health news. mary agnes carey will be joining us. ofliam mcbride, on the issue earned income tax credit. the topics and guest tomorrow morning on "washington journal." i hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great week ahead. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up on c-span, with representative fred upton of michigan. he talks about the health care law's implementation and his committee's role in oversight. ofer that, a look at some

the problems associated with the new health care website. and a rally protesting the nsa's surveillance program. >> we want to welcome back to congressman fred upton, chairman of the energy and commerce committee. politico andof siobhan hughes of "the wall street journal." siobhan, go ahead. >> what was your take away from the hearing yesterday? where will you go from here? will you issue subpoenas? , we wantedy sebelius her to come last week. she chose not to. other scheduling conflicts, she said. we have her coming next week to chi will give us at least three hours. there will be a lot of questions. there was a line that was on the front page of your paper, i don't remember the byline. it was like "a lot of fingers and no palm."

a lot of fingers pointing as to who the blame is. we need to get to the bottom of this. this has not been a story just in the last week or so. we started our investigation last summer. we heard testimony earlier this year, a good number of letters as well. the administration has spent, as you know, hundreds of millions of dollars on this rollout. even though they said they were ready to go and would be ready october 1, it seems like it was so compartmentalized. different players at every little segment. they did not do the ned -- end- to a weekting prior or two before october 1. we know the real troubles that are out there. i was on a phone call this past week with some radio folks back in michigan. one of the announcers, in fact, had gotten the notice for him.

his health insurance was canceled. of course, that breaks the first promise. if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. was told he had to sign up for the affordable care act, obamacare, and was totally frustrated trying to get online. we have a lot of questions. >> just a quick follow-up. who was responsible? do you take the contractor's word that it was really cms' responsibility? and,ey all pointed at cms in essence, the administration. we will get to the bottom of this. the ways and means committee cms.be chairing with we will be having secretary sebelius on wednesday. i think we learned a lot earlier this week. we have a lot of questions for them to find out who made the decision, why if they knew it wasn't going to work, why wasn't it delayed? the president made the decision back last summer on the business mandate side of things.

we had a vote on the individual side. and the deadline stayed in place. we have a real mess on our hands . >> you heard a lot, like you said. do you think it's the government, the contractors? from what you've heard so far, and that's a good deal, who is really -- -- this wasas supposed to be a user-friendly service. the promise was you could help -- keep your health insurance if you wanted it. you are forced into this new program, this new design. it was described by everyone as if you're born -- going to order pizzas or flowers or whatever. it does not work. that's the easy part. signing up ought to be the easy part, anyway. the hard part is when those same folks need some type of medical care next year, when it is in place.

whether or not that registration really carries through to the doctors office or the hospital, how are they going to get reimbursed, what are they going to do for fraud and abuse that -- arise in the system they said it would be on time, ready to go, spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do it, but the proof is in the pudding. who is to blame? i think that the way that it was set up, it seems like there was otherrall program manager than the department of hhs. they are going to -- kathleen sebelius, the secretary, is going to have to answer through that -- for that when she comes to testify. deliver -- >> they said they did. they said we did what we said we would do. but the way that it was just alled, it was

these pieces together that then were never tested. in the end, that's where the real problem came. and when they did test it, it was a small number of testing. it still crashed. somewhere, someone should have decided, you know what, this is not ready for prime time, we have to have a new date. find that out next week. >> so, they earned their $292 million? >> i don't know. one of my colleagues said, i've heard everything but an apology. it is a pretty substantial sum of money. you can imagine as the administration is working to fix this 24/7, bringing in all these different teams -- we don't necessarily know who they are -- what that bill will end up eating -- being at the end of the day. this. have got money from

you have hampered hhs and cms' ability to do this. how do you respond? a $2 billion slush fund. that is where a good number of these dollars came from. it does not seem like they have cut any money from trying to sign people up. it is just ineptness in terms of where things are. and when you look at the changes on obamacare, even the president, of course, refers to it that way, so it is not meant as a slight in any way, he has made a number of changes. he has dismissed or given a one- year delay for the business mandate. with all the evidence piling up that this was a disaster, they should have looked at a year delay as well. hearingince we had our thursday this last week, there is a number of members am a republican and democrat, that are calling for delay in terms

of -- there is a number of members, republican and democrat , that are calling for delay. we will take a look at that. >> it sounds like there's something there. >> we are going to be looking at this. you will remember that in the house last summer, the end of july, when the president made his announcement that the business mandate would be delayed, we thought, what's fair is fair. it ought to be on the individual side as well. we had a vote. almost every republican voted for it. a good number of democrats voted for it as well. manchin,ansion -- senator shaheen -- they have been calling for delays, too. >> on the penalty, you are talking about? >> there will be some

