>> computer contractors who built the problem-plagued health care website about to face tougher questions on capitol hill in a hearing. >> good morning. welcome to aljazeera america. the rollout of president obama's affordable care act has been taking a beating on many fronts and that could be an understatement. most criticism is focused on the website. it's still not working. congressional hearing getting underway on capitol hill where

some of the contractors who built it are going to have some explaining to do. we're going to bring that to you live in just a few minutes. first we explain just how we got here. >> lawmakers will be ready to pounce today at the first of three hearings to probe the glitches on the federal website health care.gov. house republicans long opposed to the penalty's affordable care act are expected to grill the definiteliors of the system. >> the rollout is nothing short of a debacle. >> on wednesday, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius met with c.e.o.s of insurance companies at the white house. the initial high jam of users clogged the system, which failed early testing.

>> the vice president of the company that built the website will say today: >> the obama administration acknowledged the website was not tested enough before going live. >> we did not expect or anticipate the scale of the problems that has occurred. that's on us. >> some democrats claim the investigation is political and the gop using the hearings to launch a new line of attacks against the administration. >> they're just trying to embarrass the president and everybody else who supported the affordable care act. >> still critics blast the entire process as a half billion dollar disaster. >> the biggest part of congress's job is to provide proper oversight of the executive branch of government. whether it's obamacare or issues over at the department of

defense, it's our job to hold them accountable. >> the administration has not given a time table to fix the computer snags. it is recruiting help from experts and bringing in the former acting director of the office of management and budget to get it back on track. erika ferrari, aljazeera. >> health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius is going to testify before that panel next week. americans have until march 31 to sign up even if the coverage doesn't kick in until later. they are gathered in washington at this hour, the hearing expected as to start any second now. an everyday to provide more transparency, the obama administration releases a plan of action to fix the websites. topping the problems, high internet traffic is causing major delays for visitor that is try to log on to the site.

heal and human services say adding band width could fix that problem. some find it difficult to create their accounts. in response, the website's architect is being improved and made easier for visitors to navigate and find answers to questions. some visitors want to be able to compare their health plans without creating an account, tech teams have provided new teams so the visitors can preview before they apply for coverage. >> canadas largest technology company, c.g.i. built the troubled website. it's senior vice president is one of the people to testify before that house committee today. the company has worked with the canadian government and health care providers in the past. >> this is a really interesting company. despite having 70,000 employees and contracts all around the world, billions of dollars in business, it's not that well known in canada, primarily

because it doesn't deal with consumers. if you look at its website, it tells you it does technological services for everything from banks to insurance companies to most agencies of government including space agencies. of course it works in the health care sector. >> this is an incredible company, well rewarded, done well on the stock market, it is considered to be one of the canadas showcase companies, canadas large evident technology companies. >> this isn't the first time it's faced challenges with governments and health care. the province of ontario terminated a $46 million contract to build a diabetes database. >> the corporation couldn't really connect its systems with the systems that exist in the public health care system here, which serves a population of 13 million people and it's a big system. whether it was the fault of the company c.g.i. or the fault of the public health system is a

matter of legal debate. >> c.g.i. says it's in talks about that dispute. one surprising fact, most large technology projects involving government or business or both end in some sort of failure. experts say that's because of complexity and because systems are not tested adequately. >> this is a highly complex project, but the people doing it were actually very, very strong, good, competent practitioners, good competent companies, and yet it's gone off the rails. we look at the structure of the project more so than whether there were bad people involved. >> weeks of political debate about issues probably lie ahead and fixing the bugs in the health care.gov website could take much longer. it all guarantee that is a canadian company adverse to publicity could look forward to a lot more of it. >> this is that hearing getting ready to take place live on capitol hill right now. this is the scene that i can set for you.

