[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PPACA IMPLEMENTATION FAILURES: DIDN'T KNOW OR DIDN'T DISCLOSE?
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 24, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-87
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
JOE BARTON, Texas Ranking Member
Chairman Emeritus JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky Chairman Emeritus
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon ANNA G. ESHOO, California
LEE TERRY, Nebraska ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan GENE GREEN, Texas
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas LOIS CAPPS, California
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
Vice Chairman JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia JIM MATHESON, Utah
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio JOHN BARROW, Georgia
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington DORIS O. MATSUI, California
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey Islands
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana KATHY CASTOR, Florida
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETE OLSON, Texas JERRY McNERNEY, California
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
CORY GARDNER, Colorado PETER WELCH, Vermont
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois PAUL TONKO, New York
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
BILL JOHNSON, Missouri
BILLY LONG, Missouri
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee, opening statement.......................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 4
Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 6
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 7
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 9
Hon. Diana Degette, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Colorado, opening statement................................. 10
Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Michigan, opening statement................................. 11
Witnesses
Cheryl Campbell, Senior Vice President, CGI Federal.............. 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Answers to submitted questions............................... 116
Andrew Slavitt, Group Executive Vice President, Optum/QSSI....... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Answers to submitted questions............................... 132
Lynn Spellecy, Corporate Counsel, Equifax Workforce Solutions.... 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Answers to submitted questions............................... 140
John Lau, Program Director, Serco................................ 38
Prepared statement........................................... 40
Answers to submitted questions............................... 143
Submitted Material
Article entitled, ``Obamacare Website Source Code: `No Reasonable
Expectation of Privacy,''' The Weekly Standard, October 14,
2013........................................................... 114
PPACA IMPLEMENTATION FAILURES: DIDN'T KNOW OR DIDN'T DISCLOSE?
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in room
2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Fred Upton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Upton, Hall, Barton, Shimkus,
Pitts, Walden, Terry, Rogers, Murphy, Burgess, Blackburn,
Gingrey, Scalise, Latta, Lance, Cassidy, Guthrie, Olson,
McKinley, Gardner, Kinzinger, Griffith, Johnson, Ellmers,
Waxman, Dingell, Pallone, Eshoo, Engel, Green, DeGette,
Schakowsky, Butterfield, Barrow, Matsui, Sarbanes, McNerney,
Welch, Tonko and Yarmuth.
Staff Present: Clay Alspach, Chief Counsel, Health; Gary
Andres, Staff Director; Ray Baum, Senior Policy Advisor/
Director of Coalitions; David Bell, Staff Assistant; Mike
Bloomquist, General Counsel; Sean Bonyun, Communications
Director; Megan Capiak, Staff Assistant; Karen Christian, Chief
Counsel, Oversight; Noelle Clemente, Press Secretary; Paul
Edattel, Professional Staff Member, Health; Julie Goon, Health
Policy Advisor; Brad Grantz, Policy Coordinator, O&I; Sydne
Harwick, Legislative Clerk; Brittany Havens, Legislative Clerk;
Sean Hayes, Counsel, O&I; Robert Horne, Professional Staff
Member, Health; Kirby Howard, Legislative Clerk; Alexa Marrero,
Deputy Staff Director; Nick Magallanes, Policy Coordinator,
CMT; Carly McWilliams, Professional Staff Member, Health;
Brandon Mooney, Professional Staff Member; Gib Mullan, Chief
Counsel, CMT; Katie Novaria, Professional Staff Member, Health;
Monica Popp, Professional Staff Member, Health; Andrew
Powaleny, Deputy Press Secretary; David Redl, Chief Counsel,
Telecom; Chris Sarley, Policy Coordinator, Environment and
Economy; Charlotte Savercool, Legislative Coordinator; Heidi
Stirrup, Health Policy Coordinator; Tom Wilbur, Digital Media
Advisor; Ziky Ababiya, Minority Staff Assistant; Phil Barnett,
Minority Staff Director; Stacia Cardille, Minority Deputy Chief
Counsel; Brian Cohen, Minority Staff Director, Oversight and
Investigations, Senior Policy Advisor; Hannah Green, Minority
Staff Assistant; Elizabeth Letter, Minority Assistant Press
Secretary; Karen Lightfoot, Minority Communications Director
and Senior Policy Advisor; Karen Nelson, Minority Deputy
Committee Staff Director for Health; Stephen Salsbury, Minority
Special Assistant; and Matt Siegler, Minority Counsel.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Good morning. First off I would like to note to
our Florida colleagues who are unable to be with us this
morning, sadly they are attending the funeral of our late
colleague, former Appropriations chair Bill Young, who was
certainly a friend to all here and a mentor to so many of us on
both sides of the aisle. He is going to be deeply missed and
particularly in his legacy his establishment of the bone marrow
registry, something that literally will save tens of thousands,
if not more, lives. And we appreciate that work.
Today the Energy and Commerce Committee continues our
ongoing oversight of the healthcare law as we examine the many
problems, crashes, glitches, system failures that have defined
open enrollment.
Over the past several months leading up to the October 1st
launch, top administration officials and lead contractors
appeared before this committee, looked us in the eye, and
assured us repeatedly that everything was on track, except that
it wasn't, as we now know too well. So why did they assure us
that the Web site would work? Did they not know, or did they
not disclose? That is what we are looking to find out with the
contractors today and with Secretary Sebelius next week.
Companies that are here today all testified before the
Health Subcommittee on September 10 about their work building
the Federal exchanges and healthcare.gov. And in that hearing
and in briefings with committee staff, these companies
represented that the exchanges would be ready for open
enrollment on October 1st. They also explained that their
testing of the system had not identified any significant
problems.
This is not about blame; it is about accountability,
transparency and fairness to the American public. The broken
promises are many. The President promised Americans that they
could keep their health plans if they liked them no matter
what, yet here we are 24 days into open enrollment and more
people are receiving cancellation notices in just 2 States than
the 476,000 Americans that the administration boasts have begun
applying in the entire country. This is a troubling fact, but
we still don't know the real picture as the administration
appears allergic to transparency and continues to withhold
enrollment figures.
This is more than a Web site problem, and, frankly, the Web
site should have been the easy part. I'm also concerned about
what happens next. Will enrollment glitches become provider
payment glitches? Will patients show up at their doctor's
office or hospital to be told that maybe they aren't covered or
even in the system?
In a few months families in Michigan and across the country
are going to face penalties under the law's individual mandate.
How can the administration punish innocent Americans by forcing
them to buy from a system that does not work and whose rollout
has been nothing short of a disaster?
The American public deserves answers. Today we're going to
get them from the lead contractors. Next week will be Secretary
Sebelius' turn.
And I now yield 2 minutes to the vice chair of the
committee Mrs. Blackburn.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Today the Energy and Commerce Committee continues our
ongoing oversight of the health care law as we examine the many
problems--crashes, glitches, systems failures--that have
defined open enrollment. Over the months leading up to the
October 1 launch, top administration officials and lead
contractors appeared before this committee, looked us in the
eye, and assured us repeatedly that everything was ``on
track.''
Except that it wasn't, as we now know all too well.
So why did they assure us the Web site would work? Did they
not know? Or did they not disclose? That's what we are looking
to find out, with the contractors today, and with Secretary
Sebelius next week.
The companies that are here today all testified before the
Health Subcommittee on September 10 about their work building
the federal exchanges and healthcare.gov. In that hearing, and
in briefings with committee staff, these companies represented
that the exchanges would be ready for open enrollment on
October 1. They also explained that their testing of the system
had not identified any significant problems.
This is not about blame--this is about accountability,
transparency, and fairness for the American public. The broken
promises are many. The president promised Americans could keep
their health plans if they liked them, ``No matter what.'' Yet
here we are, 24 days into open enrollment, and more people are
receiving cancellation notices in just two states than the
476,000 Americans that the administration boasts have begun
applying in the entire country. This is a troubling fact--but
we still don't know the real picture as the administration
appears allergic to transparency and continues to withhold
enrollment figures.
This is more than a Web site problem--and frankly, the Web
site should have been the easy part. I'm also concerned about
what happens next. Will enrollment glitches become provider
payment glitches? Will patients show up at their doctor's
office or hospital only to be told they, or their coverage,
aren't in the system?
In a few short months, families in Michigan and across the
country will face penalties under the law's individual mandate.
How can the administration punish innocent Americans by forcing
them to buy from a system that does not work and whose rollout
has been nothing short of a disaster?
The American public deserves answers. Today we will get
them from the lead contractors. Next week will be Secretary
Sebelius' turn.
# # #
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. We are
looking forward to getting your perspective of what went wrong
and how it went wrong with this rollout. We were repeatedly
told by members of the administration that everything would be
working properly, and it would all be done on time, but these
false administration assurances seem to sway some people on the
other side of the aisle, and they believed fully that things
were going to be done on time.
Well, yesterday Mr. Waxman and I were agreeing on some
things in a hearing, but last month we were disagreeing. And he
had said that nothing could be found from our committee's
investigation of exchange implementation and readiness, but we
were quite concerned. That definition of ``nothing'' has turned
out to be design choices in the exchanges that hide
unaffordable premiums, massive glitches, dead ends, error
messages, system breakdowns, and Americans spending countless
hours trying to navigate exchanges not ready for prime time.
So I hope all of our colleagues are going to work together
and join the efforts to do proper oversight of the healthcare
law. This is taxpayer money on the line. We need to be
judicious, and the past 3 weeks of exchange messiness have
demonstrated that nobody can be a blind cheerleader for the
Affordable Care Act when they see all these problems right
before their very eyes.
At this time I yield--is the gentleman from Texas Mr.
Barton? I will yield back to the chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Blackburn follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Marsha Blackburn
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us. I look forward
to hearing your perspectives on just what has gone wrong so far
with this roll out.
We were repeatedly told by members of the administration
that everything would be working correctly and on time.
These false administration assurances seemed to sway some
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
At last months' hearing, Mr. Waxman declared ``nothing''
could be found from our committee's investigation of exchange
implementation and readiness.
Apparently Mr. Waxman's definition of ``nothing'' includes
millions of Americans losing their coverage, design choices in
the exchanges that hide unaffordable premiums, massive glitches
and system breakdowns, and Americans spending countless hours
trying to navigate exchanges not ready for primetime.
I hope Mr. Waxman decides to join our efforts to do proper
oversight of the health care law.
These past three weeks of exchange messiness demonstrate
that no member of this body should be a blind cheerleader for
the Affordable Care Act and ignore the problems before their
very eyes.
# # #
Mr. Upton. The gentlelady yields back.
The chair would recognize for an opening statement my
colleague, the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Waxman
from California.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Affordable Care Act is an enormous success with one
obvious exception: It has a poorly designed Web site.
The law has already accomplished a lot. Millions of
Americans, especially seniors, have saved hundreds of dollars
on prescription drugs. Young people have gotten health
insurance coverage. Millions of families have received rebates
from their insurance companies that use more than 20 percent
for their overhead costs. Preventive care is now a free benefit
in Medicare and private insurance. Every day we hear more
stories of people saving thousands of dollars and finally
getting the security of quality health insurance.
What hasn't happened, and what has not been successful, is
the early performance of the Web site, and that has caused
understandable frustration and anxiety as Americans have tried
to sign up for the coverage. The heart of the law is getting
insurance coverage, private insurance coverage, that others
have who work for large employers like the Federal Government.
Democrats want healthcare.gov to work, and we want to know
what is wrong with the Web site and how we can help fix it. We
want to learn what the contractors can tell us about the
problems and how they can be addressed. That is what all my
colleagues should want, including my Republican colleagues, but
that has not been their agenda so far. We have already
documented a record of Republicans attempting to sabotage the
Affordable Care Act, which they know would result in denying
coverage to millions of uninsured Americans who cannot find
insurance under the market system that excludes them if they
have preexisting medical conditions or if they can't afford
their coverage.
From voting more than 40 times to repeal the law, from
intimidating organizations that have tried to help the law
succeed, Republicans have encouraged their Governors to
obstruct implementation, deny Medicaid coverage even though 100
percent is being paid for by the Federal Government, and even
by shutting down the government in order to try to repeal this
law. Republicans have not shown us that they are trying to make
this law work so far.
Well, we all want answers because we want families to have
affordable health insurance. We have already seen extraordinary
demand for this coverage being offered through the exchanges.
One of the reasons that we were given that the Web site didn't
work is that it crashed when so many people were trying to
access it. We know that people want to shop and have a choice
between different health insurance plans that are being offered
to them and have already been lined up to offer them private
health insurance.
We are encouraging our constituents to use other means of
signing up in the meantime, like call centers and written
applications, while the Web site problems are being fixed.
We're pressing the administration to be redouble their efforts
to fix the Web site, and we welcomed yesterday's announcement
giving Americans more time to sign up for the insurance.
Everyone has a responsibility for get health insurance. We
expect people to observe that responsibility. But I cannot see
that anyone is going to be penalized under the law if they have
not been able to buy health insurance during this time where
they have not had access to the exchanges.
We need to start listening to our people who sent us to
Congress. They don't want the government shut down. They don't
want Congress to drive the country to the brink of default.
They want this law to work. But they do want us to make sure
that we hold everybody accountable and insist that the law and
the promise of affordable health care become a reality for all
Americans, and that means we've got to get this Web site fixed.
And that's why I'm pleased we're going to hear from the four
contractors today and next week from the Secretary.
If we want this law to work, we've got to make it right,
we've got to fix it; not what the Republicans have been trying
to do, nix it and repeal it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back my time.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman yields back.
The chair would recognize for an opening statement the
chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee Mr. Murphy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As chairman of the Oversight and Investigations
Subcommittee, I have heard numerous promises from the
administration officials that all was well with the healthcare
law. Not true. Either these officials were shockingly unaware
of what was happening inside their own agencies, or
deliberately misleading our committee and the public hoping
this would all suddenly turn around.
Two weeks before enrollment began, HHS's insurance czar
told us that consumers could go online, shop, and enroll by
October 1st. Not true.
We were promised a Web site where people could easily
compare plans and costs. Five hundred million dollars later, we
find the American public has been dumped with the ultimate cash
for clunkers, except they had to pay the cash and still got the
clunker.
Secretary Sebelius has admitted HHS didn't do enough
testing, but was her agency warned ahead of time that this was
an issue? Were the contractors able to work with each other and
complete end-to-end testing?
In testimony today, QSSI states that the late decision
requiring consumers to register for an account before they
could browse for insurance products was a major contributor to
the Web site's October 1st crash and burn. Who made this major
decision just before launch? And were they trying to hide from
the public the true cost?
Now the President is committing untold amounts of money for
an undisclosed plan spearheaded by an individual without
technology experience to fix this huge problem, but if 55
different contractors couldn't successfully build, test and run
a Web site, how do we expect anyone else to be able to do this?
Given all these questions, Congress should press pause on
the tech surge and figure out what went wrong first before
throwing good money after bad and forcing the public to use a
broken site.
In addition to explaining why this disaster happened, we
want an explanation on how this system will be fixed, what it
will cost, and how long it will take. After footing the bill,
the American people deserve something that works or start over.
Take responsibility. Tell us what's wrong. Fix it, or try
something else.
I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Murphy follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Tim Murphy
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
As Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations
Subcommittee, I've heard numerous promises from administration
officials that `all was well' with the healthcare law.
That wasn't the case. Either these officials were
shockingly unaware of what was happening inside their own
agencies or deliberately misleading our committee--hoping this
`train wreck' would turn around.
Two weeks before enrollment began, HHS's insurance czar
told us that consumers could go online, shop, and enroll on
October 1st. He didn't equivocate. He didn't hesitate.
So what happened between the Administration's bravado and
the launch of a clumsy system riddled with crashes, glitches,
and errors?
Did breakdowns occur with contractors or were they told to
do it this way?
Secretary Sebelius has admitted HHS didn't do enough
testing, but was her agency warned ahead of time that this was
an issue?
Were the contractors able to work with each other and
complete end-to-end testing?
In testimony today, QSSI states that the ``late decision
requiring consumers to register for an account before they
could browse for insurance products'' was a major contributor
to the Web site's October 1st crash and burn.
Who made this major decision just before launch? And were
they trying to hide from the public the data that would show
the healthcare law was causing massive premium hikes?
Was this site doomed to failure because contractors were
told to build a flawed system by an agency that put politics
before people's healthcare.
Now, the President is committing untold amounts of money
for a secret plan spearheaded by individual without technology
experience to fix a technical problem.
But if 55 different contractors couldn't successfully
build, test, and run a web site in three years at a total cost
of over $500 million, why should we believe the Administration
is capable of fixing it in two weeks?
You were supposed to design a web site that was supposed to
compare costs and insurance plans. What the public got instead
was a half-a-billion dollar clunker. We want to know--who
messed up?Given all these questions, Congress should press
`pause' on the ``tech surge'' and figure out what went wrong
first, before throwing good money after bad, and forcing the
public to use a broken site to buy a product they don't want--
or pay a new tax.
In addition to explaining why this disaster happened, I
want an explanation on how this system will be fixed, what it
will cost, and how long it will take.I yield back.
Mr. Upton. I yield to Mr. Pitts.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
HHS officials repeatedly assured this committee that the
administration would be ready for October 1, 2013. This past
July, the Secretary stated that HHS would, quote, ``flip on the
switch on October 1st and say to people, come on and sign up,''
end quote.
On August 1st, Administrator Tavenner told us in this very
room that CMS would finish all end-to-end testing by the end of
August. On September 10th, the Health Subcommittee held a
hearing in which representatives for CGI Federal, QSSI,
Equifax, and Serco, all of whom are here today, testified. Each
contractor assured us that its components of the exchange would
be ready on time, and yet, when the exchanges opened for
business on October 1st, it was nothing less than an
unmitigated disaster.
We're now hearing reports that the administration was
repeatedly warned that the site was not ready for an October
1st launch. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that, quote,
``as late as September 26, there had been no test to determine
whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to
end,'' end quote. Secretary Sebelius said just this week that
almost no testing occurred.
These past few weeks of exchange dysfunction, along with
stories of hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their
existing health plans, help underscore why Washington should
not be running our private health insurance system.
The botched rollout is all the more reason that the
individual mandate penalty should be delayed. Average Americans
deserve a waiver from Obamacare, too. It is only fair when the
exchanges are such a mess.
The companies represented here today were in charge of
building the Federal exchange, but CMS was responsible for
ensuring that everything worked together properly. So the
question we have to ask ourselves is, in light of all the
administration's assurances, is this--are they simply
incompetent, or were they just lying to the American people?
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pitts follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Joseph R. Pitts
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
HHS officials repeatedly assured this Committee that the
Administration would be ready for October 1, 2013. This past
July, the Secretary stated that HHS would ``flip on the switch
on October 1 and say to people, `Come on and sign up.'''
On August 1, Administrator Tavenner told us in this very
room that CMS would finish ``all end to end testing'' by the
end of August.
On September 10, the Health Subcommittee held a hearing at
which representatives for CGI Federal, QSSI, Equifax, and
Serco--all of whom are here today--testified. Each contractor
assured us that its components of the Exchange would be ready
on time.
And, yet, when the Exchanges opened for business on October
1, it was nothing less than an unmitigated disaster.
We are now hearing reports that the Administration was
repeatedly warned that the site was not ready for an October 1
launch.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that ``as late as
Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a
consumer could complete the process from beginning to end.''
Secretary Sebelius said just this week that ``almost no testing
occurred.''
These past few weeks of Exchange dysfunction, along with
stories of hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their
existing health plans, help underscore why Washington should
not be running our private health insurance system.
The botched rollout is all the more reason that the
individual mandate penalty should be delayed. Average Americans
deserve a waiver from Obamacare, too--it's only fair when the
exchanges are such a mess.
The companies represented here today were in charge of
building the federal Exchange, but CMS was responsible for
ensuring that everything worked together properly.
So, the question we have to ask ourselves, in light of all
of the Administration's assurances, is this: are they simply
incompetent or were they just lying to the American people?
I yield back.
Mr. Upton. I yield to Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. Thank you.
I have slide 1 I would like to put up.
Like all of Obamacare, what it appears on the surface is
not what it is. This is the terms and conditions that you
accept at some point early in the process, and that looks
pretty plain Jane.
Now put up slide number 2.
What you don't see is this slide, which says, you have no
reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication
or data transiting or stored on this information system. At any
time and for any lawful government purpose, the government may
monitor, intercept, search and seize any communication or data
transiting or stored on this information system. Any
communication or data transiting or stored on this information
system may be disclosed or used for any lawful government
purpose.
That is Obamacare in a nutshell; says one thing on the
surface, does something totally different behind the scenes.
In my questions, I'm going to ask the contractors about
this total lack of privacy and what they knew about it.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman yields back.
The chair would recognize the ranking member of the Health
Subcommittee Mr. Pallone from New Jersey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE JR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just heard my chairman of the subcommittee, the Health
Subcommittee, say once again he wants to delay the Affordable
Care Act. And I have great respect for the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, but, you know, here we go again, another cynical
effort by the Republicans to delay, defund or ultimately repeal
the Affordable Care Act.
I'd like to think that somehow this hearing is above board
and legitimate, but it is not. You know, the Republicans don't
have clean hands coming here. Their effort, obviously, isn't to
make this better, but to use the Web site and the glitches as
an excuse to defund or repeal Obamacare.
And I just think it is very unfortunate, because there are
millions of people out there who have been trying to go on this
Web site, I understand like 20 million, and they deserve an
opportunity once this is fixed--and I know the administration
is trying very hard to fix it, as are all of our witnesses here
today--they deserve an opportunity to have health care and not
be among those 30 or 40 million who are uninsured or, even more
so, that don't have a good benefit package.
I would just ask my Republicans, let the goal here be to
fix it, not nix it. And if that were your goal, I would feel
very good about this hearing. But I don't see that happening.
One of the things I wanted to bring attention to is how
Democrats take a much different approach to things. When
Medicare Part D started up--and I have this chart here--there
were all kinds of problems with the Web site. It went on for
months. These are some of the headlines that appeared in the
newspapers about the problems. But did the Democrats get up and
say, oh, Medicare Part D is terrible, let's repeal it or defund
it? No. We said, let's work hard to make it better. And that's
what we did, and the glitches disappeared, and the program
became a good program.
And that is what I would like to see my Republican
colleagues do today. But it's not the case. Time and time
again, the GOP has tried to slow the progress of implementing
the ACA. They were willing to shut down the government for 3
weeks. Did we forget what was happening the last 3 weeks when
they tried to shut down--well, they did shut down the
government 3 weeks, and the reason was because they wanted us
to defund, or make changes to, or delay the Affordable Care
Act.
I hear my Republican colleagues talking about that they
care about money, whether it's Federal dollars or individuals'
dollars. The information has come out now saying that the
government or the gross national product lost $24 billion
during the 3-week shutdown, half percent of the gross national
product for the last quarter. You're talking about money? You
don't care. What about all the money you lost in the 3 weeks?
That didn't matter just because you wanted to delay the
Affordable Care Act?
Again, there's no clean hands here, my colleagues. Do you
really care? I don't think so.
I just wish that you would stop this obstruction, work with
us on trying to make this a better system, and as my
colleague--as Mr. Waxman said, this can be fixed if you'll work
with us.
I yield now to the gentlewoman from Colorado Ms. DeGette.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, very much, Mr. Pallone.
As we've heard, we're here today to find out what the
problem is with the healthcare.gov Web site and how we can fix
these multiple technical problems.
Last month, as the chairman noted, we heard from CGI, QSSI,
Serco and Equifax, the same four contractors who are here
today. They told us that the Web site would work. We even asked
them point blank; Mr. Pallone asked them, and I asked them.
They told us that HHS was doing an excellent job of testing the
product. They said there was nothing wrong, and they expressed
nothing but optimism. And so 3 weeks later, here we are. We're
still hearing reports of significant problems.
Now, I appreciate all of the contractors coming today. I
give them the benefit of the doubt when they say things are
approving. But I want to stress for the Affordable Care Act to
work, these problems need to be fixed, and these problems need
to be fixed fast.
We need to hear today exactly what they're doing to fix
these issues, and we need to hear--we need to see clear
examples of improvement and be provided with a timeline for how
it will be fully optional.
Mr. Chairman, this is not our first experience with
introductions of new healthcare programs, as Mr. Pallone said.
I was on this committee in 2006 when Medicare Part D was
implemented during the Bush administration. Let's not forget
what a mess it was and the significant problems seniors had
with registering for the new benefit. But I also want to remind
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that the difficulties
passed and were soon forgotten amid the success of Part D.
And so I really take the gestures on the other side of the
aisle seriously. And I hope that we can say that we worked
together to ensure the success of healthcare.gov.
Now, there's something else I remember from the
introduction of the Part D benefit, Mr. Chairman. Every single
one of us, whether or not we voted yea or nay for the law,
worked together for our success. I found the newsletter that I
sent out to my constituents after Medicare Part D in which I
said I opposed the law that created this program, but people
need to be armed with the information requested. And I would
urge everybody on both sides of the aisle to do that.
So my hope, Mr. Chairman, is that today marks the beginning
of an effort on the majority's part to make sure that the
healthcare law works and is successful and Americans can enjoy
the benefits.
I really think that it is important to make that happen.
And I'm so happy, I'm so happy and touched really today to hear
the majority expressing these concerns about making the ACA
work better. And I really hope that they're legitimate in it,
because this is what's going to give insurance to millions of
Americans who have gone without health care for many, many
years because they couldn't afford the programs.
