ObamaCare Contractor Warned HHS in September of HealthCare.gov Problems

WASHINGTON – The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today released new documents that show CGI Federal, Inc., one of the major contractors who built HealthCare.gov, warned the Obama Administration of problems with the website just weeks before the October 1st launch date.

In a monthly report sent to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on September 6, 2013, CGI officials warned of the “open risks” and “open issues” that still needed to be addressed. “Due to the compressed schedule, there is not enough time built in to allow for adequate performance testing,” the report states.

Among the unaddressed problems, contractors listed “hub services are intermittently unavailable” and timeframes for testing “are not adequate to complete full functional, system, and integration testing activities.” They rate problems as “near certainty” and “highly likely” and rate the impact as “significant” or “severe.”

The documents were provided in response to the Committee’s October 23rd letter to CGI requesting more information about their contract with CMS and the development of Healthcare.gov. Noting that HealthCare.gov went through little, if any, testing, the letter stated, “This lack of testing is concerning due to the amount of sensitive consumer information flowing through the data hub and exchanges.”

Last week, in a separate request, the Committee also sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seeking documents from HHS about the extent of the problems with HealthCare.gov and the website’s development. The letter set a response deadline of 5:00 p.m. on October 28th before the Committee would be forced to consider the possibility of a subpoena.

You can read the complete report from CGI here.