of which you had this group. 

Who were the people in the room? Were you in there? 

Mr. CHAO. I am not trying to be difficult, but there are different 

parts of the White House. There is a White House conference center. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay, the meetings with Jeanne, she was leading, 

the 29 meetings, about two dozen. 

Mr. CHAO. That was probably less than a handful. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. I guess my question is, I am a little confused how the President would be surprised that this was such a 

debacle on October 1st if you all were meeting regularly with the 

White House. Why would they be surprised on October 1st that it 

didn’t roll out the way everybody thought it should? 

Mr. CHAO. I think the subject matter, at least with my attendance being there, was to discuss things such as the status of the 

Hub development. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So did anybody express concern that there was a 

problem, that October 1st there was going to be a problem? 

Mr. CHAO. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. There was no one in that room? We had all the 

brightest minds in the world in this room and no one anticipated 

a problem on October 1st? 

Mr. CHAO. They were highly specific issues, such as working on 

6103 requirements with IRS, Privacy Act implementation with 

SSA, they are very operationally specific. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you all weren’t meeting on how the website 

was going to work? 

106 

Mr. CHAO. Not meetings—my meetings were more operationally 

focused about implementation. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So it is plausible that the President would be surprised that this wasn’t going to work, based on those meetings? 

Mr. CHAO. I wouldn’t know that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So who would have been in the best position to 

be able to advise the President that we were going to have this unmitigated mess? Anybody in that room? Who should we bring back 

here, I guess is what I am saying, Mr. Chao, that can help the 

American people understand why this was such a fiasco? 

Mr. CHAO. I really don’t have an answer to that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. It is amazing how we 

could find how you can’t answer a simple question for the American people. 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t think that is for me to decide. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I asked the question. It is for you to answer. 

Mr. CHAO. Okay, so my answer is, it is not really for me to decide. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Meadows, your time is expired and I strongly suspect that as is often said in politics, success has many fathers, quite a few mothers, plenty of relatives, but failure is an orphan. You are going to find an orphan here, if I have ever heard 

or seen one. 

With that, the patient gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 

Lynch, is recognized. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the members of the panel for coming forward 

and their willingness to help the committee with its work. 

I do want to say just at the outset that my experience in Massachusetts with the Massachusetts health care, so-called 

RomneyCare, that was a precursor to this in many ways, I am 

speaking of the Affordable Care Act, also rolled out very, very slowly. That is my experience, being on the ground in Massachusetts 

when that plan went forward. So it was very slow in ramping up. 

Of course it didn’t have the urgency of this program. It was sort 

of planned that way. 

I also remember the Medicare Part D Act, which was a Republican initiative, also rolled out extremely slowly. I know a lot of my 

seniors, I had to do 16 town halls around my district to try to tamp 

down the backlash because of the slowness of how that was ramped 

up. So this is not, this experience is not out of line with those other 

two programs. So I just wanted to make that note. 

I have had a chance to go out and talk to some of the outreach 

workers. A lot of the outreach on the Affordable Care Act in my 

district is being conducted through the local community health centers. I have basically an urban district. So the health center employees are going out and signing people up. 

One of the concerns that they have raised is that the Affordable 

Care Act is so focused and sort of facilitated by an email address. 

People have to have an email address in order to interact with this 

whole thing. If you look at the demographic of the 31 million people 

who we are trying to get health care to that were not receiving 

health care before, the poor, the elderly, that is a high correlation 

107 

between folks who didn’t get health care before and don’t have an 

email. 

So the outreach workers, when I said what is your biggest problem, they said, well, when we are working with the elderly and we 

are working with low income families, the poor, they don’t have an 

email address. And the system we have is basically, it requires an 

email address. To do it otherwise, to scratch that itch, we are somehow going to have to close that gap. Because a lot of these folks 

don’t have email addresses and yet they are the very people that 

we are trying to get health care to. 

Has any thought been given to, look, this was supposed to be the 

easy part, getting people up on the grid. I am not talking about 

making health care affordable or high quality health care or making sure access is there. Just getting up on the grid, this was supposed to be the easy part. 

So I am concerned, I am concerned about where we are today 

and where we need to get to in order to meet any definition of success. So what are we doing about those people, who don’t have an 

email address because they are poor or elderly, they are not on the 

grid? How are we going at them? Anybody got an idea? 

Mr. CHAO. We do operate call centers. We have 12 call centers 

in which people can work with a live person online to fill out the 

application and to go through their determination process and to 

select a plan. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes, but at least the workers I have talked to have 

said it is like 31 or 34 pages. Do they have to go through a 34 page 

application on the phone? 

Mr. CHAO. I think what happens, the call center experience is, 

isn’t you are necessarily filling out a paper application. You can 

start that way and submit it that way. But I think you can also 

start with a call center representative. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I am not so sure that is working. That might 

be part of our problem. I have a district where I have a lot of seniors, a lot of folks that are struggling. So we have to figure that 

one out. 

Mr. CHAO. We can certainly confirm that, that process or that 

procedure. 

Mr. LYNCH. That will help. 

The other situation is this. At the same time that we are trying 

to get this up, get people on the grid, we have employers that are 

making decisions not to continue health care plans for their employees. So they are unplugging and they are sending people to the 

exchanges. So I have employers out there, a lot of them in the construction industry, that are saying, I know I used to provide health 

care for you, but now I want you to go to the exchanges and get 

them. So they are unplugging, they used to provide health care. 

And now these employees in the construction industry are trying 

to plug in. And they are having these problems. 

I am wondering, is there any way to sort of make sure that that 

unplugging doesn’t occur until we have a platform that we are confident people can plug into? I think there is going to be a gap here. 

It concerns me greatly that we have so many people in the construction industry that are, and I have met with union employers, 

about 50 union employers and about 35 non-union or open shop 

108 

employers that are both having the same problem. I think there is 

a mismatch in what is going on here, where the employers are disengaging and sending their employees to the exchanges. And when 

they try to go to the exchanges, they are having problems signing 

up. I am wondering if there is some corrective action that we might 

be able to take, either delaying the process for employers to disengage or just giving people time to hook into the system that is 

not ready for prime time. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time is expired. The gentleman 

may answer. If the gentleman would yield just briefly? 

Mr. LYNCH. Sure. 

Chairman ISSA. I was hoping you would suggest the question of, 

can’t we do this by mail. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LYNCH. That is an inside joke. 

Chairman ISSA. But in all seriousness, the fact is that if somebody doesn’t have email capability, why couldn’t they make a call 

to a call center, receive those many pages, fill out that paperwork, 

return it in a self-addressed stamped envelope, so that in fact the 

Post Office could ensure that the elderly people not comfortable 

with email and so on. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, it is just my thought, and I won’t take longer 

time than you did, but I know that generally, we are trying to get 

away from a paper process. So I suppose as a little inefficient it 

might be necessary, but it is not the ideal now. 

Mr. CHAO. Could I just answer that? It is not really, we are not 

considering that as a last resort, because paper is a last resort, but 

we do make accommodation, if you want to start the process in 

paper, you can, and then mail it in to our eligibility support worker 

contract, which will then take you through the rest of the process. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank you. 

And with that we go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 

Amash. 

Mr. AMASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to yield my 

time to my friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman from Ohio is recognized, and 

without objection, the gentleman from Ohio will be able to control 

the time. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. Park, Mr. Meadows asked the pertinent question. There 

were a series of meetings held at the White House, weekly meetings that were presided over by folks in the White House. Mr. 

Meadows asked who were those people who need to come in front 

of this committee who can answer the questions. The questions 

like, why didn’t you know that the security assessment wasn’t completely done end-to-end testing? Who can answer the questions 

about why you decided to go ahead and launch this on October 1st? 

And we know who that person is, because according to the Washington Post story, November 2nd, a memo that they got from David 

Cutler spells it out. Mr. Cutler said, we need to put someone from 

the private sector in charge, someone who has run a business, 

someone who has that kind of experience and expertise. And the 

President said no, he had already put in the article, he had already 

made up his mind, Nancy Ann DeParle is that person. 

109 

So that is the person we need, Mr. Chairman. 

And Mr. Cutler also points out, Mr. Meadows referenced this as 

well, according to the memo, the overall head of implementation inside HHS was Jeanne Lambrew. So those are the two people we 

need. Would you agree, Mr. Park, they need to come here and tell 

us what took place, why these decisions were made, why it was 

done the way it was done, these are the two key people? This is 

the lady the President said, no, that is who I want in charge. Even 

though Peter Orzaq, Larry Summers, Zeke Emmanuel and David 

Cutler said, put someone else in charge, the President said, no, I 

want Nancy Ann DeParle in charge, don’t you think she should 

come in front of this committee, Mr. Park? 

Mr. PARK. Respectfully, I can’t really speak to that, sir. 

Mr. JORDAN. I know. We are probably going to have to do the 

same thing for her that we did for you, we are going to have to subpoena them. Because yesterday, last week, the Chairman and I 

sent a letter to the White House asking that simple question, 

would Ms. DeParle, the person hand-picked by the President to run 

this operation, would she come in front of this committee and testify about this disaster this rollout has been, and would Ms. 

Lambrew come as well. And the response we got back yesterday 

from the White House was, thank you for inviting us, but we are 

not coming. 

So it looks like we are going to have to do the same thing, Mr. 

Chairman, that we had to do with Mr. Park, to get the two key 

people to come here. 

Now, according to White House logs, Mr. Chao, you testified you 

had been there been 10 and 29 times to these meetings, and Mr. 

Park, nine times according to White House logs, you have been to 

nine of these where Jeanne Lambrew ran the meeting. Is that correct, Mr. Park, you went to the White House when Ms. Lambrew 

ran these weekly meetings? 

Mr. PARK. I can’t verify that. 

Mr. JORDAN. But that is what the visitors log says. Were you in 

meetings with Nancy Ann DeParle and Jeanne Lambrew at the 

White House? 

Mr. PARK. From time to time, yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. And of course the meetings were about the rollout 

of the Affordable Care Act and the website? 

Mr. PARK. As I recall, there were different kinds of meetings that 

I attended from time to time. 

Mr. JORDAN. Were they about ObamaCare, Mr. Park? 

Mr. PARK. They were about the Affordable Care Act. 

Mr. JORDAN. Right. And what is your official title? You are head 

of information technology for the entire United States? That is your 

title? So I assume it was about information technology, correct? 

Mr. PARK. No, actually, sir, first of all, I am a technology and innovation policy advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. So I am not the head of IT for the U.S. Government, just to 

clarify. And I can’t actually recall, like for the meetings, what particular topics were discussed, off the top of my head. So unless 

there is more specificity. 

Mr. JORDAN. At any time during these nine different meetings 

you had, or more, for that matter, meetings you had, was the rollVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:10 Apr 25, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87316.TXT APRIL
110 

out of ObamaCare discussed and the concerns about this thing not 

being ready on October 1st? 

Mr. PARK. Again, without more specificity—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chao, on these meetings, who ran the meetings 

that you attended 29 times at the White House? Who was in 

charge of running the meetings then? Were any of those meetings 

run by Ms. Lambrew or Ms. DeParle? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t think it was 29 times. 

Mr. JORDAN. You testified between 10 and 29. So whatever the 

numbers, in those meetings when you were at the White House, 

were any of those run by Jeanne Lambrew or Nancy Ann DeParle? 

Mr. CHAO. One was run by Nancy Ann and one, just a couple I 

attended that was with Jeanne Lambrew. And as I mentioned before, my role was to provide a five-minute status on Hub development. 

Mr. JORDAN. I am not worried so much about your role. I just 

want to establish the fact that you were at the White House between 10 and 29 times. Mr. Park was there nine times. Mr. 

VanRoekel, how many times were you in these weekly meetings at 

the White House? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I don’t recall. I didn’t attend any weekly meetings. 

Mr. JORDAN. Were you in any meetings with Jeanne Lambrew or 

Nancy Ann DeParle? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I have been in the company of those two people. 

Mr. JORDAN. Regarding the Affordable Care Act? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Maybe once or twice. 

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. But those 

are the two people, those are the individuals that need to come in 

front of this committee. And we can’t accept the fact that we get 

a letter from the White House that says thank you, but we are not 

coming. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. I would note for all members that there is a vote out on the Floor. We are going to go until 

the very last minute. What I would ask is, if Mr. Bentivolio or Mrs. 

Lummis, do either of you have specific questions for Mr. Park? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I do not. 

Chairman ISSA. Then Mr. Park, because we would otherwise 

keep you for longer than I think is necessary, I want to thank you 

for being here. I apologize to the other witnesses, you get to stay 

through the vote. But Mr. Park, you have been a very cooperative 

witness. I appreciate your being here. I believe you are being here 

as a person we are going to look to to get this right by November 

30th. It was critical I appreciate your being here and without objection, you are dismissed. 

Mr. PARK. Sir, just one more request? 

Chairman ISSA. Sure. 

Mr. PARK. Would someone send me contact info for Congressman 

Lankford, just so I can follow up? 

Chairman ISSA. We will have that contact information given to 

you. I will do one other thing quickly. If when you go back, since 

you are a Federal employee, go to the FEHBP website. What you 

will find there in a .pdf form is a spreadsheet. Now, Mr. Chao 

seems to think that it was not important to give people a shopping 

111 

list. But I will tell you, if you are Federal employee, postal or nonpostal, you can go to that website, you can look at every single plan 

and it will tell you how much the annual rate is, the bi-weekly 

rate, how much your government pays for you and how much you 

will pay by plan. 

Now, that doesn’t let you endlessly look at the details of the plan. 

But for 230-plus plans spread over not just 50 States but the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, we provide this to the Federal 

workforce. I might suggest that if you can’t get some form of legitimate, open shopping list up quickly, that currently telling people 

what their rate is, if they are 27 or 50, is disingenuous, because 

it distorts what the real rates are. And that a splash page like this, 

or a .pdf, so people could look at all the plans, and by age, depending upon what their age is, they would know what the rate is, 

could be done in a matter of hours by a tenth grader. 

And that might suffice until this program is available. 

Mr. CHAO. Can I make a comment really quickly? In my oral remarks, I mentioned that we are working on a premium estimation 

tool that will give you more details than just the very coarse under 

49, over 50, so that you can browse plans. We are working on that. 

Chairman ISSA. But understand, your under 50 is 27, your over 

50 is 50. That misstates, because it is age-based, it misstates the 

truth. If you were picking it, you should have picked 64 and 29, 

and you would have gotten much higher rates, if you are going to 

give anecdotal. But the truth is, a simple spreadsheet that Microsoft, forget about Microsoft, Supercalc could have given you that 

spreadsheet before many of my staff were born. And that could 

have been made available very quickly. 

So I might suggest that the American people deserve to know 

that a plan based on their age is X amount and a free look would 

be very helpful. I commend you to look at FEHBP and what we do 

for ourselves as Federal employees. 

And with that, I am going to go to the gentleman from Michigan, 

I believe we have time. Mr. Bentivolio. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, are you familiar with Brook’s law? Anybody? Brook’s 

law? That is the first thing you learn in software development. You 

need to divert developers to training new developers you added to 

the project, which kind of tells me that November 30th rollout is 

another hope and a dream. 

Are you familiar with this, Information Technology, Critical Factors Underlying Successful Major Acquisitions, dated October 2011, 

nine best practices? 

Mr. CHAO. I think I perused it. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Oh, good. So you are familiar with, well, you perused it, you didn’t study it, apparently you didn’t. 

Mr. CHAO. I was busy working on the marketplace program. So 

I don’t have a whole lot of time to read a lot of other materials. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Are you familiar with this fix that you are putting in for ObamaCare, you are diverting people that understand 

the software to train people, additional people to come in and fix 

the problem? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes, I think that is what is happening now. 

112 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. You think. Okay. I am going to list three. Program officials, three of the nine best practices essential to IT, 

which you did not implement. Program officials were actively engaged with stakeholders, ObamaCare rollout apparently lacked 

senior oversight for most senior technology officials, including Federal CIO, Federal CTO and HHS CIO. 

Mr. Powner, what should take from this report? 

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, those are best practices. What we did, that 

was a report that we did, we always report on failures. So we actually went to ten agencies and we asked them for a success story. 