And with that I yield to the chairman emeritus of the full
committee Mr. Dingell.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Dingell. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
This is a wonderful opportunity for us to make the
Affordable Care Act work. I remind my colleagues that the last
perfect law came off the top of Mt. Sinai with Moses, written
on a stone tablet by the hand of God. Nothing so good has
happened since.
I urge us to use our best efforts then to see to it that
this new law goes into effect and works, and that we carry out
our responsibility to the American people to see to it that we
do everything we can to support and defend the Constitution and
the laws of the United States.
I've heard some unfortunate things on the other side. They
said, we have to do everything in our power to prevent
Obamacare. Obamacare, get rid of it, period. All of a sudden
now our friends on the other side have forgotten that. Well, I
hope they will continue to forget it, because we have a chance
to see to it that the American people get health care as a
matter of right, not as a matter of financial privilege.
I am very frustrated, at least as frustrated as anybody
else in this room, about the problem facing healthcare.gov.
This is unacceptable. It needs to be fixed. And we can, if we
are willing to work together, do something to see to it that
it, in fact, is fixed, and that it helps all of the American
people.
Now, slow Web site is better than the alternative, and
where health care is a privilege only for the few, it doesn't
seem to matter. But if it's for everybody, we have to address
that question and see to it that we take care of all of our
people.
I look forward to exploring how the Web site can be fixed
in this hearing today. I look forward to working with my
Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues to see that
we do a constructive job of making this new law work.
I remind all that when we were dealing with Medicare Part
D, which was not something that was originated on this side the
aisle, we worked together to see to it that, in fact, it
worked, and now it is an accepted and acceptable conclusion to
a significant problem, which, by the way, is improved by the
Affordable Care Act.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy, I thank the
gentlelady for yielding to me, and I hope we can work
constructively on this matter today. It is a great opportunity.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman from the great State of Michigan's
time is expired.
At this point I'd like to introduce the witnesses for
today's hearing.
Our first witness is Cheryl Campbell. She is the senior
V.P. For CGI's Federal health and compliance programs and
defense agency programs. She was appointed to this position in
2009, and in this capacity she is the driver of strategy and
execution for the practice to serve the needs of providers,
government and public.
Our second witness is Andrew Slavitt. He is the group
executive V.P. For Optum/QSSI, and in this capacity he is
responsible for business strategy, public policy, corporate
investment, research and development, acquisitions and
corporate governance. Prior to this role, he has served in
other roles at UnitedHealth Group and was founder and CEO of
HealthAllies, which was acquired by UnitedHealth Group in 2003.
Our third witness is Lynn Spellecy. She serves as the
corporate counsel for Equifax Workforce Solutions. In this role
her responsibilities include advising the business on matters
related to contracts, products, regulatory issues and client
relationships. She also works with sales leaders and internal
contracts staff and the broader legal department to manage
workforce solutions, related issues related to litigation,
human resources, government affairs and regulatory matters.
Our last witness is John Lau. He is the program director at
Serco. He is responsible for overseeing eligibility and
enrollment support services, specializing in the implementation
and management of large-scale Health and Human Services
programs in the U.S., including Medicaid, CHIP and TANF. His
experience includes initial implementation and start-up; risk
identification and issue resolution using a commercial
governance system; security and privacy; and the design,
implementation and management of multimillion transaction
healthcare documents and transaction processing systems,
including California's SCHIP and Texas' eligibility system for
Medicaid, CHIP and TANF.
So at this point I will now swear in the witnesses. You are
aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing
and, when doing so, has had the practice of taking testimony
under oath. Do any of you have objection to testifying under
oath?
Seeing none, the Chair then advises you that under the
rules of the House and the rules of the committee, you are
entitled to be advised by counsel. Do you desire to be advised
by counsel during your testimony today?
Seeing none, in that case, if you would please rise and
raise your right hand, I will swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Upton. You are now under oath and subject to the
penalties set forth in Title 18, section 1001 of the U.S. Code.
You are now able to give a 5-minute summary of your written
statement, and, Ms. Campbell, we will start with you. Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF CHERYL CAMPBELL, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CGI
FEDERAL; ANDREW SLAVITT, GROUP EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, OPTUM/
QSSI; LYNN SPELLECY, CORPORATE COUNSEL, EQUIFAX WORKFORCE
SOLUTIONS; AND JOHN LAU, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, SERCO
TESTIMONY OF CHERYL CAMPBELL
Ms. Campbell. Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman,
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear today. My name is Cheryl Campbell, and I'm a senior vice
president at CGI Federal. I have responsibility for all of CGI
Federal's projects at the Department of Health and Human
Services and several other Federal agencies. I'm here today to
reinforce CGI Federal's ongoing commitment to the success of
the Federal exchange on healthcare.gov.
Let me state unequivocally that CGI Federal is fully
committed to its partnership with CMS. Our priority is for
Americans to have a positive experience in applying, shopping
and enrolling on the Federal exchange. To this end we dedicate
the very best experts to optimize our portion of the Federal
exchange.
For a context let me first describe our role in the Federal
exchange. The exchange is comprised of 6 complex systems that
involves 55 contractors, including CGI Federal, 5 government
agencies, 36 States, and more than 300 insurers, with more than
4,500 insurance plans all coming together in healthcare.gov.
CMS competitively awarded CGI Federal its portion of the
Federal exchange, a software application called the Federally
Facilitated Marketplace, or FFM. Specifically the FFM provides
functionality for eligibility and enrollment, plan management
and financial management. CMS serves as the systems integrator,
having ultimate responsibility for end-to-end performance of
the Federal exchange.
It also is important to understand the complexity of CGI
Federal's work on the exchange. The FFM is a sophisticated
software application that combines a Web portal, a transaction
processor, and sophisticated business analytics to
simultaneously help Americans determine their eligibility for
insurance, apply for subsidies, shop for health plans, and
enroll in qualified plans. The technology works in real time
with sophisticated analytic systems developed by other
contractors, large-scale data repositories hosted in disparate
Federal agency databases, and health plans for more than 300
insurers.
In short, the Federal exchange, including the FFM, is not a
standard consumer Web site, but rather a sophisticated,
integrated technology platform that, for the first time in
history, combines the processes of selecting and enrolling in
insurance and determining eligibility for government subsidies
all in one place and in real time.
Since award on September 30, 2011, CGI Federal has worked
diligently to develop the FFM by following a rigorous process
that is customary for large IT projects. The FFM passed eight
required technical reviews before going live on October 1.
While CGI Federal delivered the FFM functionality required,
and some consumers were able to enroll on October 1, we
acknowledge that issues arising in the Federal exchange made
the enrollment process difficult for too many Americans.
Consequently, CGI Federal's focus shifted immediately to
solving consumer access and navigation processes on the
exchange.
The first set of issues on the exchange concerned another
contractor's enterprise identity management, or EIDM, function.
The EIDM allows consumers to create secure accounts and serves
as the front door to the Federal exchange. Consumers must pass
through this front door in order to enter the FFM application.
Unfortunately, the EIDM created a bottleneck, preventing the
vast majority of consumers from accessing the FFM. Since then
CMS, CGI Federal and other contractors have worked closely
together to troubleshoot and solve this front door problem.
As more consumers are gaining access to the FFM and
enrolling in qualified plans, the increased number of
transactions caused performance problems, such as slow response
times and data assurance issues. CGI Federal is addressing
these problems through tuning, optimization and application
improvements.
Over the past 2 weeks, the Federal exchange has steadily
improved. We have continued to dedicate the resources necessary
to shorten wait and transaction times and improve data quality.
We have confidence in our ability to deliver successfully. Why?
Because the company that I represent here today has
successfully delivered some of the most complex IT
implementations for the U.S. Government, including
FederalReporting.gov. We have partnered with CMS on
transformative projects likes Medicare.gov, which has enabled
more than 50 million beneficiaries to compare health and drug
plans annually. We are widely recognized by independent parties
for our expertise in IT systems and software, and have CMI
Level 5 credentials that demonstrate our commitment to rigorous
software-development processes. And as part of the fifth
largest independent IT and business process services company in
the world, we leverage deep resources and expertise of a global
workforce.
I will end this testimony where I began by reinforcing CGI
Federal's unwavering commitment to working collaboratively with
CMS to improve the consumer experience.
Thank you.
Mr. Upton. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Campbell follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Mr. Slavitt.
TESTIMONY OF ANDREW SLAVITT
Mr. Slavitt. Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman and
members of the committee, good morning. My name is Andy
Slavitt, and I'm group executive vice president at Optum,
business unit of UnitedHealth Group. Optum owns QSSI, one of
the contractors working on the online healthcare marketplaces.
Let me begin by saying that we understand the frustration
many people have felt since healthcare.gov was launched. We
have been and remain accountable for the performance of our
tools and our work product.
I will start by discussing our work on the data services
hub, a large and complex project that was the subject of much
interest in QSSI's work for the marketplace prior to the
launch. Simply put, the data services hub is a pipeline. It
transfers data, routing queries and responses between a given
marketplace and various trusted data sources.
Specifically, a consumer interested in purchasing health
insurance goes to the marketplace's Web portal to fill out
enrollment forms and select a plan. The consumer provides the
marketplace with information, such as citizenship, which must
be verified. The data services hub directs queries from the
marketplace to various sources, such as government databases,
that can verify that information and send the information back
to the marketplace. As a technology pipeline, the data services
hub does not determine the accuracy of the information it
transports, nor does it store any data.
The data services hub has performed well since the
marketplace has launched. On October 1, the data services hub
successfully processed more than 178,000 transactions, and it
has processed millions more since. When occasional discrete
bugs in the data services hub were identified, we promptly
corrected them.
In addition to the data services hub, QSSI also developed
the EIDM, a registration and access-management tool used as one
part of the Federal marketplace's registration system. The EIDM
tool helps the marketplace create user accounts and is being
used successfully currently in at least two other CMS
applications.
It's relevant to note that while the EIDM tool is
important, it is only one piece of the Federal marketplace's
registration system. Registration components developed by other
vendors handle other critical functions, such as user
interface, confirmation emails to users, the link that users
click on to activate their accounts, and the Web page users
land on. All of these tools must work together seamlessly to
ensure smooth registration.
After the launch healthcare.gov was inundated by many more
consumers than anticipated. Many of the critical components
developed by these multiple vendors were overwhelmed, including
the virtual data center environment, the software, the database
system and the hardware, and our EIDM tool.
Now, it appears one of the reasons for the high concurrent
volume at the registration system was a late decision requiring
consumers to register for an account before they could browse
for insurance products. This may have driven higher
simultaneous usage of the registration system than wouldn't
have otherwise occurred if consumers could window shop
anonymously.
In the days after the launch, QSSI worked around the clock
to enhance the EIDM tool to meet this unexpected demand, and as
I understand it, this has largely succeeded. By October 8th,
even at high levels of registration, the EIDM tool was
processing those volumes at error rates close to zero. The EIDM
tool continues to keep pace with demand, and at CMS's request
we are working with other vendors to plan for higher levels of
peak activity.
Finally, QSSI was one of several testers used to test the
functionality of the Federal marketplace. In our testing role
we identified errors in code that was provided to us by others.
In this function we reported back the results to CMS and the
relevant contractor, who in turn was responsible for fixing
coding errors or making any necessary changes.
To conclude, the data services hub has performed well, and
after initial scalability challenges, the EIDM tool is now
keeping up with demand. We are committed to helping resolve any
new challenges that may arise in any way we can.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss QSSI's work. I'm
happy to answer any questions you have.
Mr. Upton. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Slavitt follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Ms. Spellecy.
TESTIMONY OF LYNN SPELLECY
Ms. Spellecy. Good morning, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member
Waxman and distinguished members of the committee. My name is
Lynn Spellecy, and I serve as senior director and corporate
counsel for Equifax Workforce Solutions. In that role I am the
primary attorney responsible for the day-to-day legal
operations of that business unit, and I provide guidance,
advice and legal support.
I appreciate the opportunity today to provide an update
related to the income verification services that Equifax
Workforce Solutions is providing to CMS to assist them in their
benefit eligibility determination requirements under the
Affordable Care Act.
The Equifax Workforce Solutions income verification
solution is working as designed. Since the exchanges first went
live on October 1, 2013, we have not experienced any problems
or interruptions in the processing of data to CMS. We have
received and responded to verification requests regarding
individual applicants from the Federally Facilitated
Marketplace as well as from State-based agencies.
Equifax Workforce Solutions tested our verification
solution before the October 1st, 2013, open enrollment start
date to ensure that we could transmit data between our servers
and the Federal data hub. We performed end-to-end testing with
the Federal hub and considerable internal stress and volume
testing to guarantee that we would be prepared for current and
future applicant volumes.
Now that the Federally Facilitated Marketplace is open, we
are monitoring the flow of verification requests from the hub
to our servers and back.
Equifax Workforce Solutions' role in the Federally
Facilitated Marketplace is limited. Equifax Workforce Solutions
receives an income verification request only after an applicant
successfully gains access to the Federal healthcare.gov or
State-based marketplace Web site, creates a user name, and
establishes a security authentication profile, and then enters
an online application process. Equifax does not play a role in
any of these steps, nor does Workforce Solutions play a role in
identity proofing and authentication.
We are neither involved in, nor do we have visibility into,
the eligibility decision process or downstream display and
processing of benefit elections.
Although the majority of the verification requests to date
have come through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace,
Equifax Workforce Solutions is also verifying income for
several State-based marketplaces and State Medicaid agencies.
The Continuing Appropriations Act for 2014 included new
requirements for the Department of Health and Human Services to
ensure that the federally facilitated and State-based
marketplaces verify that individuals applying for coverage and
seeking premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions are, in
fact, eligible for these subsidies.
Equifax Workforce Solutions looks forward to sharing our
expertise and income verification services with CMS at HHS as
they develop guidance regarding verification solutions for the
Federal and State exchanges.
Since the October 1, 2013, start date, Equifax Workforce
Solutions has exceeded the operating specifications of its
contract with CMS to provide income verification services for
those seeking financial assistance under the Affordable Care
Act. The extensive experience we've gained from providing
income verifications to State and other Federal agencies for
their eligibility reviews for government subsidies has prepared
Equifax Workforce Solutions to successfully serve CMS in this
new capacity. We will continue to monitor and test our
interface with the CMS data hub and various State agencies to
ensure maximum efficacy.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Spellecy follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Mr. Lau.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN LAU
Mr. Lau. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Waxman,
other distinguished members of the committee. My name is John
Lau, and I represent Serco, and I am the program director for
our CMS contract in connection with the ACA. Thank you for the
opportunity to again appear and discuss Serco's current status
and performance of this program.
For the next several minutes, what I'd like to do is
provide a quick review of Serco's role in the program and then
the current status of our work. Serco's contract is to provide
eligibility support services in support of the paper
application processing, as well as error and issue resolution
on applications regardless of the mode in which the consumer
submitted them.
It's important, I think, to clarify that we have no role in
the development of the Web site, we have no role in
determination of eligibility, and we have no role in health
plan selection. I think there had been some confusion about
that. I'd like to make sure that that's clear.
Our primary role in the early days of this implementation
is to key-enter paper applications into the eligibility system.
As time goes on, more of our work will entail inconsistency
resolution in order to clear previously submitted applications
for the eligibility determination process.
Inconsistency resolution entails data verification and
validation of the self-attested data from applicants. These are
problems identified through the use of the data hub in the main
system and then communicated to us.
To date, Serco has successfully opened two of its four
processing centers, those in Kentucky and Arkansas. A third
will be opening next week in Missouri, and in about 4 or 5
weeks the final site in Oklahoma. I've had no trouble
recruiting and hiring competent staff in any of our areas, and
have received a number of compliments from local officials and
community groups about the professionalism of our recruiting
efforts and outstanding ways we've onboarded and trained our
people. We've instilled a sense of pride in what they're doing,
and our staff is highly motivated and represent an eager
workforce.
Since the launch of the program on October the 1st, we've
built upon our starting capacity with both staff members and
processing efficiency. The volume of paper documents received
since program launch has been steadily increasing, and even in
a short period clearly is trending upward. This build-up has
given us the opportunity to make adjustments and improve our
processes as the nature of the inbound documents and the
workload has become clearer.
To date, we've received about 18,000 documents. About half
of those are consumer applications, and we've succeeded in key-
entering about half of those. The remaining half are generally
applications that are missing important data, and those cannot
be entered directly until those problems are resolved. We
expect to be able to complete processing and entering those
applications in the near future.
Our challenges have included coping with the performance of
the portal, as that is our means of entering data, just as it
is for the consumer. With the relatively low volumes of
applications we have received thus far, it has not presented a
challenge.
As I testified on September 10th, Serco was ready to
process on 10/1, and we are processing today. And I very much
look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lau follows:]
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Mr. Upton. Well, I thank each and every one of you.
At this point we will move to questions from Members and
alternate between Republicans and Democrats.
I just want to say, as we've seen the taxpayers spend about
half a billion dollars, that I guess that constituents across
the country really expected a user-friendly program, a system,
and whether it's like ordering a pizza, an airline flight, a
rental car, a hotel, it's a standard that many were expecting
to see, and I think most, at this point, would say it's really
not ready for prime time.
Listening to your testimony, each of you, I heard words
like performing--your goal was to perform well, you want a
positive experience, working or design to try and do that, and
that's not what we've heard from folks at home.
So my first question is was it ever an option to delay
going live on October 1st? Did any of you come forth to the
administration and say, this thing may not be ready on October
1st; we might want a delay until we get it right? Any hands up?
No.
Prior to October 1st, did you know that the healthcare.gov
Web site was going to have crippling problems, or did you not
know about these problems and chose not to disclose them to the
administration when you figured out that it wasn't working the
way that perhaps it was designed to work? And maybe I will get
comments from each of you as it relates to those two questions
and start with Ms. Campbell.
Ms. Campbell. Sure.
Mr. Upton. I mean, you all testified in September, and so,
I mean, either you didn't know about these problems or you knew
about them and chose not to disclose them. Which one is it?
Ms. Campbell. Well, Chairman, from a CGI perspective, our
portion of the application worked as designed. People have been
able to enroll, not at the pace, not at the experience we would
have liked. But the end-to-end testing was the responsibility
of CMS. Our portion of the system is what we testified in terms
of what was ready to go live, but it was not our decision to go
live.
Mr. Upton. It was not your decision to go live?
Ms. Campbell. It was CMS's decision. It was not our
decision one way or the other.
Mr. Upton. Did you ever recommend to CMS that perhaps they
weren't ready, and they might want to delay the date?
Ms. Campbell. It was not our position to do so.
Mr. Upton. So you chose not to share those thoughts with
them; is that right?
Ms. Campbell. Let me clarify my statement. CMS had the
ultimate decision for live or no-go decision, not CGI. We were
not in a position; we're there to support our client. It is not
our position to tell our client whether they should go live or
not go live.
Mr. Upton. So who at CMS were you sharing that information
with or those decisions? Anyone in particular?
Ms. Campbell. Once again, Chairman, it was not--I did not
have, nor did CGI have, an opinion on a decision for CMS to
make on a live or no-go decision.
Mr. Upton. Do you know who at CMS made that decision to go
live?
Ms. Campbell. It's a body of individuals at CMS.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So we had a limited view of the entirety of the project.
What I can speak to is we were confident in the ability of the
data services hub, which was a very complex component where we
spent the bulk of our effort. We were confident that it would
work on October 1st, and, in fact, it has.
Other than that, we had--all of the concerns that we had,
which were mostly related to testing and the inability to get
as much testing as we would have liked, we expressed all of
those concerns and risks to CMS throughout the project.
Mr. Upton. So you shared that there were real difficulties
in the testing with them?
Mr. Slavitt. All of the risks that we saw, and all of the
concerns that we had regarding testing were all shared with
CMS.
Mr. Upton. And what was their response to when you shared
some of the pitfalls in terms of what was going on?
Mr. Slavitt. My understanding is they understood those and
were working on them. But I don't know further.
Mr. Upton. Did they ever come back to you in terms of the
shortcomings and what needed to be done, any concerns that were
raised by them?
Mr. Slavitt. I never got a depiction from them, but we did
fully talk about the risks that we saw, and we passed those
along all along the way.
Mr. Upton. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. Our solution was ready to go October 1st,
2013. We successfully completed end-to-end testing between
Equifax Workforce Solutions and the CMS data hub prior to that
date, so we did not anticipate any sort of problems with our
connection and have not experienced any.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. We, too, were ready to process on 10/1, had done
extensive internal testing of our processes and systems. And
our first awareness of difficulties with the hub was 10/1--or
the portal, I'm sorry, was on 10/1 when we attempted to do key
entry.
Mr. Upton. So you didn't test it prior to October 1st?
Mr. Lau. No. No, sir.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Waxman.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As we evaluate the problems with this Web site, I think
it's important that we focus on the facts. My Republican
colleagues have been predicting that healthcare reform would be
a disaster for 3 years now, and every time they've been wrong.
They said insurance rates would skyrocket. In fact, they are
lower than predicted. They said healthcare costs would soar. In
fact, they've grown at a record low rate. They said Medicare
would be undermined. In fact, it's stronger than ever, and
seniors are saving billions of dollars on prescription drugs.
So what we need to do is separate the facts for us to reach
a determination here. Some have said that fixing the Web site
would take 6 months to a year. Others have said there are 5
million lines of code to rewrite. Some have urged Health and
Human Services to pull down the entire system and start from
scratch.
Ms. Campbell, I hope you can help us put these dire
predictions in perspective. Does CGI expect that it will take 6
months to a year to get the application and enrollment process
working smoothly on healthcare.gov?
Ms. Campbell. We do not. We anticipate that the system, as
we have seen, is improving day over day, and that we anticipate
that people will be able to enroll in the time frame allotted
that's necessary for them to have insurance for the January 1
time frame.
Mr. Waxman. That means what date? Don't they have to have
an application in by December 15th for it to be effective
January 1?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct, sir.
Mr. Waxman. So you anticipate by that date the system will
be working?
Ms. Campbell. The system will continue to improve. From our
perspective, as painful as it sounds, I know that the
experience has been a difficult experience, the system is
working. People are enrolling. But people will be able to
enroll at a faster pace. The experience will be improved as
they go forward. And people will be able to enroll by the
December 15th time frame.
Mr. Waxman. Very good. Does CGI have to rewrite 5 million
lines of code to fix the problems we have seen thus far?
Ms. Campbell. No, sir. I can tell you that 300-plus
employees that I have back in the office would--I think they
would all walk out if I told them they had to rewrite that many
lines of code.
Mr. Waxman. Do you believe it is going to be necessary to
scrap the entire healthcare.gov system and start from scratch?
Ms. Campbell. I do not, sir.
Mr. Waxman. So you think the Web site will be fixed in time
to ensure Americans who want to get coverage for next year,
that it will be available to them?
Ms. Campbell. I do, sir.
Mr. Waxman. OK. Why are you so confident? Can you explain
that, these problems are going to be fixed in time?
Ms. Campbell. Because as I said, we are seeing improvements
day over day. We are continuing to run queries against our
database. We are reviewing system logs, we are fine-tuning our
servers, we are analyzing the code for anomalies. And every day
we are seeing where we are finding challenges in the system and
making those corrections, as you would with any system that
will go live. When a system goes into production, these are the
things you would typically find after production. Maybe not to
the level of detail that has happened in this experience. But
when a system goes live, these are the things you typically do.
You continue to provide system builds and put performance
tuning to the application to make sure that it continues to
improve time over time.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you. Mr. Slavitt, your company has been
deeply involved in troubleshooting and fixing the problems on
healthcare.gov. Do you have any reason to believe the problems
that are being experienced at this launch will prevent
Americans from getting insurance for the coming year?
Mr. Slavitt. Congressman, I am confident that the data
services hub had you been that QSSI developed and the EIDM
registration tool are working well today and will continue to
work well.
Mr. Waxman. You had problems with your part early on, but
you fixed them, didn't you?
Mr. Slavitt. For the first 7 days, correct.
Mr. Waxman. OK. So problems can be fixed.
Mr. Slavitt. We doubled the capacity of that registration
tool within 7 days.
Mr. Waxman. Ms. Campbell, did CGI system pass its test
before the system went live?
Ms. Campbell. Yes, it did.
Mr. Waxman. And my understanding is that you felt that the
system was ready to go on October 1, is that right?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Waxman. Neither you nor anyone else at the table
thought or made a recommendation not to go forward on October 1
because you didn't think the system was ready. Is that a
correct statement?
Ms. Campbell. That is a correct statement.
Mr. Waxman. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. I refer back to my earlier answer. We did not
make a recommendation. We simply made everyone aware of the
risks that we saw.
Mr. Waxman. OK. Ms. Spellecy.
Mr. Spellecy. No, we did not make recommendations.
Mr. Waxman. Mr. Lau.
Mr. Lau. We did not either.
Mr. Waxman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. The chair recognizes the vice chair of the full
committee, Ms. Blackburn from Tennessee.
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all
for your testimony. I would like each of you to submit in
writing for me how much you have been paid to date, and then
how much you are being paid on retainer or either to clear up.
And so if you will submit that to us for the record, that would
be wonderful. HIPAA compliance. Were you all trained in HIPAA
compliance prior to beginning your contract? I will just go
right down the line. Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, we do extensive HIPAA training.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. Yes.
Mrs. Blackburn. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. Yes.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Did your companies meet as a group with
HHS before you started the process? Anyone? Did your companies
meet together with HHS to discuss the integration? Mr. Lau, go
ahead.
Mr. Lau. Yes, for the security people from CMS and Serco
and others have coordinated the security.
Mrs. Blackburn. All right. Let me ask each of you a
question. How many people in each of your companies have
physical access to the database servers storing the enrolling
information? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Zero from CGI.