the republican senators are now using that as an effort to once again end obamacare as they refer to it. this time the white house is also experiencing heat from the democratic side of the aisle as they are upset with the rollout. the white house saying it is upset as well. democratic senators are saying someone's head should roll because of what has happened on capitol hill. we want to take some time to get to some other stories happening as we are waiting for that hearing to take place. a 14-year-old boston student is held without bail after killing a math teacher at his school. a vigil held wednesday night for the teacher colleen ritser. her body was found behind the school. the teenager took in a movie after the teacher was killed. there is no motive in that

killing. phillip chisholm is being tried as an adult. >> a teacher, michael landsberry was killed monday. two students were also shot, their parents speaking out on wednesday, saying they don't leave that their sons were the targets. the shooter, a 12-year-old, died when he turned the gun on himself. >> two sheriff's deputies that shot and killed a teenager, who was only carrying a pellet gun have now been put on leave. the officers say they repeatedly told the 13-year-old to drop the weapon. they say when he didn't comply, they fired several rounds. police suggesting the begun he carried resembled an assault rifle. the parents are convinced their son would have dropped the gun if he had a chance. >> in yet another accidental shooting in california, three elementary students wounded when a classmate got hold of a pellet gun on a police safety assembly.

the student pulled the trigger of an assault rifle that was mouthed on an officer's motorcycle, metal debris striking the kids, causing minor injuries. >> germany's foreign minister summoned the u.s. ambassador in berlin to address the new n.s.a. spying allegations. there are reports the u.s. tapped the phone of the germany chancellor merkel. she said if the allegation are true, it would be a grave breach of trust between two friends. alan fisher has more. >> the german government must have been pretty sure something went on, going public to allegation that the americans speed on merkel's phone. a spokesman described the idea as unacceptable. the chancellor herself called the white house, bringing this response. >> i can tell you that the president assured the cans lower that the united states is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor. >> listen to that denial again. >> i can tell you that the

president assured the chancellor that the united states is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor. >> missing are the words have in the, did not. when aljazeera asked if this happened in the past, the national security council spokeswoman added: >> the german claim comes days after the french accused the american spy agency the n.s.a. of hacking diplomats computers and recording data from 17 million calls in france over a 30 day period. just after edward know den revealed the size of the u.s. spying program, barack obama made a trip where he was asked about the extent of operations abroad. he was in berlin, standing next to merkel. >> this is not a situation in which we are rifling through the ordinary emails of german

citizens or american citizens or french citizens or anybody else. >> so now the germans join the french, brazilians, mexicans and others upset by u.s. spying. the u.s. officials have started a review of what is collected because of growing international anger. >> merkel is calling on the obama administration to clarify the extent of nsa surveillance in her country. >> celebrities launching a campaign video calling for the n.s.a. spying program to be reigned in. >> we need to end mass suspicionless surveillance. >> this video called stop watching us calls on the nsa, saying its activities are a mass invasion of privacy. it champions edward snowden and includes prominent whistle blowers who say government secrecy leads to corruption. >> the house energy and commerce committee congressman frank

upton the chair of the hearing now underway. >> 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 health care law. this is taxpayer money on the line. we need to be judicious and the past three weeks of exchange messiness have demonstrated that nobody can be a blind cheerleader for the affordable care act when they see these problems right before their very eyes. at this time, i yield the gentleman from texas, mr. barton, i will yield back to the chairman. >> chair would recognize for an opening statement, my colleague, the ranking member of the full committee, mr. waxman from california. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. the act act iaffordable care ac.

the law has accomplished a lot. millions of americans, especially seen years have saved money on prescription drugs. young people have gotten health care coverage. millions of families have received rebates from their insurance companies that use more than 20% 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 website, 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 or worked for large employers like the federal government. democrats want health care.gov o work. we want to learn what is wrong and how to fix it. we want to learn what the contractors can tell us about the problems and how they can be addressed. that's what all my colleagues should want, including my republican colleagues. that has not been their agenda so far. we have documented republicans attemptedding to sabotage the affordable care act, which they know would result in denying coverage to millions of uninsured americans, who can't