So there are seven successful acquisitions in there and we asked 

why they were successful. None of that is a surprise. It is defining 

your projects right up front, putting the right people in charge, 

good communications with contractors and managing best practices 

throughout the life cycle. 

So it is something everyone at this table knows needs to be done 

on successful acquisitions. Mr. Chairman, I think FITAR and 

where we look at the acquisition process, and the whole bit, that 

is fine, that is going to be very helpful. But a lot of this just gets 

down to solid governance and good management and the right attention on these projects. That is what those practices really highlight. 

Mr. BENTIVOLIO. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 

the rest of my time to Mr. Meadows. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman from Michigan. And I have 

a question. I have been running the numbers, and my understanding is, we are creating this site to create a system that is 

available for 17,000 users per hour, is that correct? 

Mr. CHAO. The way it was described is that the first part of the 

process is, you have to register for an account. That current capacity is running at 17,000 registrations per hour. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So what are we building the system to be able to 

handle in terms of capacity, 17,000 or higher than that? 

Mr. CHAO. It is approximately 48,000 to 58,000 users in the system. By that I mean you could be on the learn side just looking 

at static web pages to actually actively filling out an application. 

Mr. MEADOWS. What is the smallest end of the conduit? What 

truly is it, 17,000, 25,000 or 43,000? What is our smallest ability 

in terms of volume to handle in terms of capacity? 

Mr. CHAO. I think right now there is about, on average, somewhere between 22,000 to 25,000. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So that is what we are building the capacity to, 

25,000? 

Mr. CHAO. Per hour it is sitting right around that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And that is what we are building it to, that is the 

specs? 

Mr. CHAO. Actually a little exceeding that. For example, the front 

part, identity management part, we are going to apply some improvement that is going to go to 30,000 registrations per hour. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me tell you the reason why I ask. I have done 

the numbers. If you take the number of uninsured Americans that 

are out there, and if they got on the system today, 24 hours a day, 

which we know doesn’t happen, it would be 43,000 people an hour. 

113 

So we are building a system that won’t even take care of the uninsured people that we have right now. So how are we going to be 

successful? 

Mr. CHAO. I would like to look at your calculations. 

Mr. MEADOWS. It is 50 million people, you can do it over the next 

48 days. 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t think the estimates were there. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I know the estimates weren’t there. But if you do 

the math, that is what works. I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman, and I am sorry that you 

have to look at his figures, that in fact the burn rate necessary to 

get done wasn’t understood from day one, and the surge requirement at 4:30 in the afternoon or 5:30 in the afternoon Pacific Time 

wasn’t in fact what you were looking at. I know Mr. VanRoekel 

would understand that you need two or three or four times the 

highest capacity to deal with when people actually are going to log 

on and try to do it. 

Mrs. Lummis is recognized. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chao, you said that NIST defines high risk as a vulnerability 

that could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect on individuals or organizational operations or assets. I want to 

focus on the part about the severe or catastrophic adverse effect on 

individuals. 

Is it true that there were two high risks that continue to be 

found related to the marketplace information systems that you 

weren’t told about at the time? 

Mr. CHAO. I think you are referring to the September 3rd authorization to operate. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I am. 

Mr. CHAO. Those two findings were, I think earlier in the hearing today, we clarified that that was dealing with two components 

of the marketplace systems that deal with plans submitting dental 

and health plan information, qualified health plan, and didn’t involve any personally identifiable information. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. The memo I have is redacted. So it doesn’t, I don’t 

have the information that you just testified to because of the 

redactions in the memo. So maybe that is correct, maybe it is not. 

Are you testifying that that is absolutely what it is about? 

Mr. CHAO. Yes, because I saw an unredacted version that was 

handed by committee staffers to me last week. And if it has been 

redacted, it has been redacted by someone else. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Did one of the risks outlined in this memo pertain 

to the protection of financial or privacy data? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t have it right in front of me. I think there was 

an appendix section. But I don’t recall seeing that. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. So you don’t know whether financial and privacy 

data were outlined as a risk in this memo? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t believe so, because it dealt with our plan management or our qualified health plan submission module, which are 

data that is submitted by issuers and dental providers. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Is it true that the internal memo, this memo, outlined one of these risks as the threat and risk potential are limitless? 

114 

Mr. CHAO. No. I think it is referring to a very specific type of risk 

when you allow an upload of a file that has an internal macro that 

runs. But it is not about people. This is not personally identifiable 

information. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. What is it about? 

Mr. CHAO. It is plans submitting their network adequacy. It is 

basically worksheets that contain information about the benefit 

data that each issuer submits. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. I am going to switch gears. Mr. Chao, did 

you brief White House officials prior to October 1st about the status of the website? 

Mr. CHAO. No, not directly about the website. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Who did? 

Mr. CHAO. I don’t know. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Baitman, did you? 

Mr. BAITMAN. I did not. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. VanRoekel, did you? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Not only do I not know that that happened, I 

don’t know and I did not. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. When Mr. Jordan asked you some questions, one 

of the things that he asked you was about your involvement in 

meetings. He was specifically referencing Ms., I am looking for the 

name. Well, let me just ask you this. Were any of the meetings you 

attended at the White House? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. It depends how you describe the White House. 

Chairman ISSA. The White House includes Treasury, the Old Executive Office Building, the New Executive Office Building, and the 

White House proper at a minimum. 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I didn’t know if you were talking about physical 

or organizational. 

Chairman ISSA. Organizational. 

Mr. VANROEKEL. I work in an agency that is part of the Executive Office of the President. So every meeting I have is considered 

sort of part of that organization. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And was Ms. Lambrew present? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. As I mentioned in my answer to Mr. Jordan, in 

one to two meetings, yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And what were those meetings about? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. Those particular meetings were dealing with, 

they were asking actually, my private sector advice on demand 

generation and marketing to young people, how to use social media 

to reach out to uninsured Americans. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. So who was briefing the White House about the 

status of the website? No one? Did no one brief the White House 

about the status of the website before October 1st? Mr. Chao? 

Mr. CHAO. Not me personally, but our administrator, Marilyn 

Tavenner, certainly is representing the agency. So you might want 

to ask her. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. So we don’t know whether the status of the Federal exchange and the data, how they were ever a focus of meetings 

between White House and HHS personnel before October 1st? 

Mr. CHAO. I think what I said earlier, that in the meetings I attended, I provided status briefings on the progress of certain IT 

builds like the data services Hub. 

115 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And your reports on the status of the builds set 

off alarm bells with them? 

Mr. CHAO. No, because the data services Hub was actually performing well and on time. And it received its authority to operate 

in August. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. So what happened between August and October 1st? 

Mr. CHAO. I didn’t attend any White House meetings. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. What happened with the performance of the Hub? 

Mr. CHAO. The Hub is doing fine. It is doing what it is intended 

to do. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady. 

I will be brief. Mr. Chao, the EIDM, or what I call the front door, 

is what didn’t perform well, isn’t that true? 

Mr. CHAO. Correct. 

Chairman ISSA. And since the system was designed so that you 

had to go through the front door to get anything else, it doesn’t 

really matter if you had 60,000, 600,000 or 60 million capability, 

if the American people had to go through that front door and only 

six got to the end, we can presume that the number that existed 

just prior to launch of 1,100 in that so-called minimized test, or as 

you said, it was only one-tenth the amount, really wasn’t true. The 

truth is that when people got time outs as they tried to register, 

as they tried to go through the EIDM, the marketplace Hub, one 

that you forced them through by in September determining that 

they could not look at a splash page to get a price idea if nothing 

else was available. 

That front door being blocked is essentially the reason that the 

American people have wasted, for the most part, a month trying to 

get registered, isn’t that true? 

Mr. CHAO. No, it is not true. 

Chairman ISSA. Yes, well, it is. 

Mr. Baitman, where were you, since you and Mr. VanRoekel are 

critically part of this process? Where were you, and Mr. Park was 

brought in afterwards, where were you in the months and years 

leading up to this? Why is it that you were not aware that on day 

one, this product was going to fail to launch in any legitimate, acceptable way? 

Mr. BAITMAN. As I indicated in my opening testimony, HHS is 

a federated agency. 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, not your job, this is an orphan. 

Mr. VanRoekel, you came out of the private sector. Bill Gates 

and Steve Baumer and a lot of other people at Microsoft would 

have had somebody’s neck hung, maybe not literally and maybe not 

fired them, but they would want to know, demand to know, Steve 

Jobs, when he was alive over at Apple or NEXT and the other programs, they would have said, who the blank is responsible for this 

failure? Can you tell me today whose job it was to make sure that 

we didn’t have this dreadful failure to launch that didn’t call the 

one person that should have known and didn’t do their job? One 

person? Who was that person? 

Mr. VANROEKEL. As I said earlier, I wasn’t close to the actual development. I am not in a position to make that call. 

116 

Chairman ISSA. Okay, so I had you and Mr. Park, Mr. Baitman, 

Mr. Chao, we will leave the GAO out of it, because we are probably 

going to ask them and others to help us find out. But none of you 

today can tell us who failed to do their job. And as a result, the 

American people lost a month of any effective, real ability to sign 

up. This website was dead at launch for all practical purposes. 

And I am sorry, Mr. Chao, you can give me all the numbers you 

want, six on the first day, 240 on the second day, when millions 

of Americans were trying to make this work. We may disagree on 

ObamaCare, but we don’t disagree that that was unacceptable. You 

heard it on both sides of the aisle. 

Mr. VanRoekel, I think you fail to understand, you and Mr. 

Baitman and all of you in the Administration who were allowed to 

go to those meetings, Mr. Powner would tell you that best practices 

should be a lot more like it is at Toyota Company or Honda. In the 

production line, one person who sees a bad car coming down is allowed to stop the production line. In this case, a really defective, 

something that would make the Edsel look like a success story, 

launched on October 1st and nobody said, here today or for that 

matter since I have been listening to the various hearings, nobody 

said, I should have pulled the stop button. 

Mr. Chao, you refused to answer give a grade. Mr. Baitman, you 

refused to answer give a grade. Mr. VanRoekel, you refused to answer to give it a grade. Well, I am going to give it a grade. This 

was an F. Or on a pass-fail, this was a fail. Every one of you should 

have been close enough to know there was something wrong, to ask 

somebody in one of those many meetings, are we sure this is going 

to work. And at least get an assurance from somebody that it 

would. 

Mr. Powner, I want to thank you for being here today. Although 

many people have talked about FITAR and what we need to do in 

legislation, you are the only person here that represents an organization that has said, there is a right way to do it, we have looked 

at agencies at the Federal Government who have done it right, and 

like you, we normally look at the agencies that fail. We look at the 

program out of Wright-Pat that failed and lost us a billion dollars. 

We are looking at failure that cost the American people millions of 

their hours, frustrated, trying to get online to check whether or not 

health care is going to be more affordable for them. 

So I look forward to all of you being part of the process of best 

practices in your job going forward. But I look also with all of you 

realizing without legislative change, we will be back here again, 

with everybody saying, I didn’t fail to do my job, even when a product failed to launch. 

And with that, you are dismissed. We will set up the next panel 

for after the vote. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman ISSA. Now for our second panel we have Richard 

Spires, Former Chief Information Officer at the Department of 

Homeland Security. And Ms. Karen Evans is the former Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government and Information 

Technology at the Office of Management and Budget. 

Pursuant to the rules, all witnesses will be sworn. Would you 

please rise, raise your right hand to take the oath. 

117 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Chairman ISSA. Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that both witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

In order to save time, we ask that the entire opening statements 

of both witnesses be placed into the record. Without objection, so 

moved. 

We now will allow you to abbreviate, since your entire opening 

statement is in the record. Try to stay within the five minutes. 

Ms. Evans? 

STATEMENT OF KAREN EVANS 

Ms. EVANS. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member 

Cummings and members of the committee. I am pleased to be invited back to share my views of ObamaCare implementation, the 

rollout of Healthcare.gov. 

From an IT implementation standpoint, Healthcare.gov was a 

classic IT project failure that happens in the Federal Government 

too frequently. As the executive leadership at the Federal Departments and agencies, the President’s political appointees are at the 

top of the management chain for Federal employees and contractors. In looking for the cause of this failure, some point to the lack 

of testing. Others, including the President, cite the challenges of 

the IT procurement process. And still others note the complexity of 

the program and the interfaces with private insurance company 

systems. 

However, the cause of this failure was not the complexity of the 

program nor the procurement process nor the testing. The 

functionality and the shortcomings of Healthcare.gov are a result 

of bad management decisions made by policy officials within the 

Administration. They did this to themselves. And if they are now 

surprised, it is because their own policy officials failed to inform 

them of the decisions they have made and the consequences associated with those decisions. 

As soon as this legislation was passed, there were policy decisions which needed to be made. These policy decisions would drive 

the technical design of healthcare.gov IT systems. They fundamentally determined the workflow and business processes driving how 

the law would be implemented. 

I have been on both sides of policy implementation, as a career 

civil servant and as a political appointee. The problems with 

Healthcare.gov are symptomatic of a recurring problem. Passing a 

law or issuing a policy is not enough. If there is a new law, management reform or policy initiative you want to accomplish, then 

you as a policy official need to be engaged during the implementation to assure there is an appropriate, integrated project team in 

place to manage the day to day operations. 

All levels of the organization need to be willing to get into the 

weeds to understand these intricate aspects of management and 

implementation. Because the devil is in the details. Someone can 

change a seemingly innocuous requirement in a meeting and cause 

118 

a huge impact on schedule, cost or functionality. IT projects are 

particularly good at highlighting management failings, because 

they require coordination between the many different parts of an 

organization. If the agency’s CIO is not actively at the management 

table, participating in those decision, and more importantly, explaining the ramifications of the policy decisions they are making, 

the projects get off track and ultimately fail. 

The chief information officer is the person in the C suite who has 

the capacity to translate technology issues into business-speak for 

other business leaders. When a technical implementation specification hinges on a policy decision, the technical team depends upon 

the CIO to elevate the question to the appropriate decision maker. 

Because the CIO can speak to senior executive in terms that are 

relevant to them and can state potential consequence in terms of 

political and policy values, the CIO is in a unique position to ensure that policy officials do not regard those decisions as staff level 

functions. And if these potential consequences are significant, then 

departmental and White House officials may need to be briefed by 

the CIOs. 

In the wake of the Healthcare.gov implementation failure, some 

analysts have asserted that the private sector could have done this 

better, thereby implying that there are some conditions inherent in 

Federal IT which impede success and impair Federal CIOs. It is 

certainly true that Federal CIOs are burdened by deliberative restraints placed upon them by Congress and OMB. But Federal 

CIOs also enjoy freedom from competition and the whims of the 

market. 

Overall, Federal CIOs and commercial CIOs are more similar 

than different. We all have the same job description: to be the technical, savvy member of the executive team, to provide value 

through innovation, to manage data as a strategic asset, and to 

lead a large team of technologists and inspire them to achieve 

greatness. Whether a CIO is at a large or small organization, bureau level or department, public sector or private, the scale may 

differ, but the management challenges are the same. 

I have included in my written statement some key questions 

which every CIO should be asking; but more importantly, the CIO 

should be able to answer these questions for their leadership in 

clear business terms. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 

today, and I look forward to answering any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Evans follows:] 

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STATEMENT OF 

KAREN S. EVANS 

FORMER ADMINISTRATOR FOR ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT AND 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

November 13, 2013 

Good morning Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, and Members of the Committee. I am 

pleased to be invited back to share my views on "ObamaCare Implementation: The Rollout of 

HealthCare.gov" My remarks today will discuss best practices for major Information Technology (IT) 

systems implementation, how policy decisions drive the technical specifications for IT systems, and 

the role of the CIO in elevating these decisions to policy officials. 

Typical IT Major Proiect Failure 

From an IT implementation standpoint, Healthcare.gov was a classic IT project failure that happens 

in the Federal Government too frequently. As the executive leadership of Federal departments and 

agencies, the President's political appointees are at the top of the management chain for Federal 

employees and contractors. In looking for the cause of this failure, some point to the lack of 

testing. Others, including the President, cite the challenges of the IT procurement process. And 

still others note the complexity of the program and the interfaces with private insurance company 

systems. However, the cause of this failure was not the complexity of the program, nor the 

procurement process, nor the testing. The functionality and shortcomings of Healthcare.gov are 

the result of bad management decisions made by policy officials within the Administration; they did 

this to themselves. And if they are now surprised, it is because their own policy officials failed to 

inform them of the decisions they had made and the consequences associated with those decisions. 

