original article http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/31/politics/obamacare/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews
If only this was just a Halloween trick. It is NOT.
RNC Chairman: 'The President lied'
Sebelius: 'Hold me accountable'
Obamacare under fire
Comment directly to Eric Kuvykin. certain statements are simply opinions of the writers.
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www.erickuvykinnewyork.com
If only this was just a Halloween trick. It is NOT.
Visitors trying to log on
to the Obamacare website Thursday morning saw the same stubborn phrase
that has roiled users for weeks: "The system is down at the moment." How much di they spend on this site? Who built it? I think we all know for $25,000 anyone could have hire a developer and would have a functioning site.
For almost a
month since the HealthCare.gov website launched (somewhat launched), riddled with technical
problems despite a series of advance warning signs. And even after a
chorus of apologies out of Washington, it may be another several month before
everything's running smoothly.
Vice President Joe Biden became the highest-ranking administration official to apologize Wednesday for the botched rollout.
"We assumed that it was
up and ready to run," he told CNN's sister network HLN. "But the good
news is although it's not -- and we apologize for that -- we are
confident by the end of November it will be, and there'll still be
plenty of time for people to register and get online." First they create a useless plan only to be followed by a useless site. What is wrong with this administration?
Obamacare site down for Sebelius hearing
Sebelius apologizes for website flaws
Key players in the health care hearings
Secy. Sebelius in the hot seat
That mea culpa came after
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized for
the "miserably frustrating" problems during a 3 1/2-hour congressional
grilling. She said she made a mistake when she told President Barack
Obama that HealthCare.gov was "ready to go" for its October 1 launch.
Sebelius promised a "vast
majority" of consumers will have an easier time shopping online for
health insurance under Obamacare by the end of November.
"In these early weeks,
access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for
way too many Americans, including many who have waited years, in some
cases their entire lives, for the security of health insurance,"
Sebelius said.
She echoed the overall administration stance -- that a team of experts is scrambling to fix the website's errors.
To the frustrated users
who have had problems, she said: "You deserve better. I apologize. I'm
accountable to you for fixing these problems."
Obama tried to log on
Biden said he didn't even bother logging on to the Obamacare site.
"Actually, the President
tried to get online, and my daughter tried to get online," he said. "I
did not, because it was clear that I was not getting online."
Obama himself acknowledged that too many people "have gotten stuck, and I am not happy about it."
"There's no excuse for it," the President said. "And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."
Glass half full?
Sebelius said the
sweeping health care program has delivered on its promise to provide
affordable health care coverage. Thousands have been able to access the
website to look at new health coverage options that will give them
security of knowing they won't go bankrupt if they get sick, she said.
RNC Chairman: 'The President lied'
Sebelius: 'Hold me accountable'
Obamacare under fire
Republicans have called
for Sebelius to be fired for the Obamacare problems, but a White House
spokesman said Wednesday that Obama has "complete confidence" in her.
"She took responsibility
for many of the problems that are evident with the (Obamacare) website,
but she also deserves credit for the other aspects of the Affordable
Care Act implementation that have gone well," spokesman Josh Earnest
told reporters.
In fact, Obama tried to
turn the tables on Republican opponents of his signature health care
reforms, challenging them to come up with helpful ideas instead of
undermining the federal law.
"Anyone defending the
remnants of the old, broken system -- as if it was working for people --
anybody who thinks we shouldn't finish the job of making the health
care system work for everybody ... those folks should have to explain
themselves," he said.
According to the Kaiser
Family Foundation website, 15.4 million people had individual health
care coverage in 2011, representing about 5% of the population. The vast
majority of Americans have coverage through their employer, Medicare,
Medicaid or other public providers.
White House spokesman
Jay Carney said Tuesday that "a significant portion" of the 5% of people
with individual coverage will end up paying less for better policies
when they shop around in the new exchanges.
Early warning signs
Some of the criticism
surrounding the website's launch has to do with what Obama and other
officials knew -- and when they knew it.
CNN has learned the
administration received stark warnings a month before the launch that
the Obamacare site was not ready to go live, according to a confidential
report. The caution, from the main contractor CGI Federal, warned of
risks and issues for HealthCare.gov, even as company executives were
testifying publicly the project was on track.
Sebelius told the House
committee the outside contractors who built the website never
recommended delaying this month's launch. But she conceded that "we did
not adequately do end-to-end testing."
The contracts with the
private companies working on the Obamacare website -- which amount to
$174 million so far, with more bills due well into 2014 -- do
not have "built-in penalties" allowing her department to charge them
for disappointing or faulty work, Sebelius said. But Sebelius said the
agency will not pay for incomplete work.
Security questions
Republican Rep. Mike
Rogers of Michigan, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, accused
Sebelius of putting the private information of Americans at risk by
failing to properly test security measures on the website.
"This is a completely unacceptable level of security," he said. "You know it's not secure."
Sebelius responded that
testing occurs regularly, and she told Rogers she would get back to him
on whether any end-to-end security test of the entire system has ever
occurred. Rogers said he knows there have been no such comprehensive
security tests.
An internal government
memo obtained by CNN on Wednesday that was written days before the
website launched warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of
testing.
"Due to system readiness
issues, the (security control assessment) was only partly completed,"
said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo. "This
constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the
Marketplace Day 1 operations."
Sebelius told CNN last
week that Obama didn't know of the problems with the site -- even though
insurance companies had complained and the site crashed during a
pre-launch test run -- until after it went live.
A senior administration
official said Obama now gets a "nightly readout" with the latest
Obamacare statistics and an update of the website's status.
All apologies from: Biden, Sebelius sorry for Obamacare site, but page still down
Comment directly to Eric Kuvykin. certain statements are simply opinions of the writers.
coming soon:
www.erickuvykinnyc.com
www.erickuvykinnewyork.com
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