find insurance under the current system. >> 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% 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. 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 -- >> you're listening to california congressman henry waxman, he is a democratic, obviously citing what would be the white house position which is that the problems aren't with the affordable care act itself. our white house correspondent mike viqueira is standing by. anything that you're hearing so far any different than what they are saying at the white house this morning? >> this is predictable. you're going to have republicans jumping all over there, sighting as government ineptitude for a program they have opposed from the very beginning and continue to oppose to their political detriment coming off the shutdown. they are in a difficult position

here and the white house, as well. they're defending the indefensible. it's been a fiasco. they've had three years to get these websites up and running. they have failed. there is no sugar coating it. even the white house will admit that now. we heard the president talk about the tech surge, the best and brightest minds working 74/7. the white house short on details and exactly who those people are and how much it's going to cost. there are varying estimates if you talk to tech experts across the country as to how fixable this problem is and how long it will take to fix it. we hear henry waxman saying that there are many ways to go to get insurance in these marketplaces. this is where folks who do not have insurance made available

through employment can go to get insurance. it is an important part of all of this. there was discussion last night as to whether or not the white house is going to delay the deadline of march 31 for the individual machine date, requiring everyone has insurance by that date of next year. that date remains march 31 after a lot of back and the forth last night. now there are even some democrats who are calling for a pushback of that date. that's still very much up in the air. what we are going to see at this hearing are the very architects, the technical people, contractors, c.g.i. among them testifying about what went wrong. they blame overwhelming volume. that's we heard at the outset. they'll cite according to advance testimony, confusion among contractors, among instructions they were getting from the government entities running this website. it's not a good scene, republicans seizing on this after their bitter loss coming off the shutdown battle.

>> i want to set the table for why they are listening to us and not to them, and that is because anybody that is familiar with congressional hearings understands that the first 15 minutes of these hearings are usually one side telling their side of the story and the other side telling their side of the story. we're waiting to hear from the people that have been called to testify, in this case the representatives from c.g.i., the people that set up the website. i also wanted to tell you about something unusual for washington and that is despite this debate. the latter of the health care act itself is going up. true? >> that is what polls are reflecting as more people become aware of it. this is something the white house banked on all along, something we saw the president as recently this week in the rose garden touting the benefits. some are unaware of what they need to do or what those benefits maybe.

you hear democrats touting benefits, young people staying on their parents' policies until they're 26. no disqualifying for insurance policies for preexisting conditions. no lifetime limits for insurance coverage. down the line, they are touting these benefits that come with the affordable care act. you're going to hear republicans with their talking points. no question, there will be grand standing from both sides. the people who are actually testifying are sort of a side show to the political points or a foil to many members trying to make their points with their constituencies and bolster their own standing. >> this is a function of government to oversee -- function of congress to oversee executive branch doings and certainly by any standard, even why the white house's own standards, there are serious

problems with that website. >> is this a case of a boom range that was thrown by the white house, the republicans saying that they believe that it would be done away with, should be done away with, because it was bad for the country, the whites house then celebrating after they got through that budget debacle saying see, we told you, that's all they wanted to do was get rid of obamacare, but now has come back and hit them with the website? represents have got to be saying if we had waited just a little longer. >> i think republicans are kicking themselves, outside of the ted cruz faction and party affiliated members in the house and senate have got to be kicking themselves by not -- by employing the strategy, running the play that they did in the words of the president and shutting down the government, holding out for delaying or defunding of obamacare, when it drew focus away from what is, let's be honest, the political winner for republicans at this point, reinforcing all the store

yo times about the ineptitude of government and on down the line and that is the significant problems they're having with this website. this website was up and running or supposed to be up and running october 1, which coincided with the first day of the shutdown. from a public relations standpoint, political standpoint, surely republicans have to be kicking themselves for not seizing on this when the time was right. they're playing catch up now and certainly are devoting a lot of energy toward drawing attention to these problems. >> there are calls for the head of h.h.s., kathleen sebelius. will that happen? >> she was the governor from kansas, she came from that position to be the health and human services secretary. there have been several republicans along the line who