Mrs. Blackburn. Pardon me?
Ms. Campbell. We have zero access to the database.
Mrs. Blackburn. Zero. OK.
Mr. Slavitt. I believe the answer is also zero for our
QSSI.
Mrs. Blackburn. Ms. Spellecy for the verification?
Mr. Spellecy. We have no access to CMS's servers.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. Two thousand people.
Mrs. Blackburn. Two thousand people have access to the
database?
Mr. Lau. Through the key entry of the applications.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. You know under HIPAA regs, no one is
supposed to have direct access to that database. OK. Under the
current technology infrastructure, how many separate servers or
virtual servers in the cloud are being used to host and store
data for healthcare.gov? And Ms. Campbell, Mr. Slavitt, I think
that is primarily to you.
Ms. Campbell. I don't have the exact number. What I can
tell you is that from a CGI perspective, we have anywhere from
80 to 100 servers.
Mrs. Blackburn. So you have 80 to 100 different servers
that are holding information.
Ms. Campbell. That are passing information through our
system.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Ms. Blackburn, I don't have--Congresswoman
Blackburn, we don't have the answer to that question
specifically as to how many servers. We can follow that up
with--we don't store any data, however, any personal consumer
data in any of our systems.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Then Ms. Campbell and Ms. Spellecy, let
me ask you this: The application information, is that being
stored separately from the patient database information? Ms.
Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Could you repeat the question again?
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. The applicant servers and the patient
database servers, are these--are you holding this information
on your patients and on the database separately? Are you
holding those separately?
Ms. Campbell. So we are not holding any information.
Mrs. Blackburn. You are not holding any. OK.
Mr. Spellecy. We are provided only with limited
information, Social Security numbers, names, and date of birth,
which we use to match against our system.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Mr. Lau, you mentioned that you all are
working through the paper entry, and then the data entry from
the paper applications?
Mr. Lau. That's correct, yes.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. So where are you physically storing the
data that is collected and given to you?
Mr. Lau. When the paper comes in, it is scanned and
converted to electronic images. Then the paper is destroyed
once the image has been verified. The electronic image is put
into a database and kept only until the information is key
entered, and then it is put in archive and will be retained no
more than 30 days.
Mrs. Blackburn. Retain it no more than 30 days. OK. Let me
ask each of you, does your current system keep detailed error
logs that can be referenced with the difficulties that are
surrounding healthcare.gov? Ms. Campbell, I will begin with
you.
Ms. Campbell. Yes, we have error logs.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, we do keep error logs for our products
and tools.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK.
Mr. Spellecy. Yes, we keep error logs.
Mrs. Blackburn. All right.
Mr. Lau. We keep track of successful or unsuccessful
applications.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. Do you want to submit these error logs
to us?
Ms. Campbell. I will have to confer back with CMS as to
what documents we can and cannot provide.
Mrs. Blackburn. OK. You know, it would be interesting to
see those error logs, because I think it would give us an idea
of how many people are actually accessing this system and then
the problems that you have had with scaleability on this. I
think we would like to see what is causing these systems to
crash and where the security flaws may be in this also. And
with that, I am over time. I will yield back.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. Mr. Dingell.
Mr. Dingell. Thank you for the courtesy, Mr. Chairman. We
are having some questions before us which are very important. I
note the problems are not surprising, given the fact that there
has been considerable obstruction to the program going forward.
I received a letter from a constituent recently. She said, I
only make $12 an hour, and am buying my own health insurance on
the open market. I can barely afford it, so I need to purchase
it through an exchange, and will therefore be eligible for a
subsidy, making health care affordable at last.
This is what the debate is all about. There are problems.
But we have time to fix it. So let's work together to get this
matter resolved so that the people benefit and do not suffer.
These questions are for Cheryl Campbell of CGI Federal. One--
and these are yes or no, if you please. Is CGI responsible for
developing the software for Federally Facilitated Marketplace?
Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dingell. Did CGI obtain this contract through a
competitive bidding process?
Ms. Campbell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dingell. Does CGI have experience providing other
information technology services to the Federal Government? Yes
or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Did CGI conduct testing of your software for
the marketplace Web site prior to October 1, when the launching
took place? Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Was CGI responsible for testing the function
of the entirety of healthcare.gov?
Ms. Campbell. No.
Mr. Dingell. No. If not, who was?
Ms. Campbell. CMS.
Mr. Dingell. OK. Do you believe that it is unusual for such
a large project to experience some problems after it launches?
Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. No.
Mr. Dingell. Despite the initial problems with the Web
site, have consumers still been able to enroll in the health
insurance plans? Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Do you believe that the progress has been made
getting the Web site to run as intended since launch three
weeks ago? Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. These questions are for Mr. Lau of Serco. Mr.
Lau, is Serco responsible for handling and processing paper
applications for health insurance in the marketplace?
Mr. Lau. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dingell. With all the problems with the Web site, many
consumers are now turning to paper applications. Does Serco
have the capability to handle a larger amount of paper
applications than was originally expected? Yes or no?
Mr. Lau. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. The last question is for all witnesses, and we
will start with Ms. Campbell. Do you all commit to working with
CMS, Congress, and all the stakeholders until the Web site is
fixed and functioning as intended? Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Sir?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Spellecy. Yes.
Mr. Lau. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. Now, I would appreciate it very much if you
would each submit for the record a summary of actions that you
have taken to fix the Web site after the October 1 launch.
Could you please do that?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. All right. Now, I would also ask that you
submit also for the record suggestions for there to be changes
and improvements in the way the matter is being dealt with by
the Federal Government and any changes that you might deem
would be useful in seeing to it that the matter goes forward as
it can and should? Could you do that for me, please?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Dingell. OK. That question, I hope you understand, is
to all of you. So I hope that you will all please assist. I
want to thank you all. It is clear that we have plenty to do in
the coming weeks. And I hope and pray that we will be up to the
task. I urge my colleagues on the committee, this is a time
when we can work together on something good. Maybe we didn't
agree with the program or with the legislation. But we do now
have a duty to see to it that it works for the benefit of the
American people, and that we achieve the benefits which we hope
we can achieve. I would note that this legislation originated
under the hand and pen of my dear friend Bob Dole, and of John
Chafee, and is therefore, I think, subject to the charge that
it has some bipartisanship, even though little could be found
during the process of it. I yield back the balance of my time,
with thanks.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to put slide
number two back up. Right there. Now, unfortunately that blue
highlighted thing is hard to read, so I am going to read it
again. This is the part of the signup that is hidden. The
applicant does not see this, but it is in the source code. And
what that blue highlighted area that has been circled in red
says is, ``You have no reasonable expectation of privacy
regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on
this information system.'' Now, Ms. Campbell and Mr. Slavitt,
you all both said that you are all HIPAA compliant. How in the
world can this be HIPAA compliant when HIPAA is designed to
protect the patient's privacy, and this explicitly says in
order to continue, you have to accept this condition that you
have no privacy, or no reasonable expectation of privacy?
Ms. Campbell. So, sir, that would be a decision made by
CMS.
Mr. Barton. So this is news to you? You are the main prime
contractor. You have never seen this before?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, that is not--we are the prime, one of
the prime contractors, yes.
Mr. Barton. Have you seen this before? Are you aware this
was in the source code?
Ms. Campbell. This requirement----
Mr. Barton. Are you aware this was in the source code? Yes
or no.
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Barton. You were aware. OK. Do you think it that's
HIPAA compliant? How can that be? You know it is not HIPAA
compliant. Admit it. You are under oath.
Ms. Campbell. Sir, that is CMS's decision to make what----
Mr. Barton. I asked if you thought that--you just told Mrs.
Blackburn that it was HIPAA compliant. You know that's not
HIPAA compliant. You admit that you knew it was in there. It
may be their decision to hide it, but you are the company--not
you personally, but your company is the company that put this
together. We are telling every American, including all my
friends on the Democrat side, and their they are huge privacy
advocates. Diane DeGette is cochairman of the privacy caucus
with me. But you are telling every American if you sign up for
this, or even attempt to, you have no reasonable expectation of
privacy. That is a direct contradiction to HIPAA, and you know
it. Yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. Once again, CMS had us comply to a set of
rules and regulations that they have established under our
contract. And that is a CMS call. That is not a contractor
call.
Mr. Barton. To break the law. You are now saying that CMS
made a decision to break the law. Do you agree with that
decision?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, I cannot speculate on CMS.
Mr. Barton. Let me ask Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. This is the first time I am seeing and
becoming familiar with that source code.
Mr. Barton. OK. So you weren't aware of it?
Mr. Slavitt. I was not aware of it.
Mr. Barton. OK. Well, let me go back to Ms. Campbell. She
has at least admitted she knew about it. Who made this decision
to hide this or put it in the source code in the first place?
Ms. Campbell. I can't give you that answer.
Mr. Barton. All right.
Ms. Campbell. I don't know the answer to that question.
Mr. Barton. All right. Who do you report to?
Ms. Campbell. I can go back to my people.
Mr. Barton. Was it some junior underling at CMS? Was it the
director of CMS? I mean, who generically generally made
decisions at the policy level that your company interfaced
with? Give me that person's name.
Ms. Campbell. There are many decisions made under this
program over this last 2, 2 \1/2\ years.
Mr. Barton. So is this another example of where things just
go into a cloud? I mean, all you are is the contractor that
spent 3- or $400 million? It goes to some amorphous cloud and
then it comes back from down on high? Who wrote that?
Ms. Campbell. I am not clear as to who wrote that.
Mr. Barton. All right. Let me ask it this way: Do you think
that should be in the--do you think that should be a
requirement to sign up for ObamaCare, that you give up any
reasonable expectation of privacy?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, that is not my jurisdiction----
Mr. Barton. You are a U.S. citizen.
Ms. Campbell [continuing]. One way or the other.
Mr. Barton. Well, I will answer. I don't think it should
be. I don't think it should be. My time is about to expire. Let
me ask one more question. Ms. Campbell, did you all do any kind
of a pilot program on this before it was rolled out?
Ms. Campbell. No, there was no pilot program.
Mr. Barton. OK. And you said that it was complicated and
big, but it was meeting your expectation. Do you think it is
right that 99 percent of the people that try to go through the
system get rejected, can't even complete the application? Is
that a system that you are proud of?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, this is a system that we are working
every day to make improvements.
Mr. Barton. Well, in my opinion, if we have a system that
almost no one can successfully navigate, that we have to go to
the paper system of this gentleman's company down here, that is
a system that has failed. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I started out in my
opening statement saying there was no legitimacy to this
hearing, and the last line of questioning certainly confirms
that. HIPAA only applies when there is health information being
provided. That is not in play here today. No health information
is required in the application process. And why is that?
Because preexisting conditions don't matter. So once again,
here we have our Republican colleagues trying to scare
everybody.
Mr. Barton. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Pallone. No, I will not yield to this monkey court or
whatever this thing is.
Mr. Barton. This is not a monkey court.
Mr. Pallone. I am not yielding. I am trying to tell you the
problem here.
Mr. Barton. Protecting American citizens is a legitimate
concern of this committee.
Mr. Pallone. Preexisting conditions don't matter, HIPAA
doesn't apply, there is no health information in the process.
You are asked about your address, your date of birth. You are
not asked health information. So why are we going down this
path? Because you are trying to scare people so they don't
apply, and so therefore the legislation gets delayed or the
Affordable Care Act gets defunded or it's repealed. That is all
it is, hoping people won't apply.
Well, the fact of the matter is there are millions of
people out there, over 20 million that are going on this site,
and they are going to apply, and they are ultimately going to
be able to enroll. In fact, many of them already have enrolled.
I think my Republican colleagues forget that a lot of
people are enrolling through State exchanges rather than the
Federal exchange. And if it wasn't for the fact that many
Republican governors, including my own from New Jersey, had
agreed to set up State exchanges, then we wouldn't be putting
so much burden on the Federal system. But I just want to give
you some examples.
In New York and Washington, over 30,000 people have
enrolled in coverage. In Oregon, over 50,000 people have
enrolled. In California, over 100,000 have started
applications. In Kentucky, nearly 16,000 people have enrolled.
So, you know, this Web site, this Federal Web site is not the
only way that you apply. In fact, you can go to your community
health center, you can go to the 1-800 number, you can go to--
there are many ways for people to enroll. And all we talk about
here is the Web site because you are trying to make a case that
people should not enroll.
Now, I want to ask two questions. Ms. Campbell, am I
correct that CGI is doing work in several States in addition to
the work on healthcare.gov? And would you comment on that,
please, in these States?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct. We are supporting a number
of States. And those States, we are a prime contractor in
Colorado, a prime contractor in Hawaii, a prime contractor in
Massachusetts, a prime contractor in Vermont. We are a
subcontractor in California, a subcontractor in Kentucky, and a
subcontractor in New Mexico.
Mr. Pallone. And that appears be to be going well.
Obviously, a lot of people have enrolled, as I set forth
previously. I know that when Mr. Waxman asked a question, you
said you had confidence that whatever problems exist in the
Federal data system or Web site, that they would be fixed by
December 15th, and you expect that the millions ofuninsured
people and others who were trying to enroll would be able to by
then so that their insurance would be effective January 1st.
Was that my understanding?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Pallone. OK. And I wanted to ask Mr. Slavitt, the data
hub that your company set up is working well to connect to the
Federal data when residents of those States apply. So what I am
asking, Mr. Slavitt, is if I go through New York or California
or some of the other States that have responsible governors
that have set up these State exchanges, unlike mine in New
Jersey, that if you do that or you go through, you know, the 1-
800 number, or you go through the other means that you can to
apply in person, that they can access the hub. Is that correct?
Mr. Slavitt. That is correct.
Mr. Pallone. OK. So again, I am just trying to point out to
my colleagues the success of all the State exchanges. And
again, a lot of people are being able to enroll. I think the
figures show that when State governors work to expand Medicaid
and work to make sure their own citizens get coverage, they
make a big difference. And they also show, these statistics,
how shortsighted it is of Republican governors to refuse to
expand the Medicaid program in their States, because that's
another big factor to the ACA that really isn't being discussed
today.
Again, I never cease to be amazed how the GOP uses tactics
to try to scare people. And that is again what is happening
here today. And I was hoping this hearing wouldn't end up
accomplishing that goal. And I would just ask the public,
please, try to find means to enroll. There are a lot of things
other than the Federal Web site. And don't be scared by my GOP
colleagues into thinking that somehow you are going to lose
your privacy. There is no health information provided as part
of this exercise. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Chairman, thank you. This hearing is entitled
PPACA Implementation Failures: Didn't Know Or Didn't Disclose.
And I guess this hearing is really to set us in a little better
shape to deal with Ms. Sebelius. I think she is going to be
here next week. President Obama often attempts to paint
Republicans as being out of order, downright crazy in their
criticism of the health care law. I want to talk about that
just a minute before I ask my questions.
I hear from my district and from Americans across the
country that the craziest part of the last few weeks is seeing
the President's top health care official laughing on Jon
Stewart while Americans are having to deal with the
consequences with the President's flawed health care law. For
example, I have a teacher there in my hometown where she has to
face premiums that will consume nearly a quarter of her monthly
income.
Or another constituent who has tried to comply with the
law, but has not yet received information about their coverage
as promised, and claims, quote, I am very concerned that our
family will not be in compliance and we will face IRS fines.
They are calling for a repeal of the individual mandate. And
most of them are calling for that. Yet another who has been
advised that their current coverage will end December 31st,
2013.
So much for keeping what you have. And it is a concern the
dysfunctional health care government will expose me to an
unwanted liability if I can't get coverage through the Web
site. Now, how verbose is this? You know, the Founding Fathers,
in 1776, declared their independence. The next year they wrote
a Constitution that was 4,500 words. This wording in here, the
regulations, not voted on by Congress, contains a massive
11,588,000,000 words. I just don't know how anybody could ever
answer these things. And I want to ask you, in an environment
where people are already worried about whether or not they have
a job, and there is no jobs now, and if we go on like we are
going now, there will be no employers a year from now, they now
have to worry about navigating a flawed law where their chances
of finding affordable coverage are often less than before the
law's existence.
So my question to each of you is CMS has had 3 years, and
most of you had over a year to ensure that this law could work.
Now, what do you want me to tell the Americans who are
terrified of really facing IRS fines for not being able to
access coverage they actually can't afford?
I guess we will start with you, Ms. Campbell. You weren't
allowed, or you chose not to use your opinion or to make
suggestions. But are you in a position to give me some words
that I could give to these people to give them any hope that
their government, that we are doing our job here in Congress,
that you have done your job that you were hired out to do? Is
there hope?
Ms. Campbell. So if I understand the question, you are
asking is the system going to be there for them to sign up?
Mr. Hall. I beg your pardon?
Ms. Campbell. Can you repeat the question?
Mr. Hall. Yes. Just give me something to tell these people
that I have related to you that are real people, honest people
that have to live with what you all have created. You set up,
you run the Web site for people to sign up, or exchange.
Ms. Campbell. And we are continuing----
Mr. Hall. You must know a whole lot more than I know to
know what to tell these people. I am asking you to give me some
help along that line. If you can't express your opinions to the
people that you report to, you sure can express them to me.
Ms. Campbell. So I would tell your constituents that the
system is improving day over day, and that we are continuing to
work to make improvements for them to be able to enroll.
Mr. Hall. Did you really start with one in Delaware?
Ms. Campbell. Pardon me, sir?
Mr. Hall. Did you really start out with one in Delaware?
That is what the liberal press is reporting.
Ms. Campbell. I am not familiar.
Mr. Hall. How about my time? How much more time do I have?
Mrs. Blackburn. Thirty-eight seconds.
Mr. Hall. All right, I will yield. Yes, I will hear from
any of you. I am asking for help. I want help. I have 700,000
people that I have to report to. And I think about 690,000 of
them hate the Obama law. My time is up. I will yield back.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes
the gentlelady from California, Ms. Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having listened to
several colleagues already, as well as the witnesses, I am
struck by two things: First, that my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle, if they are serious to pursue what I think
is the much larger issue of Federal procurement, how it takes
place, how we end up with contractors that say essentially
everything is all right when it isn't, that is going to take a
bipartisan effort to really bring about a fix. But we have to
keep in mind that these are the people that shut the entire
Federal Government down, caused pain across the country, and
extracted some $24 billion out of America's economy. And the
American people were put through hell.
That was all over shutting down, or delaying, or defunding
the Affordable Care Act. So, there isn't any love lost between
the Republicans and the law. And that is their position. And it
is abundantly clear. But I think that what the other thing I am
struck with by today is in reading all of the submitted written
testimony, when I read it last night, there wasn't anyone that
wrote testimony and submitted it--let me put it this way. What
you said was, and I read it more than once, that everything was
A-OK. No one acknowledged anything.
Now, we have got problems with this Web site. There is no
question about it. Now, I represent Silicon Valley, and I find
this very hard to follow. This is the 21st century. It is 2013.
There are thousands of Web sites that handle concurrent volumes
far larger than what healthcare.gov was faced with. You keep
speaking about unexpected volumes, Ms. Campbell. And that
really sticks in my craw. I have to tell you that. Because as I
said, there are thousands of Web sites that carry far more
traffic. So I think that is really kind of a lame excuse.
Amazon and eBay don't crash the week before Christmas, and Pro
Flowers doesn't crash on Valentine's Day.
Now, in the testing of this between CGI and QSSI, can you
describe exactly what kind of testing you did as the main
contractors for this? I mean, there is an internal testing and
then kind of an external. You turn it around and then you test
it for the outside. Are you saying that you didn't test, that
the tests worked very well, both inside and out, or that you
turned it all over to CMS? Anybody want to answer? I mean what
is happening? Do you have an answer?
Ms. Campbell. Are you asking me that question?
Ms. Eshoo. I am asking both of you. And you are using up a
lot of my time by your silence. If you don't have an answer,
just say that you don't. But maybe we can take something in
writing. But the beta testing and the inside testing I think is
clearly the main contractor's job. And you are essentially
saying that everything was all right. It is not all right.
Ms. Campbell. There was testing done throughout the
process. CMS did the end-to-end testing. But each component did
their separate testing, and we had independent contractors
testing our system as well.
Ms. Eshoo. And what was the net result of that? What you
just described?
Ms. Campbell. That the system was--that our portion of the
system that CGI was responsible for, that our functionality
worked.
Ms. Eshoo. And it didn't.
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Ms. Eshoo. It did not in the end result, correct?
Ms. Campbell. When it became part of an integrated end-to-
end system.
Ms. Eshoo. You knew it was going to be integrated. There
were many subcontractors. That wasn't a surprise. Do you have
something to say about the testing?
Mr. Slavitt. So let me be clear about our role in testing.
Our work, the data services hub, was tested, tested well, and
tested adequately. Additionally, we played a role as one of
many independent contractors testing the code developed by
other contractors. We tested every piece of code we received
timely. We returned a full report of any bugs we found to CMS
promptly and made everyone fully aware of all the potential
risks and concerns that were made available to us.
Ms. Eshoo. Well, I am now over my time. But I think that
what we'd like to hear from you is when you're going to fulfill
your contracts to the taxpayers of the country so that we can
go on and have people insured. Taxpayers have paid you a lot of
money. And you are essentially saying to us everything's all
right when it's not. So I will submit some questions in writing
as well. And with that, I will yield back.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. Mr. Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot of
questions. I am going totry to go fast. Mr. Slavitt, I am just
going to follow up on Anna Eshoo's comments. We would like the
names of the personnel at CMS who you provided the risks that
you identified in your analysis of other contractors' code. Can
you do that?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes. Let me follow up with you on that.
Mr. Shimkus. Yes. That's fine. For the record. And what I
am going to encourage my colleagues to do is to ask for names.
Because this amorphous CMS is--there are people there. And I am
going to venture to guess that the regular bureaucrats did
their job, the political appointees manipulated the system to
hide data they didn't want the public to know. And we're going
to find out who that is. Because that's the crux of this
problem. I have got a letter from a constituent who basically
says we have never been without health insurance. However, the
Affordable Care Act may force us into the position of going
without it.
This whole battle is about whether Americans can have
affordable health care. And this system is not helping in this
debate. And I just want--my friend, Mr. Pallone, my friend, Ms.
DeGette, I was ranking member when this bill got passed and
signed into law. After it got signed into law, we had 13
subcommittee hearings on things like smokeless tobacco,
antibiotic resistance, health care pricing, national all
scheduled electronic reporting authorization. Each one of those
I asked for a hearing on the health care law. And it is in the
Congressional Record. Statements like on April 28, 2010, we
must hold hearings on the new Health Reform Act. May 6, 2010,
we should also call Secretary Sebelius to testify. June 9,
2010, we need a hearing on the new health care law. June 2010,
shouldn't the committee hold hearings and take immediate
action? My friend, Mr. Waxman, always sends us letters, I want
to do this, I want to do that. We sent countless letters to the
Democrat majority at the time asking for hearings on the
recently passed health care law. And guess what? No hearings.
So when Speaker Pelosi then said we've got to pass the bill
before we know what's in it, we're finding out. We're finding
out a flawed tech system that's a mockery. Now, let's talk
about this. I accept the premise that you tested your
individual section. But we're getting to the point of the
integrated system. When was the integrated system tested?
Starting with Ms. Campbell down to the end of the table. When
was the integrated system tested?
Ms. Campbell. During the last 2 weeks in September.
Mr. Shimkus. And what was the result of that?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have the results. You would have to
get that from CMS.
Mr. Shimkus. And who I would go to to get that information?
Who is your point of contact at CMS?
Ms. Campbell. So there are a number of people.
Mr. Shimkus. Give me a name.
Ms. Campbell. Henry Chao.
Mr. Shimkus. Give me another name.
Ms. Campbell. Michelle Snyder.
Mr. Shimkus. Got another one?
Ms. Campbell. Peter Oh.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. So here is what we saw.
Mr. Shimkus. Isn't that a beta test? Wouldn't it put the
different components together and see if the system worked?
Mr. Slavitt. So here is what we saw. We didn't see the full
kind of integrated end-to-end system testing that you are
talking about----
Mr. Shimkus. Why not?
Mr. Slavitt [continuing]. Until the couple of days leading
up to the launch.
Mr. Shimkus. Shouldn't we have had that?
Mr. Slavitt. Ideally, yes.
Mr. Shimkus. Ideally, yes. Wouldn't any other system,
corporate entity rolling out something would test to see if it
worked before it went out into the field?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Shimkus. Mr. Slavitt, do you have names of who you
talked to?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't have any names with me.
Mr. Shimkus. Will you provide those to us?
Mr. Slavitt. We will be happy to follow up.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you. Ms. Spellecy.
Ms. Spellecy. So we tested----
Mr. Shimkus. I know you tested. A beta testing end to end.
When did it happen?
Mr. Spellecy. The information only comes to us after the
application is completed. So we were testing up to the time
that the system went live. And as far as we were concerned,
everything that came to us we were able to process.
Mr. Shimkus. Quickly.
Mr. Lau. Our systems are not integrated with the main
system. Our main interaction with it is key entry.
Mr. Shimkus. And Mr. Slavitt, I would like the names by
tomorrow you morning if you could do that. Finally, I want to
go back to Mr. Campbell. ``See plans first'' feature that was
just changed on the Web site. Who told you to do that?
Ms. Campbell. I am sorry, could you repeat that? I didn't
hear you.
Mr. Shimkus. The ``see first plans.'' Remember the Web site
failed. Part of the problem is people don't know what the cost
of the plans are. You all made a change to say see plans first.
Just reported yesterday by I think CBS. Who made that decision?
Ms. Campbell. I don't know who made that.
Mr. Shimkus. Can you give us the names?