Policy Decisions Needed 

As soon as this legislation was passed, there were policy decisions which needed to be made. These 

policy decisions would drive the technical design of the Healthcare.gov IT system; they 

fundamentally determined the work flow and business processes driving how the law would be 

implemented. 

I've been on both sides of policy implementation - as a career civil servant and as a political 

appointee. The problems with Healthcare.gov are symptomatic of a recurring problem: Passing a 

law or issuing a policy is not enough. If there is a new law, management reform, or policy initiative 

you want to accomplish, then you, as the policy official, need to be engaged during the 

implementation to assure there is an appropriate integrated project team in place to manage the 

day-to-day operations. All levels of the organization need to be willing to get "in-the-weeds," to 

understand these intricate aspects of management and implementation, because the devil i!!. in the 
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details; someone can change a seemingly innocuous requirement in a meeting and cause a huge 

impact on schedule, cost, or functionality. IT projects are particularly good at highlighting 

management failings because they require coordination between many different parts of an 

organization. If the agency CIO is not actively at the management table, participating in those 

decisions and, more importantly, explaining the ramifications of the policy decisions they are 

making, then projects get off-track and ultimately fail. 

For example, one policy decision that is causing problems with Healthcare.gov was whether the 

system had to verifY the identity of an individual before allowing the user to browse the 

marketplace. That is a policy decision, not a technical decision. Technology can actually do 

whatever is required. The policy decision that drove the technical implementation created a 

bottleneck at the front end. I do not want to speculate on why this identity verification option was 

selected. But the generally accepted procedure and best practice for decisions on implementation 

requirements is to list each possible viable option along with the advantages and disadvantages of 

each. 

Another policy decision was the requirement to directly interface with insurance provider systems 

and with other government systems at IRS and SSA. Again, these were not technology questions; 

the technology exists. And these were not statutory requirements; the law did not say, "the system 

shall interface to system X at the IRS." These implementation requirements were driven by policy 

decisions and arbitrary interpretations of the law. Such questions must be answered by policy 

officials because they require value judgments and cost-benefit trade-offs. For example, "Does the 

IRS have to verifY the identity of people, or can a private insurance agency do that?" You're seeing 

this play out now with the issues of determining eligibility for subsidies and concerns about improper 

payments. Unlike the regulatory process, the functional specifications driven by these policy 

decisions are not necessarily subject to the public notice and comment rulemaking process. These 

are huge management and implementation issues that need to be reviewed from both a political and 

policy perspective. 

A former CMS senior executive, when the management failures came to light, said in a recent 

interview that he did not see the launch of Healthcare.gov as a major part of his job. Rather, he 

said, "Those were staff level functions,"! while he focused on more important policy issues. 

However, these implementation management questions were driving massive requirements for 

system implementation, and that was going to impact the timeline of the system launch. For any 

political appointee, the IT system implementing a major Presidential policy initiative must be highest 

priority, and this must be communicated to their entire team. 

Elevate Policy Questions 

The Chief Information Officer (CI 0) is the person in the C -Suite who should have the capacity to 

translate technology issues into business-speak for the other business leaders. When a technical 

implementation specification hinges on a policy decision, the technical team depends upon the CIO 

1 Boston Globe, October 24, 2013 

2 
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to elevate the question to the appropriate decision maker. Because the CIO can speak to senior 

executives in terms that are relevant to them, and can state potential consequences in terms of 

political and policy values (e.g. public opinion, unfavorable news stories), the CIO is in the unique 

position to ensure that policy officials do not regard these decisions as "staff level functions." And 

if these potential consequences are significant, then Departmental and White House officials may 

need to be briefed by their CIOs. 

For example, during my tenure as the OMB E-Gov Administrator, the FBI Virtual Case File (now 

knows as Sentinel) program faltered. In my management oversight role, I began meeting weekly with 

the Department CIO, the Bureau CIO, the program management staff, and the contractors - all in 

the same room - so that I could understand the project and raise policy issues to White House 

senior officials as necessary. This "integrated project team" or "!PT" developed an agreed upon 

project plan to correct the deficiencies and move forward. 

Focus Management Attention 

In addition to elevating policy decisions to White House officials, the E -Government Act' directs 

the Administrator to help improve the management of IT in the agencies. During my tenure, I 

published a quarterly list of projects that warranted extra management attention. The Management 

Watch List included projects which were either not well planned or not being well managed and 

projects which exhibited unusual risks because of their size or complexity. By distilling volumes of 

data down to a simple list, agency senior executives, who might not have expertise in IT 

management tools (e.g. earned value management), would readily know the status of projects in 

their agency, and could call me if they had questions. And I was able to flag suspicious or obviously 

incorrect data for further investigation of those projects. 

Pressure to Succeed 

Recent news stories indicate that a eMS official signed the authorization for Healthcare.gov to "go 

live" without the system having undergone adequate testing. While this may have satisfied the 

statutory requirements of FISMA', it certainly circumvents the intent of the law. Here again, the 

CIO is in a unique position to ensure that senior executives understand the decisions they're being 

asked to make, and the implications of each option available to them. 

Establish a Go/No-Go Milestone Date 

Some have cited the tremendous pressure of public expectations as compelling administration 

officials into the decision to "go live." But again, this was a situation of their own making. Any 

high profile project should establish a go/no-go milestone, and stick to it. A go/no-go milestone is 

simply a date by which the project must have completed a specific, measurable amount of progress 

in order for the entire project to be completed by the due date. Thus, you know that if you haven't 

met the milestone by the date, you're not going to make it. In this case, having a go/no-go date 

for Healthcare.gov, perhaps a year before the go-live date, would have allowed the President and 

E-Government 

Act of 2002, PLl07-347 

Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, Title 1lI of PLl 07-347 

3 
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Insert offset folio 36 here 87316.036

his advisors to manage public expectations, to develop a fallback plan and provide the remediation 

plan to address the known deficiencies. 

For example, when we were initially implementing Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12, 

(HSPD-12), the President's directive requiring uniform employee identification cards at all agencies, 

we had publicized the planned completion date. But when we reached our go/no-go date, we had 

failed to complete the key milestone, so we knew were not going to meet the announced completion 

date. Because of that, I was able to notifY senior policy officials well in advance of the announced 

completion date. This allowed us to formulate a corrective action plan with each department and 

agency, and to develop a communications plan to temper the expectations of the public and the 

press; instead of crashing on the runway, we got on the PA system and told everyone we were going 

to circle around for another landing attempt. 

The Role of the CIO 

In the wake of the Healthcare.gov implementation failure, some analysts have asserted that the 

private sector could have done this better, thereby implying that there is some condition inherent in 

Federal IT which impedes success and impairs Federal CIOs. It is certainly true that Federal CIOs 

are burdened by the deliberate restraints placed upon them by the Congress and OMB. But 

Federal CIOs also enjoy freedom from competition and the whims of the market. Overall, Federal 

CIOs and Commercial CIOs are more similar than different. And we have the same job description: 

to be the technology-savvy member of the executive management team, to provide value through 

innovation, to manage data as a strategic asset, and to lead a large team of technologists and inspire 

them to achieve greatness. Whether a CIO is at a large organization or small, bureau level or 

department level, public sector or private; the scale may differ, but the management challenges are 

the same. Attachment A includes some key questions which every CIO should be asking but more 

importantly the CIO should be able to answer these questions for their leadership in clear business 

terms. 

Thank you for this opportunity to testifY today. I look forward to answering the Committee's 

questions. 

4 
123 


Insert offset folio 37 here 87316.037

Attachment A - IT Management Checklists 

Vetting potential new investments - Does the project sponsor have a clear vision of what he/she is 

trying to accomplish and how the IT system will support the new product or service? CIOs should 

evaluate the sponsor's answers to these questions: 

For this program/project: 

./ What will be different? 

./ What problem are you solving? 

./ When do you need to be complete? 

./ How will you measure success? 

./ What does it cost? 

./ Are you being realistic? 

Six Keys to Success - These six attributes reflect lessons-learned from numerous IT projects in 

both government and private industry. While these elements do not guarantee success, the absence 

of anyone of them almost certainly will guarantee failure . 

./ Strong Executive Leadership; 

./ Well-Defined Governance Models; 

./ Alignment with budget process; 

./ Clearly Defined Outcomes and Performance Measures; 

./ Accountability and Transparency; and 

./ Stakeholder Outreach. 

5 
124 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. Spires? 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. SPIRES 

Mr. SPIRES. Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings and 

members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 

on issues with Healthcare.gov and more generally on IT management issues in the Federal Government. 

With more than 30 years of experience working on delivery of 

large IT programs, I speak from real world experience regarding 

what is required to successfully deliver such programs. I served in 

the past two Administrations and saw similar IT management 

issues in both. So my remarks focus on highlighting systemic weaknesses in our ability to effectively manage IT, along with some recommended solutions. 

My written testimony outlines five key elements required to effectively deliver an IT program. In regard to the rollout of 

Healthcare.gov, my information was obtained from previous Congressional hearings and media articles. It is clear that there were 

fundamental weaknesses in the program management processes. 

For a system as complex as Healthcare.gov, best practice would 

have led to a plan that included completion and testing of all subsystems six months prior to public launch, three months of end to 

end functional integration testing, and a subsequent three month 

pilot phase in which selected groups of users identified problems 

not caught in testing. 

It was reported that the program did not start and end functional testing until two weeks prior to launch and there was no formal pilot program prior to roll-out. This is evidence of a lack of mature program management processes. Second, there was a lack of 

program governance model that recognizes the proper roles and authorities of the important stakeholders, to include the business, IT, 

procurement, privacy, et cetera. For IT programs, the business organization or mission organization must be intimately involved in 

helping define requirements, making hard functionality trade-offs 

and being a champion for the program. The IT organization must 

ensure there is a capable program management office using management best practices to deliver large IT programs. 

Evidence of launch of Healthcare.gov shows the balance between 

the business and IT organizations was not correct. For example, 

changes were being finalized up to a few weeks before launch. This 

is much too late. Requirements should have been locked down 

months before. The business organization had the ability to make 

changes that led to bad management practice. 

The issues of the rollout of Healthcare.gov are emblematic of the 

IT management challenges in the Federal Government, yet improving our ability to effectively manage our IT is critical. Our government, if it more effectively manages IT, can harness its transformational capability, significantly improving government’s effectiveness and efficiency. I recommend that three actions be taken to 

improve Federal Government IT. 

First, it is important that Congress pass legislation to update 

how this government manages IT. I appreciate the leadership of 

Chairman Issa and Representative Connolly in co-sponsoring the 

125 

FITAR legislation. While legislation alone will not fix all the issue 

with IT management, it will elevate the standing of agency CIOs 

and put in place mechanisms for development of centers of excellence to leverage best practices and program management and acquisition across the Federal Government. These changes could have 

helped to address the critical failings of the program management 

of Helathcare.gov. 

Second, agency CIOs need to have control over implementation, 

operations and the budget of all commodity in their agency, which 

includes the data centers, cloud services, servers, networks, standard collaboration tools like email as well as back office administrative systems. 

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to be in a session that included a number of CIOs for Fortune 50 companies. In the course 

of discussion, it became clear that one of the clear elements in effectively leveraging IT for an enterprise is a modernization standardization and appropriate consolidation of the underlying IT infrastructure. 

I urge that Congress address this recommendation through the 

IT reform legislation and the Administration to address this recommendation through the portfolio stat process. 

Third, the current Administration should make IT management 

a centerpiece of its overall management reform agenda. This entails the recognition and focus at the most senior levels of government of the importance of IT and improving IT management. It includes a serious commitment to improving program management 

practices, elevating the status of agency CIOs and ensuring the 

agency CIOs own the commodity IT. 

I hope the troubled launch of Healthcare.gov can serve as a catalyst to drive positive change in the way we manage IT. The best 

practices exist and are proven. We need leadership in Congress to 

pass reform legislation and leadership in the Administration to recognize the importance of IT management. 

Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Spires follows:] 

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The Hca!thCare.gov rollout: What should we learn? ~~ FC\-\' hl1p:i/fcw.comiA11ic!csi20 13 1 J ! /04/HealthCare-gov~rol!ouH\"hat¥sh ... 

! 01'-1-

The HealthCare.gov rollout: What should 

we learn? 

By Richard Spires 

Nov 04,2013 

pains me - as someone who has great passion for 

wanting to make government IT more effective, this public spectacle once again casts 

federal IT in a very negative light. As a federal IT community we appear unempowered, and 

worse, incompetent. 

My observations here are based solely on public information I have gleaned through the 

media and listening to the various congressional hearings. I was never close to the planning 

or development of the HealthCare.gov website and supporting back-end systems. In full 

disclosure, however, I did participate in one HealthCare.gov planning session a couple of 

years ago when I was Department of Homeland Security CIO. The session was to ensure 

various agencies (including DHS) identified the individuals to work with the Centers for 

Medicare and Medicaid Services on the required data-sharing to support the enrollment 

process. 

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The HealthCare.gov rollout; What should we learn? -- FeW http://fcw.com/Articles!20 13/11 /04!HealthCare-gov-rollout-what-sh ... 

20f4 

CIO Perspectives is a new FCW feature by former Department of Homeland Security CIO 

Richard Spires. The column originally intended as Spires' debut will appear mid-November 

both online and in print; this reaction to the HealthCare.gov rollout serves as a web-only 

preview. 

A significant part of my 3D-year career has been devoted to IT program management and 

oversight. For a system as complex as HealthCare.gov, best practice would have led to a 

plan that included: 

1) Completion and testing of all subsystems six months prior to public launch. 

2) Three months of end-to-end functional integration testing. 

3) Concurrent performance testing that would have simulated loads up to 10 times greater 

than expected (especially since it was difficult to model expected peak loads). 

4) A subsequent three-month pilot phase in which selected groups of users were using the 

system to work off problems not caught in testing. 

While I do not know for certain, I would expect that CMS had original development plans that 

were close to best practice. Yet some of the contractors involved have admitted that there 

were only two weeks of end-to-end integration testing prior to launch. That means the 

American public is serving as the integration testers of this system - not a situation anyone 

would ever plan for or want. 

So what happened? There is pattern recognition for those of us who have been involved in 

many large IT programs. First, it is difficult to accurately plan the level of effort and time to 

develop new systems that are composed of complex and interdependent subsystems. 

Hence, there should have been schedule management reserve built in up-front, at least three 

months and perhaps as much as six months. 

Second, given that different contractors were responsible for different subsystems, there 

needed to be a strong and competent program management office (PMO) that oversaw the 

program and the integration of the subsystems into a coherent, functional system. The 

evidence suggests that the PMO was not nearly as effective as required. 

Third, the launch date of Oct. 1 was deemed immovable. As development schedules slipped, 

as integration challenges mounted, there were clearly compromises made so as not to delay 

the launch. I suspect little functionality could be deferred (the site must enable the full 

enrollment process), so what was compromised is good practice. It is simply bad practice to 

launch a complex system with very little end-to-end testing. There is no excuse for this, and 

given the complexity of systems CMS operates, there are clearly individuals in CMS who 

knew this launch would not go well because of inadequate testing. 

Finally, there is the biggest failure, and the one that dooms many IT projects: The correct 

roles and authorities were not assigned to the business and the IT organizations. (In this 

case the business organization would have included leaders from CMS, HHS and possibly 

the White House). 

3120120142:50 PM 
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The HealthCare.gov rollout: What should we learn? -- FCW http://fcw.com/Articles/2013/11/04/HealthCare-gov-rollout-what-sh ... 

] 0[4 

When I review an IT program, that role assignment and the authorities are one of the first 

things I look at to assess the health of that program. The evidence on the launch of 

HealthCare.gov shows clearly the balance was not correct. As reported by the media, a 

change in a requirement that disabled the ability for users to browse insurance policies 

without first enrolling was made just two weeks before launch. This was much too late --

requirements should have been locked down months before then. The business organization 

had the ability to make changes that led to bad program management practice. 

