Issa: CMS Head Tavenner to Testify on Healthcare.gov Woes
WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) today announced that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner must testify at the Oversight Committee on September 18th, 2014. This comes as news reports reveal that a hacker has breached the Healthcare.gov insurance website.
“Considering this Administration launched healthcare.gov over the objections of CMS, it’s unsurprising that the website has suffered a ‘malicious attack,’” said Chairman Issa. “For nearly a year, the Administration has dismissed concerns about the security of healthcare.gov, even as it obstructed Congressional oversight of the issue. The Committee will continue to push for answers from the Administration and Administrator Tavenner must testify on the subject of transparency, accountability, and information security alongside the Government Accountability Office at our September 18th hearing. Additionally, just last month, the Administration admitted that Tavenner, who was the senior official responsible for the disastrous rollout, experienced a similar email ‘loss’ as IRS official Lois Lerner.”
Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services admitted that senior executive Marilyn Tavenner’s emails related to the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov, first subpoenaed eleven months ago by the Committee, had been destroyed.
The Oversight Committee pressed for explanations and held a hearing in January after the Committee’s review of security documents produced by one of HealthCare.gov’s contractors, MITRE, showed that HHS downplayed Healthcare.gov vulnerabilities prior to launch.