Ms. Campbell. We can get you a name.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. Who made the decision that if you are
younger than 50, you would be quoted a 25-year old health
policy?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have an answer for you, sir.
Mr. Shimkus. Can you get us a name?
Ms. Campbell. I can try. I can go back to my team to see if
they have a name.
Mr. Shimkus. OK. Who made the decision that if you are
older than 50, you get quoted a 50-year old policy?
Ms. Campbell. The same. I would have to go back to my team.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman
from New York, Mr. Engel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, it amazes me
how our Republican colleagues are so concerned about the
Affordable Health Care Act since they tried to defund it, they
tried to kill it, they shut down the government because of it.
Do you think there is maybe a little bit of politics here?
Perhaps they should work with us to improve the Affordable
Health Care Act instead of playing gotcha politics here this
morning and trying to scare people into not enrolling into the
Affordable Health Care Act.
There will be plenty of time to figure out who is
responsible for the various problems facing the exchanges. What
is more important to me is that Americans would be able to
access the numerous benefits found in the plans offered through
the exchanges.
So let me ask, I know it's been answered before, but I want
to just have a specific answer, how soon will it take to
correct these glitches so that people can have unfettered
access to the Web site? I know things are improving. But how
soon will it be, do you think, so that the average American can
do healthcare.gov and get right in without any of the glitches?
Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. What I can tell you is that I have a team of
people working around the clock trying to quickly get this
resolved. As I said, there is improvements day over day. I
cannot give you an exact date as to when it will be completely
to satisfaction.
Mr. Engel. How about a guess?
Ms. Campbell. I would prefer not doing that. I don't like
to raise expectations.
Mr. Engel. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. We don't happen to control the pieces of the
Web site that I believe you are referring to. We are committed
to continuing to maintain the capabilities that we have built
so far, and we are committed to helping resolve any new
challenges that arise anywhere in the project that we get asked
to do so.
Mr. Engel. All right. Well, let me say this. I hope it is
as soon as possible. Because I think there are numerous
benefits to this law, and I want to see the American people
utilize this law, because I happen to think it is a good law. I
am proud that it came out of this committee. And I am proud
that we had many, many months of deliberation before we passed
it.
Now, New York State, my home State, has also been
experiencing some technical and capacity-related issues since
October 1. But I think in New York it's a good example of
what's possible when the Federal Government has a willing and
enthusiastic partner in a State implementation. As of October
23rd, 174,000 New Yorkers have completed their application. And
New York continues to make improvements to its exchange Web
site, including quadrupling its processing capacity. And by the
end of the week, individuals should be able to look up coverage
based on various providers and doctors. But I think that with
my Republican colleagues, given their new found interest in
seeing that the ACA is successfully implemented, I hope that I
can see these same colleagues starting to champion the Medicaid
expansion in their home States so that their most vulnerable
citizens can access health care coverage and stop calling for
continued repeal votes.
Now, many of us who were on this committee the last time,
and this was mentioned before, but I want to emphasize it, a
major new health benefit was introduced, and that was Medicare
part D. It is easy to forget now, but when that program was
introduced, there were significant problems. The Web site was
balky, headlines gave out bad information. When the program
opened, pharmacists called it a nightmare, a disaster, and all
kinds of things like that. So Ms. Campbell, am I correct that
CGI did some work for Medicare part D in the early years of the
program.
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Engel. Well, then you probably remember, like I do,
that these problems were solved, and soon enough, Medicare part
D became a popular and successful program. And by the way, we
improved that program by closing the part D drug donut hole in
the Affordable Care Act. So that's one important lesson to
remember now, that even if a program gets off to a rocky start,
it does not mean that we need to jump to conclusions about its
long-term success. And that's why I'm confident that even with
the Web site problems, the Affordable Care Act will be
successful. And there is another lesson to be learned from that
experience. All the members of this committee, Democrats and
Republicans, with Medicare part D, worked together to fix the
problems.
Democrats did not sit on the sidelines and root for
failure. We pitched in and helped. Republican committee members
in particular insisted that we be patient with the part D
glitches. And some of the members of this committee, and can I
quote what they said at that time, the new benefit and its
implementation are hardly perfect, but I hope that we can work
together as we go through the implementation phase to find out
what is wrong with the program, and if we can make some changes
to fix it, let us do it on a bipartisan basis. It is too big of
a program, it is too important to too many people not to do
that.
And another member said any time something is new there is
going to be some glitches. It is of no value, as a matter of
fact, it is a negative value and of questionable ethical value
I think if people only spend their time criticizing the
glitches that have been in the program. As with any program
that occurs, whether it is a public or private program,
criticizing it, standing on the outside is not good. So let me
just say that let's take that same approach we had with
Medicare part D. Let's work together on both sides of the aisle
to improve this program and not play gotcha politics. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Pitts. Thank the chairman. A question to everyone, have
any of you or your companies prepared memorandums or summaries
explaining where the problems are with healthcare.gov? Ms.
Campbell? And would you submit those for the record if you
have?
Ms. Campbell. If we are allowed to do so. We have to get
permission under our contract with CMS.
Mr. Pitts. But you have prepared summaries or memorandum?
Ms. Campbell. I wouldn't call it memorandums. I would say
we probably have, you know, just in the normal course we have
provided information about what is happening on our system.
Mr. Pitts. We would appreciate it if you would submit that
to the committee. Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. Nothing holistic like you are describing to my
knowledge.
Mr. Pitts. Ms. Spellecy?
Mr. Spellecy. We don't have any involvement with
healthcare.gov, so we do not.
Mr. Pitts. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. Likewise.
Mr. Pitts. All right. Just CGI and QSSI. The Washington
Post reported this week, ``When the Web site went live October
1st, it locked up shortly after midnight, as about 2,000 users
attempted to complete the first step.'' Is this true? Ms.
Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That is true.
Mr. Pitts. Two thousand users?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have the exact number. I just know
that the system did have--thank you for that follow-up--I don't
have the exact number. What I can tell you is that the system
became overwhelmed.
Mr. Pitts. So only 2,000, not millions the administration
has claimed. So if it crashed with only 2,000 users, is volume
really the issue, as the administration claims? Surely, the Web
site was designed to handle more than 2,000 users. Ms.
Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I was not--CGI is not responsible for the, as
I call it, the front door. So I don't think I am in a position
to answer that.
Mr. Pitts. Who is responsible for the front door?
Ms. Campbell. QSSI had the EIDM piece on the front end.
Mr. Pitts. Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. So what I can tell you is that the EIDM tool
is, in fact, capable now of handling all the demands that are
being placed on it from the system. I would point out that the
EIDM tool is one part of a registration process that includes,
I think, five vendors and multiple pieces of technology. So I
can only speak to the EIDM tool and their functioning.
Mr. Pitts. Now, I have listened to your testimony this
morning. It sounded like that you think everything is A-OK.
It's not OK. We've heard a variety of reasons as to the
difficulties for why the site does not work. They include the
inability to browse, required so many users to log in that the
Web site was overwhelmed, poor coding, poor hardware, volume.
Ms. Campbell, why doesn't healthcare.gov work properly?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, if there was a silver bullet to answer
to that question I would give it to you. It is a combination of
a number of things. It is not just a component of what CGI is
responsible for. It is the end-to-end aspect that is
challenged. There is components across the entire system,
across the ecosystem that can have an impact on the performance
of the system.
Mr. Pitts. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. We absolutely take accountability for those
first days when our tool was part of the issue in terms of
being able to handle all of the unexpected volume. And we
absolutely will take accountability for helping in any way we
can to help this project go forward. Fortunately, today, the
data services hub and EIDM tool are performing well.
Mr. Pitts. Now, you were here on September 10th when we
conducted the hearing in the Health Subcommittee. Iexpressed my
skepticism at the time. Forty days later we have seen the
exchange rollout, nothing short of disastrous. I would like to
ask again, CGI and QSSI, why were we told everything was OK a
few weeks before one of the biggest IT disasters in government
history? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Once again, sir, the portion of the system
that CGI was responsible for is where we had visibility.
Mr. Pitts. Were you not aware of the problems consumers
would face before October 1st?
Ms. Campbell. We were not part of the end-to-end visibility
throughout the system to understand exactly what would happen.
Mr. Pitts. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. As I remember correctly, at that hearing there
was a lot of focus on whether or not the data services hub
would be ready. I think we were informed to be prepared to
answer to this committee and to your subcommittee around those
questions. We mentioned on that date that we thought the data
services hub would be ready. It indeed was ready. I don't think
we had visibility into the work of other----
Mr. Pitts. Did you express any concerns about readiness to
CMS?
Mr. Slavitt. We expressed all of the concerns and risks
that we saw based on the testing that we did see and didn't see
that was unrelated to our work. Our work, as a matter of fact,
we felt was on track, and we expressed that to them as well.
Mr. Pitts. Ms. Campbell, my time is up. Would you submit
those memorandum communications to us within 24 hours, please?
Ms. Campbell. Once again, under our contract with CMS, if
we have permission to do so. They are not memorandums. I am not
even--I would have to go back and see what we do have for you.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Green.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some of us have been on
the committee a good while. I don't know if any of you had
experience, because we also had problems in 2003 when we
created the prescription drug program. And this committee did
that, and with much fewer participants.
And so what we are seeing now sounds like we have a
success, we just don't have the computer to deal with it. I
support the Affordable Care Act, because I know how dependable
and affordable insurance coverage is to our families in our
districts. And the stories I have heard from people who are
excited to sign up for the coverage remind me of why this law
is important. Thousands of people in our district have been
denied coverage in the past because of preexisting conditions,
or paid for expensive coverage they couldn't rely on.
That's why we need the Affordable Care Act's new benefits
and protections, and that's why it's so frustrating that
healthcare.gov has not worked the way we were promised,
especially after hearing such optimistic testimony from these
organizations in September. Ms. Campbell, and I know you have
been asked this before, but repetition helps us learn, were you
too optimistic in your prediction before our committee on
October 1st?
Ms. Campbell. I don't believe so, sir.
Mr. Green. Well, what happened then? Because obviously you
were optimistic, but in the last, you know, 23 days it's been a
problem.
Ms. Campbell. You asked about September 10th.
Mr. Green. Yes.
Ms. Campbell. September 10th we were quite optimistic that
our portion of the system would work effectively when the
system went live.
Mr. Green. Well, again, it may have been too optimistic.
Mr. Slavitt, Mr. Lau, and Ms. Spellecy, were you too optimistic
in your earlier testimony before the committee?
Mr. Slavitt. Congressman, we believe we have been prudent
and cautious all the way through this project. We did express
confidence to the subcommittee on September 10th that the data
services hub would be ready on October 1st, and it was.
Mr. Spellecy. No, sir, our portion of the system has worked
as we testified it would on September 10th.
Mr. Lau. And the paper processing capability has been up
and running since October 1st as well.
Mr. Green. Well, obviously there is a problem, and it's not
like an ostrich, we can bury our head in the sand. We have to
deal with it. Are each of you all willing to work to make sure
that we fix this problem? Because if you don't accept there is
a problem, then it's hard to fix it.
Ms. Campbell. So sir, we do accept that there are
challenges. There is no question about there are problems. And
we are working together to solve those problems.
Mr. Green. Well, Mr. Chairman, hopefully we will follow up
in another month or so so that we can see what's happening and
so we can do our oversight like we are supposed to do. Mr.
Slavitt, one problem that many people have identified is QSSI's
registration and access management tool for the site, the
gateway to setting up an account. Was this system overwhelmed
by volume when healthcare.com went live?
Mr. Slavitt. So let me explain what happened and where
things stand today with the registration tool. First of all,
the registration tool utilizes leading commercial software. It
is widely deployed, and it works in other settings across CMS.
Mr. Green. I only have about a minute and 48 seconds left.
So can you tell me was the system overwhelmed?
Mr. Slavitt. The registration system was overwhelmed with
concurrent users.
Mr. Green. OK. And have those problems been fixed?
Mr. Slavitt. We have expanded the capacity greatly in the
registration tool since then, yes.
Mr. Green. OK. Are there any other problems with the data
hub or the registration gateway managed by QSSI that you are
working to fix?
Mr. Slavitt. I think problems come up, discrete problems
come up routinely. Our team has early warning systems. They
address those problems. And there is none that I am aware of
outstanding.
Mr. Green. Ms. Campbell, CGI is responsible for
healthcare.gov Web site. Now that the registration gateway has
been fixed, we hope, are you encountering new problems?
Ms. Campbell. We are. We are looking at those problems and
making those corrections as they come up.
Mr. Green. And can you give us a background on those
problems? If you would, give it to us in writing. And I know
there is some question that you said that you all have a
privacy agreement with HHS. I think we can take care of that,
if we have to, on making sure this committee gets the
information. Do you expect to continue to make improvements and
fix problems over the coming weeks?
Ms. Campbell. That is our commitment, sir.
Mr. Green. Well, as you know, we are all impatient. Some of
us on our side who believe in the Affordable Care Act and
didn't start from day one trying to repeal it, want it to work.
And we want to make sure, and I hope we have a majority of
support for if we need do things to fix it, that it will get
done. But I look forward to continuing to see you. I don't know
if we ought to put a parking space out in front, Mr. Chair. But
until we get this fixed, we might need to do that. And I yield
back my time.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Walden.
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank all the panelists for their testimony today. And, you
know, I was in small business for 22 years in the radio
business. We dealt with software upgrades and changes in
systems and all that. And I am feeling a lot of those emotions
come back today, because when we would put a new system in,
there would be multiple vendors, and every one of them's system
operated perfectly except when it all came together. And then
they all pointed fingers at somebody else. And I am feeling a
lot of that today.
Only as a person who represents three-quarters of a million
people, and $500 million on the line, it is why we are here, is
to figure out what went wrong. And I would just like to know on
this whole end-to-end thing, because it sounds like each of you
has said that you designed your system and tested it to the
specifications you were given by CMS. Is that accurate? Yes or
no. Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Walden. Ms. Spellecy?
Mr. Spellecy. Yes.
Mr. Lau. Our systems are not integrated.
Mr. Walden. All right. So you get to sit there and not
quite get as much opportunity here today. But I want to go then
to the first two. If you designed it to CMS's specifications,
and you tested it and felt it was all good to go, where did
this break down? In most systems you operate in, do you do end-
to-end tests prior to the rollout? And if so, when would you
have preferred that end-to-end testing have been done by CMS?
Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Let's see if I can get all of those questions
answered. So----
Mr. Walden. I'll make it simple. When should the end-of-end
test been started?
Ms. Campbell. There's never enough testing for sure.
Mr. Walden. When did it occur?
Ms. Campbell. It occurred the last 2 weeks in September.
Mr. Walden. So you think that's an adequate timeframe for a
system this mammoth with one-sixth of the Nation's economy and
millions of people coming into it. Did that give your company
adequate time to make sure everything was integrated and going
to work?
Ms. Campbell. It would have been better to have more time.
Mr. Walden. And how much more time would you have preferred
to have?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have an exact date.
Mr. Walden. Did you make any recommendations to CMS about
the need for end-to-end testing to occur sooner than the last 2
weeks before this whole thing went live?
Ms. Campbell. I did not, but I could check----
Mr. Walden. Did anyone in your company make a
recommendation?
Ms. Campbell. I'd have to go back and check.
Mr. Walden. I'd like to know that.
Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, ideally integrated testing would have
occurred well before that date.
Mr. Walden. How far in advance of a major Web site coming
on line?
Mr. Slavitt. Well, with enough time to correct flaws before
they began. I couldn't give you an exact date.
Mr. Walden. Do you do any work for anybody else outside of
CMS where end-to-end testing is required?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Walden. And in those situations, are those commercial
situations or government?
Mr. Slavitt. Both.
Mr. Walden. And in those situations, what's the standard
protocol; what's the recommended industry standard for end-to-
end tests before rolling up a major Web site like this?
Mr. Slavitt. Months would be nice.
Mr. Walden. Months would be nice.
Ms. Campbell, is that accurate for your company as well?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Walden. And you were given 2 weeks, and yet months
would have been nice. Is that what--I mean, if you were to do a
contract for a system like this, what would you--what would you
ask for in terms of doing the end-to-end test? Do you have
standard industry recommendations?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, we weren't given 2 weeks. That was CMS
who decided to conduct the test in that 2-week time period. It
wasn't--it wasn't ourselves doing the end-to-end test.
Mr. Walden. Well, I think that's correct, but----
Ms. Campbell. OK.
Mr. Walden [continuing]. As a vendor, and you want your
company to come out of this looking good, not getting to spend
your time with us, as much as I'm sure you're enjoying it, but
what should have the industry standard called for here? Have
you ever undertaken bringing up a Web site, being part of
something this big affecting this many people's lives?
Ms. Campbell. I would say----
Mr. Walden. What you know, have you ever done one this big?
Ms. Campbell. Of this complexity.
Mr. Walden. Correct.
Ms. Campbell. I testified that this is by far, I think, the
most complex in our country for a very--in a very long time.
Mr. Walden. And I think you're right, and that's what I'm
trying to get at. Where should the end-to-end test have been
done? If you could have had--if your company could have made
that decision, what would you have made a recommendation for
the complete integrated end-to-end testing to begin; when
should that have started?
Ms. Campbell. It should have weeks--it would have had--we
would have loved to have had months to be able to do this.
Mr. Walden. Months. And that's the same--see, I was hearing
from people of the outside as this all was coming together. I
chair the subcommittee on Communications and Technology. As I
would reach out and just ask, how do you think this is going to
work, this is exactly how outside people predicted it would
turn out, and here we are today.
This isn't a partisan issue about health care or not.
People expect this thing to work. I mean, I went through this
in Oregon with our DMV. Department of Motor Vehicles spent I
think it was 50 or $60 million back in the late 1980s and
finally scrapped the whole system because it was a failure. We
said stop.
I don't want this to be a failure, but I don't want--I want
you-all to get it fixed, but I'm very disturbed that CMS did
not give you the adequate time that would be an industry
standard to test this before every American said, OK, they tell
me it's ready, I'm ready to go, because you-all came here and
told us and, through us, the American people it was good to go,
and it wasn't.
Mr. Upton. Ms. DeGette.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Campbell, you testified before the House subcommittee
on September 10th, correct?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And at that committee, at that hearing you
testified that CGI Federal was confident that it would deliver
the functionality that CMS directed qualified individuals to
begin enrolling in coverage, correct?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And in your written testimony of today, you
also testified that CGM and others developed the design, and it
passed the eight required technical reviews before going live
on October 1st, correct?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Ms. DeGette. And either at that hearing on September 10th
or until just now, you have never testified that there was
insufficient integrated testing to know whether the exchange
was going to work, correct?
Ms. Campbell. There were----
Ms. DeGette. I never saw any of your testimony that you
ever said in those hearings that more testing was needed, and I
was there.
Ms. Campbell. So, is your question whether I testified if
testing was needed?
Ms. DeGette. That's correct. Did you ever tell this
committee that more testing was needed to make sure it would
work?
Ms. Campbell. I don't believe I--someone asked me that
question.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Now, Mr. Slavitt--I'm sorry, I have very little time.
Mr. Slavitt, you were our only witness who was not here on
September 10th, but Mr. Finkel from your organization was, and
on September 10th, Mr. Finkel testified, quote, ``Our delivery
milestones for data service hub completion are being met on
time. We expect CMS data service hub will be ready as planned
on October 1st,'' correct?
Mr. Slavitt. I believe that's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And in your written testimony today, you
echoed that QSSI completed code for data services hub in June,
that you did the testing, there was an independent security
risk assessment completed on August 30; is that correct?
Mr. Slavitt. Correct.
Ms. DeGette. And today in your testimony you said that you
shared the problems that you identified with CMS. Were those
problems shared after the September 10th hearing then?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. OK. And I would request that you would
supplement your testimony today by telling us the problems that
you identified to CMS. Will you please do that for us within 20
days?
Mr. Slavitt. Be happy to get that to you.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much.
Now, did your organization do testing with a number of 200
people, and that testing failed? That's what we've been seeing
in the press accounts.
Mr. Slavitt. I'm not familiar with all of the accounts from
the press. What I think you're referring to is the testing that
occurred in the final days leading up to the October 1st
launch.
Ms. DeGette. And was that done with only 200 people?
Mr. Slavitt. I know that that was a test--my understanding
is that that was a test that failed once the systems began to
be finally put together for the first time.
Ms. DeGette. OK. But were there tests done with more people
coming into it as well?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. OK. Now, there's one more thing I want to talk
about in the time I have, and that's this issue of privacy,
because in my opening statement I said that I was really
touched by the people on the other side of the aisle trying to
work with us, but when I heard my friend and colleague Mr.
Barton's statements, and I saw his slide, which fortunately I
got a copy of since I couldn't see it, I realized that, in
fact, a lot of people don't want the Affordable Care Act to
work, and they are raising all of these specters. And this
privacy issue is a specter, because Mr. Barton's questions--
sorry he's not still here, because his questions came from an
article in the Weekly Standard where there apparently is a line
of code which says--and it's not visible to the user. It's
somehow in there. It says, you have no reasonable expectation
of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or
stored on this information system.
And so, is this sort of some standard boilerplate, but Mr.
Barton is assuming this violates HIPAA, but it would only
violate HIPAA if people were putting their personal medical
information into the application. And so I want to ask a couple
of questions about that.
As I understand it, you don't need any medical information
to enroll people other than the question, do you smoke; is that
correct, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Ms. DeGette. Is that correct, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. It's my understanding.
Ms. DeGette. And is that correct, Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. We wouldn't have visibility into that.
Ms. DeGette. And what about you, Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. That is correct.
Ms. DeGette. So people aren't putting confidential medical
information onto the Internet, and so, therefore, they wouldn't
be violating HIPAA. And I am disappointed that my friend would
go down this road, and I would ask unanimous consent to put
that article in the record, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. DeGette. I have one last question. When can these
exchanges be ready, and when can people get on them with
reliability? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. As soon as possible. We're working as hard as
we can.
Ms. DeGette. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Sure as our systems are currently ready. We
are doing everything we can to maintain them, and we'll do
everything we can to assist.
Ms. DeGette. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, my
healthcare aide went onto the Virginia--to the national
exchange, who lives in Virginia, last night. She was able to
register. She was able to research plans. I hope this happens
for all the rest of Americans.
Mr. Waxman. Gentlelady yield?
Ms. DeGette. I have no time left.
Mr. Upton. The gentlelady----
Mr. Waxman. The gentlelady yield. I just went on my iPad,
and I was able to access the choices of plans to my
constituents in California in the 5 or 10 minutes period.
Mr. Upton. Gentlelady's time is expired.
Mr. Terry.
Mr. Terry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And for Ms. Campbell on down, first two questions are more
like yes-and-no questions.
Did you or anyone from your company consult with or discuss
today's testimony and your answers to potential questions with
anyone from CMS to prepare for this hearing? Ms. Campbell.
Ms. Campbell. We talked to CMS about our testimony, but not
any details at all.
Mr. Terry. And who did you discuss that with?
Ms. Campbell. I don't recall. I didn't discuss it with
anyone myself. I'll have to find out.
Mr. Terry. Your people. So there's always intermediaries.
Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Mr. Terry. Ms. Spellecy.
Ms. Spellecy. No, we did not have specific conversations.
Mr. Terry. Lau.
Mr. Lau. No.
Mr. Terry. OK. That's good.
Did your company--again, from Ms. Campbell on to my right.
Did your company or any of your subs use any people who work
outside of the United States to assist in your respective parts
or your contract with CMS, otherwise known as outsourcing?
Ms. Campbell. No. We are very proud of the fact that we
created jobs all in the United States.
Mr. Terry. All of them?
Ms. Campbell. All of them.
Mr. Terry. OK.
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Ms. Spellecy. No.
Mr. Lau. No, sir.
Mr. Terry. Very good.
Now, I'm concerned about the front door of this system, of
this Web site. Now, is this system able to track how many
people are accessing what we call the front door? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. We're not responsible for the front door.
Mr. Terry. You know, it's very confusing, because in your
testimony on the 10th, you did suggest--and somehow that piece
of paper is missing right now--in your testimony that you
provided that you said eligibility and enrollment will serve as
the front doors for consumers to fill out the online health
insurance application as one of the responsibilities. So I'm
confused by that.
Ms. Campbell. No, I understand. Sir, we're the face of--if
you think about a house, we're the outside structure, but the
front door that you go into----
Mr. Terry. This is the siding that was put up, huh?
Ms. Campbell. I don't know about that. My dad did
construction all his life. He had a small business construction
company, so----
Mr. Terry. All right. Well----
Ms. Campbell. I kind of think in those terms quite
frequently.
Mr. Terry. So then all of the front face accessing is Mr.
Slavitt's world?
Ms. Campbell. Ask the question again.
Mr. Terry. Mr. Slavitt, are you responsible for the front
door?
Mr. Slavitt. Sir, I think the front door is a bit of a term
of art. We supply a tool.
Mr. Terry. All right. Let me interrupt you then because I
have very little time. I'm not trying to be rude, but what I'm
trying to get to is which of you was responsible for the
application that allows CMS to know how many people are
actually accessing this Web site? Is that you, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. So we have access to the data which shows how
many people are coming through the EIDM registration tool.
Mr. Terry. All right. And under that data that's then
compiled of how many people, can you-all break it down to say
how many people from Nebraska--since we don't have a State
exchange like California does and have to go to the national
one, can you determine how many people from Nebraska have tried
to access?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know.
Mr. Terry. Do you know how many people have tried to access
on any particular day? Do you have that data, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't have that as I sit here.
Mr. Terry. Does your company have that?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, we do.
Mr. Terry. And are you allowed to share that data with us?