In subsequent columns I plan to address a number of issues and recommendations 

regarding large IT program management. But for now, let's focus on how to address the 

proper partnership between the business and IT. 

There must be a program governance model in place that recognizes the proper roles and 

authorities of the business organization and the IT organization for there to be success. The 

business organization must be intimately involved in helping define requirements, making 

hard functionality trade-offs, and being a champion for the program with stakeholders both 

inside and outside the agency. The IT organization must establish a solid PMO with 

appropriate use of best practices to deliver large IT programs. And there needs to be a 

regular forum in which the business organization and IT organization executives work 

together to help the PMO make the tough decisions in running a program. 

A fundamental tenet, however, is that sound program management practice must a/ways be 

followed. There are no shortcuts to delivering large, complex IT programs. Having been 

intimately involved in dozens of such programs, I can state with absolute certainty that 

executing with anything less than solid program management practice is very high risk and 

leads to failures. The administration would be well served to incorporate the proper 

governance model for all large, complex IT programs. 

One last point: The team of government personnel and contractors correcting 

HealthCare.gov must be working tremendously long hours and are under tremendous 

pressure. I thank them for their efforts. 

About the Author 

Richard A. Spires has been in the IT field for more than 30 years, with eight years in federal 

government service. He served as the lead for the Business Systems Modernization program 

at the IRS, then served as CIO and finally as deputy commissioner for operations support. 

Most recently he served as the CIO for the Department of Homeland Security. 

r Jt 1 PUBLIC SECTOR 

'J,"'JMEDIA GROUP 

8609 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 500 

Vienna. VA 22182-2215 

703-876-5100 

3/20/20142:50 PM 
129 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you both. 

First of all, I would ask unanimous consent that the article entitled The Healthcare.gov Rollout: What Should We Learn?, which 

Mr. Spires authored on November 4th, 2013, be placed into the 

record. Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ISSA. I am going to start with you, Mr. Spires. You 

heard the first panel. From your experience, and I will go to Ms. 

Evans also, did I have the right people for the most part here, leaving GAO out for a moment, to ask who is responsible, why was this 

thing launched practically non-working, completely, only six successful registrations the first day? Did I have the right people? 

Or did I have the wrong people and that is why they all said it 

wasn’t their job? 

Mr. SPIRES. You had the right technical people at the table. I believe in a balanced program where you have technology leaders as 

well as the business leaders working together. 

Chairman ISSA. But somebody at that table should have been 

able to tell us basically who should have stopped this program or 

recognized that it was going to fail to launch? 

Mr. SPIRES. Somebody at that table I think should have been 

able to tell you that. 

Chairman ISSA. Ms. Evans, in your time at OMB, I think more 

than anything else, is it your experience that the Office of Management and Budget ultimately, the OMB director, who gets to meet 

with the President, who gets to say that key pieces of legislation, 

key implementations are or are not going correctly? Has that been 

your experience? 

Ms. EVANS. And I will speak from my experience, and that is 

true. And so we viewed, during my tenure, that OMB had oversight 

into the Executive Branch of ensuring that the President’s priorities got implemented. 

Chairman ISSA. I am going to ask you from one personal experience. Have you been in the Oval, other than ceremonially, have you 

been the Oval for a meeting? 

Ms. EVANS. Not exactly in the Oval Office, but they have staff 

offices outside. 

Chairman ISSA. But you were in that area? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. So you were there, I assume, with the Director 

or somebody on some important briefing that was going on? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. And that is a regular part of White House life? 

Ms. EVANS. If you are working on priorities that are important 

to the Administration, yes. And one would assume that if you are 

a staff person in the White House, all of us are working on priorities that are important to the President. Not going to meetings at 

that level are not necessarily a daily occurrence of the job. 

Chairman ISSA. I realize that is a rare one. But we can all agree, 

I believe, I think the ranking member would join with me, that the 

signature piece of legislation of the President is the Affordable 

Care Act. Can you figure out for me or help me understand how 

people could serve the President so poorly that it appears he was 

never told that this was going to be a disastrous launch? 

130 

Ms. EVANS. In my analysis from the public record, as well as 

watching the testimony that happened prior, I believe that if I 

were in that position that I would have elevated things through, 

because that is the President’s key legislation, it is his number one 

priority. And so that is what the Chief Information Officer is supposed to do. They are supposed to analyze, as I said in my testimony, analyze what potential decisions are being made and what 

is that impact on the President’s priorities to get done, from a political perspective, from a communications perspective, from an oversight perspective of what the impact would be and how you would 

have to do a Congressional notification if you were changing things. 

That is what a CIO is supposed to do. That would have been elevated up so that the OMB director would have known what the impact was happening, so that the director could then talk to the 

President about potential opportunities. 

Chairman ISSA. Now, Mr. VanRoekel was your successor, is that 

correct? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. And yet he said that he was only the facilitator 

of these meetings. Did you do a lot of facilitation when you had his 

job? 

Ms. EVANS. I would call it facilitation. I don’t know that the 

agencies that I was supposed to provide leadership and oversight 

to would necessarily call it facilitation. I would like to think that 

that is the nice way that we did it. 

Chairman ISSA. You invited people to bring in groups? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. You brought them to the White House or accompanying facilities? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Chairman ISSA. And at those meetings, you either were there 

personally or at least you introduced the meeting and monitored 

whether it was going the direction that you and your bosses wanted it to go? 

Ms. EVANS. I can speak to my own management style, which is 

a very hands-on approach. Because I really personally view that if 

it is my boss’s priority, number one priority to get something done, 

then it is my job to make sure that the leadership up the chain to 

him are fully informed of decisions that are being made. 

So I am a little hands-on as a manager. I came up through the 

ranks, through operations. So I have a tendency to do that. 

Chairman ISSA. But you are not a micromanager? 

Ms. EVANS. I would like to think I am not. But if it is something 

that is that important, I personally, especially for things that are 

important to the Administration at the time during my tenure, I 

would personally make sure that I knew the status of what was 

going on on those projects. 

Chairman ISSA. Mr. Spires, I am not leaving you out completely. 

But I will ask both of you, in 184 weeks from the passage of the 

Affordable Care Act, until the failure to launch, can you conceive 

that any one, leaving GAO out, on that first panel, should not have 

seen that there were problems and had taken at least an active 

role in addressing those problems? 

131 

Mr. SPIRES. Proper governance is critical on programs like this. 

Because there are a lot of stakeholders involved. And you need to 

have good information and you need to do it on a very regular basis 

to make sure that these programs are going well. Individuals at 

this panel, other than Mr. Powner, certainly I think should have 

been in that chain of receiving that information, reviewing that, 

being part of reviews as part of a good governance model. That 

clearly did not exist. 

Chairman ISSA. And Ms. Evans, I will modify that as my close. 

Not only shouldn’t they have, but can you give us a little bit of a 

feel for what life would have been like if President Bush, who you 

worked for, had gotten blindsided by a failure of one of his hallmark pieces of legislation, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind 

or something of a similar level? 

Ms. EVANS. I was involved in Medicare Part D, just so that you 

know. And we could talk about that as well. If something like this 

happened during my tenure, I can only speak for what I would do. 

I would have offered my resignation before I got fired. 

Chairman ISSA. With that, I recognize the ranking member. And 

you never got fired, I want to make that clear. 

Ms. EVANS. No. I did not get fired. I did the job for six years. 

But in this particular case, if my President had to go on TV and 

say some of the things that this current President has had to do 

in an area of my responsibility, I would have offered my resignation. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What was your responsibility with regard to 

Medicare Part D? 

Ms. EVANS. When the rollout came out, there were some specific 

issues related to information technology. I would say it is the same 

type of thing that is happening right now. An analysis had to be 

done about, could you actually fix it through information technology, what were the issues. And it really was a timing issue with 

the legislation, which is the reason why I am making the point 

about when you pass a law, you have to know. 

So the way that that legislation was crafted, if a user signed up 

for the benefit at 11:59 p.m. on the 30th of the month or the 31st 

of the month, then they were eligible at 12:01 a.m. the next month 

for that benefit. There is no IT system the way that these systems 

work that you could get all that information populated through the 

system so you had to really analyze what was the work process and 

how the IT worked. 

So what we did was we provided options to the policy councils 

to say, if there really are additional funds available, what happened was they had, similar to what the navigators are now, people 

to help sign up, and if you signed up people before the 15th of the 

month, then those people actually got paid within 30 days, the ones 

that were helping sign people up. If you signed up after the 15th 

of the month, then the people that were helping do this actually 

would get paid 45 to 60 days later. 

So the idea was, okay, if the technology solutions can only, there 

is a big badge process that happens the 15th of the month, you provide the incentives up front, get everybody into the system between 

the 1st and the 15th, get them signed up so that all their data 

132 

shows up in the IT systems by the next month so that they are eligible. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But let me ask you this, were there IT problems 

back then? 

Ms. EVANS. There are always IT problems. But what you have 

to do is analyze it from a business perspective and provide alternatives to the policy leadership so that they can make informed 

policy decisions of how they are going to handle it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, because I specifically remember working 

with my constituents because they were having all kinds of problems. 

Ms. EVANS. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you both this. If you have a situation 

here where for example, in the governors, more than half the governors decide not, for example, to do their own marketplace, would 

that have affected you in any way or should that have affected this 

project? I am just curious. From an IT standpoint. 

Mr. SPIRES. Well, sure it would, sir. From a volume standpoint, 

from the scope and scale of what you would need to create. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would it make it a little harder? 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. A little more complicated? 

Mr. SPIRES. A little more complicated, yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so Mr. Spires, someone had suggested that 

one of the problems with the development of the Affordable Care 

website is that there was no single contractor overseeing the work 

of all the other contractors, that there was no lead system integrator. However, experience in the past Administrations with using 

contractors used to oversee other contractors has often resulted in 

failed programs and millions of wasted tax dollars, is that right? 

Mr. SPIRES. That is correct, and I have a close history with this 

at the IRS, if you would like me to comment on the topic. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. SPIRES. When I came in in 2004 to run the business systems 

modernization program at the IRS, and it got moved to that 

outsourced kind of program management office where a contractor 

was serving as that systems integrator. And it was not working 

well. I am a huge believer that the government needs to stand up 

to build a strong program management office for these large scale, 

complex IT programs. You have to have solid, experienced government people in charge and running these programs. 

It doesn’t mean you can’t have contractor support. But I have 

found if you don’t do that, the dynamics don’t work. There are so 

many stakeholders involved that are government people you have 

to work with who are not part of the program, and in order to 

make that work effectively, you need to have strong government 

people on the ground that are running this program day in and day 

out. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So I didn’t see it in IT but I saw it when I was 

chairman of the Coast Guard Subcommittee, with Deepwater, 

where we were literally buying boats that didn’t float. 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Literally. Some of them are sitting near my district right now. 

133 

And the contractor, the lead systems integrator, didn’t have that 

intertwined situation that you just talked about where the government people were doing their piece. And it just doesn’t work. 

I see my time is expired. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. DeSantis? 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the witnesses. 

Mr. Henry Chao, he told the committee when they interviewed 

him that he had not ever rolled out a program that had complete 

systems-wide end-to-end testing. I just wanted to get your take on 

that, to not have system-wide end-to-end testing. Is that a good 

practice? 

Mr. SPIRES. That is poor practice at best. I may make another 

comment about this, if I could. I was, as far as what I know, right 

around the timing, the testing clearly was not adequate to put this 

system into production. My experience has always been, and I have 

had to live this, where we have made these hard calls. It is better 

to delay, and it is better to delay for two reasons. One, you only 

get that one chance to make that first impression with a system. 

We clearly didn’t do it well here, did well, with the rollout of 

Healthcare.gov. 

But two, and even more importantly than that, once you put the 

system in production, you have to operate it and maintain it, deal 

with all the customer issues and all that. That in and of itself is 

a very large amount of work that takes energy from the team, rather than the team really getting to the point of fixing the system 

to the point where it is running well, then putting it into production. 

And I know for whatever reason this October 1st date was 

viewed as immovable. But I think that was a very big mistake 

made on the rollout of Healthcare.gov. 

Mr. DESANTIS. I appreciate that. I was looking through some of 

the materials. In late September there was a memo that said that 

the ongoing development had posed a level of uncertainty that can 

be deemed as a high risk security threat. So when you see that, 

it seems to me that would be a big red light that this is not ready 

to go forward. Would you concur with that? 

Ms. EVANS. Based on my experience, yes, sir, I would. That 

would be a risk that you would have to evaluate the October 1st 

deadline against, what kind of operating risk is there and can you 

mitigate that risk. It would have to be fully explained to the leadership involved, in this case the CMS director and probably farther 

up, about what could happen if we went forward with the implementation and we haven’t fully tested all of these things. 

Mr. DESANTIS. It is frustrating, because so much of this law, and 

we see it in the implementation, was based on representations to 

the American people that have now turned out not to be true, for 

example, if you like your plan you can keep it, if you like your doctor you can keep it, it will reduce the budget deficit, it will cover 

everybody. The most recent estimate is 10 years from now, you are 

still going to have 31 million people with no coverage. So this bill 

doesn’t even do that. 

134 

As I was looking through some of the testimony, some of these 

regs that the people needed in order to start implementing it were 

delayed on purpose, on political decision to get through the 2012 

election. So these folks were in a situation where they had to kind 

of create this website, but they actually weren’t giving as much 

time as they could have had the Administration been forthright 

about some of these things. But there was a desire to move this beyond the 2012 election, so that the American people would not be 

able to fully evaluate the program. 

So what I have seen here today is that there was a decision by 

the Administration, a knowing decision, to launch a website that 

did not work and indeed, was not adequately tested for security. I 

think this is problematic just generally, no matter what you are 

doing from a government IT perspective. But this website is 

unique, because individual Americans, and we have millions of people now who are seeing their insurance plans canceled because of 

this law, it is not like that website is just out there for them. They 

are forced to get, under penalty of law, health coverage through 

that website if they are one of the unfortunate folks who are seeing 

their plans canceled. 

So we are in a situation where the government is going to tax 

them unless they procure insurance off this website that is not 

fully functioning and that has questions about its security. So it is 

very, very discouraging. I have a lot of constituents who are upset 

about this. 

So I just appreciate you guys coming. I think this is, in terms 

of a case study on how not to do something, I think people will look 

back on this. But I think one of the things was, there were political 

imperatives here and the politics trumped what would work and 

what would be best for the American people. I think that is unfortunate. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. 

I would like to ask just a couple more questions, seeing no one 

else here. Both of you served the previous Administration. Did they 

ever tell you what the cost of not launching one of your projects 

was? In the private sector, it is like, we are going to have X 

amount of revenue every month, and if we don’t launch Windows 

XP, then we lose that much revenue? Did you ever have those discussions as part of your daily work? 

Mr. SPIRES. We would, sir. The IRS had discussions about it. 

Chairman ISSA. For example, the new audit thing. 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. There were business models that were built for 

systems that would show the kind of return. And of course, at the 

IRS, you could actually measure it many times in dollars. So yes, 

we did have those kinds of discussions. 

Chairman ISSA. How about you, Ms. Evans? 

Ms. EVANS. We would have those discussions across the board on 

each and every agency’s performance. So when agencies turned in 

a business case to justify the investment, they also put in there the 

return or the cost benefit analysis. So if you delay the launch date, 

then it affects your ability to start getting some of the benefits. Because the benefits in the government, when you measure them, is 

a little bit different than the bottom line in private industry. So it 

135 

is benefits to the taxpayer for the services that could be delayed 

with a delayed launch. 

Chairman ISSA. In this case, that doesn’t happen to be true. This 

is like a private business, and I will show you here. I wish Mr. 

VanRoekel was still here. The estimate from CBO at the time of, 

well, they keep changing it, but in February of this year, the estimate was that penalties from uninsured individuals were going to 

total $52 billion over a decade, half a billion dollars a year. Although that number keeps shrinking of what they think they are 

going to get, similarly the penalties from employers, $150 billion 

over 10 years, more or less $100 million a month. 

