Website Was Supposed to Be the Easy Part

Months before their launch, top Administration officials and lead contractors insisted Obamacare’s insurance exchanges would be tested, secure, and ready to start enrolling people on October 1. A week before the launch, in a desperate sales pitch to college students, the President claimed that signing up would be as easy as a few simple keystrokes: “Don’t take my word for it, go on the website. … If you’ve ever tried to buy insurance on your own … I promise this is a lot easier.”  

This Friday will be one month since the Obamacare exchanges went live, and millions of Americans have struggled to access HealthCare.gov. People have tried in vain to create user accounts, compare plan rates, fill out applications, ask questions using web chats, choose a plan, and complete the enrollment process.

“Stay away from HealthCare.gov for at least another month if you can.” -- Consumer Reports, October 16

“It is just as bad behind the wizard’s curtain”

The Administration initially feigned surprise at the exchange rollout’s failure. First President Obama claimed traffic surges caused the problems. A mountain of evidence, however, proved the problems plaguing HealthCare.gov were a lot more complicated than simple traffic issues. Technology experts viciously condemned the federal web system, saying it was not only poorly designed, but also that “the people who built the site don’t know what they’re doing, never used it, and didn’t test it.” The New York Times quoted one insurance executive: “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our [HHS exchange conference] calls, people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.’”

Meanwhile, the site’s problems could soon get worse. For decades, insurers have used an “834” electronic form that tells the company’s computer system who a person is and what product they purchased. Reports surfaced that the Obama Administration is sending health insurance companies faulty and incomplete enrollment application data. Health IT experts warn that only one percent of applications provided to insurers contain enough verified information necessary to enroll the person in a plan. Americans who were able to access HealthCare.gov and select an insurance plan may not be covered on January 1, 2014, because the Obama Administration failed to give the insurance company adequate information to process the application.

A few weeks ago, HHS started transferring a very small number of federal exchange enrollment applications to the insurers. Industry data consultants reveal, however, that many electronic enrollment files are corrupted and cannot be opened – or fail to contain enough data, rendering it unusable. This forced some insurance companies to fix each application’s bad data – one file at a time, often by hand. One expert warned that this is an unsustainable solution: “If you’ve only got a dozen bad enrollments, that’s OK, but what are you going to do when you have 200,000 bad enrollments? What we’re seeing in public is the web portal, which is a mess. It is just as bad behind the wizard’s curtain.”

HealthCare.gov – Failure to Launch

As the President and HHS Secretary Sebelius scramble to fix this public relations nightmare, more facts are becoming public to explain how the train went off the rails.

• IT Contractor Warned HHS About Testing. Last week HHS exchange contractor QSS – which built the Data Hub – testified before Congress. QSS executives say they warned CMS about specific problems the firm discovered prior to HealthCare.gov’s launch. Other HHS contractors confirmed the Administration’s “end-to-end” testing, which didn’t happen until the last two weeks in September, was woefully insufficient to test such a large IT project.

• Secretary Sebelius Admits HHS Had “Almost No Testing.” In an interview, with the Wall Street Journal, Sebelius admitted HHS “didn’t have enough testing, specifically for high volumes, for a very complicated project.” She added that the exchanges needed five years of construction and a year of testing, but that HHS “had two years and almost no testing.” She blamed the President’s health care law for setting the October 1 deadline. The Associated Press found this claim to be false: “The law imposed no legal requirement to open the website Oct. 1. The law says only that the enrollment period shall be ‘as determined by the secretary.’”

• Incompetent CMS Assumed IT “Project Manager” Role. Sources confirm that CMS took sole responsibility to integrate the exchanges’ separate databases and software components – designed by 55 different contractors. According to the New York Times, “It is not common for a federal agency to assume that role, and numerous people involved in the project said the agency did not have the expertise to do the job and did not fully understand what it entailed.”

1-800-Obamacare-Denial

Last week, amid public confusion, doubt, and anger, President Obama stepped into the White House rose garden to address the “inexcusable” health care roll-out. Instead of taking responsibility – not once did the President say “sorry” to the American public – the President chose to downplay the significance of the HealthCare.gov malfunction and offered a toll-free number people should call. Afterward, a liberal columnist complained, “the commander-in-chief hawked health-care plans the way George Foreman sells grills.” It turns out the toll-free number didn’t work either. A Washington Post reporter attempted to contact the call center and was “repeatedly told [she] could not enroll in coverage over the phone.”

The Administration owes the American people direct answers to many important questions. Secretary Sebelius will be before Congress on Wednesday. The Secretary should be asked:

• Why launch on Oct. 1 without adequate testing? In testimony to Congress last week, CGI, the contractor responsible for much of the website, stated her company only had two weeks to test the site, but would have preferred months. The Administration launched a site that wasn’t ready.

• How many people are enrolled? The self-proclaimed “most transparent Administration in history” still refuses to issue specific exchange enrollment figures. Instead, last week HHS proudly claimed that 700,000 people nationwide submitted coverage applications. But Administration officials refuse to clarify how many applications came from state exchanges versus the federal exchange. Additionally, HHS continues to stonewall the next logical question: How many of these 700,000 people have actually signed up for an insurance plan?

• Who, specifically, has joined the “tech surge” team? To date, the Administration has only identified former OMB director Jeffery Zients, Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, and certain Presidential Innovation Fellows as part of the mysterious White House team. What makes them think all the problems will be solved by the end of November?

• Who is paying to fix HealthCare.gov, and how much more will it cost? According to a June 2013 GAO report, HHS issued federal exchange contracts totaling more than $400 million. News reports, however, indicate that HHS may have spent more than $634 million to construct HealthCare.gov. The Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Subcommittee minority estimates the Obama Administration has spent a total of $1.7 billion to implement the exchanges during the past year.

Administration Must Stop Stonewalling

President Obama and Washington Democrats need to level with the American people. There are serious, systemic problems with Obamacare’s exchange system. No one knows yet if all the problems can be fixed – or if they will only get worse.

Implementation of the President’s law has been marked by a pattern of delays, missed deadlines, broken promises, special deals, and exclusive waivers. President Obama didn’t want to listen to his critics, and the bungled health care rollout is the result. But it is more than just the website. The White House had three and a half years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to build a system that works. This was supposed to be the easy part. The President failed, and the American people are paying the price.