Mr. Slavitt. I will follow up right away after this.
Mr. Terry. So, you are able to give us that data?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes. We'll follow up and see if we can do
that.
Mr. Terry. Has CMS made any instructions to you regarding
your ability to provide us the data of how many people have
tried to access through the front door?
Mr. Slavitt. No, not to me and not to my knowledge.
Mr. Terry. All right. And, Ms. Campbell, do you have access
to the information of how many people have tried to access the
Web site?
Ms. Campbell. We have some aspect of that data as well.
Mr. Terry. Has CMS instructed you not to give that to--
information to us?
Ms. Campbell. We have under our CMS contract, we have to
have permission from CMS first to provide that information.
Mr. Terry. OK. So, has CMS allowed you to provide us that
information yet?
Ms. Campbell. No, that is----
Mr. Terry. So if I ask you, you will deny or say that you
can't answer that question even though we're a panel of Members
of Congress----
Ms. Campbell. I would say----
Mr. Terry [continuing]. And you're under oath?
Ms. Campbell [continuing]. That based on our contract that
we have with CMS, we'd have to get permission.
Mr. Terry. Mr. Slavitt, are you under the same contractual
obligation with CMS?
Mr. Slavitt. I actually don't know, but we'll check into
it.
Mr. Terry. Will you still provide us the information
because you're under oath and we've asked you for that
information?
Mr. Slavitt. If we can, we certainly will.
Mr. Terry. That was a good nonanswer.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman's time is expired.
I'll just remind colleagues that often the question is the
order of seniority when the gavel falls on each side. So with
that, I recognize Mr. Butterfield.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank all of you for your testimony today. It's been very
enlightening. I will associate myself with the comments made by
my colleagues throughout this hearing.
Let me tell you I represent, like Mr. Hall said a few
minutes ago, 700,000 people down in North Carolina. More than
100,000 of those have no insurance whatsoever. They are eager
to get enrolled, and we've got to get this thing right, and
soon.
Ms. Campbell, let me start with you. On Monday, Congressman
Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee,
wrote a letter, which was publicly released, accusing the White
House of injecting politics into decisions about the Web site.
The reason I want to ask you about this is because Chairman
Issa says that the source for his accusation is you and your
company, CGI. According to Chairman Issa's press release, the
White House made, quote, ``the political decision to mask the
sticker shock of Obamacare to the American people.'' He is
talking about the decision by HHS to disable to the anonymous
shopper function on healthcare.gov Web site, but he suggests
this decision was made instead by the White House for political
reasons. Chairman Issa wrote this letter after receiving a
briefing from CGI on last week.
According to Mr. Issa's letter, quote, ``CGI officials told
committee staff that CMS officials and employees constantly
mention the White House when discussing matters with CGI.
Although CGI officials were not able to identify who within the
administration made the decision to disable the anonymous
shopping feature, evidence is mounting''--and this is Mr. Issa
speaking--``evidence is mounting that political considerations
motivated the decision.''
I'd like to ask you a few questions about this. First, did
CGI provide a briefing to Mr. Issa's staff last week?
Ms. Campbell. I was not there myself, but I believe that
that meeting did occur.
Mr. Butterfield. The meeting did take place, to the best of
your knowledge.
Ms. Campbell. I think it did, but I'd have to confirm. I'm
not close enough to the situation.
Mr. Butterfield. Do you know how many from your team
participated in that meeting?
Ms. Campbell. I do not.
Mr. Butterfield. You did not participate?
Ms. Campbell. I did not.
Mr. Butterfield. Who do you answer to within your
organization?
Ms. Campbell. The president of CGI Federal, Donna Ryan.
Mr. Butterfield. And do you know if Mr. Ryan participated
in that discussion?
Ms. Campbell. I don't believe so, but I don't know for
sure.
Mr. Butterfield. Let me ask you this just directly. Are Mr.
Issa's allegations correct? Did the White House ever order your
company, for political reasons, to mask the sticker shock of
Obamacare by disabling this anonymous shopper function?
Ms. Campbell. So let me answer two things. One, I don't
believe that members of CGI actually made those statements
direct in that manner. I think they may have been taken out of
context, but I'd have to get back to you with confirmation of
that. And to my knowledge, no, the White House has not given us
direct instructions.
Mr. Butterfield. I would like to get that information from
you. It's a very serious allegation for the chairman of an
oversight committee to make such a callous accusation.
Based on the meeting with your company last week, Mr.
Issa's letter wrote that, quote, ``evidence is mounting that
political considerations motivated this decision.'' Do you have
any evidence--and you just alluded to it--do you have any
evidence that political considerations motivated this decision?
Ms. Campbell. I'm not privy to anything of that sort.
Mr. Butterfield. Do you have any knowledge of any White
House role in specific decisions relating to the Web site?
Ms. Campbell. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Butterfield. And are you aware of any political
intervention by this White House relating to your work on
healthcare.gov?
Ms. Campbell. I am not.
Mr. Butterfield. Thank you. You've been very kind.
Mr. Chairman, we need to work together to make this program
function efficiently and effectively, and I urge my colleagues
to work with us, and let's work with these witnesses to get it
right.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. I
have a series of quick questions I'd like to get to.
Ms. Campbell, how many change orders have you received by
estimate and either formally or informally leading up to the
launch in what function that they wanted you to perform?
Ms. Campbell. We've received approximately eight change
orders.
Mr. Rogers. Eight change orders. When was the most recent?
Ms. Campbell. I believe as recent as August of this year.
Mr. Rogers. OK. That's good.
Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know the answer to that, but I think
it was a low number, if any.
Mr. Rogers. What----
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know the answer.
Mr. Rogers. OK. Are you both making changes now with code
in order to fix any of the so-called glitches or nonperformance
issues? Ms. Campbell, yes or no?
Ms. Campbell. That would be yes.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes. We make modifications along the way,
sure.
Mr. Rogers. Great.
And how many organizational boundaries between the piece of
information traveling from the United States Government to the
Web portal--how many boundaries, how many organizational
boundaries, including the States and their access to
information, does that piece of information cross?
Ms. Campbell. I'd have to get back to you with that answer.
Mr. Rogers. Give me an estimate, large number.
Ms. Campbell. When you say ``organizational boundaries,''
are you talking about like Homeland Security, IRS----
Mr. Rogers. IRS, veterans, you have States that have access
to other--cross other boundaries to get pieces of information,
pretty significant number.
Ms. Campbell. I'd have to get back.
Mr. Rogers. Please get back for the record.
Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. All that I'm familiar with is the data that
passes through the data services hub comes from a trusted data
source such as a government entity, passes through the data
services hub to those who request the query.
Mr. Rogers. That concerns me a little bit that either one
of you don't know the answer to that.
When you did a security verification, and by an independent
contractor, I assume, on August 30th, Ms. Campbell, did you do
the same?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Rogers. And was that an end-to-end system test that
crossed every organizational boundary, or was that by the
segment of which you controlled in the process, your segment of
the contract? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I would have to--I would have to go back and
find out exactly, but I believe it was from wherever our system
touched other parts of secure systems within the Federal
Government.
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Slavitt?
So you don't know the answer oh that question.
Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. We had a complete test that was done to meet
the standards of, I believe, NFDI. Our systems, as a matter of
course, don't hold data; they just transport the data through
it.
Mr. Rogers. Sure. And you're familiar with the various
levels of cyber weaknesses in any system, right, the boundary
being the weakest point?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. And so when you say you don't hold information,
that is a very low standard in order to protect information. I
don't have to be where it's held in order to obtain it. You're
aware of that.
Mr. Slavitt. Correct.
Mr. Rogers. All right. So, what about--what are you doing
for security on advanced persistent threats, and how is that
checked, who is your independent contractor, did you red-team
any of this in the last weeks before the launch of your system?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm not familiar, but I'll--although I can
certainly check about whether there were any security concerns.
None were brought to my attention or made available. I believe
it was MITRE Corporation who provided the independent security
risk assessment.
Mr. Rogers. And who certifies that your system on a daily
basis is secure from external threat, cyber threat?
Mr. Slavitt. Let me get back to you. I don't know the
exact----
Mr. Rogers. Is that CMS, or is it a private contractor?
Would--somebody certifies that you're doing this. This is----
Mr. Slavitt. Yes. Let me get back to you. I'm not----
Mr. Rogers. Are you familiar that there is an ongoing
security check into your particular system?
Mr. Slavitt. I believe there is.
Mr. Rogers. But you don't know?
Mr. Slavitt. I want to get back to you on the details.
Mr. Rogers. But you don't know the answer sitting here
today.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know----
Mr. Terry. Ms. Campbell, do you know the answer to that
question?
Ms. Campbell. Similar answer. MITRE was the independent
security testing contractor.
Mr. Rogers. And how about an ongoing basis? Who certifies
that it is as secure as a system like this?
Ms. Campbell. CMS has a SSO.
Mr. Rogers. So, it's CMS secures their own system, or at
least certifies that their own system is secure; is that
correct?
Ms. Campbell. With the support of MITRE is my
understanding.
Mr. Rogers. I understand that, but that's to your
understanding.
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Rogers. So, the information flows from these systems,
it goes to a data hub. You have designed the systems to
transport information; is that correct?
Mr. Slavitt. Right. Yes.
Mr. Rogers. That's what your design is. Ms. Campbell, your
infrastructure is designed to take a piece of information from
the hub and get it to an end user, which would be whatever
navigator is in front of that screen; is that correct, that you
built the infrastructure for that to happen?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct. A portion of it, yes, that's
correct.
Mr. Rogers. And, Mr. Slavitt, you wrote the code for that
to happen.
Mr. Slavitt. For the data hub, yes.
Mr. Rogers. OK. So, in less than 2 weeks, you're telling me
that you are constantly changing code, you're introducing new
code, you can't quite tell me how that's secure. In any system
that I have ever seen, 2 months for a functionality test is not
appropriate, let alone a security check on this information.
I am more nervous today than I was when I got here. I am
shocked, shocked that on August 30th you get an independent
check that says the system is fine, and you have introduced new
code to that system probably daily, probably in the terms of
hundreds of thousands of lines, at least tens of thousands of
lines of new code, which creates new vulnerabilities in the
system, and you don't even know the answer if these things are
end-to-end security tested, number one; and number two, you're
not even sure if it's in your piece is end-to-end ongoing
security tested.
I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, this is a significant
event, and you don't have to like Obamacare; you can hate it,
you can love it, you can't wait to get in it. You cannot expose
this much information with this low threshold of security in a
day when there is 1.5 million people ripped off every day in
cybersecurity. Were the folks who are systems administrators
and people who are sitting in front of those portals, are they
trained in spear phishing, one of the most basic levels of
security protection; do you know, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, I have to push back a little in terms
of, you know, to give the impression that CGI is putting willy-
nilly code on a daily basis is incorrect.
Mr. Rogers. Ma'am, you know better than that.
Ms. Campbell. We have a bill process.
Mr. Rogers. I am not suggesting that. You don't have to
have willy-nilly----
Ms. Campbell. We have a bill process. We have a systematic
process----
Mr. Rogers. Ma'am, I am reclaiming my time. This makes me
more nervous. You don't have to have willy-nilly code. You can
have the best code in the world. Every cybersecurity expert
understands that when you introduce new code, it has other
implications on a broader system even beyond your borders.
That's what we're worried. We're not worried that you're
putting bad code in. We're worried that you may be
accidentally, as we know, with the functionality of your system
doesn't work, it would be only logical to conclude if the
functionality of the system doesn't work when it all came
together, you cannot compose security.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Rogers. I need the answers to all of those questions by
9 a.m. Tomorrow.
Mr. Upton. Gentlelady from Illinois Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Ms. Campbell, I want to clarify one key
point. Did CGI system crash in a test with only a few hundred
people on the days before October 1st?
Ms. Campbell. So, there was an end-to-end test that
occurred, and the system did crash with about that number. I
don't have the exact number, but it was part of the end-to-end
test.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
I wanted to emphasize that the Web site has to be fixed,
but it is not, as the Republicans contend, a fatal flaw, a
contention that ignores millions of people who have already
benefited, and the tens of millions of people that will benefit
from the new coverage. In the first 3 weeks, there have been
over 19 million unique visits to healthcare.gov and almost a
half a million applications submitted nationwide, and some
people are getting through.
Susan, a constituent of mine wrote, ``Thank you, I was able
to successfully access the Web site yesterday. I am very
pleased that the cost of my coverage will be dropping
approximately $5,000 a year when compared to my current
individual coverage, ironically the same provider, Blue Cross
Blue Shield.'' Or David, who said, ``Seven years ago I was
diagnosed with melanoma. Last year I spent $11,000 on health
care. ACA will save me $4,000 per year. I need this program. I
know this because if I had no health insurance, I would be
dead.''
Every day since the passage of Obamacare, the Republicans
have undertaken obstructionist efforts, including shutting down
the government, that amount to congressional malpractice. And I
want to flash back to when the Bush administration was
implementing Medicare Part D, a law which many Democrats
opposed because of the donut hole, which, of course, Obamacare
will close.
Secretary Leavitt--Secretary Leavitt said at the time--
well, first of all, it launched November 8th, 2005, for
enrollment. January 1st the program enrolled--began actually
signing people up. February 22nd, Secretary Lovett said, quote,
``We are now at the 53rd day since the implementation of
Medicare prescription drug coverage. After reviewing the
numbers and experiences to date, I can report that we are
seeing solid progress. We continue to work aggressively to
solve the problems that inevitably occur in transitions this
size.''
That was Medicare Part D. And so, despite the glitches in
Medicare Part D, Democrats worked with Republicans to ensure
that the law was a success and that all Medicare beneficiaries
have the information necessary to take advantage of Medicare
Part D. In fact, Chairman--in fact, I joined with Chairman Fred
Upton to request additional funding for community-based
organizations to help seniors actually enroll in Medicare Part
D, and I have that letter right here.
So, unfortunately, the Republicans have actually taken
steps to ensure that consumers do not know of the benefits and
protections provided by Obamacare. In June, Senate majority
leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority whip John Cornyn sent
letters to major sports leagues warning them not to help
consumers be educated about the benefits of Obamacare.
And after Medicare Part D, Democrats like me hosted events
in order to boost awareness and facilitate enrollment. This has
not happened with Obamacare. Several Republicans Members have
even stated they will not help constituents who call and ask
for more information about the benefits of Obamacare and how to
enroll, and those Republican efforts will only harm American
families and small businesses and cut short the relief
Americans need because insurance companies are no longer in
control of their health care, and they are guaranteed access to
affordable coverage that will be there for them when they need
it.
I agree that the Web site must be fixed, but the
Republicans should stop their obstructionism, commit to working
with Democrats as we did with you on Medicare Part D to fix any
provisions that need to be fixed. Rather than to continue your
efforts to nix the law, let's work together to fix it and not
nix it, and I thank you and yield back.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman from Pennsylvania Dr. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
Ms. Campbell, when healthcare.gov went live on October 1st,
it was not possible to browse this site in order to see the
prices. You had to register. Who made that decision?
Ms. Campbell. CMS made that decision.
Mr. Murphy. Who within CMS?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have the exact name of the person. I
would say Henry Chao from CMS.
Mr. Murphy. And are you aware of any White House
involvement in that decision process?
Ms. Campbell. I am not.
Mr. Murphy. OK. So, what challenges arise when you switch a
Web site where individuals can browse to one--just browse
versus one where you're first asked to register? Does this
require a substantial amount of work?
Ms. Campbell. Well, it definitely puts a different--an
additional burden on the system.
Mr. Murphy. Do you have to write a new code to make that
happen?
Ms. Campbell. Well, for us to turn it off, it was just
putting a flag in our system to not allow for anonymous
shopping.
Mr. Murphy. And how much more time does this then take then
to test a system like that once you've made those kind of
decisions?
Ms. Campbell. It became part of the normal testing process.
Mr. Murphy. But you never tested the whole system, right?
Ms. Campbell. CGI did not.
Mr. Murphy. OK. Now, to Mr. Slavitt, when were you aware--
when were you made aware of the decision that the Web site
would not allow browsing and would require registration first?
Mr. Slavitt. We weren't made aware of this until the final
days prior to the launch.
Mr. Murphy. That final day being what date?
Mr. Slavitt. I believe it was within 10 days.
Mr. Murphy. Within 10 days.
Do you know who made that decision?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know. We don't know who made the
decision, we don't know when the decision was made, and we
don't know why the decision was made.
Mr. Murphy. And are you aware--but it was someone from CMS,
HMS, the administration, the White House; do you have any idea?
Mr. Slavitt. We don't know.
Mr. Murphy. OK. Ms. Campbell, did you inform anyone at CMS
or HHS of any concerns you had that this required more testing;
more time was needed because the system wasn't going to be
working?
Ms. Campbell. More testing because of the anonymous
shopping or----
Mr. Murphy. Well, both. Let's start with the shopping
issue, but the whole system. Did you inform anybody at CMS or
HHS that you needed more time because the system wasn't
working?
Ms. Campbell. So, once again, the portion that CGI was
responsible for went through its unit testing.
Mr. Murphy. So you did through your testing, but you didn't
look at the whole thing.
Ms. Campbell. But we are not responsible for end-to-end
testing.
Mr. Murphy. All right. Mr. Slavitt, did you inform CMS or
HHS, anyone there, that they needed more time, you didn't have
enough time?
Mr. Slavitt. We informed CMS that more testing was
necessary. We informed CMS of the pieces of this system that we
had tested that had issues. So, yes, we did.
Mr. Murphy. All right. Mr. Lau, how many applications did
you actually receive to fill out the process for people?
Mr. Lau. As of today, I would estimate about 9,000.
Mr. Murphy. About 9,000.
And how many have you successfully completed?
Mr. Lau. About half of those were successfully keyed in.
Mr. Murphy. And do you have to go online, or is there
another process for that? Do you have to go to the Web site?
Mr. Lau. We work through the consumer portal.
Mr. Murphy. Are you expecting more applications?
Mr. Lau. We are, yes. The volumes are increasing.
Mr. Murphy. All right.
Ms. Campbell, so you're saying you haven't gone through and
tested the whole system. You did your part. Mr. Slavitt, you
said the same thing; am I correct? You both just tested your
parts. You didn't check the whole system; am I correct?
Ms. Campbell. So CMS has an independent contractor, QSSI,
that tests our system.
Mr. Murphy. OK. And, Mr. Slavitt, did QSSI test the whole
system?
Mr. Slavitt. We tested the portions of the system for the
code that we received.
Mr. Murphy. Who, as independent contractor--who tested the
system?
Mr. Slavitt. QSSI was one of the independent contractors.
We tested code from CGI.
Mr. Murphy. And did you find any problems?
Mr. Slavitt. So we found problems in the code.
Mr. Murphy. And would it require more time to fix it?
Mr. Slavitt. Which in and of itself isn't necessarily a
problem so long as they're fixed. We also----
Mr. Murphy. Did you inform anybody at CMS or HHS that there
were problems and you needed more time?
Mr. Slavitt. We informed both CMS and the other contractor.
Mr. Murphy. Who did you tell?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know the names of anybody we told, but
I can tell you we informed CMS, and we informed the contractor
responsible for the code.
Mr. Murphy. Ms. Campbell, how much money did CGI get to do
this whole project from the Federal Government, total?
Ms. Campbell. Our total TCV is about $290 million.
Mr. Murphy. I see.
And, Mr. Slavitt, how much did your company receive to do
all this.
Mr. Slavitt. So the data services hub has been funded to
just under $85 million.
Mr. Murphy. All right. Now, let me ask you, Ms. Campbell,
have you personally tried to log on and test the system for
yourself doing the application process itself?
Ms. Campbell. I have, but I have insurance.
Mr. Murphy. And how long did it take you to do it?
Ms. Campbell. It took the normal time that it would take an
individual.
Mr. Murphy. You were able to successfully get in. What
State was that in? For what State?
Ms. Campbell. I'm a Virginian.
Mr. Murphy. And does Virginia have its own Web site, or was
that a government Web site?
Ms. Campbell. It's part of the government Web site.
Mr. Murphy. And, Mr. Slavitt, did you personally try and
get onto the system?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, I did.
Mr. Murphy. And for what State?
Mr. Slavitt. I think I put in Texas.
Mr. Murphy. Is that where you're from?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm not, but I was just testing the system.
Mr. Murphy. Did it work?
Mr. Slavitt. Well, I logged on to create an account, was
able to do so. I just never received a confirmation email.
Mr. Murphy. So it didn't work.
Mr. Slavitt. Didn't work.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. Yield back.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman from Kentucky Mr. Yarmuth.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Campbell, and Mr. Slavitt particularly, would you say
that if far more States had decided to do their own exchanges,
then the national exchange would not have experienced as many
problems?
Ms. Campbell. I can speculate. I would say probably, but I
don't know for sure.
Mr. Yarmuth. Well, I wanted to talk about the Kentucky
experience, and I want to thank your company for its
involvement in our State, because the experience in Kentucky
has been extraordinarily successful, and even though there were
problems for a few hours on the first day, again because of
excessive demand, at least unprojected demand, but those were
quickly rectified, and I have these statistics now for the
first 21 days in Kentucky.
We had 640,000 Kentuckians estimated without insurance, so
assuming that most of those were--we took the people who
contacted the system were mostly from that population, we've
had 280,000 unique visitors to KYNECT, K-Y-N-E-C-T; 247,000
have actually conducted prescreenings to determine
qualifications for subsidies and so forth; 47,000 applications
for healthcare coverage had been initiated, and 33,700 are
completed as of the 21st; 18,370 individuals are enrolled in
the new affordable health care; and I think, almost equally
important, 378 businesses have started applications for health
insurance for their employees.
So, in terms of the numbers of people who can take
advantage of the Affordable Care Act in Kentucky, a huge number
have already done so, actually have enrolled in affordable
insurance for the first time, in many cases, in their lives.
You know, Mr. Shimkus talked about one person he got a
letter from who said that he was not happy with what the
prospects were, and we've heard a lot of these anecdotal
stories. And, in fact, Fox News brought some people on last
week, and one of the small businesspersons said, oh, he had to
cut the hours of his employees and so forth. And a reporter
from Salon, Eric Stern, followed up on that, found out that
this man had actually only four employees, so he was not at
all--not even covered by the Affordable Care Act. So we have to
be very careful about people who say that they've done things
or they've suffered because of the Affordable Care Act when, in
fact, they haven't.
But I've got a couple of cases from my district that I
think are very valid experiences and also testify to how
important this law is and the benefit of it. Jeff Bauer wrote,
``I am 62 years old, and my wife will reach that age before the
end of year. In January, I parted ways with my employer of 39
years. We were lucky to have never needed government assistance
of any kind. We are pretty much a typical middle-class family.
We asked our doctors if they anticipated any problems with us
acquiring health insurance. They told us our health was good,
and they did not anticipate any problems. We were dismayed to
find that we were both turned down for coverage based on
existing medical conditions. The conditions were not chronic or
serious. Our only alternative was to select COBRA coverage,
coverage for 18 months, with monthly premiums over $1,000. When
COBRA expires July 2014, we would have go the next 20 months
with no health insurance. But on Kentucky's health exchange, I
was able to purchase our insurance for $800 less than our COBRA
coverage. Previous medical conditions were not a factor, the
exchange was user friendly, and I was able to complete the
application with no problems. I would like to thank lawmakers
and the President for representing those of us who only have
little voices and had the courage to make this coverage
available through the Affordable Care Act.''
Another woman, Debbie Basham, 17 years ago was diagnosed
with late third-stage breast cancer. She was able to get into a
special trial at Duke, and she overcame her disease, but was
left with a $200,000 bill that was not paid by the insurance
company. Now, because of the Affordable Care Act, she cannot
only can get coverage, she has no lifetime limits, no annual
limits, and these are the things that will protect her and her
family.
So, I just want to say that the experience is not all
negative, and I'm confident that eventually the national
exchange, I hope very quickly, becomes as effective as the
Kentucky exchange.
So, I thank you for your testimony. I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Dr. Burgess.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Slavitt, I just will say that my experience was similar
to yours. I live in Texas, so I did try, just while we were
sitting here spending some time together this morning, try to
sign up on the exchange for Texas, and I ended up with a
similar result as you did.
I just have to say, here we are 3 weeks into the open
enrollment period, and I can't think that anyone on this panel
this morning would think that that is acceptable that this
system would still work so poorly regardless of the State
involved.
Ms. Campbell, can you tell me at this point how many people
have signed up through CGI?
Ms. Campbell. I cannot. And I need to clarify an answer I
gave regarding 200 failures on the end-to-end test. It was
actually an understanding. It was an end-to-end test on the
EIDM where there were 200 failures.
Mr. Burgess. On that first morning, October 1st, we were up
late doing a vote, so probably about 2 o'clock in the morning I
attempted to sign in then and met with the same response. The
system asked my favorite kind of pasta or something along those
lines and then froze up. And then, like Mr. Slavitt, I've never
gotten a confirmatory email on any of the many, many times that
I sent that information through.
What happens to that information? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That's on the EIDM side, so I'd have to
defer.
Mr. Burgess. So, what happens with that information? Can I
ever get it back?
Mr. Slavitt. So, I can relate my own experience. Of course,
when I found out that I didn't get an email back, I called the
QSSI team to see what happened. Indeed, EIDM had a record of my
transaction, received the transaction, and we know that EIDM
received my submission. We also know that they sent that
transaction over to the marketplace. And, as I mentioned, EIDM
is only a tool used in the registration process; it's not the
registration process. Beyond that, I don't have any visibility.
Mr. Burgess. But again, I ask my question, can I get that
information back?