have called for her resignation. a lot of that is expected in the normal course of politics. she does have some explaining to do. they wanted her to be commerce committee, did want her to testify today. she said she had scheduled problems but will be happy to testify next week. that didn't make a lot of people happy. i don't think you're going to see the president cutting kathleen sebelius loose anytime soon, particularly under these circumstances. >> this white house has been one that circles the wagons around its cabinet members. there were calls for eric holder, the attorney general to design when fast and furious was the controversy. he weathered that storm. some believe in washington that kathleen sebelius will weather this storm, as well. the panelists have now been seated. we will take to that testimony in just a second, but first answer that question, mike. >> you're absolutely right. again, fast and furious, i think

that the difference between something like fast and furious or some other scandals that republicans have really tried to make a lot of hay out of is those are scandals in the minds of core republicans and conservatives. i think the public at large and while fast and furious, obviously there are legitimate questions about that gun walking program in the southwest and all the details, there are legitimate questions around it, that was morals seen as a political witch hunt and white house was successful in sending that off and defending eric holder under those circumstances. this is a different thing altogether and republicans having a track record they do, and in this environment of partisanship, anything is going to be seen through that prism. there is a partisan element to this, in republicans calling for her departure. that doesn't take away from the fact that somebody is going to be held responsible or perhaps should be held responsible, and that starts with me talking, the penalty's own former spokesman,

robert gibbs that called for people to be fired. there are other departments calling for people to be fired over what has really been called a debacle, and that's not just by republicans. >> mike viqueira stand by, we are looking live at testimony on capitol hill concerning the affordable care act, that testimony set to begin in a few moments with the questioning of the panel. we are going to take a break and resume our coverage when we come right back.

>> the democrats are saying there are technical glitches with the website. the curator set to testify. we will bring you that testimony live. now, we want to talk about the chilly temperatures up and down the east coast. let's turn to nicole mitchell. >> when we were running above average, i didn't hear complaints, but now that we dropped 10 degrees blow average, a lot of people talking about it. the northeast is where the drop has been. we had this drop in the midwest. morning temperatures now in the 30's and 40s and not going up too high by the time everything is said and done. it's going to be a cool day overall with a lot of areas that saw 60's yesterday, into the 50's today. the northeast, mid atlantic, great lakes, most of these temperatures consistently 10 degrees below average this

time of year. even though cooler in the midwest, minneapolis 43 today. you can say you don't have the worst of it. the one warm area is the southwest, phoenix is 91. around low pressure, you have counter clockwise flow. the winds on the backside are out of the north, drawing in canadian air. with the wind flow across the great lakes, it is enough with the cold air to be creating areas of snow. south bend, mishawaka, you could fall under some of that, under buffalo for the next couple of days, you might see that. the chance for that is in the overnight areas. a couple spots are getting it this morning. most of those amounts are going to stay light. that is our wet spot across the country. because of that and the cold air, we have combinations of frost and freeze watches really for the next couple of days and

mornings. lake effect advisories. we have high pressure in the west, clear skies, not a lot of rain forecast. if you do want the warm stuff, head to 70 degrees out on the beaches in los angeles, probably looking a lot more pleasant right now. >> 70 sounds great. thank you very much. then again, it is getting around that time when the trick-or-treaters are out there. once again, the hearing is underway concerning the affordable care act and glitches in the website that is using the obama administration's phrasing and unmitigated disaster, that being the republican side of the concern of the rollout of obamacare. democrats also calling for heads to roll. let's take a listen in to what's going on right now. >> i oppose the law that created this program, but people need to be armed with the the