So here is this website, and Mr. Cummings and I have heard the 

figure $600 million enough times that it echoes in our sleep. But 

the delay of ObamaCare from a standpoint of revenue, when the 

President had to delay the employer mandate, he was losing $100 

million a month of revenue. If he had had to delay the no I am 

sorry, I got my figure wrong. I will have to be careful on that part. 

Forty-five billion over 10 years is $4.5 billion a year. So it is about 

$250 million, well, the back in February it was $300 million a 

month would have been lost if he delayed the penalties on the uninsured individuals. But he had already delayed something that 

was three times larger. 

So the reason I am asking this s, Ms. Evans, if you were back 

at OMB and somebody had told you in timely fashion, we are in 

trouble on this website, and we need to delay this thing because 

our projections two months or three months out, it is not going to 

be ready, and you were looking at having to go to the President 

and say, we would like you to delay something that will delay revenue by $300 million a month, wouldn’t you have had a normal 

business decision of, well, can’t we spent $300 million more if that 

is what it takes to get this thing done on time? 

In a sense, again, I go back to what I said before Mr. Cummings 

was there, the President was so poorly served in that I assume, 

and Mr. Spires, your experience particularly would be helpful here, 

I assume that if six months earlier you said, in order to not lose 

$300 million a month of revenue, calculated revenue, we need to 

put more money into this, we wouldn’t be talking half a billion or 

a billion or $2 billion. We would be talking incrementally a relatively small amount of money to do a project necessary to get this 

thing locked in and tested in a timely fashion, wouldn’t we? 

Mr. SPIRES. If I could comment. I would even say this, I am not 

sure this was about money. I am not sure we would have had to 

add more people to this. 

Chairman ISSA. I don’t think we would have. I just wanted to 

make the point that there was plenty of money at stake. 

Mr. SPIRES. Well, there might have been. But I go back to the 

point of the program management disciplines. Now, to that end, 

once you get close, once you are six months in, it is very, very hard 

to then change. You are not going to pick up a lot of time. 

But if this had been done correctly on the program management 

side, I suspect that the money was there. I don’t think that was 

a constraint on this particular program. 

Chairman ISSA. Ms. Evans? 

136 

Ms. EVANS. Given the scenario that you just outlined, the way 

that this would be presented during my tenure, the way we would 

present it is, these are tradeoffs, policy decisions that need to have 

tradeoffs. So you would analyze, this is the income that was going 

to come in, this is the method that we thought we were going to 

be able to do. But given where it is, here are the alternatives, and 

then here are the tradeoffs, so that you can either realize a portion 

of that or we can then recover it and then some if we go with this. 

So alternatives would have vetted through the policy process so 

that people could have looked at that and then said, okay, well, we 

can’t put so many people on it, there is a point of diminishing return. There is only so many dollars and so many people that you 

can throw at an IT project in order to fix it. 

So then you would have alternatives in order to realize that income, so that you could move forward to reduce the deficit. That 

is part of the analysis that the Office of Management and Budget 

would lend to the policy process so that the decisions could be 

made by the appropriate policy officials. 

Chairman ISSA. Let me just close with a question. If we went 

back three and a half years and upon the passage the regulations 

necessary to determine some of the specifics this offer would have 

to deal with had been done in a timely fashion, six months or so, 

then presented to industry and stakeholders and going through a 

process of, if you will, analyzing it from a standpoint of needs of 

those who would use it, then taking the outcome of that, producing 

a standard, a year, year and a half into this process, delivering 

that to the contractor and then monitoring the process of a fixed 

and final set of regulations relative to this new website and its 

work, is there any doubt in your mind that three and a half years 

was in any way, shape or form not enough time to start with the 

passage of the Affordable Care Act three and a half years ago and 

reach a well-tested, well-engineered, from a security, speed, 

scalability on the launch date of October 1st? 

In other words, was there anything inherently wrong with picking October 1st that good practices over three and a half year 

wouldn’t have taken care of? 

Mr. SPIRES. I think with where they are at, it is a little hard to 

know how long it will take for this to really stabilize. But it will 

stabilize. So if you look at it from that perspective, sir, I am pretty 

sure that if this had been well-managed, and to your point, include 

the regulation process of that, that this site could have been delivered and appropriate on October 1st and could have been well running on that date. 

Ms. EVANS. I would look at it, and I always look at things from 

my tenure at OMB. 

Chairman ISSA. It was a long tenure. 

Ms. EVANS. It was a long tenure. And also from an operational 

perspective coming up. But I would have looked at the law to understand what were we really required to do by what time period. 

And really scoped the project to a point where it was very clear and 

understood what was going to be delivered. 

I think one of the major issues that you have here with the requirements that happen on every IT project is that they are scope 

creeped. So as people start working through it, they add on another 

137 

requirement and they add on another requirement. So the parameters have to be drawn on something that is this complex, so that 

everyone would have a clear understanding of what is really going 

to launch on October 1st, if that is the President’s due date. And 

then stick to that and everything else becomes an add-on and a 

module. That is best business practice. And if it is critical, that you 

have to have it, then it has to be voted on through the good governance process through a business process. 

That is the part that is still a little unclear in this overall process 

of what really was the scope, and what was expected to be delivered on October 1st. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. That is what we are going to continue working on, regardless of the actual Affordable Care Act, the 

question of what went wrong and how do we prevent it in the future. 

Mr. Cummings? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Evans, I was listening to you very carefully. You said that 

if you were in this situation where your boss had to go before the 

American people and do what President Obama did, and I am not 

trying to put words in your mouth, you said you probably would 

resign. Is that right? 

Ms. EVANS. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. There are two parts to this. One part is what 

happened in the past. The other part is where we go in the future. 

I think it is very important that we learn from the past. I believe 

that it can tell us a lot about mistakes we made, so that we don’t 

fall into those ditches again. 

This is where I want to go. I say to my staff, there are two things 

that I am most concerned about, effectiveness and efficiency. I tell 

them we have a limited amount of time on this earth, we have a 

limited amount of time to be in the positions that we are in, that 

it is our watch and we must do what we have to do for the American people in an effective and efficient way. 

I guess my question is, suppose you are President Bush, say if 

he was in these circumstances. And he said, Evans, don’t quit. Fix 

it. What would you do? And do you believe it could be fixed in a 

reasonable amount of time? If at all? So you didn’t quit. 

Ms. EVANS. I didn’t quit. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We wouldn’t let you quit. 

Ms. EVANS. You wouldn’t let me quit because I had to fix my 

mistake. So at this point I would be down in the daily operations, 

I would have done an assessment to see what exactly could be fixed 

and then again, back to the scoping issue of what the President actually said would be available and what is now required. Now, you 

have additional circumstances on here with the insurance companies canceling policies, and you have this gap now here people actually have to be able to sign up for services. So that would be analyzed, and I would say, okay, here is where we are with the IT 

project, we need to put other kinds of compensating controls in 

place in order to be able to deal with the American public’s need 

to be able to sign up for insurance. 

And that would be then elevated through the policy chain. So 

things like going directly to insurance providers, putting up, as 

138 

Chairman Issa said, the whole list of what plans are available so 

that people could at least see the information and not necessarily 

sign up, all those alternatives would be laid out. And they would 

be viewed from a communications perspective, from a policy perspective and from a political perspective to ensure that you could 

put the best service forward to meet that immediate need of that 

gap between the December 15th and the January 1st deadline. Because that is the big critical piece that you are trying to get to right 

now. 

And how do you fix that and how do you meet that need for the 

American people. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Spires, did you have a response to my same 

question? 

Mr. SPIRES. Well, let me add on. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, do you have something to add onto what she 

said? 

Mr. SPIRES. Let me just add that I applaud, and I want to thank 

the team that is working on this. We talked about Mr. Park and 

what he is doing, but my goodness, the whole team has to be working around the clock. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Are you familiar with the team, other than Mr. 

Park? 

Mr. SPIRES. No. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Are you familiar with Mr. Park? 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what is your opinion of him and his competence? 

Mr. SPIRES. He is a very talented technologist, extremely talented. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. They tell me he is one of the best in the world. 

Mr. SPIRES. I think that is probably a fair assessment, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. 

Mr. SPIRES. Let me add a couple things, though, about the end 

of November. I would like it to work, too. This is all, for me, about 

helping government make IT more effective. But this end of November, there are two concerns I have. One is, it is just very difficult when you are in this, when you do integration testing, and 

that is essentially what we are still doing, even though the system 

is alive, for a while you tend to find defects actually increase as you 

do more testing. And even as you work things off and fix things, 

you even get more. So I am worried about that. 

The other thing I am worried about, frankly, is when you do this 

integration testing, a lot of times you will uncover some significant 

architectural issues. You may not, but sometimes you do when you 

integrate these subsystems. You know where those architectural 

issues show themselves are in performance issues. 

So I am concerned that we are seeing, when they open it up and 

it doesn’t perform well from a scalability standpoint, and handling 

the volume, that is an indication of some potentially underlying 

technical issues from an architecture perspective. Those things may 

take longer to fix. 

This is just my experience in working these kinds of problems in 

the past. So when they say they are going to have it fixed by NoVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:10 Apr 25, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00142 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\87316.TXT APRIL
139 

vember, for the vast majority of users, I hope that is the case. I 

just have concerns that that may not turn out to be the case. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I think that Mr. Park answered that question 

several times. 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And he talked about, and I think it is probably 

because of the things that you just talked about, he said that, I can 

almost repeat it, he said it so many times, that they have a goal 

and they are going to try to attain that goal. 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes, absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But you said something a few minute ago, you 

said that, and I am going to put words in your mouth, you said 

something to the effect that eventually they will get it together. 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes, they will. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And my last comment is this. I guess as the son 

of two former sharecroppers sitting in the Congress after one generation, and a father who only had a second grade education, my 

father believed in a can-do attitude. Can-do. That is what this 

Country is all about. 

I guess when I hear all the naysayers, I am so glad to hear you 

say that you believe that it will be worked out. You don’t know 

when, I understand that. But some kind of way, we have to move 

to that can-do. This is the United States of America. I think it 

would be an embarrassment if we can’t get this done. Would you 

agree, as IT people? 

Ms. EVANS. Absolutely. We are the Nation that innovates and 

creates technology. So it will get fixed. This is really a communications issue and an expectation of what are the services that are actually going to be there. We have the technology to fix it, and you 

have some of the smartest people, I am sure, working on it right 

now. Technology is not a partisan issue. What really needs to be 

debated overall is some of the other issues that you brought out in 

what you are talking about, is the policy issues. That is where the 

President should be debating with you, Congress, on policy issues. 

Technology should be implemented to support that. 

Mr. SPIRES. I think it is also important to say that the way we 

manage our IT programs in government needs to improve. That is 

a non-partisan view. I saw it in the last Administration and I see 

it in this Administration. 

Ms. EVANS. I agree. 

Mr. SPIRES. We need to fix that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you both. Your testimony has been extremely helpful. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding] I thank the ranking member for his 

comments. I thank each of you for coming today to testify. 

I do want to follow up a little bit with this additional testing. As 

we start to go in, and having been someone who was in the private 

sector, who has worked a number of times with systems, just when 

you think you have the problem fixed, you find ten more. 

So with best practices, do you not think it is best practice to take 

down the site while we work through these technical glitches and, 

more importantly, through some of the security concerns which are 

a bigger problem for me than whether we can get on and log on, 

140 

it is once you have done that, would that not be the best practice, 

to take it down? 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. Let me caveat it by saying, this is a non-political statement I am making. Just from a best practices perspective, 

if I was running that program and no other considerations, I would 

immediately take the site down. I would have the team focus on 

working through the issues. I would do real stress testing on the 

system and then I would bring the site back up when it was ready. 

That is what I would do from a best practice perspective. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Without all the politics of it. 

Mr. SPIRES. Without any of that. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But from a best practices standpoint? 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes, because it could get the team focused on fixing 

the system and not operating the system right now. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Ms. Evans, I want to go to some of your testimony. Let me quote here, because I want to understand what you 

said. You said, ‘‘The functionality and shortcomings of 

Healthcare.gov are a result of bad management decisions made by 

policy officials within the Administration.’’ They did this ‘‘to themselves. And if they are now surprised, is it because their own policy 

officials failed to inform them of the decisions and the consequences 

associated with those decisions.’’ We asked that in the earlier 

panel. And we really didn’t get a response. But in light of your testimony, what did you mean by that? 

Ms. EVANS. For example, a decision that was made to remove the 

browsing function. When you make that decision, and what came 

out in the previous panel was that was actually made by the 

project manager, based on a technical result of testing. 

So by that type of decision and rolling that up, there is policy implications associated with that. So the policy officials said, okay, it 

is okay. So if you take a sequence of events that are programmed 

into a system that are supposed to go one, two, three, four, five, 

and you take out number two, and now you expect one, three, four 

and five to work really well and two is not there anymore? That 

was a policy decision to go forward with a site, with a major piece 

of functionality pulled out and not tested. That is why I made the 

statement about, and now you are surprised that it is not working. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So they shouldn’t be surprised? 

Ms. EVANS. They should not be surprised. If the sequence is one, 

two, three, four, five, and you take two out, and you haven’t tested 

the impact of when two is out, you should not be surprised it 

doesn’t work. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So let me ask you this, then. Who should have 

informed the White House or what policy official should have done 

that in this overall Healthcare.gov? Who is the go-to person? That 

is what we have been trying to figure out. Who is the go-to person 

that said, golly, we pulled it out, but it is not working. 

Ms. EVANS. In the rest of my testimony, and this is not a partisan statement either, this is my belief of what the role of a chief 

information officer is supposed to do. In my view, what would happen is that would have come up from CMS. So it was made as a 

technical decision. And the chief information officer at a department level is supposed to analyze what that impact is on the portfolio overall, on behalf of the Secretary. What is that going to mean 

141 

from both a policy, political, communications, technology, all of 

that. And then elevate that issue. 

So I really believe that the chief information officer is the one 

who is supposed to be the nexus, the tech-savvy person on that 

staff, to analyze those implications as it relates to business and policy. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I know we have a lot of CIOs. Who specifically 

would that have been? What is the name? 

Ms. EVANS. Well, in this particular case, if everything worked the 

way it is supposed to, it would have been the chief information officer at HHS. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Which is who? 

Mr. SPIRES. Mr. Baitman. 

Ms. EVANS. Mr. Baitman. Which is in his portfolio. 

Mr. SPIRES. Can I add, though, because I think that is absolutely 

right, what you said. But what I like to do in programs is pull 

those people together on a regular basis in some kind of governance 

forum so that you can have those dialogues, so the CIO can represent the technology issues and implications to policy changes. 

But it shouldn’t just be the CIO’s decision. 

Ms. EVANS. No, and I am not saying it should be the CIO’s decision. 

Mr. SPIRES. It should be a shared decision. 

Mr. MEADOWS. A shared decision, but he should be the one informing? 

Mr. SPIRES. That is correct. 

Ms. EVANS. That is right. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So I will finish with this last question. I have 

Google in my district. I love Google. We have, in California, which 

I don’t represent, we have unbelievable expertise. Because we are 

the greatest Nation, as the ranking member talked about, would 

we not be reaching out to those experts right now and saying, 

please come help us get it all done? Would that not be the appropriate thing to do? 

Mr. SPIRES. I thought they had brought in a few of the technical 

experts as well. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But really, if we are trying to get this done by 

November 30th, which I think a lot of us question whether it will 

really happen, and that should not necessarily be an indictment, 

would we not reach out to more experts in the private sector? 

Mr. SPIRES. I think at this point that would not work for November 30th. The learning curve is so great, you would spend more 

time trying to get these experts up to speed on the specifics of the 

details of Healthcare.gov than you would get any benefit out of that 

at this point. That doesn’t mean going forward you might not want 

to engage others as well. 

Ms. EVANS. The one thing I would want to add, I think both 

Richard and I have been in situations with challenged rollouts in 

our career, where we have had challenged rollouts. To your point, 

the best value that Silicon Valley could do at this point is validate 

the solutions you are going to put in place. 