Mr. Slavitt. I believe that information would still reside
in the registration tool.
Mr. Burgess. Well, I mean, there's only so many passwords
that I have the mental capacity to make up, and I'm running
through all of them with continuing to try to sign this up, so
if you could return some of them back to me, I would greatly
appreciate that.
So, Ms. Campbell, you referenced a number in a question of
Dr. Murphy about the amount of money that CGI had received for
this contract.
Ms. Campbell. So, to clarify, that's the total contract
value through the outyears. That's not the dollars that we have
received to date. The dollars that we have received to date is
in the range of about $112 million.
Mr. Burgess. So, are all of these fix-its that are
occurring now, are those--were those included in that $12
million bill, or are there ongoing invoices that are going to
have to be reimbursed from CGI?
Ms. Campbell. So, CMS implemented a cost-reimbursable-type
contract, and as we continue to do the normal--our contract
says that we are responsible for the development, and then it
moves into operations and maintenance, which is continued bug
fixes and things of that sort----
Mr. Burgess. So, we're paying----
Ms. Campbell [continuing]. The normal course. It's the
normal course of a development in a production environment
scenario.
Mr. Burgess. And I'm not trying to be harsh here, but you
are continuing to bill the taxpayers for the fact that your
code did not work or your product did not work as advertised,
regardless of whose fault it was. On October 1st, I think we'd
all agree it wasn't working. The taxpayer is being billed for
those invoices to fix things.
Ms. Campbell. Sir, in October 1, the taxpayer couldn't get
to our system.
Mr. Burgess. Let me just add this as an observation. I
mean, it seems like we've got several fingers, but no palm
here. Was there anyone involved in sort of overseeing the
entire--the entirety of this to make sure it worked from A to
Z? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That would be CMS as the systems integrator.
Mr. Burgess. And who at CMS? Mr. Chao again?
Ms. Campbell. As one of the individuals, yes.
Mr. Burgess. Who else at CMS? Was the Administrator for CMS
involved?
Ms. Campbell. I can't say who was in that decisionmaking
process.
Mr. Burgess. How about you, Mr. Slavitt? Who was the unseen
hand trying to put all of this together?
Mr. Slavitt. CMS did play that role. I'm not aware of who
within CMS.
Mr. Burgess. Well, there was a comment on a blog post this
morning on one of the local papers that said, ``When do I start
to really freak out about this?'' See, the average American
watching this hearing this morning, can we give them any
comfort about that? When should the average American begin to
really become upset about what they've seen here in the past 3-
\1/2\ weeks? Ms. Campbell, do you have an observation?
Ms. Campbell. I do not, sir.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. Our team worked intensely in those first few
days after the launch.
Mr. Burgess. Here's the problem: Nobody believes this thing
is going to get fixed when we keep getting answers like this.
We're asking you for help, we're asking you to be transparent,
and we get non answers to our questions. So I would submit that
the average American looking in on this hearing this morning is
going to feel like there's really nobody in charge, maybe
somebody at CMS, but who's going to take the responsibility for
getting this thing fixed and making it right, because heavens
knows they've paid enough money to have it work right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Gentleman's time expired.
Mr. Welch.
Mr. Welch. Thank you very much, and thank you for the
hearing. We all have a real interest in trying to get this
thing to work, that's for sure. But I do want to say a couple
of things about what this hearing is not about, because it puts
it in a bit of a context.
It's not about whether we should take away the right of our
kids up to age 26 to be on health care, our own healthcare
policy. That's working great. It's not about whether the
preventive care that has been made available for free to
seniors on Medicare should be rolled back. That's working
pretty good. It's not whether the $4 billion in Medicaid--
Medicare fraud that's been found out and saved for the program
was a bad idea. There is strong bipartisan support on that.
It's not about whether the opportunity Americans have to now
get healthcare coverage, even if they have a preexisting
condition, should be rolled back. People are pretty happy with
that. It's not about whether the donut hole that was such a
burden for seniors on Medicare should be rolled back. What
we've done in this law, as everyone knows, is provide a
coverage to folks through that donut hole, so that's pretty
good. And it's not about whether the Medicaid expansion that is
part of this bill should be rolled back. In Vermont, that will
be like 40,000 people that are going to get access to health
care, and that's going to affect some of the hardest-working
people in this country. Farmers who work hard make very little,
but were not eligible to get Medicaid because they didn't have
young children.
So, Mr. Chairman, all of those things we're not having to
question. They're working great. What we're talking about is a
computer program that's messed up at the moment, and I've got
some--we all have some historical experience with that. When
the prescription drug program for seniors in Medicare Part D
was put into place, it was a huge computer program, and there
were lots of glitches, and the question that this committee had
at that time, March of 2006, was what to do about it. And we
had some really good advice from some really good Members. One
of them said--who is a supporter of Medicare Part D--``As I
mentioned earlier, the new benefit in its implementation are
hardly perfect, but rather than trying to scare and confuse
seniors, I would hope that we could work together as we go
through the implementation phase to find out what is going
wrong with the program, and if we can make some changes to fix
it, let's do it, and let's do it on a bipartisan basis.''
I'd say that statesman had it right, and that statesman was
Joe Barton of Texas. Thank you.
And we had another Member: ``We can't undo the past, but
certainly they can make the argument they were having a hearing
a month late, but the reality is that for the prescription drug
program, the benefit is 40 years late, and the seniors who
signed up for Medicare in those first days back in 1965, when
they were 65 years of age, are now 106 years of age waiting for
that prescription drug benefit. So I hope it doesn't take us
that long to get it right, and I don't believe it will.''
And that was Congressman Burgess, who serves with us on
this committee now.
And then another, I think, quote that was really terrific:
``Anytime something is new, there's going to be some glitches.
And it is of no value, as a matter of fact, it is of negative
value and of questionable ethical value, I think, sometimes if
people only spend their time criticizing the glitches that have
been made in the program, as with any program that occurs,
whether it is a public or private program, criticizing it,
standing on the outside and frightening seniors, frightening
seniors into thinking that because there was complexities and
difficulties, therefore they should not sign up.'' And that was
Congressman Tim Murphy.
And you know what? That advice they gave then is pretty
good advice for us to take now. I adopt their comments as our
path forward.
And I'll ask just each person on this panel, can the
computer challenges that we're facing right now, none of us
want, it's a real hassle for Americans--it starts to undercut
confidence in a program, whether it's eBay, Amazon.com,
flowers.com, you name it, if their program is not working.
There's frustration for anybody who goes on it. I just want to
go down the panel. Can this be fixed?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, we are working every day to get it
fixed. Yes.
Mr. Slavitt. We believe it can.
Mr. Welch. Thank you.
Ms. Spellecy. We hope so, but we don't have visibility into
that.
Mr. Lau. We have no direct involvement with that system.
Mr. Welch. OK. Thank you. I yield back. Get it done.
Mr. Upton. Dr. Gingrey.
Mr. Gingrey. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The gentleman from Connecticut said what this hearing was
not about, and he listed a litany of things that in his opinion
are positive, but let me tell you what this hearing is about.
It is about whether young people over the age of 26 and not
eligible for subsidies, who are forced come January the 1st, if
they had no insurance, to sign up for the exchanges and pay at
least double what they normally would pay. It is about that.
Here we are 24 days after the exchanges have come online,
and yet we receive conflicting reports from the administration
on the number of people who have successfully received
coverage.
When we met more than 6 weeks ago with this panel, I warned
that companies charged with developing and implementing the
Federal exchanges had not had the time to successfully produce
and test such a complex system. We're hearing that today.
During that hearing, we heard that all of your systems were
functioning properly and ready to go on October the 1st. After
what has been an unsuccessful first 3 weeks-plus of
implementation, we now have to better piece together the
timeline of problems and figure out who knew what and when did
they know it.
Ms. Campbell, in your testimony, you say that your company
was selected as the best value to create Federally Facilitated
Marketplace, FFM, in 2011 due to the fact that requirements
were not well established at the time of the award and that the
requirements did evolve over the next 2 years. How was CGI,
your company, made aware of these changing requirements by CMS?
Ms. Campbell. So we would receive change orders, and then
we would respond back with a proposal, and then that proposal
would be accepted, and then we would continue moving forward.
Mr. Gingrey. When was the last time that the Federally
Facilitated Marketplace requirements were changed by the
administration? When did they apply to October the 1st?
Ms. Campbell. I believe our last modification occurred in
August of this year.
Mr. Gingrey. Was there ever a point that CGI expressed
doubt as to whether the updated requirements would affect your
ability for a successful launch?
Ms. Campbell. We, each time we received changes, we shared
with CMS the risk associated with any changes that we were
asked to provide support.
Mr. Gingrey. Can you tell me today this morning who
specifically you gave that information to express that concern
to?
Ms. Campbell. I'd have to go back to my team specifically
but----
Mr. Gingrey. Could you do that for me before 9 o'clock in
the morning?
Ms. Campbell. If I'm allowed to provide that information
based on our terms and conditions of our contract at CMS, yes.
Mr. Gingrey. Well, this is a government that prides itself
on transparency. I'm certainly sure that you would be allowed.
You also stated that CGI Federal delivered the functionality
required by CMS. Did you ever have concerns that CMS was not
requiring enough in terms of design and functionality, and were
there ever internal concerns at CGI that CMS did not have the
technical expertise to handle such an ambitious project?
Ms. Campbell. So in terms of--CMS has a number of technical
resources and it was their responsibility to be the systems
integrator here, and we provided support and guidance as we
could.
Mr. Gingrey. Ms. Campbell, when, over the last several
weeks when the Republican majority in the House of
Representatives was trying desperately to keep the Federal
Government open and submitted several bills to the Democratic
majority Senate, Mr. Harry Reid, one of those requests, after
the initial request was rejected, was to simply say, look, we
will fund the entirety of the Federal Government at sequester
levels, but we think it's a good idea to delay the rollout of
ObamaCare for a year. Now that was summarily rejected again by
Mr. Reid. We then came back and said would you just meet with
us? Would you just allow us to meet with a bipartisan,
bicameral committee and talk about this?
And it's very possible if he had agreed to do that, that
this delay of a year could have been negotiated down to a delay
of 6 months. Let me in my few seconds left ask each one of you,
particularly you and Mr. Slavitt, do you think that that 6-
month delay would have given you sufficient time to have a
successful rollout and to avoid all this embarrassment and
expense?
Ms. Campbell. I don't think I can answer that with a yes-
or-no scenario.
Mr. Gingrey. Well, is there any scenario under which you
could answer it?
Ms. Campbell. It's a--the system went live, there were many
entry points upon which there is the ability for a person to
enroll. The online app is one----
Mr. Gingrey. I'm a little over time. Mr. Slavitt quickly.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know what flexibility there was in the
time but certainly more testing always helps projects like
these succeed.
Mr. Gingrey. Well, Ms. Sebelius, the Secretary, ended up
being interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN and in The Wall
Street Journal said she needed 5 more years, it could have
taken, and she only had 2.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Gingrey. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you witnesses.
I'm pleased to hear some concern expressed on the other
side of the aisle regarding access problems that people are
having in interacting with the health care government,
healthcare.gov Web site, and look forward to working with them
in a bipartisan way to make that happen.
I sense two great demands out there. One, a great demand
for this product called the Affordable Care Act, second a great
demand placed by the public into our laps to get this business
of connecting access to the system done in a bipartisan,
professional way.
I would also like to echo the comments of many of my
colleagues in distinguishing between the unfortunate rollout of
the Web site and the underlying promise of the law itself that
all individuals will finally have access to affordable health
care, and many of the benefits of that package are now well
known and very much appreciated, no longer deniable by the
industry because of preexisting conditions, students being able
to stay on their parents' plan until the age of 26, seniors not
having to pay as much money out of pocket for prescription
drugs and eventually closing that donut hole, and the list goes
on and on.
While there might be problems with the Web site, we have
heard it here this morning and it's worth repeating: we have to
fix it, not nix it. We have to fix it, not nix it. It's an
important mantra to guide us forward.
Mr. Chair, where people are able to overcome these initial
bumps in the road, they are discovering a quality product that
will save families hundreds of dollars a month on health care
costs. You don't have to take my word for it. Fox News
contributor Sally Kohn upon discovering that her family will be
saving $408 per month in my home State of New York said,
ideologues may not like ObamaCare, but my wallet and my
family's health sure do.
So while we are here to address the real problems of an
underperforming Web site, we can't ignore the larger story that
affordable health care has finally become a reality for
millions of Americans and that it is something we should not
delay.
Ms. Campbell, that being said, most of the bugs in the
system we have heard about here today have been with the
federally run Web site healthcare.gov, is that correct?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Tonko. And how many States are currently participating
in the Federally Facilitated Marketplace through the
healthcare.gov Web site?
Ms. Campbell. Thirty-six.
Mr. Tonko. Now it was my understanding that the Affordable
Care Act envisioned that the States would be taking the lead on
designing and running these exchanges.
Do you have a sense of why 36 States chose to let the
Federal Government take the lead instead?
Ms. Campbell. I have no further information to support
that.
Mr. Griffith. They don't like it.
Mr. Tonko. I think it's clear to state this was how it was
envisioned to work and would have been beneficial. From what I
can tell, many States that refused to create a State-based
exchange did so largely for ideological reasons.
Now did CGI Federal participate in building the exchange
Web sites in any of the States running their own exchanges?
Ms. Campbell. Yes, we have.
Mr. Tonko. And my sense is that the States that have taken
ownership of the Affordable Care Act and designed and run their
own exchanges are outperforming the Federal exchange, would you
agree with this assessment?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Ms. Campbell. And I do agree that the
picture that we have seen in the State-based exchanges is
vastly improved over what we are seeing through healthcare.gov.
My home State of New York, which also experienced Web site
problems at the outset, has now signed up nearly 174,000 New
Yorkers for quality, low cost health insurance. That means that
more New Yorkers have completed an application to receive an
eligibility determination than any other State in our Nation.
This is clear-cut evidence that the temporary setbacks can
be overcome, and success can be achieved when the law is
implemented the way it was intended--without malice and
obstruction.
In closing, I would implore my Republican colleagues to
reject the politics of division and join with us in finding
constructive solutions to these technical problems so that the
many millions of Americans demanding and deserving access to
the private sector-driven health care options they now have
before them is a reality.
With that, Mr. Chair, I will yield back.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Scalise.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
having this hearing. I want to thank the witnesses for coming
to testify. There's been a lot said about why we're having this
hearing. One of the reasons is that our constituents are
calling us on a daily basis reporting some of these many
problems that we're talking about here today. And it's not just
the failure of a Web site. Obviously there's a lot of focus on
the failure of the Web site, but it's a focus on a failure of
the law in general, the fact that there were so many broken
promises made by the President about what this law would do: if
you like what you have you can keep it.
Thousands and thousands of people are losing good coverage
they have. In Florida, it's reported I think MyBlue, 300,000
people are going to lose the health care they have that they
like. All across the country we hear that.
Costs are going to be lower. You're seeing so many States
report that costs are dramatically higher. In Chicago, in
President Obama's own backyard, it's reported that 21 of the 22
plans on the exchange that you go to, these low cost exchanges,
have deductibles of $8,000 or more per family. People don't
consider that a low cost when people are losing good private
sector health care that they have.
You're hearing of course promises the President quoted,
this really gets in the conversation we're having today. This
is the President's quote ``just visit healthcare.gov and there
you can compare insurance plans side by side the same way you'd
shop for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon.''
Now while you all were testifying, I went on Amazon and
looked for a TV. Within 1 minute I had over 300,000 options of
TVs that I could purchase, and there were low cost TVs too.
I tried to go on healthcare.gov and register. I spent--this
was earlier this week. I spent more than 2 hours, probably had
an experience similar to Mr. Slavitt, was kicked out four
times, had to reenter data multiple times, was given blank
screens a number of times, ultimately never even got to a point
where I could see health care plans where I could compare, as
the President promised, side by side, just like you look for a
TV on Amazon. That's not the experience you get when most
people go on line and purchase products.
And this isn't just any product. This is a product that the
Federal Government said you have to buy by law or else you get
fined. And the other side wants to mock us because we're asking
for at least a delay of the fine while people can't even go to
the Web site that doesn't work.
I used to program computers for a living. I understand how
you design systems, big systems, small systems. I understand
how you design test plans. I actually wrote test plans for
systems. And you would test the system, you would do all-
nighters until the system worked, and you wouldn't deploy it
until it worked. And clearly that didn't happen in this case.
So I want to ask, first of all, you all said that you track
error logs.
If I can ask down the line, starting with Ms. Campbell, how
many errors have you logged since you've been tracking the
errors in the system, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have that information, but I'll get
back----
Mr. Scalise. Can you get me that to the committee? Mr.
Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't have that with me.
Mr. Scalise. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. I have to get back to you for the record.
Mr. Scalise. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. We really don't have access to that system.
Mr. Scalise. We need to get those numbers. Clearly there
are many.
Mr. Slavitt, you said in your testimony that there was a
late decision requiring consumers to register for an account
before they could browse.
Early off, it was promised that people would be able to go
to a Web site and just shop around, look for a site, if you
like something you find, you go buy it, like anything else you
buy online. You don't have to give hours and hours of personal
data and Social Security numbers before you buy a product. A
company would go out of business.
You'd said that there was a late decision made to change
the system so that you have to give all the personal
information before you can even shop around. Who made that late
decision?
Mr. Slavitt. We don't know who made the decision and we
don't know when.
Mr. Scalise. Ms. Campbell, do you know who made that late
decision? Was it CMS?
Ms. Campbell. It was CMS who made that decision.
Mr. Scalise. Do you know who at CMS made that decision?
Ms. Campbell. We don't have full knowledge of exactly the
full chain of----
Mr. Scalise. When CMS made the decision, how late in the
game did they make the decision to change a drastic system like
this?
Ms. Campbell. For CGI, they asked us to turn that flag or
functionality off at 2 weeks before going live.
Mr. Scalise. Two weeks before going live. So they made a
dramatic change to the system just 2 weeks before going live.
Nobody would have done that in the private sector to make that
kind of change to a system.
Let me ask you this, because all of you were paid lots of
money to do this, it's been reported over $500 million of
taxpayer money spent to build this Web site, more money by the
way than it cost to build Facebook. Facebook gets 700 million
users a day, 700 million people use that site every day and it
works. The first 5 years they didn't spend $500 million.
Did you deliver--and I'll go down the line. Did you deliver
the product that you were contracted to build, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. We have.
Mr. Scalise. Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. For the----
Mr. Scalise. Did you deliver the project--did you deliver--
--
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Scalise [continuing]. The product that you were
contracted?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes.
Mr. Scalise. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. Yes.
Mr. Scalise. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. Yes.
Mr. Scalise. There's a saying in computer programing,
garbage in, garbage out. If you're given a bad product to
build, then ultimately what you'll deliver is a bad product.
The focus is not just going to be on the failed Web site.
Clearly they are some serious questions that need to be
answered. All the taxpayer money that was spent to build a site
that people can't even go on and use and then ultimately if
they're able to get through they're finding the prices are
dramatically higher. This will not mask the fact that the law
fails in general.
You wonder why we're calling for a delay of the
implementation of this law, the delay of the fine that people
will have to pay if they can't even use the Web site, 50
percent of you who said you went to the Web site said you had a
failure rate. You built the site.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Scalise. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Sarbanes.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel.
This is an important hearing. There are two stories that have
unfolded in the last 3 weeks. One of them clearly is the
problems with this Web site that need to be fixed, and I'm
going to ask some questions about that in a minute. But the
other story is the incredible demand and interest that
Americans have in accessing this new opportunity for affordable
health care. We saw it in the demand that came in on the
Federal exchange which outstripped all the projections that
people had for it. We've seen it in the State level exchanges,
the State-run exchanges where there's been a lot of success in
terms of people come there, browsing, applying for coverage,
enrolling in coverage, and that story continues.
That's the reason that we have to fix this. In other words,
if there was no interest out there, there was no demand, and
you had a Web site that wasn't working very well, you could
say, well, maybe we don't need to fix this thing. But people
really want this opportunity. That's the bigger story. The
bigger story is that people want to access affordable health
care coverage, and they're coming to these sites. So we have to
fix it. That's why you keep hearing this refrain on our side to
fix it, don't nix it.
Now, let me ask you this. I assume that you've been
involved, all of you, in big projects of this kind. This may be
particularly complex. I get that. But I'm sure you've had the
experience where you went to, you pulled the switch on a go
live situation and it didn't work out exactly as you expected.
Ms. Campbell, when that happens, I imagine CGI doesn't just
sort of bury its head in the sand and give up, but you get
about the business of fixing the thing so it can function
properly correct?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct. It's a normal course of what
happens when a system goes into production.
Mr. Sarbanes. Absolutely. Mr. Slavitt, I assume that if you
encounter difficulties when you go live with a product, you
don't light your hair on fire and run around in small circles,
you get about the business of fixing, right?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Sarbanes. In fact, you did that in this instance from
what I understand, right?
Mr. Slavitt. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Sarbanes. And got some of the issues that were
presented fixed in fairly short order. So I mean, you're
professionals, you do this for a living, you understand we've
got some problems here that need to be addressed. You're
getting about the business of fixing them, and you're doing
that because this is a platform that Americans need in order to
access health care coverage.
Let me ask you another question.
Do you have any reason to think that the problems with the
Web site that we've been talking about today in any way are
affecting the quality of the underlying product that's being
sold, in other words the plan options that are out there and so
forth? Is there any reason for us to conclude that because
somebody's having problems accessing an enrollment or doing an
application because of the Web site, that that's somehow a
commentary on the underlying product that ultimately they're
trying to access? Ms. Campbell.
Ms. Campbell. No, with 4,400 plans for people across within
the 36 States that can apply, I would say that the plans are
there for people to be able to shop.
Mr. Sarbanes. Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. No I wouldn't conclude that.
Mr. Sarbanes. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. No.
Mr. Sarbanes. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. No.
Mr. Sarbanes. And in fact, the reports we're getting about
the underlying product, the plan that people are going to have
access to, the options that are available to them, that they're
good quality products, and that they're going to be available
at very reasonable premiums which is exactly, again, what
people are looking for here. And certainly there is no
suggestion that problems with the Web site are, at some point,
going to mean that an enrolled beneficiary is going to have an
issue accessing their doctor or accessing the hospital or
anything like that.
So the product is good. The Web site needs to be fixed to
make sure that we can get that product to people. That's what
you're engaged in now, and that's why we have to fix it, not
nix it when it comes to this health care Web site.
With that, I yield back my time.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Latta.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
very much for our witnesses for being here today and I greatly
appreciate your testimony. And last night, I read through all
of your statements beforehand. And if I could, because there's
been a lot of questioning, of course, about the, on the testing
side.
And Ms. Campbell, if I could turn to your testimony, on
page 2, you said, in recent years that CGI Federal has
delivered some of the most complex IT implementation for U.S.
Government including FederalReporting.gov and medicare.gov.
And we've heard from you all saying that you only had at
the very end about 2 weeks to really make sure this thing was
integrated. When you were working on, let's just say for
example, medicare.gov, how much testing did you do on that? Did
they give youa time frame? What can you tell me about that
testing at that time?
Ms. Campbell. I'm sorry, I can't give you exact time
frames, but we had sufficient time to test the system before it
went live.
Mr. Latta. Can you tell me what sufficient time is?
Ms. Campbell. We had a number of months before the system
went live.
Mr. Latta. If you could, by tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock,
I'd like to get that information from you to find out exactly
how much time you did specifically have to test that system.
What about on FederalReporting.gov? How much time were you
given to test that system?
Ms. Campbell. I'd have to get back to you. That wasn't in
my area of responsibility.
Mr. Latta. We'd like to have that by 9 o'clock tomorrow
morning so we can get that information.
And I think I heard this earlier, is healthcare.gov the
most complicated of the systems that you've created?
Ms. Campbell. It is by far for our country the most, one of
the most complicated, large scale systems that's out there
today.
Mr. Latta. So what you're telling me is that you had months
versus a couple weeks to do that testing.
And let me ask you this: Did they, when medicare.gov or
FederalReporting.gov, are you able, especially on the Medicare
side, because you say in your testimony which successfully
helps more than 50 million U.S. Citizens compare health and
drug plans each year, is it set up the same way that
healthcare.gov is that you first have to register before you
can browse? Or can you browse and then get what you need?
Ms. Campbell. You can browse first.
Mr. Latta. Why would those two systems be different then,
that you would have--any reason that was given to you by CMS or
HHS that they wanted it reversed, since the one system seemed
to be working?
Ms. Campbell. I do not. CMS, I guess, had to, speculation,
number of priorities, and maybe that wasn't one of the
priorities.
Mr. Latta. OK. Mr. Slavitt, if I could ask you a couple of
questions in your testimony. Again, I found all your testimony
all very interesting. And it's been talked about a little bit
before, but in your testimony you stated on page 4 that appears
one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at the
registration was a late decision requiring consumers to
register for an account before they could browse for the
insurance products. Again, whose decision was that?
Mr. Slavitt. We don't know.
Mr. Latta. You don't know whose decision that was? How did
you get the information you were supposed to do that?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?
Mr. Latta. How did you get the information that you were
supposed to switch things around like that then?
Mr. Slavitt. One of the testers in our company that was
responsible for testing the CGI software code was notified that
there was code they no longer needed to test.
Mr. Latta. Well, if we could also by 9 o'clock tomorrow
morning get the name of the individual at CMS who asked for
that, we would appreciate that.
Going on in your, following up a little bit on your
testimony, on page 4, again, it goes back, it says, in our role
as tester we were tasked with identifying errors in the code
that was provided to us by others. We reported the results back
to CMS, and the relevant contractor who was internally
responsible for fixing the coding errors or making any
necessary changes.