information requested. i would urge everybody on both sides of the aisle to do that. my hope, mr. chairman is that today marks the beginning of an effort on the majorities part to make sure that the health care law works, and is successful and americans can enjoy the benefits. i really think that it's important to make that happen and i'm so happy, i'm so happy and touched, really, today, to hear the majority express these concerns about making the affordable care act work better. i really hope that they're legitimate in it with, 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. with that, i yield to the chairman emeritus of the full committee. >> this is a wonderful opportunity for us, to make the affordable care act work. i remind my colleagues the last

perfect law came off the top of mount 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 responsibilities as american people to see to it that we do everything we can to support and defend the constitution of the laws of the united states. i have heard some unfortunate things on the other side, saying we have to do everything we can in hour power to get rid of obamacare. all of a sudden, now, our friends on the other side have forgotten that. i hope they'll continue to forget it, because we had 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 is in fact fixed and that it helps all of the american people. now, slow website 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 website 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 of 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, has improved by the affordable care act. mr. chairman, i thank you for your courtesy, i thank the gentle lady for yielding to me and i hope we can work constructively on this matter today. it's a great opportunity. >> the gentleman from the great state of michigan's time has 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 c.g.i.'s federal health and compliance programs and defense agencies programs. she was appointed to this position in 2009 and in this capacity is the driver of strategy and execution for the practice to serve the needs of providers government and public. our second witness is andrew slavic, the group executive v.p. orr optumkssi. in this capacity is responsible for business strategy, public

policy, corporate investment, research and development, acquisition and corporate governments. prior to this role, he has served in united health group and founder of c.e.o. health allies, which was acquired by united health group in 2003. our third witness is lynn spelsi serving at corps relate counsel for he can we fax workforce solutions. her responsibilities include advicing the business on matters related to contracts, and client relationships. she works with sales leaders and internal contract staff and the broader legal department to manage workforce solution, related issues related to litigation, human resources, government affairs and regulatory commissions. our last witness is john lao. 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 taniff. his experience includes initial implementation and start up, risk identification and issue resolution, using a commercial governance system, security and privacy in the design, implementation and management of multi-million transaction health care documents and document processing systems, including california s chip and texas eligibility system for medicaid, chip and taniff. i will know swear in the witnesses. you are aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing and is taking testimony under oath. do any of you have objection to testifying under oath? seeing none, the chair advices you that you should 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. do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. you are now under oath an subject to the penalties set fort in title 18, section 1,001 of the u.s. code, you are now able to give a five minute summary of your written statement, and miss campbell, we'll tart with you. >> chairman, ranking member waxman, members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear. i am the senior vice president of c.g.i. federal. i have responsibility for all of federal projection at the

department of health and human services and several other federal agencies, i am here to reinforce the on going commitment to the success of the federal exchange on healthcare.gov. let me tate that c.g.i. is fully committed to its partnership. 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 contacts, let me first describe our role in the federal exchange. the exchange is comprised of six complex systems and involves 55 contractors, including c.g.i. federal, five government agencies, 36 states, and more than 300 insurers with more than 4500 insurance plans, all coming together in healthcare.gov. c.m.s. awarded its portion of

the federal exchange, a software application called the federally facilitated marketplace or ffm. it provides alongability enrollment, plan management. having ultimate responsibility for end to end performance of the federal exchange, it also is important to understand the complexity of c.g.i.ed federal work on the exchange. it is a sophisticated software application to combines a web portal, a transaction producessor and activity indicated analytics to help eligibility, shop for for health plans and enroll in qualified plans. the technology works in realtime with sophisticated analytic systems developed by other contractors, large scale data repositories, federal databases

and health plans for more than 300 insurers. in short, the federal exchange is not a standard consumer website, 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 realtime. since award on september 30, 2011, c.g.i. federal has worked diligently to develop the ffm following a rig rouse process customary or large projects. it passed eight required technical reviews before going live on october 1, while c.g.i. 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

difficult for too many americans. consequently, the focus shifted immediately to solving cob assumer access and navigation processes on the exchange. the first set of issues on the exchange concerned another contractors enterprise and data management or edim function, allowing consumers to create secure accounts and serves as the front door to the federal exchange. consumers must pass through in order to enter the ffm application. unfortunately, it created a bottleneck, keeping consumers from accessing. sense then, contractors have worked closely together to trouble shoot and solve this front door problem. as more consumers are gaining access to and enrolling in qualified plans, the increased number of transaction caused performance problems, such as slow response times and data assurance issues at that c.g.i.