So what I have done in the past on projects where I have had, 

and I have had failures in my career, as my technical team is telling me that this is what we are going to do or these are the 

142 

changes that we are going to make, we would validate those 

against and talk to Silicon Valley saying, from a technical perspective, so they are only analyzing the technical issues at that point, 

saying, if we roll this out and this is the current problem, and we 

make these configuration changes, is that going to solve the problem. That is probably the best application of those resources at that 

point, and as well with Healthcare.gov. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the chairman. 

Chairman ISSA. [Presiding.] I thank you, and if this were health 

care and not IT, we would probably say, get a second medical opinion in this case. 

Mr. Cummings? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Again, I want to thank you all. I think when we 

talk about best practices, you look at, I wish maybe in this instance 

that some of these best practices that we are talking about had 

been done. And I noticed that you all talked about IT, technical, 

and then you also talked a little bit about political. There is so 

much that goes into these decisions. But for me, I want to see this 

work, and I am sure you do too. 

I do not, I just don’t believe in failure. We are better than that. 

I hope that the folks who were part of the process will hear the 

things that you are talking about. Because I think our strength is 

in the expertise we all bring. All of us have our own experiences. 

And having served in the positions that you served, and served, 

you bring a lot to the table. Hopefully, folks will have their ears 

open and their minds open to make sure that this doesn’t happen 

this way again. I know we can do better. 

And I guess the bottom line is that there are so many people that 

are depending on us. There are a lot of people. 

Mr. SPIRES. I am not calling this a failure, sir. It is troubled. But 

this is not a failure. We need to get it fixed, you are right. 

If I could just also say, because I think it is important enough 

to say, I made this comment, but I think it is important, we need 

the CIOs to be strengthened in this government from the standpoint of their empowerment. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you are familiar with Mr. Issa’s bill? 

Mr. SPIRES. Absolutely, and I very much support that. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you think that legislation gets to the issue 

you are trying to get to? 

Mr. SPIRES. Yes. When you have the lineup of CIOs on your first 

panel and none of them were really engaged, that is just not correct. And it leads to failure of IT programs. 

Ms. EVANS. My view is that the legislation should pass. I have 

had a lot of discussions with Chairman Issa’s staff about this, and 

the role of the CIO. I obviously feel very passionate about it. I believe if that law is passed, it will remove all excuses for non-performance of CIOs and you would have a very different oversight 

meeting. Because everything that the CIOs have said in the past 

that they cannot do, that legislation would fix. Therefore, they 

would be held accountable for their job. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. By the way, that is something we did on a bipartisan basis. 

Ms. EVANS. That is right. 

143 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. I really appreciate both 

of you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. 

I have just one closing question. I know that you are not software 

writers per se. But I talked to Mr. Farenthold, who actually put up 

websites. And I just ask a question. You saw on the last panel 

where I essentially admonished all of them to look at the FEHBP 

or what was just for 230 plans, what was just a few pages that 

would tell you how much each plan was and how much the government would pay and how much each person would pay. 

Now, one of the reasons that that was only a few pages is that 

that spreadsheet was for a program that did not age discriminate. 

The Affordable Care Act discriminates based on three things: the 

plan itself, if it is regional, has a region in which it operates. If it 

is national, it has a single price, like FEHBP. 

It rate discriminates based on age and whether you smoke or 

not. I have gone back and forth, those are the only variables. So 

for a given location, which is where you choose your plan, let’s just 

say the Alabama something or other, you only have to know your 

age and whether you smoke or not. And I do a little quick math, 

and again, unlike the gentleman from Harvard, Mr. Park or Mr. 

Massey from MIT, I went to Kent State and a little Catholic school 

up in Michigan. So I did arithmetic, not calculus. 

But between 65 and 27, when you leave your parents’ plan, and 

the time you are eligible for Medicare, there are 38 years. So as 

far as I can tell, there are 38 different ages you could be based on 

the costs of a given plan. And then the question of do you smoke 

or not. 

So I saw essentially a spreadsheet or a data base to retrieve from 

of 76 possible answers if you want to go to a plan and ask how 

much it costs. 

Now, for both of you, if I wanted a website that had an engine 

in the back end that looked at, for a given plan, and asked the 

question of, how old are you and do you smoke or not, and then 

I went out and got the number from that cell, how hard do you 

think that would be? Because you understand on September 12th, 

or September 3rd, they made a decision to not launch that part. 

September 12th, they reiterated. They scrubbed moving the software, they moved their people to other problems. 

I just want to understand, how many people and how long do you 

think it would take for 76 different numbers that you put in on a 

little program, here is my age and I smoke or I don’t smoke, and 

I want to know how much this plan is? And I am being a little facetious, and Mr. Spires, you are both smiling well. But that really is 

the website that we are asking for a splash-type open shopping. 

Mr. SPIRES. Obviously, with the requirements you stated, that is 

a pretty simple website. I suspect that what Mr. Chao was referring to had a lot more functionality and capabilities, and you can 

call it bells and whistles, and that may be inappropriate, than that. 

Chairman ISSA. But didn’t the American people deserve to be 

able to surf prices as simple as a data base? It is almost the back 

end of a pocket calculator to come up with that. 

Ms. EVANS. Absolutely. But again, when you get into some of the 

big projects, and that is what I mean about scope creep, and really 

144 

understanding what did have to launch on October 1st, based on 

that policy decision. So if it is as simple as what you described, the 

government already has a website set up called Benefits.gov that 

those simple questions, and this might be an alternative that they 

could use right now while they are working on the longer plan, 

those simple questions could be put in there. You can fill out this 

information now, this was started as one of the 24 initiatives. And 

you would not only find out what you are eligible for under 

Healthcare.gov, but you could also find out what other Federal benefits you are eligible for based on the way that you would answer 

these questions that only live in the session. 

So that whole site was set up for Federal benefits, so that you 

could see everything that you are eligible for as a citizen. So that 

simple requirement could have launched and can still launch in 

Benefits.gov. 

Chairman ISSA. I am of an age that I knew the names of all the 

Mercury astronauts. I didn’t know much about government contracting as a young man, but I have been told that the space pen 

was designed to be able to write in zero gravity, so they could make 

their notes in this inverted zero gravity. But the Russians used a 

pencil. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman ISSA. The pencil cost what it took to sharpen it, while 

the space pen cost millions of dollars to design and produce. 

Now, that may be a euphemism for a lot of what we deal with. 

But today we heard somebody tell us that they decided to scrub because there were security concerns over what ultimately was a glorified splash page. If you were back, both of you were back in your 

positions and you wanted to please your boss by giving him as 

much deliverable as you could, and 30 days out you discovered that 

something had to give, would you have grabbed a pencil out of the 

drawer instead of telling people they would have to wait months 

or years to get the space pen? 

Mr. SPIRES. I certainly would have tried that, sir. I would have 

even said, seems to me, and I will echo what Ms. Evans said, that 

there should have been a lot of work up front to simplify as much 

as possible what needed to be launched on October 1st. 

Chairman ISSA. I want to thank you. Mr. Lacy Clay alluded to 

the Harris project that was done during a previous Administration 

where the Census Bureau, not really the Administration, had 10 

years to launch something and they kept changing it, so that the 

corporation could legitimately say that it wasn’t ready, but they 

could show all these change orders in what was basically a 

handheld scanner, not a terribly high-faluting piece of technology. 

So I do understand the mission creep. 

We were just told that apparently in the month of October, we 

signed up approximately 27,000 people into ObamaCare. With that, 

would either one of you like to venture whether or not the estimate 

we were given that they are now signing up roughly 27,000, on the 

Federal exchange, but we were told they are signing up about 

27,000 an hour. So apparently they are signing up about the same 

amount per hour that they signed up in the first month. 

145 

Would any of you venture a guess to what that number will be? 

Will it be at least ten times 27,000 an hour or 270,000 a day at 

the end of the month? Or are you going to bet on the low side? 

Ms. EVANS. I am not a betting person. So I will put that on the 

record. There is not enough information for me to bet. 

Chairman ISSA. But with 17,000 an hour being told to us under 

oath here today, does anyone want to look at 170,000 or 200,000 

or 300,000 a day and bet higher or lower here? 

Ms. EVANS. Lower. It is going to be lower, because he said 17,000 

registrations. So that is not 17,000 completions. This is again, you 

are talking about how they are measuring certain things and how 

you want the outcomes. So you are looking at the outcomes and 

they are measuring things at the beginning of the process. So if 

you are talking about all the way through the process, it is going 

to be on the lower side. 

Chairman ISSA. I suspect you are exactly right. When I was in 

private life, they always wanted to sell me impressions, how many 

impressions a piece of advertising got. And I always wanted to buy 

how many sales. So I suspect that we have 17,000 impressions an 

hour, while in fact the amount of sales could be not much more 

than that less than 30,000. So I am betting that when we get our 

answer at the end of November, that it is 100,000 or less in the 

Federal exchange. I certainly hope for more, because we need it to 

be, I think, 43,000 a day if we are going to cover everyone. 

Would either of you like to make any closing statements? 

Ms. EVANS. I just want to say I appreciate your inviting me back, 

the committee inviting me back to share my viewpoints. I would 

echo some of the comments that Richard has made today, that it 

is important to get that legislation through to enhance the roles of 

the CIO, so that we can ensure that other things like IT procurement and those things happen, so that we can avoid this for this 

type project, for all of the whole, entire portfolio. 

Mr. SPIRES. I am not sure I could say it any better than you just 

said it, Karen. So I have no other remarks. Thank you. 

Chairman ISSA. Thank you both. We always say, I will associate 

myself with the gentlelady. So I thank you both again for your public service in the past and your continued service today. We stand 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

(147) 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

148 


Insert offset folio 41 here 87316.041

OA"Rtl~ ~ '';SA, C",'FQAN'A 

CHA'~MAN 

lA\~nf"r.. J B~"DY 

STMfmRF(lOIl 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

(!Congress of tbt ~ntttb ~tattr5 

1Qou5e of ~epre!l'entatibe5 

COMM1TIEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

2157 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6143 

November 6, 2013 

The Honorable Darrell E. Issa 

Chainnan 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Washington, D.C. 20515 

Dear Mr. Chainnan: 

n\JA~E CUM\I'I<GS,MARVLANO 

II11.NKING MINORllV MfMB~~ 

I am writing to inquire about the protocols the Committee plans to utilize to properly 

secure highly sensitive documents produced by MITRE Corporation, the independent contractor 

hired by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to perfonn security control 

assessments for the l-Iealthcare.gov website. In light of the potential for ill-meaning individuals 

to use this infonnation to damage the website or compromise the security of confidential 

consumer infonnation, I propose that we meet to develop common guidance for our Committee 

Menlbers on the proper safeguarding of these documents. 

On November 5, 2013, MITRE sent a letter to the Committee explaining that it 

Hperformed security testing on specific components of the site." Acconlpanying this letter, 

MITRE provided to the COlnmittee copies ofHsix password protected files of the security tests 

(Security Control Assessments) we performed for eMS.HI 

MITRE explained in its November 5 letter that the information in these documents is 

highly sensitive. MITRE wrote that these documents, some of which date back to early testing 

of the system in 2012, include "code and other technical infonnation that could be used to hack 

the system." Although many security issues discussed in these documents have been addressed, 

the company Hrcdacted portions that could jeopardize the security and privacy of infonnation on 

the site if inadvertently disclosed." 

Even with these redactions, MITRE wanled that the Committee should not release 

publicly the information contained in these documents. In a sentence underHned by the 

con1pany, its letter stated: 

I Letter from Kathleen Golden, Government Relations Manager, The MITRE 

Corporation~ to Chairman Darrell E. Issa, House Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform (Nov. 5,2013). 
149 


Insert offset folio 42 here 87316.042

Even with the redactions, the information provided should still be considered sensitive 

and may pose a security risk to the confidentiality of consumer information accessible 

through HealthCare.gov if disclosed. 

The documents themselves also indicate the highly sensitive nature of the information 

they contain. In addition to being password protected, the documents are marked with the 

header: "CMS Sensitive Information-Requires Special Handling." 

I am sure that no Member of our Conmlittee wants to be accused of making public highly 

sensitive security information-either intentionally or unintentionally-that could give hackers a 

roadmap for destroying the Healthcare.gov website. I am equally certain that no Committee 

Member wants to be accused of taking any action that compromises the confidential information 

of American consumers. 

For these reasons, I would like to confirm the protocols the Committee intends to use to 

propcrly secure these documents and the information they contain. Before our hearing next 

week on this subject, I propose that you and I meet to discuss how we can instruct our 

Committee Members on safeguarding the information in these documents. I also believe this 

process should include careful consultation with both MITRE and CMS to avoid any possibility 

of misunderstanding. 

To be clear, I strongly support the Committee's right to relevant information necessary to 

perform its oversight functions, and I anlnot suggesting that either MITRE or CMS should have 

a veto over the Committee's actions. Instead, I am proposing that we work in a careful and 

deliberate manner to understand fully the risks involved with our potential actions and that we 

act in a concerted and bipartisan manner to obtain the information we need while protecting 

American consumers. 

Thank you for your consideration of this request, and I would appreciate the opportunity 

to discuss this matter with you directly prior to taking any actions with respect to these 

documents. 

Sincerely, 
150 


Insert offset folio 43 here 87316.043

151 

and the 

A Right. Mary Wallace is in the Office of Communications. 

And I think, in a weekly meeting with her and with the CGI folks, it 

was determined that it wasn't, you know, kind of, working, so why leave 

it in? So I checked with Mary Wallace because, remember I said that 

we have business people that drive decisions? 

Q Uh-huh. 

A And in OC, where Mary works, she's in charge of the group 

that does the user experience, right? So if we're going to remove 

something, she has to give the okay, right? So she said it isn't 

needed. And my take was why put it in, because it's broken. And then 

the rest of it is actually, kind of, just the other folks clarifying. 

Q So being removed -- the anonymous-shopper function was 

being removed from, what, the next build or from the --

A Uh-huh. 

Q Okay. 

A Yeah. Disabled. 

Q Disabled. Did you tell CGI not to move forward with the 

anonymous-shopper function because you wanted to hide the true costs 

of health plans to the public? 

A No, I did not. 

Q And so the reason that you had said earlier was because it 

kept failing in testing 

A Right. 

Q -- it wasn't working. Is that correct? 
151 


Insert offset folio 44 here 87316.044

152 

A Yeah. Through consultation with Mark Oh and Monique and 

Mary and the CGI folksJ we believed thatJ you knowJ why deploy something 

that doesn't work. 

BY MS. SACHSMAN GROOMS: 

Q So would you say that the anonymous-shopper function was 

ready to go when you decided to turn it off? 

A NO J it wasn't ready. 

Q And Mary Wallace is from the Office of Communications. Can 

you explain - - and I understand the Office of Communications isn't your 

purviewJ but can you explain what the Office of Communications does? 

Because I think some people think that it's justJ likeJ a press shop. 

A It has the press shop J but also OC has a Web site management 

group that runs Medicare.gov J CMS.gov J HealthCare.gov J 

GetInsuredNow. gov. All of the CMS. gov Web sites are run out of Office 

of Communications and their Website Management Group. 

And the biggie is that Mary's group also oversees the 

1-8ee-MEDICARE call centers and the marketplace call centers. SOJ 

yeahJ that's a huge workforce that supports thatJ you knowJ Medicare 

program and now marketplace. 

So a lot of people are confused like you said; they think they're 

a press shop. But they actually have a very big operations shoPJ too. 

[Chao Exhibit No. 8 

was marked for identification.] 

Ms. Sachsman Grooms. This one has a Bates number that's on it. 

BY MS. LEE: 
152 


Insert offset folio 52 here 87316.052

Obama adviser: Demand overwhelmed 

HealthCare.gov 

Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY 7:50 a.m. EDT October 6, 2013 

The Obama administration's top technology expert explains 

why the government's health care website isn't working and 

what's being done to fix it. 

A computer screen shows the healthcare.gov website, where people can enroll for health care 

exchanges under President Obama's health care law.(Photo: Lynne Sladky, AP) 

Story Highlights 

Enrollment functions of site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend 

• The website will remain open for general information 

• Federal and state health insurance websites experienced problems this week 

The govermnent website launched this week to sell health insurance was overwhelmed by up to 

five times as many users as it was designed to handle, President Obama's top technology adviser 

said Saturday in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. 