Do you know who that was back at CMS that you were supposed
to report back to?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't.
Mr. Latta. If we could get that by 9:00 o'clock tomorrow
morning.
Do you know who that relevant contractor was that you were
also supposed to be getting that information to?
Mr. Slavitt. CGI.
Mr. Latta. I beg your pardon?
Mr. Slavitt. CGI.
Mr. Latta. All right. And when you submitted, when you
submitted those, that information back to CGI, did you hear
back from them or what was--what happened with that information
you sent them?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know what happened in every case, but
what typically happens is we submit the results back and then
the other contractors responsible for making those changes.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I see my time
has expired. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Waxman. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. Yes. You're asking for a second round already?
Mr. Waxman. Congressman Rush and I have sent around 40
letters to you requesting a hearing on climate change and we
haven't gotten any responses. We would like to have a response
by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Suddenly people have made up the
idea that 9 a.m. tomorrow morning is some kind of deadline.
That's--you can say it, it doesn't mean it happens. Thank you.
I'll withdraw my parliamentary inquiry.
Mr. Upton. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. McNerney.
Mr. McNerney. Mr. Chairman I'd like to ask if I can
postpone my questioning for another witness.
Mr. Upton. Sure. Mr. Lance.
Mr. Lance. Thank you very much. And to the panel, the
September 10th hearing in the subcommittee, the Health
Subcommittee, where you testified, Ms. Campbell, and your
company testified, Mr. Slavitt. If you had the opportunity now,
would you, in any way, amend the testimony you gave at that
time?
Ms. Campbell. No. My testimony was fine. I would not change
anything based on what I knew at that point in time.
Mr. Lance. Did you know at that time that there was no end-
to-end testing?
Ms. Campbell. I knew that that was something that was
forthcoming.
Mr. Lance. So you knew at that time that there was no end-
to-end testing as of that date?
Ms. Campbell. It was not our area of responsibility for
end-to-end testing.
Mr. Lance. You believe you had a responsibility to tell the
subcommittee that at that time, there was no end-to-end
testing?
Ms. Campbell. I don't believe that question came up, sir.
Mr. Lance. I suspect that's the case. The question did not
come up. This is not a game of cat and mouse. This is the
people of the United States, one of the most important
proposals of the Obama administration. I'm sure that question
did not come up.
In your other activities with other entities, you have
testified that there was always end-to-end testing.
Is that accurate, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. That end-to-end testing is a component of,
before systems go live.
Mr. Lance. And you do not believe that you had a
responsibility to indicate that end-to-end testing had not yet
occurred with 20 days to go?
Ms. Campbell. It was our client's responsibility for end-
to-end testing, sir.
Mr. Lance. Mr. Slavitt, would you respond to me on that
issue?
Mr. Slavitt. We wouldn't amend our testimony. We testified
accurately to the delivery of a data services hub.
Mr. Lance. Do you believe that you had a responsibility
affirmatively to indicate that no end-to-end testing had yet to
occur?
Mr. Slavitt. Sir, I believe on September 10th we were
expecting to receive the code that would allow the end-to-end
testing to occur.
Mr. Lance. So you are of the opinion that there would be
end-to-end testing between September 10th and September 30th?
Mr. Slavitt. That was our expectation.
Mr. Lance. In your experience with other clients, does end-
to-end testing occur before 20 days to go?
Mr. Slavitt. Each project is different. I can't comment,
Congressman.
Mr. Lance. On another large project in which you were
involved, is it usual that end-to-end testing occurs long
before the last 2-1/2 weeks?
Mr. Slavitt. We would certainly have liked to see as much
time as possible for end-to-end testing.
Mr. Lance. Would you suggest that this be delayed for 3
months or 6 months given the experience so far regarding the
individual mandate?
Mr. Slavitt. No, I wouldn't have the information to make
that determination.
Mr. Lance. So you don't know?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know.
Mr. Lance. You don't have an opinion. Do you have an
opinion, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I can tell you that I have a team of people
working 24 hours a day to make these corrections that are
needed to continue moving forward.
Mr. Lance. I'm sure you do. And I certainly respect that.
On the risk involved in change orders, this impresses me as
being serious.
Mr. Slavitt, regarding that, did you perceive a significant
chance that there would be a huge problem because of the change
orders with which you were involved?
Mr. Slavitt. We didn't receive significant change orders on
the data services hub that I'm aware of.
Mr. Lance. Ms. Campbell regarding the change orders, the
risks associated with that, you received several change orders,
I believe you testified six or eight of them.
Did you perceive a significant risk in that regard?
Ms. Campbell. We did not.
Mr. Lance. You do not think there would be a significant
risk?
Ms. Campbell. No. Over time, these change orders occurred
over a 2-year time period.
Mr. Lance. Some have commented that much of the problem
exists because CMS decided to do its own inhouse analysis
equivalent to someone who had never hung a picture deciding
that he would become his own general contractor instead of
subcontracting the responsibility for integrating the software
of the multiple contractors.
Do you agree that CMS should have hired a contractor in
that regard, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I've seen it both ways where the government
has taken that job and quite often, they would bring in a
separate contractor to do that job.
Mr. Lance. In many cases, a separate contractor would be
brought in. Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know.
Mr. Lance. You don't know. In my opinion, I think in the
history of working with complicated IT systems, it's difficult
to see that there was a more incompetent systems integrator. Do
you have an opinion on that, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I have no opinion on that.
Mr. Lance. Mr. Slavitt.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't.
Mr. Lance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. Mr. McNerney.
Mr. McNerney. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I'm not ready yet.
Mr. Upton. OK. Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
testifying today. A lot of people don't realize because they
didn't get out in the public like I think they should have,
before the government shut down on September 30th, almost every
Republican I think all but one voted to fund the government to
fund the health care bill to sequester level, and only asked to
get rid of the individual mandate for a year, delay it for a
year. Because as businesses and other people have been treated
with waivers and special delays we thought the hardworking
taxpayers deserved because we didn't think the product was
going to be ready for them to purchase. And it turned out on
October 1st, it wasn't.
So we wouldn't even have the government shutdown if we had
people agree to give hardworking taxpayers the same treatment
they gave businesses because the IRS wasn't ready to enforce
that.
Having said that, people say there are other alternatives
and so we have good people in the great Commonwealth of
Kentucky working for Mr. Lau who will take paper applications
so there is argument, well, they can buy if they do paper
application. So how do, you said you take the applications and
enter the data? Where do you enter the data?
Mr. Lau. Into the portal.
Mr. Guthrie. The same portal that is having trouble being
accessed online?
Mr. Lau. That's correct.
Mr. Guthrie. So even if people get frustrated, because I
was watching my good friend here most of the morning try to get
online, I think you've been kicked out four times since we've
been sitting here as of today. You're going to take that
information into the same data, so maybe you're making it
easier. Do you have a special portal to get in or do you have
to deal with the same kind of problems that he's been dealing
with?
Mr. Lau. The difference for us is that we don't have to
establish an account. So our landing page on the portal is
behind that.
Mr. Guthrie. But you have to have an account for the people
that you are entering, right?
Mr. Lau. Well, in the initial days, you had to sign up,
that's what we had been talking about before, establishing an
account before you can do an application. So, for us, we just
bypass the account establishment and begin keying in the data
for the application.
Mr. Guthrie. And that's what I want to get to. I'm glad you
said that. And so when the President and Secretary Sebelius
advised Americans to submit paper applications if they're
having problems with the Web site, they still have to go to the
same portal.
Now we've been talking about entrance into the portal, the
front door I think we've talked about a few times. But also,
Ms. Campbell, I know to quote The Washington Post, ``About a
month before the exchange opened, a testing group of insurers
urged agency officials not to launch.''
So when you--according to the Washington Post, unquote. So
you had a test about a month before the exchange opened because
CGI provides that information, were you involved with the
testing with insurers?
Was CGI? Not you particularly, was CGI involved with the
testing with insurers?
Ms. Campbell. I understand. So we do test with a set of
insurers to make sure that obviously before we go live that our
system is working appropriately.
Mr. Guthrie. Did they recommend that you weren't ready to
go live?
Ms. Campbell. They did not recommend that to CGI--to my
knowledge, preface that, to my knowledge, the insurers did not
recommend that directly to CGI.
Mr. Guthrie. Do you know if they recommended it to HHS?
Ms. Campbell. I do not know.
Mr. Guthrie. You don't know if they did that or not?
Ms. Campbell. I do not know.
Mr. Guthrie. Did HHS share that information with you that
they weren't ready to go live?
Ms. Campbell. Not that I'm aware of.
Mr. Guthrie. So you're not aware this test took place with
insurers a month before?
Ms. Campbell. I'm sorry?
Mr. Guthrie. CGI is not aware that this test took place
with insurers a month before?
Ms. Campbell. I didn't say that. I said, you know, to my
knowledge, I'm not aware that insurers provided feedback to CGI
or to CMS or HHS on their----
Mr. Guthrie. Did you all discover errors during that test
with insurers, problems with the system?
Ms. Campbell. You know, the purpose of test, the nature of
test is there it's there to find----
Mr. Guthrie. Find the problems and you're able to fix----
Ms. Campbell [continuing]. The issues that you have so that
you can have an opportunity to correct those issues.
Mr. Guthrie. Because there is still reports in the weeks
before the start--there's still reports in news that insurers
are saying there's missing data, duplicate applications,
enrollments, incorrect data on applications and missing data,
that's still taking place, or at least it was reported last
week in the news. Is that still taking place?
Ms. Campbell. When we receive a, what we call a, they call
it a trouble ticket, or a defect ticket, or an issue ticket,
then we are in the process of making corrections and then when
we do the next build, we make corrections to the system. So
there could be, there could have been a point in time where
there were duplicative insurance forms and things of that sort
or duplicative information, and we would have made corrections.
Now where we are in that process at this very moment, I don't
have the answer.
Mr. Guthrie. I guess my point is, we wouldn't have had the
government shutdown, believe it or not, and I know that didn't
get out in the news, if we would have done the individual
mandate delay, we didn't say get rid of the exchanges, get rid
of what you were doing, not go live the next morning, just not
mandate people to buy a product they can't buy.
So my point that I'm trying to make here is there are other
issues; it's not just not being able to get on the Web site,
it's making exchanges work. And it's hard to believe that if
that report is true, HHS didn't tell you that they were having
trouble between, or that there had been a delay. And you know,
it's concerning that those tests are taking place and it's been
reported in the media, but it doesn't seem to have gotten to
CGI from HHS. So my time is expired I yield back.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time is expired. I would note
that we have at this for 3 \1/2\ hours. Would the panel, would
any of you like a 5-minute break? I see some nods. So why don't
we take a 5-minute break and when we resume, we'll come to you,
Mr. McNerney.
[Recess.]
Mr. Upton. OK, Mr. McNerney, you're recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the
witnesses for a long, grueling hearing this morning.
First of all, I want to say I really don't blame my
Republican colleagues for trying to change the subject from the
costly and reckless government shutdown and the irresponsible
threats to default our Nation's credit by focusing on a
temporary short-term failing of our healthcare.gov Web site.
Good job.
My first question regards software development. I was a
software developer before coming to Congress. And the
healthcare.gov is a very big project, it's got a lot of moving
parts to it. Any large project, including software, needs an
orchestrator to coordinate all moving parts and make sure that
things are fitting together well. Who was that or what
organization was that orchestrator for this project?
Ms. Campbell, you seem to be in the best position to answer
that question.
Ms. Campbell. Yes. That would be CMS.
Mr. McNerney. CMS.
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. McNerney. OK. Was there a specific person at CMS, or
was it a team of people at CMS?
Ms. Campbell. It was a team of individuals.
Mr. McNerney. Well, did the orchestrator--and this is a
question for all four of you--create adequate specifications
for the software, including a language? Now, when you have a
software project that has moving parts or different parts, you
want input and output specifications, you want what the
individual parts are supposed to do. Was there sufficient,
adequate specifications for your team to do their job in the
time that was allowed?
Ms. Campbell. So we were receiving requirements through the
April, May timeframe and then some requirements----
Mr. McNerney. Requirements.
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. McNerney. Were they formal specifications that could be
used?
Ms. Campbell. They were use cases and things of that sort.
Mr. McNerney. Mr. Slavitt, would you like to answer that?
Mr. Slavitt. We believe we received appropriate
specifications.
Mr. McNerney. Ms. Spellecy?
Ms. Spellecy. We received sufficient specifications to
integrate our part of the solution.
Mr. McNerney. Mr. Lau?
Mr. Lau. We had no role in the system development.
Mr. McNerney. So what you all--I hear unanimously is that
there were adequate specifications, and yet the software wasn't
finished in time.
Did the specifications include testing requirements that
you received? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. So we did testing on our code, but there was
also independent testing that was done as well.
Mr. McNerney. Were they specified? Were they test-specified
prior to development of the software?
Ms. Campbell. Not prior to developing the software, but
there were test scripts that were developed during the process.
Mr. McNerney. Well, then, maybe there wasn't sufficient
time. I mean, from my point of view as a distant observer,
either the specifications weren't adequate, they weren't
delivered in time, or the software wasn't developed according
to specification. Which one of those three is the problem?
Ms. Campbell. I would say with a system this complicated
and level of moving parts, it's probably a little bit of all
aspects of all three. There are things in our code that
obviously we would like to improve on for sure. There are
specifications that would have been better served if they had
been more detailed, and if given more time, I think we would
have been able to across the board, once again, end-to-end
testing on the part of CMS, integration on the part of CMS.
But, you know, given the luxury of time, and I think we all
recognize that one never gets--no matter how great the system
is, no one ever gets enough time for testing, but----
Mr. McNerney. Well, software is particularly difficult to
estimate the time needed. When I was in developing software, if
you told your manager you would take 2 weeks, he would double
that and then go to the next bigger timeframe, 2 months. So he
would have made it a 4-month timeframe if you gave him 2 weeks.
So time is always of the essence in software, especially since
it is so error prone.
So I guess there were political hindrances regarding the
amount of time that was allowed, and there were structural
issues. And I do believe that this is going to be fixed, but
it's been painful, and we need to make sure that the American
people have access to a decent healthcare Web site before
December 15th, and if that doesn't happen, it's going to be
more difficult hearings like this.
Thank you.
Ms. Campbell. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Olson.
Mr. Olson. I thank the chair, and I want to sincerely
welcome and thank the witnesses, Ms. Campbell, Mr. Slavitt, Ms.
Spellecy, and Mr. Lau, for appearing before this committee this
morning and now this afternoon.
And my guess is you might be a little nervous, somewhat
tired because this has gone on for almost 4 hours, you probably
haven't gotten a lot of sleep these past couple of weeks, and
you're probably a little angry because the Commander in Chief,
the skipper of Obamacare, our President, doesn't understand
that the skipper is responsible for everything that happens on
his ship, the good and the bad.
As we've seen here this morning, there's a major league
blame game going on within the administration, and you all,
unfortunately, are the targets of some of that blame.
And I am damn angry that I and 700,000 Texans I represent
have been misled, misled, and misled.
In this room 1 month ago, the Health and Human Services
Deputy Administrator for Consumer Information opened up his
testimony by saying, and I quote, ``CMS has worked hard to
build, refine and test the infrastructure that will allow
Americans to enroll in coverage confidently, simply and
securely,'' end quote. We now know that that was one big, fat
lie, and I proved it this morning.
When Chairman Upton gaveled this hearing about 9 o'clock, I
logged onto healthcare.com to try to enroll my family in my
healthcare plan. Like you, Mr. Slavitt, and my colleague
Michael Burgess, I tried to get on Texas' plan, and when I got
my email back, my confirmation, I got this after 41 minutes:
Please log in again. You're logged out now. Return to your
marketplace account here. That's happening all over the
country.
And this lie is way beyond an awful computer program. This
lie affects the health and well-being of every American.
And my question would be about the testing that was done to
get to this point, and I want to follow up on some of the
questions from one of my colleagues, and this is mostly for
you, Ms. Campbell, and you, Mr. Slavitt.
Being a computer science major from Rice University and a
former naval aviator who could not afford to have my computer
drop offline as I'm rolling my plane to drop a torpedo to stop
a Russian submarine from launching a ballistic missile, a
nuclear missile, at our country, I know that that system is
pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and tested to fail.
My goal is did CGI and QSSI take these steps, push, push,
push and test your part to failure?
Ms. Campbell. First of all, sir, you must be in my
household. My husband, too, is a naval aviator.
Mr. Olson. Fly Navy.
Ms. Campbell. But we worked tirelessly around the clock to
make sure that we were doing everything we could to make the
product that we delivered on October 1. We're not excited, nor
are we pleased with what we delivered on October 1, but, you
know, in principle it worked. It is not working great, and
we're working to improve it, but it is enrolling people.
Mr. Olson. Mr. Slavitt, how about you, sir, did you push,
push, push to make sure all the variables best you could do?
Mr. Slavitt. We do believe the data services hub received
adequate testing.
Mr. Olson. Great.
And so any idea what happened when your department is
working pretty well, Ms. Campbell, and you, Mr. Slavitt, as
well? Somehow CMS got it, and the product that came out fell
apart. Any idea what happened there?
Ms. Campbell. You'd have to ask CMS.
Mr. Olson. And I plan on doing that.
Mr. Slavitt, any idea?
Mr. Slavitt. As I said a little bit earlier, the system
didn't receive adequate end-to-end testing, and we took those
results--those results were made available, and I think made
aware of those results to CMS.
Mr. Olson. So you all pushed the envelope, they just hit
the on button, saw the light came on, and said this thing
works. OK. A little facetious there.
I want to close by asking a rhetorical question of all four
of you all. If you were the President of the United States, and
you woke up on September 30th of this past year knowing what
you know, would you have rolled out the exchange on October
1st? Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. I can't begin to answer that question.
Mr. Olson. Nope.
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know what flexibility existed to
change the dates.
Mr. Olson. Not the date, but the program. Could you have
stopped it? You know the problems. You guys know the problems.
Would you have stopped it?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know.
Ms. Spellecy. I can't answer that.
Mr. Olson. Can't answer that one? It's rhetorical, guys.
Mr. Lau. I'm not in a position really to answer that.
Mr. Olson. Oh, come on, fellows. I guarantee if you ask the
people in the audience, they would have all sorts of opinions
on that.
I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time is expired.
Mr. Gardner.
Mr. Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses as well for joining us today and talking about this
very important issue.
You know, I take this personally. This is a very serious
issue for me, thousands of my constituents, millions of
Americans. The President made a simple promise to all of our
country. He said two things: If you like your healthcare plan,
you'll get to keep your healthcare plan, period, and this will
lower the cost of health care. But do you know what? In August,
my wife and I we got a letter saying our health insurance plan
had been canceled. We decided to not join the Federal Employee
Health Benefits Plan. We got our own private insurance plan,
because I wanted to be in the same boat as my constituents in
Colorado.
And yet despite the President's promise to me, to thousands
of Coloradans, to millions of Americans, those insurance plans
are being canceled, and they're being told they have to buy
insurance through the Web site that doesn't work.
The denial of this debacle is incredible. It's like trying
to watch the Three Stooges in HD and expecting it to work. But
that's exactly what we are seeing here.
So to follow up on a couple of the questions--and we've
seen the President on TV trying to apologize to the American
people for this disaster, and he said the administration
announced this week that the best and brightest are coming in
to fix healthcare.gov, but they won't say who they are. So, Ms.
Campbell, who are these best and brightest that are coming in
to fix this Web site?
Ms. Campbell. So first of all, CGI has some of the best and
brightest, so I just want to make sure that that's on the
record. We make sure that we hire----
Mr. Gardner. Ms. Campbell, who are the best and brightest
that have been invited by the White House to fix this problem?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have individuals by name.
Mr. Gardner. What companies are they? Who built the Web
site? You built the Web site, correct? You built the Web site?
Ms. Campbell. We built the application.
Mr. Gardner. So who is coming in to fix the Web site now?
Ms. Campbell. So advisers, not----
Mr. Gardner. Who are the advisers?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have names.
Mr. Garrett. Where are they from? Who do they work for?
Ms. Campbell. They have small businesses on their own.
Mr. Gardner. So this decision was announced early in the
week, and you don't know who the best and brightest are who are
coming to fix this mess.
Ms. Campbell. I don't have them by name, sir.
Mr. Gardner. Well, who are they by company?
Ms. Campbell. I will get back to you with names.
Mr. Gordon. Could you get back to me by tomorrow?
Ms. Campbell. I will do my best.
Mr. Gardner. So the President of the United States has said
that these are the best and the brightest, and you don't know
what organization? Are they being paid?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, give me an opportunity to get back to
you with that information.
Mr. Gardner. But you don't know whether they are being
paid.
Ms. Campbell. If they're there as a support person to CGI,
they would be paid under our contract.
Mr. Gardner. Well, if they're there as a support person for
CGI, I assume you know who they are.
Ms. Campbell. Sir, I don't have them by name. I just don't
have----
Mr. Gardner. QSSI, do you know who these best and brightest
are that are coming in to fix this mess?
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Mr. Gardner. So are you still consulting with CMS on this?
Mr. Slavitt. I'm just not familiar with this situation.
Mr. Gardner. Ms. Campbell, with the President, you're still
consulting, you're still in charge. Are you the systems
integrator still, or is CMS?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, we have never been the systems
integrator, and we are not the systems integrator.
Mr. Gardner. So who is in charge as systems integrator?
Ms. Campbell. CMS is responsible for end-to-end.
Mr. Gardner. OK. So they're responsible for end-to-end, and
that brings me to another question. To Mr. Scalise you had said
that CMS asked you to turn off browsing 2 weeks before October
1st. Does that mean that you originally built a browsable Web
site?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct.
Mr. Gardner. Why can't you just turn that on?
Ms. Campbell. One, we've not been asked to turn it on. Now
the system has gone live, it's not--well, we can turn on it
on----
Mr. Gardner. So the taxpayers paid for this----
Ms. Campbell. It would have to be tested and make sure that
now it's in a live environment----
Mr. Gardner. Tested just like the other Web site wasn't
tested?
Ms. Campbell. I wouldn't say that it wasn't tested, sir.
Mr. Gardner. No end-to-end testing.
Ms. Campbell. I didn't say that there was no end-to-end
testing. I said CGI didn't do end-to-end testing.
Mr. Gardner. Inadequate end-to-end testing.
So the taxpayers paid then for a browsable Web site; is
that correct?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Gardner. Why can't you turn that on?
Ms. Campbell. If given the instructions by CMS, we would be
more than happy to turn it on.
Mr. Gardner. Why is CMS--do you know what the cost of that
was?
Ms. Campbell. I can't tell you the exact cost of that
particular component. It's part of the larger system.
Mr. Gardner. Can you get back to us as soon as possible the
cost of the browsable Web site that was built that is no longer
in use or not being used and was asked to be turned off?
Ms. Campbell. Sir, we were under contract to provide an
application that happens to be one of the features of that
application. We did not price it out as one particular
component by itself.
Mr. Gardner. Well, it's clear to me the reason why 2 weeks
before October 1st happened, this browsable Web site was turned
off to hide the cost, the true cost, that the American people
are paying, because if it was a browsable Web site that we
built, the taxpayers paid for, those real costs, the true
costs, the upfront costs would be visible to the American
people.
CMS made a determination, a decision, that they would turn
off 2 weeks before October 1st the browsable Web site to hide
the real cost of Obamacare from the American people.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Kinzinger.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, thank
you all for being here. It's a long day, I know, but we
appreciate your being present.
I want to kind of narrow in on another issue that hasn't
really been too much discussed, and that's the Web site that's
sending insurers bad information: multiple enrollments,
cancelations for the person, and forms containing gibberish
that are showing up at the insurance side of it.
This could continue to be a problem even if functionality
and other areas of the Web site improve. In fact, it could
become a larger problem because now so few applicants are
actually getting to the insurers that they're able to be
reviewed individually. Taking this to scale might cause
significant problems once people en masse start signing up.
I'll ask you, Ms. Campbell, most news reporting is focused
on front-end problems with the Federal exchange. I would like
to ask a few questions about some troubling reports that I'm
hearing. We hear there could be even bigger issues at the end
of the system, at the end processes of the system. Both the
Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have reported that
insurers are receiving error-ridden 834s, and from what I
understand, an 834 is essentially an electronic transmission
form that lets insurers know who signed up for their product on
healthcare.gov. So reports indicate that one insurer got an 834
with three spouses listed on it.
Have you identified the specific problem and how widespread
is it, what's causing it.
Ms. Campbell. So thank you for that question.
We have uncovered a number of those scenarios, not
significant, but a number of those scenarios, and we are in the
process of making corrections. Most of them are isolated; they
are not across the board for all insurers. So we are working in
solving those as they come to our attention.
Mr. Kinzinger. So you're saying they're not very
widespread; it's an occasional thing basically?
Ms. Campbell. It is more isolated than widespread.
Mr. Kinzinger. And specifically what steps have you taken
to address that?
Ms. Campbell. So it's part of our normal defect build
process. So when that issue comes into the--what they call it,
the contact center, we get a trouble ticket. We look at--the
CMS determines the prioritization of that trouble ticket, and
then we work based on those priorities with CMS, and then we
change--implement our code changes and then update the system
through testing and so forth----
Mr. Kinzinger. So are you taking steps to guarantee--here's
a concern. Let's say somebody enrolls in December, thinks
they're enrolled. Maybe the trouble ticket happened or the 834
or something got messed up, and so on January 1st they wake up
and find out they actually did not enroll when, in fact, they
thought they did. Is that a concern you have that may be
addressed in trying to rectify this problem?