federal is addressing these problems through tuning, optimization and application improvements. over the past two weeks, the federal exchange that steadily improved. we continue to dedicate the resources necessary to shorten wait and transaction times and improve data quality. we have confidence our ability to deliver successfully. why? because the company that i represent here today has successfully delivered some of the most complex i.t. implementations for the u.s. and government, including federal reporting.gov. we have partnered with c.m.s. on transformative projects, like medicare.gov, enable 50 million beneficiaries to compare health and drug plans annually. we are widely recognized by independent parties for our expertise in systems and software. as part of the fifth largest

company in the world. we leverage the expertise of a global workforce. irene force c.g.i. federal's unwaiving commitment to working collaboratively with c.m.s. to improve the consumer experience. thank you. >> thank you. mr. slavic. >> good morning. my name is andy slavic group executive president at optum, business unit of the united health group, one of the contractors working on the on line health care marketplaces. we understand the frustration many have felt since the launch. we have been and remain accountable for the performance of our tools and our work product. i'll 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. the data services hundred is a pipeline. it transfers data, routeing queries and responses between the given marketplace and various trusted data sources. specifically, a consumer interested in purchasing health insurance negotiation 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. the accuracy of the information is not determined that it

transports, nor does it store data. the data services hub has performed well since the marketplace was launched. on october 1, the data services hub successfully processed more than 178,000 transactions, and it has processed millions more since. when occasional discreet bugs in the data services hub were identified, we promptly corrected them. in addition to the hub, qssi also developed the eidm, a registration and access management tool used as one part of the federal marketplace's registration system. the tool helps the marketplace create user accounts and is being used successfully currently in at least two other c.m.s. applications. it's relevant to note that while the eidm tool is important, it is only one piece of the federal market plagues's registration system.

registration components developed by other vendors handle other critical functions, such as user interface, confirmation emails to users, the link the users click on to activate their accounts and the web page users land on. all of these tools must work together seamlessly to assure smooth registration. after the launch, healthcare.gov was inundate the by many more consumers than anticipated. many critical components were overwhelmed, including the virtual data center environment, the software, the database system and hardware and our idem tool. it appears one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at the registration system was a lately 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 that wouldn't have otherwise occurred if consumers could window shop

anonymously. in the days after the launch, we worked around the clock to enhance the tool to meet this unexpected demand and this has largely succeeded. by october 8, even at high levels of registration, the tool was processing those volumes as error rates close to zero. the tool continues to keep pace with demands, and at 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 provided to us by others. in this function, we reported backle 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 edim tool is now keeping up with demand. we are committed to helping row solve any new challenges that may arise in any way we can. thank you for the opportunity to discuss our work. i'm happy to answer any questions you have. >> thank you. >> good morning, chairman upton and distinguished members of the committee. i am the primary attorney responsible for the day to day legal operations of the business unit and provide guidance, advice and legal support. i appreciate the opportunity today to provide an update related to the income verification services that he

eqwifax solutions to help them. the workforce solutions income verification solution is working at designed. since the exchanges first went live october 1, 2013, we have not experienced any problems or interruptions in the processing of data to c.m.s. we have received and responded to verification requests recording individual applicants from the federally facilitated marketplace as well as state-based agencies. we tested our verification solution before the october 1, 2013 open enrollment. between our servers and the federal -- marketplaces open, we

are monitoring the flow of verification requests from the hub to our servers and back. our role in the federal marketplace is limited. we received and income verification request only after an lant successfully gained access to the federal healthcare.gov or state based marketplace website. create the user name and establishes a security authentication profile and then enters an on line application process. we do not play a role in these steps, nor did workforce solutions play a role in identity proofing. we are neither involved in nor 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, ews is