U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park said the government expected HealthCare.gov to draw 

50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users, but instead it has drawn as many as 250,000 at a time since 

it launched Oct. 1. 

Park's comments are the administration's most detailed explanation for the glitches that have 

frustrated millions of consumers who have tried to enter the site or complete applications for 

health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. 

"These bugs were functions of volume," Park said. "Take away thc volume and it works." 

The administration built the site's capacity based partly on the all-time high of 30,000 

simultaneous users for Medicare.gov, an existing site where senior citizens can buy or renew 

prescription-drug plans under Medicare Part D, Park said. Its theoretical maximum capacity 

hasn't been disclosed. 

More than 8.1 million consumers visited the site from Tuesday through Friday, according to the 

White House. The administration hopes that as many as 7 million consumers eventually will sign 

up for health insurance through the government marketplace. 

HealthCare.gov's enrollment functions are shut down at off-peak hours this weekend so 

technicians can make repairs to the site. 

"We're obviously not satisfied with the performance," Park said. "We're working 24-7." 
153 


Insert offset folio 53 here 87316.053

The site will be running better by early next week, he said, though he declined to make specific 

guarantees. The administration isn't yet prepared to say how many simultaneous users the 

upgraded site will be able to handle, he added. 

The administration's explanation didn't impress a Bush administration official who helped launch 

Part D in 2006. 

"Whoever thought it would draw 60,000 people wasn't reading the administration's press 

releases," said David Brailer, former national coordinator of health care information technology. 

"The Medicare Part D site was supposed to have 20,000 simultaneous users and was (built for) 

150,000, and that was back when computing was done on an abacus. It isn't that hard." 

The volume since Tuesday overwhelmed a specific component of software on the 

HealthCare.gov site that lets people create accounts, enabling them to shop for insurance plans 

available in their state, Park said. 

The part of the site that explains generally how the new law will work, and gives broad 

information about the kinds of plans available, has worked throughout the troubled launch, he 

said. 

The Affordable Care Act called for the Department of Health and Human Services to build an 

online exchange, or Internet store, to let uninsured consumers compare and buy plans offered by 

private insurance companies. The government will subsidize coverage for many working-class 

and middle-class families, while poorer citizens may be covered by the law's expansion of the 

existing Medicaid program for low-income families. 

The exchange misfired almost immediately upon its launch. 

This photo provided by HHS shows the main landing web page for HealthCare.gov.(Photo: AP) 

Engineers quickly deployed software that referred visitors to an online waiting room, hoping that 

controlling the number of people trying to create accounts would ease pressure on the software, 

Park said. But serious performance issues have plagued the site all week, he said. 

Park disputed a Reuters report that quoted non-government technology experts who theorized 

that the site's architecture inadvertently made it mimic a common method by which hackers 

attack websites to shut them down, forcing the software to misfire. 

"That is not the driver of the bottleneck," he said. 

The site is managed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Park said. It is hosted at 

a secure, privately owned cloud computing facility in Virginia. Outside experts this week had 

questioned whether the site was being run on cloud-based technology, whose flexibility usually 

lets website owners adjust quickly to spikes in traffic. 

But the problem proved to be more complex than just adding more computer servers to manage 

the extra demand, he said. 

A team working on the site is taking two other steps to fix the problem, Park said. 
154 


Insert offset folio 54 here 87316.054

It is uPb'Tading software that lets people create accounts to apply for insurance. One symptom of 

this has been malfunctioning pull-down menus that have worked only intermittently all week. 

And HealthCare.gov is moving one part of the site that processes applications trom so-called 

virtual machine technology, which uses software to let a website securely share computer servers 

with other sites, to using servers dedicated exclusively to that process, he said. 

That change will add extra computing power, complementing the software upgrade to make the 

registration process work more smoothly, he said. 

The explanation is "a little geekalicious," he said. 
155 


Insert offset folio 55 here 87316.055

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES 

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 

7500 Security Boulevard, Mail Stop N3~ 15~25 

Baltimore, Maryland 21244-1850 

OFFICE OF INFORMATION SERVICES 

DATE: SiP 3Z813 TO: Director, 

CfNTfIS fOR MJ!DICARf & MJ!DIC\IO SElIVICES 

MEMORANDUM 

Consortiwn for Medicare Health Plans Operations (OAlCMHPO) and Acting 

Deputy Center Director for Operations, Center for Conswner Information and 

Insurance Oversight (CClIO) 

FROM: Chief Information Officer and 

Director, Office of Information Services (01S) 

SUBJECT: Authorization Decision for the Federal Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System 

ACTION REQUIRED 30 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF THIS MEMORANDUM 

The Federal Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System is a Moderare level system located at the 

Terremark Datacenter in Culpeper, Virginia. The system maintains records used to support all 

Health Insurance Exchange Programs established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 

Services (CMS) under the health care reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Public Law 

11-148). FFM will help qualified individuals and small business employers shop for, select, and 

pay for high-quality, affordable health coverage. Exchanges will have the capability to 

determine eligibility for coverage through the Exchange, for tax credits and cost-sharing 

reductions, and for Medicaid, Basic Health Plan (BHP) and Childrerl's Health Insurance Program 

(CHIP) coverage. As part of the eligibility and enrollment process, financial, demographic, and 

(potentially) health information will flow through the Exchange. 

On August 8, 2013, you certified the controls for the system and submitted along with your 

certification the other required docwnentation necessary to obtain an Authorization to Operate 

(A TO) for FFM. 

I have determined through a thorough review of the authorization package that the risk to eMS 

information and information systems resulting from the operation ofthe PPM information 

system is acceptable predicated on the completion of the actions described in the attachment. 

Accordingly, I am Issuing an Authorization to Operate (ATO) for the FFM information 

system to operate in its current environment and configuration until August 31, 2014. The 

current configuration includes only the Federal Facilitated Marketplaces Qualified Health Plans 

(QHP) and Dental modules. This system is not authorized to establish any new connections or 

interfaces with non-eMS FISMA or other non-CMS connections without prior approval during 

the period of this ATO. An impact analysis must be conducted for any system changes 

implemented after the issuance of this ATO. Any major modifications that affect the security 

posture of the system will reqnire an appropriately scoped security controls assessment and 

issuance of a new ATO. 

Contains Sensitive and Proprietary Business Information --

Maintain as Confidential 

CGIHR00002826 
156 


Insert offset folio 56 here 87316.056

The security authorization of the infonnatio<, system will remain in effect until the indicated 

expiration date if the following conditions are maintained: 

(i) Required periodic security status reports for the system are submitted to this office in 

accordance with current CMS policy; 

(ii) New vulnerabilities reported during the continuous monitoring process do not result 

in additional agency-level risk that is deemed unacceptable; and 

(iii) The system has not exceeded the maximum allowable thne between security 

authorizations in accordance with Federal or CMS policy. 

The attachment provides information on requirements not met, as well as corrective actions 

needed to bring them into compliance. The actions set forth in the attachment must be entered 

into the approved CMS Plan of Action and Milestones (pOA&M) tracking tool no later than 

30 days from the date oflhis memorandum, and the action items addressed no later than the 

desigoated completion dates. This office will monitor all POA&M items submitted during the 

period of authorization. 

If you have questions, please contact Teresa Fryer, Chieflnfonnation Security Officer (CISO), at 

410-786-2614. The DISPC tearn is also available to support staff level questions at 

CISO@cms.bbs.goY. 

Attachment 

cc: 

Mark Oh, Director OIS/CIISGIDHIM 

Darrin Lyles, ISSO, OIS/CIISG/DSMDS 

Teresa Fryer, CISO, Director OlSIEISG 

Tony Trenkle 

Michael Mellor, Dep. CISO, Dep. Director OlSIEISG 

Desmond Young, OlS/EISGIDISPC 

Jessica Hoffinan, OlS/EISGIDISPC 

James Mensab, OlSIEISGIDISPC 

Contains Sensitive and Proprietary Business Information -

Maintain as Confidential 

CGIHR00002827 
157 


Insert offset folio 57 here 87316.057

CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Attachment 

Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System 

Authorization Decision 

Authorization decision is required for the following reason(s): 

X New System 

Major system modification 

Serious security violation 

Changes in the threat environment 

Expired authorization to operate 

I. Authorization Decision 

I have reviewed the information concerning the request for an Authorization to Operate and with 

consideration of the recommendations provided by my staff; I concur with the assessment of the 

security risk. This risk has been weighed against the business operational requirements and 

security measures that have or will be implemented. I have determined the following 

authorization decision is appropriate. 

I 

Authorization to Operate X The current risk is deemed acceptable. The applicable system is authorized to operate until the 

designated date sub' eet to the authorization actions in Section 11. 

This authorization will expire: August 31. 2014. This authorization may be withdrawn at the discretion 

of the Authorizing Official for lack of progress on the authorization actions in Section II, or any security violations 

deemed to increase the risk to eMS beyond a tolerable level. 

Denial of Authorization to Operate The current risk is deemed unacceptable. The applicable system may not operate until the 

authorization actions listed in Section II are completed, after which. verification of corrective 

actions and resubmission of the authorization aeka e is uired. 

(~z~gnature and Date) 

Tony Trenkle 

CMS Chief Information Officer 

CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Page 1 of5 

Contains Sensitive and Proprietary Business Information --

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CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Attachment 

Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System 

II. Authorization Actions 

Failure to meet the assigned due dates without prior approval invalidates this authorization to 

operate. The following specific actions are to be completed by the date( s) indicated: 

Finding Finding Description Recommended Risk Due 

Corrective Action Date 

FFM has an An excel file with a Implement a method The presence of May3!, 

open high macro which for scanning uploaded high risk, findings 2014 

finding: executes when the documents for in a system 

Macros spreadsheet is opened malicious macros. represent. an 

enabled on was uploaded for increased risk to 

uploaded files review by another Ensure that the theCMS 

allow code to user. The macro only existing or equivalent enterprise. 

execute opened upa compensating controls Lifecycle 

automatically. command prompt remain in place: management of 

window on the local the system 

user's machine; · The file upload requires initial 

however, the threat function is only testing for FISMA 

and risk potential i. available for a authorization and 

limitless. Keeping limited period each continuous 

macros enabled relies year. monitoring. Nonon the local machine 

· The file upload compliance with 

of the user who function is not theCMS 

downloads to detect available to all In/ormation 

and stop malicious users, only plan Security (IS) 

activity. users, 4cceptable Risk 

· Files types able to Safeguards (ARS), be uploaded are CMSMinimum 

whitelisted. Security 

Requirements 

(CMSR) without 

continuous 

monitoring 

presents an 

unacceptable risk. 

(CA-2). 

CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

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CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Attachment 

Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (Fl CM)System 

Finding Finding Description Recommended Risk Due 

Corrective Action Date 

FFM has an Software is being Retest FFM each The presence of February 

open high deployed into quarter and submit a high risk findings 26,2015 

finding; No implementation and new CMS Security in a system 

evidence of production that Certification Form for represents an 

functional contains functional an Authority to increased risk to 

testing errors. Untested Operate (ATO) theCMS 

processes and software may request each quarter. enterprise. 

procedures produce functional Following is the CMS Lifecycle 

being errors that cause Security Certification management of 

adequate to unintentional Denial Form for an ATO the system 

identify of Service and request schedule for requires initial 

functional infonnation errors. re-evaluation: testing for FISMA 

problems January 2014 authorization and 

resulting in April 2014 continuous 

non· July 2014 monitoring. Nonfunctional October 2014 compliance with 

code being January 2015. theCMS 

deployed. Information 

The most recent Security (IS) 

Security Control Acceptable Risk 

Assessment (SCA) Safeguards (ARS), 

should be final and CMSMinimum 

have a Plan of Action Security 

and Milestones Requirements 

approved. (CMSR) without 

continuous 

monitoring 

presents an 

unacceptable risk. 

(CA-2). 

CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HAcllilDLING 

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CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Attachment 

Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System 

Finding Finding Description Recommended Rilik Dne 

Corrective Action Date 

ManyFPM Many FFM controls Update the security There is the February 

controls are documented in the controls in CFACTS. possibility that the 7,2014 

described in security controls Use the Risk FFM security 

CFACTS as section ofCFACTS Management controls are 

''Not have an effectiveness Handbook Volume 11 ineffective. 

Satisfied". of "Not Satisfied". Procedures 4.2 and Ineffective 

Security controls are 5.6. controls do not 

not documented as appropriately 

being fully protect the 

implemented. confidentiality, 

integrity and 

availability of data 

and present a risk 

totheCMS 

enterprise. (Plr2). 

FFM appears FFM information Review the E- TheE- February 

to have contains financial and Authentication level of Authentication 7,2014 

selected an privacy data. FFM for both users level of a system 

inappropriate According to RMH and system determines the 

E- Volume II Procedure administrators. If security controls 

Authenticatio 2.3andRMH Level 3 is the and means when 

nlevel. Volume JII Standard appropriate E- connecting to a 

3.1; Privacy and Authentication level, system over or 

financial data should implement the from an untrosted 

be protected by E- appropriate controls network. Use of 

Authentication Level and complete the e- inappropriate 

3 controls. Authentication controls exposes 

workbook. Ensure the enterprise to 

system administrators additional risk. 

are cleared for (RA-2). 

positions of trust. 

Control PFM indicates many Review the PIPS 199 Unclear control February 

inheritance is of its controls are inheritance selections responsibility can 7,2014 

incorrectly "under the control of in CFACTS and either lead to controls 

documented the Terremark"; select the appropriate not being 

inCFACTS. however, these inheritance or indicate appropriately 

controls are not the controls are solely implemented and a 

described as inherited the responsibility of lack of 

from the Terremark FFM. accountability. 

data center within (AU-I). 

CFACTS. 

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CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

Attachment 

Federally Facilitated Marketplaces (FFM) System 

Finding Finding Description Recommended Risk Due 

Corrective Actiou Date 

Inconsistent The system IdentifY and update Unclear role February 

Points of developer/maintainer the appropriate system responsibility can 7,2014 

Contact on the CMS Security POCs for all of the affect the life 

(POCs). Certification Form is documents and cycle support of 

a different person provide the updated the system. (SAfrom the one POCs in CFACTS. 3). 

currently listed in 

CFACTS. 

END OF ACTIONS 

CMS SENSITIVE INFORMATION - REQUIRES SPECIAL HANDLING 

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HOUSE REPUBLIOAN 

PLAYBOOK 

Because of Obamacare ... I LOST MY INSURANCE 
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Gl]VourStory 

!1j~alki~~.P;'~tS. 
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3 

YourStory 

Obamacare is much more than a bad website; it's a bad law. Americans all across the country are already feeling 

the law's negative effects, such as rising premiums, limited access, and cancelled policies. This is happening to 

hardworking Americans in every corner of America - induding your own district. When you're home, highlight the 

House Republican Conference's "YourStory" project and encourage your constituents to submit feedback of their own 

experiences with Obamacare. 

------------------------ HOUSERl~~~i~M~~~J.EfoI~fJ 
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4 

Talking Points 

Courtesy of the House Ways & Means Committee 

Obamacare is increasing costs and forcing employers to reduce hours, eHminate jobs or cut wages. Families and 

individuals are losing the health insurance they have and like. No wonder a majority of Americans still disapprove of 

the law. 

Premiums are increasing: The administration has abandoned President Obama's promise to reduce 

premiums by $2,500, and now acknowledges premiums will ~ as a result of Obamacare. 

Millions of Americans will lose the plan they have and like: Despite President Obama's promise that 

you can keep the plan you have and like, we now know at least 7 million Americans will lose their employerprovided insurance as a result of Obamacare. 

Obamacare is hurting job creation: While Minority Leader Pelosi promised that Obamacare would be a 

"jobs" bill, 70 percent of small businesses now cite Obamacare as a ~g.!l to job creation. 

Billions of dollars in tax hikes: The size of the individual mandate tax has risen dramatically from the original 

estimate of $17 billion to~. 

Fewer people will get covered: Despite repeated claims that as many as 30 million plus people woutd gain 

insurance through Obamacare, recently the Administration said they hoped that up to 7 million peopte would 

enter the health care exchanges. 