Ms. Campbell. We're tracking when someone enrolls that
there is--that actually enrolls, that there is a direct
correlation to making sure that there is an 834 attached to
that particular transaction to try and mitigate those things
from happening.
Mr. Kinzinger. OK. Some industry analysts are saying that
healthcare.gov's other problems have disguised the issue. If
applicants were being able to sign up easily, but the 834 forms
were coming in with this many errors, the results could
potentially be disastrous.
And just to drill down a little bit more, reports indicate
that dependents are being incorrectly coded as spouses. Have
you identified that specific problem as part of the overall
issue?
Ms. Campbell. That one I've not heard. It doesn't mean it's
not in our queue, but it's not one that I'm aware of directly.
Mr. Kinzinger. And would you be able to--I know you have a
lot on your plate. I would ask if you could provide to the
committee by 9 a.m. Tomorrow the categories of problems with
the 834s because that's something that we're very interested
in.
Ms. Campbell. If I'm able to provide that information, I
will do so.
Mr. Kinzinger. You wouldn't be able to provide that
eventually, ma'am?
Ms. Campbell. I said if I'm able to provide that
information, I will.
Mr. Upton. I promise you the hearing will be over by then.
Ms. Campbell. Thank you.
Mr. Kinzinger. With that, I thank you.
I have a minute left. I'm going to yield to the gentleman
from Ohio for a minute, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and this
will give me a chance to sort of set the stage a little bit. I
hold both a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer
science, and I've worked for over 30 years in the IT industry,
and I've implemented large-scale systems like this both within
the military, within the Department of Defense, some of those
systems globally. Some of them affected national security. Some
of them held the success and failure of multibillion-dollar
companies in the balance. So I speak your language, and I've
been where you are, sitting trying to figure out what went
terribly wrong in an implementation that has cost the American
taxpayers over $400 million, and the cost is continuing to
rise.
These are more than glitches. They can't be fixed. I'm
going to explain why I believe they can't be fixed when I get
back. It can be replaced at another large cost to the American
taxpayer, but they can't be fixed. I'll explain that when I get
back.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Kinzinger. I yield back.
Mr. Upton. Mr. Griffith.
Mr. Griffith. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Ms. Campbell, can you tell me who made the decision that
everybody from 27 to 49 when they go into the Web site would
receive a price based on the 27-year-old's price?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have that information.
Mr. Griffith. And likewise the same would be true for the
person who is from 50 up would receive the 50-year-old price.
You don't have that information either?
Ms. Campbell. I do not, sir.
Mr. Griffith. Was that somebody at CMS?
Ms. Campbell. I would have to believe so.
Mr. Griffith. OK. And can you also tell me in regards to
the changes that were required not to have the browsers so that
people could browse and find out what was going on, that change
that came in 2 weeks before so that people couldn't just browse
and take a look at it, that appears to me just to have been a
political change. And I know you can't make that statement, but
let me ask you this: When that request came in from CMS, did
you tell them that that was going to cause difficulties with
getting this exchange or getting this Web site launched by
October 1?
Ms. Campbell. So, you know, for us it's really a flag in
our system, and so we just turned the flag on or turned it off
for that particular component----
Mr. Griffith. So you didn't think that was going to cause
any problems with the system?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Griffith. OK. And, Mr. Slavitt, if I read your
testimony, it says that you reported that you all did some
testing, and you reported back to CMS and the relevant
contractor who was responsible for fixing the problems that you
found. When did you finish that testing?
Mr. Slavitt. We would do the testing whenever the code was
made available to us.
Mr. Griffith. OK. When was the last that you did testing
and then notified CMS and the relevant contractor that there
were coding errors or necessary changes that needed to be made?
Mr. Slavitt. I believe that was all the way up towards the
very end.
Mr. Griffith. OK. And do you know who you were working with
on that?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't.
Mr. Griffith. And can you find out for us?
Mr. Slavitt. We'll get right back to you.
Mr. Griffith. If you can get that to us, I'd appreciate it.
And did you alert folks that if these problems weren't
fixed, there would be problems? Did you alert CMS there would
be problems with their Web site if they didn't get this fixed?
Mr. Slavitt. We alerted CMS to the results of the test.
Mr. Griffith. And, Ms. Campbell, do you know who told you
all to turn off the browsing option?
Ms. Campbell. I believe it was Henry Chao and members of
his team.
Mr. Griffith. OK. And did they give you any reasons for not
making that option live, or am I correct--or am I fair, at
least, to assume that it was a political decision?
Ms. Campbell. I can't answer whether it was political or
otherwise.
Mr. Griffith. So you were not given any reason other than
that?
Ms. Campbell. I was not given a reason.
Mr. Griffith. All right. And--OK. And I appreciate that
very much.
Thank you very much. I'm going to yield the remainder of my
time to my friend and colleague from Ohio, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me
continue. Here is why I believe this can't be fixed, it has got
to be replaced. This, from what I have seen, based on my
experience, this is indicative of failure somewhere along the
line to employ the disciplined processes, methodologies,
standards to deliver a system of this complexity. In layman's
terms, so the American people can understand how complicated
this is, this might help a little bit. You know, you can't
recook eggs. You go into a restaurant and you order two eggs
over medium and the server brings you out two eggs scrambled,
you got two choices. You either eat the eggs that you got,
which means you don't get what you ordered, or you send them
back and the restaurant owner eats the cost of replacing those
eggs. Somebody loses.
In this case, it's the American people that are losing
because what we have here is either the development team, of
which you folks are a part, did not follow a disciplined
methodology, and therefore you didn't see the red flags that
were coming up, which calls into question your capabilities and
qualifications, or you didn't notify anybody in CMS, as Ms.
Campbell has stated, when you saw the red flags coming up,
which calls into question your judgment.
The only other possibility is that CMS ignored your
recommendations and moved forward with implementing a flawed
system. Folks, the eyes of the Nation are watching and
listening to what's being said here today. Some of you are
publicly traded companies. I suspect every government agency
and every commercial company that you would do business with is
watching what you say. I suspect your shareholders and stock
analysts are also watching it, what you say, because they're
going to try to determine: is it your capabilities and
qualifications that are at fault? Is it your judgment that's at
fault? Or did CMS ignore your recommendations? And that's what
we've got to get to the bottom of. And with that, I will yield
back my time. My friend yielded, and hopefully I am coming
back.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman is next in the queue. So you have
got another 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. All right. Well, thank you. Mr. Slavitt, you
stated in your testimony that, and if I read this correctly,
your performance is based on trusted data sources. Correct? For
the hub?
Mr. Slavitt. The data services hub, correct.
Mr. Johnson. Is based on trusted data sources. You assume
that that data is trustworthy, correct? Well, Ms. Campbell, in
her testimony, stated that, and if I go back to it, let me get
back to it here, that as performance----
Mr. Waxman. The gentleman didn't let him answer.
Mr. Johnson. I didn't ask a question yet. This is my time.
I have haven't asked a question. But when I do, I will let you
know.
Mr. Waxman. I heard it.
Mr. Johnson. When Ms. Campbell testified that when
performance issues like slow response times and data assurance
issues arose, they would be addressed through fine-tuning and
optimization. So were you aware that data assurance issues were
present? Did anybody tell you about that? Did CGI tell you
there were problems with data assurance issues?
Mr. Slavitt. I am not sure what was intended by that
statement.
Mr. Johnson. So CGI did not tell you that there were data
assurance issues?
Mr. Slavitt. If there are issues made aware to our team,
our team addresses them discretely and promptly.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Ms. Campbell, did you tell the independent
tester that there were data assurance issues that you were
aware of?
Ms. Campbell. To make sure we have it in context, when
testing occurs, right, which QSSI----
Mr. Johnson. I know how testing occurs. It's a very simple
question. Did your company tell them that there were data
assurance.
Ms. Campbell. I think you are taking it out of context. Now
that the system has gone live, just as one of the gentleman
commented on some of the errors that we are seeing on the 834s,
we are now making those corrections.
Mr. Johnson. Are you the PM for the contract for your
company?
Ms. Campbell. I am not the project manager.
Mr. Johnson. So you do not interface directly every day
with CMS, correct? On a daily basis, as the program manager for
your company?
Ms. Campbell. That is correct, I am not the program
manager.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Your contract required you to deliver,
your company to deliver, a risk management plan. Have you
delivered the risk management plan?
Ms. Campbell. We have.
Mr. Johnson. Can you provide a copy of it to this
committee?
Ms. Campbell. With permission from CMS, yes, we can.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, we will certainly be asking CMS for
that as well. The contract also required that you recommend
standards and industry best practices and key performance
indicators. Now, you have testified earlier that you didn't
make any recommendations to CMS about the performance of the
system. That it was totally CMS that made these decisions. But
yet the contract requires that you recommend standards and key
performance indicators to make sure that everything works
right. Did you just decide not to do that or what?
Ms. Campbell. So once again, for our portion of the system,
we provided that information.
Mr. Johnson. That's not what your contract says. Were you
aware that you were supposed to be performing under the CMS's
exchange lifecycle management?
Ms. Campbell. And we do.
Mr. Johnson. OK. You do. And tell me about the pre-
operational readiness review and what it requires?
Ms. Campbell. So I would have to give you--I wouldn't want
to go into detail here.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Well, let me go into detail for you. Here
are some of the things that the pre-operational readiness
review requires. Integration testing results. End-to-end
testing results. Now, you have testified that CMS was
responsible for end-to-end, but clearly, your contract requires
you to provide to them end-to-end and integration testing
results. Test summary reports. An LOE estimate to achieve the
operational readiness review. In other words, an estimate of
what it was going to take to fix those things that were found
at the pre-operational readiness review. Do you know when the
pre-operational readiness review was supposed to be conducted?
Ms. Campbell. So to be clear----
Mr. Johnson. No, when was the pre-operational readiness
review supposed to be conducted?
Ms. Campbell. As part of our system and----
Mr. Johnson. When was the pre-operational readiness review
supposed to be conducted? It's in your contract. Let me help
you. It was Q4 of 2012. The operational readiness review, which
also included a letter of estimate to support operations and
maintenance, was supposed to be conducted in Q1 of 2013. Mr.
Slavitt, did you participate in any of these reviews, the
operational readiness review or the pre-operational readiness
review?
Mr. Slavitt. Are you asking if I personally? No, I did not.
Mr. Johnson. You did not. Did your company?
Mr. Slavitt. Our company participated in all the necessary
reviews we committed to.
Mr. Johnson. You said earlier that you were an independent
tester. How can you be an independent tester when you are an
integral developer of part of the system? How does that qualify
you as independent?
Mr. Slavitt. We independently test code developed by other
contractors.
Mr. Johnson. OK. But other contractors that are interfacing
with you?
Mr. Slavitt. Other contractors on the project.
Mr. Johnson. Were either of those----
Mr. Waxman. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman from West Virginia, Mr. McKinley.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Several questions
here if I could, maybe, the two of you, Ms. Campbell, Mr.
Slavitt.
Can you explain to me first, Ms. Campbell, you said that--
in your testimony some 3-\1/2\ hours ago, that the system works
but not at an acceptable pace. Is the pace specified in the
contract?
Ms. Campbell. It is not specified in the contract.
Mr. McKinley. So do you feel that you fulfilled your
contractual obligations by October 1st?
Ms. Campbell. Absolutely.
Mr. McKinley. And do you believe that next week Secretary
Sebelius will concur that you have fulfilled your contractual
obligations?
Ms. Campbell. I certainly hope she does.
Mr. McKinley. Do you think she will?
Ms. Campbell. I think she will.
Mr. McKinley. OK. Do you know whether or not--are you
familiar with, either one of you, IV&V or V&V?
Ms. Campbell. Independent validation and verification, yes.
Mr. McKinley. And verification, yes. Do you know whether or
not that was used in this process? This engineering
development?
Ms. Campbell. I do not recall there being an IV&V
contractor.
Mr. McKinley. OK. How about with you, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't know.
Mr. McKinley. OK. Do you think it would have been
justified? In retrospect. That's in retrospect.
Ms. Campbell. At the start of the program, it probably--it
could not have hurt.
Mr. McKinley. OK. Do you have the developmental artifacts
that would confirm your engineering solution that you developed
in developing your software?
Ms. Campbell. Yes, we do.
Mr. McKinley. Is that--do you know contractually whether or
not that will be available for an independent agency to review?
Ms. Campbell. I would have to get--that would have to go
through CMS contracts organization for approval.
Mr. McKinley. OK. Go back to the question, how long did you
have to test the site, or in the specifications did they tell
you 2 weeks is all--that's all you have to have? I come from
the construction industry that is very specific about when you
have to have substantial completion of a project. Was there
anything like that in this that said you must begin testing
just 2 weeks before it's launched?
Ms. Campbell. No. There were none of those specifications
were in our original contract.
Mr. McKinley. OK. But I also heard there were change
orders.
Ms. Campbell. Correct.
Mr. McKinley. Was there ever a change that said you shall
begin testing 2 weeks prior?
Ms. Campbell. No. And once again, testing was not our
ultimate responsibility. Testing of our code, make sure I am
clear, testing of our code, our responsibility. But then it
went through the CMS process for testing, independent testing
done by QSSI. Then CMS doing the integrated end-to-end testing.
Mr. McKinley. If you feel that you achieved your objectives
by October 1st, can you tell me whether or not there were
anything about liquidated damages if there are problems
associated after October 1st that have to be corrected? Are
there liquidated damages as part of your contract?
Ms. Campbell. You know, I would have to get back to you on
that. I don't recall. If it's a standard FAR clause, then it
could very well be there as a standard FAR clause. I just don't
know for sure. But being a cost-plus type contract, you know,
now I am stretching because I don't know for sure.
Mr. McKinley. I didn't think, and again I have not had a
chance to complete the review of it, but I thought it was a
performance-based with plus cost for incidental expenses. I
didn't read it as being a cost-plus based contract. Are you
saying it's a cost-plus, not a performance-based contract?
Ms. Campbell. I believe it's a cost-plus contract. Cost
plus fee type contract.
Mr. McKinley. Cost plus fee.
Ms. Campbell. That's what I believe. But I will get
confirmation.
Mr. McKinley. Could you get back at that magic 9 o'clock
hour tomorrow, if you could? The one thing, just in closing, I
tell you I am a little surprised by the whole panel. You have
heard all the disappointment, both sides of the aisle here,
over this thing not being satisfactory at this point. I haven't
heard one of you apologize to the American public on behalf of
your companies for problems that were associated with not
having this thing ready. Are apologies not in order?
Ms. Campbell. So in my opening statement I said that CGI,
as well as myself, acknowledge, we acknowledge----
Mr. McKinley. I am sorry. I am sorry that we--we tried, but
there were changes made, we tried. I have not heard the word, I
am sorry. I know men have a hard time saying that. But the
whole panel, I haven't heard anyone say--look, as a contractor,
when we didn't finish a project on time, we had to go to the
owner and apologize and explain what happened. We're not ready
here. And I don't understand why there is not an apology to the
American public. We're sorry that there were glitches. It was a
very complicated project, as you said. But I apologize. I
haven't heard that from any one of the four of you.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Waxman. Can we get an apology for shutting down the
government because people didn't like the health care bill?
Mr. Upton. The chair will recognize the gentlelady from
North Carolina, Mrs. Ellmers.
Mrs. Ellmers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our
panel. This has been a long process. And I do appreciate you
coming and meeting with the entire committee today. And what I
am learning from this situation is I do believe that you all
did your best to get this process in order. And I am hearing
repeatedly and repeatedly that this--the bottom line here is
CMS is responsible for this failure. And I just, on behalf of
your companies, you have the opportunity to throw them right
under the bus as far as I am concerned. And we will get that
information, I am sure. Ms. Campbell, I need to know, the
American people need to know how many people are enrolled, how
many individuals are now enrolled in health care coverage from
the Web site?
Ms. Campbell. So I am not able to provide that information.
Mrs. Ellmers. You are not able or you do not have that
information?
Ms. Campbell. I don't have it, I don't have it with me, and
I would have to have approval from CMS to be able to provide
that information.
Mrs. Ellmers. OK. Now to that point, I am going to ask you
to please submit that by 9 a.m. tomorrow. But I do want to
point something out. And I understand where you are coming
from. I know you have a contract. I know CGI has a contract.
All of you have had a contract with CMS. But you have to
understand, CMS is a government agency. We oversee CMS. And CMS
is the American people. So when we are talking about contracts
here, that's really who we're talking about. We are talking
about the American people. CMS is not a private company
somewhere in the United States. They represent the American
people. And we've got to get to the bottom of these issues. So,
yes, we do need those numbers by 9 a.m. tomorrow. Mr. Lau, on
that, how many paper applications have been completed up to
this time?
Mr. Lau. Somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000.
Mrs. Ellmers. Three and 4,000.
Mr. Lau. Yes.
Mrs. Ellmers. OK. Now, to that point, now, the President on
Monday in the Rose Garden gave a speech. And because of the
glitches--I call them gaffes. They are much bigger than
glitches, I believe. Glitches are little hiccups, and these are
much more than hiccups. He referred to the 1-800 number and
urged the American people to call the call center and to go
through, you know, the hard copy process, essentially, or the
paper process. To that point, now, Ms. Campbell, do you know
that process? What happens if someone calls the 1-800 number?
Where do they go? Where are they directed? And how does that
process lay out? And I know you have to be brief because I do
only have 2 minutes.
Ms. Campbell. Right. Actually, it's a question that goes to
Serco.
Mrs. Ellmers. OK. That's fine. So you, to the best of your
knowledge, you would not have knowledge of that at this point?
Ms. Campbell. No, not----
Mrs. Ellmers. Once it becomes a paper or a hard copy.
Ms. Campbell. Correct.
Mrs. Ellmers. Mr. Lau, what is the process?
Mr. Lau. For paper?
Mrs. Ellmers. If someone calls the 1-800 number and they--
--
Mr. Lau. We don't call the operate the call center. Someone
else.
Mrs. Ellmers. OK.
Mr. Lau. The call center people, as I understand it,
directly key enter the application to the extent people are
willing to give that over the phone.
Mrs. Ellmers. Where do they go from there? Are they going
to the same portal system?
Mr. Lau. Correct.
Mrs. Ellmers. So they are going to the same portal system,
the same failed portal system.
Mr. Lau. It's the same portal system, yes.
Mrs. Ellmers. It is. So what would be the average time
then? And now I know you had mentioned about 3,000 applications
being completed up to this point. So there are individuals, my
understanding would be, that have gone onto that site, and they
are still waiting to find out if they have been accepted or any
further information. Is that correct?
Mr. Lau. To which site?
Mrs. Ellmers. Well, if someone called and there was a paper
application processed or started, initiated.
Mr. Lau. Right. I only know roughly how it works. I am not
familiar with the data on that. We don't really----
Mrs. Ellmers. OK.
Mr. Lau [continuing]. Connect.
Mrs. Ellmers. But to the best of your knowledge, because
the portal system, which is the same portal system that this
entire process goes through, and because it is experiencing the
failures that it is, those individuals would, to your best
assumption, would be continued to be waiting.
Mr. Lau. I am not certain about that, because once they are
entered into the system, then it's system processes that
determine the length of time before which they would hear back.
Mrs. Ellmers. But we can assume that since only 3,000 have
been processed fully that it's a minimal number when you think
about the trends.
Mr. Lau. From the paper side that's exactly right.
Mrs. Ellmers. Thank you. And Ms. Campbell, I just want to
touch on one last thing. I know you had said that you had gone
through the process. Did you actually complete--when you went
through the process yourself individually, did you complete it?
Ms. Campbell. I did not. I am not signing up for insurance.
My company provides insurance.
Mrs. Ellmers. But when you tested it yourself, I mean, my
understanding is earlier you had said that you had actually
tried it through the Virginia system, went to the Web site, and
that you did or you did not complete it?
Ms. Campbell. I did not complete the application.
Mrs. Ellmers. You did not. OK. Thank you. Thank you. And I
yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Upton. The gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy, is
recognized.
Mr. Cassidy. Good news, I am the last one. A couple things,
and I will go quickly. I will ask you to speak quickly as well.
I only have 5 minutes. This has come up, a little bit
repetitious, but to date, what have each of you been paid and
what do you anticipate being paid further? It comes to mind,
Ms. Campbell, you mentioned it is a cost-plus contract. So to
date and anticipated future payments, what are they, please?
Ms. Campbell. So to date, $112 million. And for the year, I
believe $196 million. For this phase of our contract.
Mr. Cassidy. And then going forward, do you have any
concept?
Ms. Campbell. The total TCV, the total contract value, with
option years and everything exercised, would be $293 million.
Mr. Cassidy. The $196 million is total and includes the
112, it is not in addition to the 112?
Ms. Campbell. It is part of the 112, the 196.
Mr. Cassidy. It includes the 112?
Ms. Campbell. Yes.
Mr. Cassidy. Yes, sir, Mr. Slavitt?
Mr. Slavitt. To date our services subcontract has been
funded to about just under $85 million. That includes all the
hardware and the software.
Mr. Cassidy. That's OK. And then how much do you anticipate
going forward?
Mr. Slavitt. I don't believe that amount has been fully
paid. I think that's what's been funded. I would point out that
we have contracts for work we do----
Mr. Cassidy. I have just got a minute, man, I am sorry. Ms.
Spellecy.
Mr. Spellecy. To date we have received less than $2
million. And what we will be paid in the future depends on the
transactions that we receive from the hub.
Mr. Lau. The first year contract, with modifications, is
$200 million. To date, we have probably received about $30
million.
Mr. Cassidy. OK. Next, Ms. Campbell, in your previous
testimony here today, you said you are not responsible for the
front door. Here is your testimony from September the 10th. You
said your scope of activity was architecting and developing an
FFM. And then later just immediately afterward you side the FFM
will serve as the front door. I am not quite sure why today
it's not a front door but on the 10th it was.
Ms. Campbell. I know. It's a matter of interpretation. When
we first--we were trying to give a way to explain what our role
would be. It's really the face of the application. As I said,
it's the front of the house. But the front door of the house is
where EIDM would take over.
Mr. Cassidy. And that's Mr. Slavitt.
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Cassidy. OK. Now also in your previous testimony I
asked you, I asked you, Spanish was going to be part of the
rollout and implementation. I asked if it's ready. And would it
be a seamless experience for a primary Spanish speaker. You
said for the online application, yes. There is reports today
that the Spanish language Web sites are not up. And it's
unclear as to when they will come up. Is that because the Web
sites are not ready or because the administration has chosen
not to take them online?
Ms. Campbell. CMS directs which components go live and
when.
Mr. Cassidy. So is the Spanish language Web site ready? And
if it were up, would it be functional?
Ms. Campbell. It would be.
Mr. Cassidy. OK. So it's the CMS decision not to begin it?
Ms. Campbell. That's correct.
Mr. Cassidy. Mr. Slavitt, I gather you are the front door
now. Would it be--Mr. Shimkus asked why is someone who is 49
years old being quoted a rate for someone who is 27? And why is
someone who is 64 being quoted a rate for someone who is 50?
Clearly misleading. So incredibly misleading. I am a doctor, so
I understand the difference in health care costs for the two.
Would it be technologically difficult to ask users their date
of birth to generate a more accurate estimate?
Mr. Slavitt. So I am not sure that I even understand the
phrase front door in this context. The user questions are not
part of the EIDM tool.
Mr. Cassidy. So if you put in the DOB, the date of birth,
is that technologically difficult to link that date of birth
with actually what it would cost for a 50-year old gentleman as
opposed to giving him the rates for a 27-year old person?
Mr. Slavitt. That aspect of the site is not part of the
EIDM tool, so I wouldn't know the answer.
Mr. Cassidy. Is it part of your site, Ms. Campbell?
Ms. Campbell. It is. It is part of my site.
Mr. Cassidy. Would it be technologically difficult to
actually more accurately give what a quote would be?
Ms. Campbell. It would not be difficult to add date of
birth.
Mr. Cassidy. And then to connect that with an actual rate
as opposed to a disingenuous rate.
Ms. Campbell. So it would give a better accounting. It
would not give a complete accounting.
Mr. Cassidy. But a much better accounting. Big difference
between 50 years old and 27 years old.
Ms. Campbell. I totally agree with you.
Mr. Cassidy. OK. Now, everybody on this panel, at least the
ones that were here on the 10th, just swore this was all going
to be ready, and yet now it appears that the administration had
some idea that it was not going to be ready prior to its
opening date.
Let me ask, when the questions, when the problems became
apparent did the administration impose any pressure in any form
for you not to be forthcoming regarding the magnitude of the
problems?
Ms. Campbell. No.
Mr. Slavitt. No.
Mr. Cassidy. So even though you had pointed out to them,
Mr. Slavitt, this might not be ready for prime time, and you
just saw this kind of train wreck happening on the 1st, they
never pushed back on you regarding that.
Mr. Slavitt. We shared all of the results of the testing
that we did, so they were fully aware of those tests.
Mr. Cassidy. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Upton. Thank you. Thank you, panel. I would just, for
the record, like to note, particularly for CGI and QSSI, the
committee did send letters to both of your companies on October
6th asking for information about healthcare.gov's problems. And
that deadline for the letter response was October 23rd.
So members I know have asked a number of follow-up
questions. I understand it may not be at 9 o'clock tomorrow,
but if you could get that done as quickly as possible,
particularly in light knowing that we have Secretary Sebelius
agreeing to testify next week. We would like to have that
information in hand so that we could be prepared for that. I
appreciate your testimony, and you are now excused.
[Whereupon, at 1:32 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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