providing solutions for other agencies. the continuing appropriations act for 2014 included new requirements for the department of health and human services to insure 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. we look forward to sharing our expertise and income verification services for the federal and state exchanges. since the start date, we have exceeded the expectations of its contract to provide in jump verification services for those seeking financial assistance under the affordable care act. the extensive experience we've

gained from providing income verification to state and other federal agencies for their eligibility reviews for government subsidies has prepared us to successfully serve in this new capacity. we will continue to monitor and test our interface with the c.m.s. data hub and various state agencies to insure maximum efficacy. thank you for the opportunity to testify and i welcome your questions. >> mr. lao. >> good morning. >> would you make sure your mic is set there. >> can you hear me now? >> we can. >> ok. good morning, again. my name is john lao. i remember circo the prepare director or our contract in connection with the actio affore

care act. thank you for the opportunity to appear and discuss the performance of this program. i'd like to provide a quick review of circo's role in the program and the current status of our work. serco's contract is to provide 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 website. we have no role in the determination of eligibility, and we have no role in health plan selection. i think there have been some confusion about that. i'd like to make sure that that's clear. our primary role --

>> inconsistency resolution entails data very if i occasion and validation of the self tested 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 center in kentucky and arkansas. a third will open next week in missouri and in four or five weeks, the final site in oklahoma. we'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 onboard

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 act one, we've built upon our starting capacity with both staff members in 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 that given us the opportunity to make adjustments and improve our processes as the nature of the inbound documents and work load that 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 application 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've received thus far, it's not presented a challenge. as i testified september 10, serco was ready to process on 10-1 and we are processing today and i very much look forward to your questions. thank you. >> well, thank each and every one of you. at this point, we'll move to questions from members and alternate between republicans and democrats. i just want to say as we've seen the taxpayer 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, rental car, 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've heard words like performing,or goal was to perform well, you want a positive experience working or design trying to do that and that's not what we've heard from folks at home. my first question is was it ever an option to delay going live on october 1? did any of you come fort to the administration and say this thing may not be ready on october 1, we might want a delay until we can get it right? any hands up? no. prior to october 1, did you know that the healthcare.gov website 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 miss campbell. >> sure. >> 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? >> well, chairman, our portion of the application worked as designed from a c.g.i. perspective. people had a chance to enroll, not at the pace, not at the experience we would have liked, but the end to end testing was the responsibility of c.m.s. 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. >> it was not your decision to go live. >> it was not our decision. it was c.m.s.'s decision. it was not our decision. >> did you ever recommend to c.m.s. that perhaps they weren't ready and want to delay the date. >> it was not our position to do so. >> so you chose not to share those thoughts with them. >> let me clarify my statement. c.m.s. had the ultimate decision for a live or no go decision. >> you are listening to live testimony on capitol hill right now concerning the affordable care act, also known at obamacare. the witnesses just finished saying what they wanted to say in their prepared remarks, now we are watching the questions by members of the house committee that is investigating this particular topic. they will take turns, republicans and democrats, republicans holding the majority. we are going to take the opportunity to take a break and then come right back.

all next week america tonight investigates the campus rape crisis. >> serial rape is the norm on college campuses. >> i know that when i did report, i was blamed. >> then on friday, november 1st at nine eastern, we open up the conversation in a live town-hall event. sex crimes on campus, a special week of coverage and live town-hall on america tonight nine eastern. only on al jazeera america.

>> we now resume our coverage of the hearings taking place on capitol hill concerning the affordable care act, also known as obamacare. we are bringing you these hearings live so that you can make the decision as to whether or not the website is a nightmare as the republicans want you to understand or simply technical glitches as the obama administration wants you to believe. we return now to the testimony that is taking place live on capitol hill. >> successfully completed and to end testing between ews and the cms data hub prior to that date. we did not anticipate any sort of problems with our connection and have not