Millions more uninsured: The number of Americans left uninsured by Obamacare has risen by 8 million from 

the original estimate. 

Courtesy of the House Energy & Commerce Committee 

Keep Your Health Plan Act 

Chairman Upton and all GOP E&C members have introduced the Keep Your Health Plan Actto allow health care 

plans available today on the individual market to continue to be offered so Americans have the option to keep what 

they have if they like it. The bill also ensures that Americans maintaining their health care plan would not face a 

penalty under Obamacare. 

NBC News reports that "the Obama administration has know that for at least three years," the 

President's promise would not hold true for millions of Americans. 

CBS News adds, "more than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current insurance 

plans ... and this is just the tip of the iceberg." 

Broken Promises 

The President sold his health care law on two major promises: 1) If you like what you have, you can keep it. Period. 

And 2) Health care costs will go down for all Americans, and "save a typical family an average of $2,500 ... " Each of 

these promises has now been broken. 

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5 

Accountability 

Administration officials and the companies involved 

with building Healthcare.gov looked the committee in 

the eye and repeatedly insisted that everything was 

"on track." last week the contractors who built the 

site explained that they warned the Administration of 

problems and that the final, end-to-end testing was 

the Administration's responsibility. 

On October 30th, Secretary of Health and Human 

Services Kathleen Sebelius testified that the website 

was not operating at its full functionality and confirmed 

the rollout was a debacle. 

Transparency 

What else is the Administration not disclosing? 

What further problems lay ahead for Healthcare.gov? 

The Administration boasts its record on transparency, 

but is refusing to provide enrollment figures. E&C 

Committee members first wrote to Secretary Sebelius 

on October 8 requesting these figures. 

Fairness 

How can the Administration force the American people to buy a product from a system that does not work? The 

Administration has given businesses a break for one year - what defensible reason do they have to not provide the 

same fairness to individual Americans? The bipartisan chorus for a delay is growing. 

Competence 

The Administration now has a serious competence problem. Healthcare.gov is so much more than a website. The 

website should have been the easy part. 
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Social Media 

It's important to execute effective messaging across ali media, and social media is a crucial component. 

You should use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to update your constituents daily with posts 

linking to press releases, photos, video, and graphics that drive our messaging. Below are examples of 

recent tweets and Facebook posts from House Republicans that communicate our position. 

II R~~;,::.1T1 Griffin 

How has #Obamacare impacted you or your 

family? Tell me here: gliffin.house.gov/howhas-obamac .. "m'2 'mrpx Ilarkansas 

;0 littlerock 

Obamacare Costs One Indiana School 

District $6 Million, so they opt to cut school 

workers' hours instead. 

Flashback: "Let me be clear: If you like your 

health care plan, you can keep that too." -

Obama in 2009 !l~'Post.(,olll/2013/lO/29/oba 

experience \vlth healthcare>go',/i' Share your 

• 

! Another story about #Obamacare's impact 

on Americans. How is it impacting you? 

;1 Share YourStory tinyurLcom/llqw5sv 

Obama admin. knew millions could not 

keep their health insurance 

Increased health care costs or losing the coverage you have and like? What has been your 

ObamaCare experience? Take my survey and share vour thoughts. 

i 1,usa"govj 17nJXDb 

6 ------------------------------GOP.gov---------------------------------
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7 

repfinchertn08 

All across Tennessee and tIle rest ofthe country, 

stories are pouring In about insurance companies 

canceling coverage in the wake ot Ooamacare, Have 

you been able to keep your coverage? Have your 

rates gone LIp? dbrokenpromlses dobamacare #aca 
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Videos 

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9 

Digital flyers 

Use these digital flyers in your social media posts to point to all the problems 

with the President's Affordable Care Act 

IIOBAMACARE BROKEN PROMISES Plans Cancelled Premiums RIsing 

OBAMACARE 

is HITTING HOME 
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10 ------------ GOP.gov -------------
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11 

OBAMACARE 

is HITTING HOME 

OBAMACARE 

is HITTING HOME 

OBAMACARE 

is HITTING HOME 
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Sample Op-Ed 

Based on an op-ed by Rep. Cory Gardner (CO-4), published in The GazeNe September 13, 2013 

"If you like your health care plan you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period," That was one of the many 

promises made in 2009 by President Barack Obama to sell the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, 

to a skeptical nation. 

Today, as the federal government works to roll out implementation of the health care law, we see that the president's 

promises of 2009 could not be further from the realities of 2013. 

Last month, my wife, Jaime, and I received notice that our health care plan would be discontinued Dec. 31. To comply 

with the myriad new regulations, requirements and mandates of the president's health care law, my family must find a 

new health care plan. 

When I was elected to Congress, I chose not to enroll in the Federal Employee Health Benefits program that is 

available to Members of Congress and their staffs. Instead, I purchased insurance from the private market because I 

wanted to be enrolled in the same health insurance network that all Coloradans have access to. It's the same type of 

plan that many of my friends and neighbors in Yuma and across Colorado have. 

When I heard my family's plan was going to be discontinued, I felt blindsided. And I am not alone. 

Millions of people are seeing changes to their health care coverage as insurers scramble to come into compliance 

with the health care law's thousands of pages of regulations. And these regulations aren't just forcing changes to 

health care coverage; they're driving premiums up at an alarming rate. 

Recent analysis has shown that average premiums in Colorado for the individual market will increase between 23 and 

25 percent. Moreover, premiums are expected to increase by 17 percent in the small group market. After my current 

plan is discontinued, the closest comparable plan through our current provider will cost over 100 percent more, going 

from roughly $650 a month to $1,480 per month. 

The president, congressional Democrats led by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and their celebrity allies went 

out on television, radio and the Internet to insist that the law would lower premiums for average Americans. But for 

families across Colorado and the United States opening letters from their insurers or employers this week, the shiny 

veneer of the new law has given way to the ugly realities of higher premiums, reduced work hours and forced changes to coverage. 

Choosing a health care plan is a difficult and time-consuming process. 

Families like my own try to find coverage that works for them, taking into consideration access to family doctors, affordability and other factors that best fit their family. Those who have been happy with their current health care plans 

are now being forced to find new plans and must navigate the maze 01 new regulations in doing so. 

As a parent of two children, I want to have the peace of mind that when my children get sick, I am able to take them to 

our local doctor and make sure they get the treatment they need. The letter I received about my plan being dropped 

creates a genuine uncertainty about how my health care is going to be administered. Like millions of other Americans, 

my wife and I are now working to understand what our health care coverage will look like in 2014 and beyond. 

The letter I received last month has only served to renew my resolve to repeal this law. We need to ensure that 

12 ------------- GOP.gov --------------
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people have better access to care with lower costs. The president's health care law expands coverage, but families, 

small businesses, and young people are already seeing the skyrocketing costs. 

I know my family's situation is not unique. Unfortunately, this is happening to too many families and individuals ali 

over the country, and it is for them and for all Americans that House Republicans remain committed to fighting this 

law. But we need your help. 

Have you or someone you know lost your health care coverage as a result of the President's health care law? Share 

your story with House Republicans at our new website, GOP.govNourStory. Stories like yours and mine are more 

reasons for House Republicans to continue focusing on patient-centered reforms, not government-centered health 

care. 

The president has made a promise that he couldn't keep. Share your Obamacare story and help us hold the administration accountable. 

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Fact Sheets 

Fast Facts 

No one, not even the Administration, knows the full extent of the technical problems, 

The Administration spent $267 million for the underlying system and a total of $500 million on the online effort, 

including back-end systems, To put into perspective, Facebook operated for six years before surpassing the 

$500 million mark; Twitter brought in $360,17 million before getting a boost in 2011_ And finally, Instagram 

generated $57,5 million before Facebook acquired it 

To date, HHS has awarded approximately $3,8 billion to establish, plan, and innovate exchanges, 

Both GAO and Office of Inspector General issued reports prior to October 1, 2013 highlighting vulnerabilities, 

particularly for the data hub, 

The Administration knows it needs seven million individuals to enroll in 2014 to be financially sustainable_ 

6200 people completed applications on October 1 , 2013, 

During the first week, about 51 000 people completed an online application, 

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, tJi!y:§jx percent of Americans believe that the website's flaws 

"reflect larger problems with the health care law," 

Courtesy of House Ways & Means Committee 

Republicans are still committed to full repeal. To date, Republicans have secured numerous repeals and cuts 

to the law: 

Although the Democrat-led Senate still refuses to take up legislation to fully repeal Obamacare, House Republicans 

have not stopped looking for ways to defund it, resulting in nearly $55 billion being taken out of Obamacare as efforts 

continue into the 113th Congress and beyond: 

Obamacare Repeal/Cut Provisions That Are Now Law Savings 

Reducing wasteful and fraudulent overpayments of taxpayer-funded subsidies (PL 112-9) $24,9 billion 

Striking the Democrats' overty-generous eligibility criteria for taxpayer-subsidized health cover- $13 billion 

age to more closely align eligibility with other federally-means tested programs (PL 112-56) 

Slashing funding for Harkin "Prevention" Fund (P.L 112-96) $5 billion 

Rebase Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital allotments (P.L 112-96) $4 billion 

Eliminating funding for the "Louisiana Purchase" (P.L 112-96) $2,5 billion 

Cuts to Obamacare Co-Ops (P.L 112-10) $2,2 billion 

Obamacare's so-called "Free-Choice" vouchers (P,L, 112-10) $400 million 

Rescinds funding for the Democrats' rationing board in FY 2012 (P.L. 112-74) $10 million 

Repeal of unsustainable CLASS program (P,l, 112-240) N/A 

Further rescissions in funding for the "Louisiana Purchase" (P.L. 112-141) $670 million 

Eliminate remaining funding for Co-Ops (P,l, 112-240) $2,3 billion 

TOTAL $54.97 billion 

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In addition to the provisions above, President Obama also signed into law the repeal of the onerous 1099 IRS reporting provision in his health care law. This will save American businesses countless hours and dollars in compliance 

costs, freeing up money to hire new workers or retain existing ones during tough economic times. The President also 

signed the Budget Control Act (P.L. 112-25) into law, which will force the White House Office of Management and 

Budget to adopt billions of dollars in across-the-board cuts to Obamacare. 

The House has also voted to cut or repeal a number of Obamacare provisions that the Senate refuses to consider, 

including: 

Reducing wasteful and fraudulent overpayments of taxpayer-funded subsidies even further (H.R. 3630) 

Additional cuts to the Harkin Fund (H.R. 1217 and H.R. 3630) 

Repealing the Democrats' rationing board (H.R. 5) 

Eliminating a new entitlement program that Obama Administration officials agree is unsustainable (H.R. 1173) 

Ensuring that the long standing Hyde amendment is applied consistently, prohibiting the use of taxpayer 

money in the expanded Medicaid program and the new health insurance exchanges (H.R. 3 and H.R. 358) 

Allowing physician-owned hospitals to grow and expand to meet the needs of patients in their area (H.R. 3630) 

Repealing funding for health insurance exchanges (H.R. 1213) 

Repealing funding for SBHC construction (H.R. 1214) 

Converting funding for graduate medical education in qualified teaching health centers to an authorization of 

appropriations (H.R. 1216) 

Delaying the arduous individual and employer mandates from Obamacare (H.R. 2667 & 2668) 

Obamacare Timeline 

Date Provision 

Higher Costs and Taxes - 2013 

January 1, 2013 Limitation on flexible savings account contributions to $2,500 per year (indexed to CPI). 

Employers may adopt retroactive amendments to impose the $2,500 limit before December, 

2014. 

Imposition of a 0.9 percent Medicare Part A wage tax and a 3.8 percent tax on unearned, 

non-active business income for those earning over $200,000 or $250,000 for families (not 

indexed to inflation) 

ImpOSition of a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices 

Increase in the income threshold for claiming tax deductions for medical expenses from 7.5 

percent to 10 percent 

Elimination of the existing deduction for employers who maintain prescription drug plans 

Increase in Medicaid payment rates to primary care physicians for primary care services to 

100 percent of the Medicere payment rate for 2013 and 2014 

July 1, 2013 Mandated Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) nonprofit, member-run health 

insurance companies go into operation. 

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Date Provision 

The Secretary, in conjunction with the NAIC, issues regulations on health care choice 

compacts which allow states to enter into agreements regarding which health plans could be 

offered in the markets in all States, but only be subject to the laws of the State where the plan 

was created. 

October 1, 2013 Cuts to Medicare payments to hospitals for treating low-income seniors 1 

Start of open enrollment in Health Insurance Marketplace 

Cuts to federal Medicaid payments for Disproportionate Share Hospitals from $18.1 billion to 

$14.1 billion (beginning FY 2014) 

November 15, 2013 The Administration indicated it will roll out enrollment data. 

December 15, 20t 3 Deadline for enrollment in order to be covered on January 1, 2014. 

More Government, Higher Costs 

January 1, 2014 Implementation of Health Insurance Marketplace (Exchanges) -17 states plus DC will 

implement their own exchanges, 7 in partnership with federal government, remaining 26 

states will be run by the federal government 

Prohibition on annual limits or coverage restrictions on pre-existing conditions (guaranteed 

issue/renewability). 

Extension of prohibition on excessive waiting periods (90 days) to existing health plans 

Imposition of modified community ratings: family versus individual; geography; 3:1 ratio for 

age and 1.5:1 for smoking 

Imposition of government-defined "essential benefits" and coverage levels on insurance plans 

Limitation on out-of-pocket cost sharing (tied to limits in HSAs). Limits are $6,250 for 

individuals and $12,700 for families (indexed for COLA) 

Implementation of premium subsidies for insurance purchased in the Health Insurance 

Marketplace -- amounts of subsidies are dependent on income and available up to 400 

percent of the federal poverty line 

Requirement that federal government offer at least two multi-state plans in every state 

Higher Taxes 

January 1,2014 Imposition of new health insurance industry tax (increase will be $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 

billion in 2015 and 2016, $13.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 and indexed to 

medical cost growth afterwards 

Imposition of individual mandate. Individuals who fail to obtain acceptable insurance will incur 

a penalty tax of the greater: $695 or 2.5 percent of income. For families without approved 

coverage, penalties are capped at $2,250 until 2016 and then indexed for inflation 

Higher Costs/Lost Coverage/Lost Jobs/Employer Mandates 

January 1,2014 Imposition of the Employer mandate. Employers with 50 full time employees or more who fail 

to offer "affordable" coverage must pay a $3,000 penalty for every low-income employee that 

receives a subsidy through the Exchange, even if coverage is already provided 

Imposition of $2,000 tax penalty on employers who employ more than 50 full time employees 

and don't provide insurance coverage. Penalty assessed for every full time employee. Up to 

30 full time employees are exempt when calculating penalty 

Require employers with more than 200 employees to auto-enroll employees in health 

coverage, with opt-out options 

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Date Provision 

Decreased Access and a Weakened Safety Net 

January 1,2014 Continued cuts to Medicare home health reimbursement 

Cuts to Medicare payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals 

Expansion of Medicaid coverage to 22 million childless adults up to 138 percent of the federal 

poverty line - diminishing resources for vulnerable populations. States will receive 100 

percent of the FMAP 2014-2016, 95 percent in 2017, 94 percent in 2018, and 90 percent after 

January 15, 2014 Submission of IPAB recommendations. The IPAB annual report on system-wide healthcare 

costs is submitted on July 1. IPAB submits recommendations to slow the growth of health 

care expenditures January 1, 2015. 

Further Costs aHer 2014 

January 1, 2015 Implementation of payments tied to quality of care 

Continued cuts to Medicare reimbursements for home health care 

January 1,2016 Healthcare Choice Compacts go into effect. 

January 1, 2017 States may allow businesses with more than 100 employees to purchase insurance in the 

exchange 

January 1,2018 Imposition of the "40 percent" excise tax on "high value;' or "Cadillac plans" 

1 http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2013/5114/cms.o{)utUnes·cuts·to·hospitals-thaHreat-lowlncome-patients. 

aspx 

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GAO 

Report to Congressional Committees 

October 2011 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Critical Factors Underlying Successful Major Acquisitions 

http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/585842.pdf