discussions in the next few days. >> it sounds like something is happening behind the scenes. >> it is not done. we have identified and highlighted some real trouble. certainly, real frustration with signing up for this plan as well. a number of tv shows in the last couple of days have brought in people to try and sign up and cannot do it. we did it yesterday at the hearing. a couple of our colleagues turned on their ipad and got a complete blank screen. people were told to call in a couple of days. , i presume,pened hundreds of thousands of -- to hundreds of thousands of folks across the country. they are being forced out of their present insurance plan, told to sign up for this and cannot do it because of the failure of the system to

operate. >> you think the penalty should be -- >> the white house announced there would be a six-week delay, i think? that is under the guise that they will get their act together pretty soon, right? i'm not so sure that happens. >> you mean you might go beyond oversight and there might be legislation? >> we will see. discussions are starting. we learned a lot this last week. we are going to learn more, i presume, this next week. this is people's. it is a lot of money out of their own pocket. a lot of changes. where this leads, time will tell. try to we are going to take the evidence that we saw this week and see what

adjustments we might be able to make, particularly since some of the headlines friday in politico democratlmost every with a tough race said we've got big trouble. >> how active should we expect the energy and commerce committee to be? are we talking about hearings every week? preview what it will look like. >> first of all, there's a couple of committees that have jurisdiction. it is not just us. dave camp and ways and means will have cms come testify on tuesday. we have darrell issa, the government reform committee. i don't know what precisely is going on in the senate. we are going to continue our oversight role, as we should. we have two subcommittees with jurisdiction, our health subcommittee and the oversight subcommittee. a lot of questions are raised related to the security of the individual's information that they put into the system as well, knowing that they are changing the number of lines to make it work.

there are a lot of issues that are out there. i don't know that we will do it hearing every week just on this. we've got a lot of other issues as well, whether they be energy, telecommunications, trade, etc. there is only so much time in the day. with my bill years ago to add daylight savings time, that gave us an extra hour.hour. we may need extra weeks to try to pour through this mess that -- togot in front of us pour over this mess that we've got in front of us. then we heard at least one side say -- >> we have heard at least one side say, "not my job." >> they were under oath. they were a little careful in terms of how they answered the questions. really, there was a communication breakdown between the contractors -- clearly,

there was a communication breakdown between the contractors and the administration in terms of where they were. my question was, and i did not get a straight answer, did you just not know that it was going to work, or did you know that it wasn't going to work and not tell us? what is the answer? in essence, they said, we thought their little section of it work. but no one was in charge of the whole string. as a consequence am a though they all professed -- as a consequence, though they all professed a month, six weeks ago it was going to go fine, they really didn't know that because they didn't put the pieces together. that is what is sad. >> we just came out of these two fiscal crises. i know you are probably looking forward to another fiscal crisis january. >> really looking forward. i am. should house republicans

-- >> should house republicans take off the table a shutdown down because of obamacare? >> i have heard both leaders, mcconnell and boehner, indicate they don't expect that to happen. i think we can come to an agreement prior to january 15. paul ryan, of course, is helping to lead a conference between republicans and the mcgrath in the house and senate -- republicans and democrats in the house and senate to try to iron out the differences. there are a lot of differences between the two. i read yesterday that he had certainly taken the tack that we were not going to be raising taxes. that was the line in the sand. he is looking at the sequester, the thread of the sequester, which kicks in in january again, a second round. everyone wants to talk about that. that could be the pressure to try to get an agreement so that we do not have a shut down come january 15.

if i was going to vegas, i would bet that we are not going to have a shut down january 15. there were no winners. there were only losers. i say that with a really straight face. i think you will see all sides do their very best to make sure we don't go through january what we went through in october. the fundingays of obamacare over -- of defunding obamacare over? >> i don't think that's going to be on the front burner. >> does that mean it was a tactical error? >> there were a number of us who did not agree with that tactic. i was one. it was ultimately used to try to get negotiations started between the different forces. because we came to a final agreement, even though it took much longer than any of us , it ultimately

happened. but it was a mess. i was one of the 87 who voted to end the mess. >> will we see a health-care alternative bill this congress question mark charles krauthammer -- this congress? charles krauthammer said that paul ryan would put one out in 2014. >> there are a lot of different ideas. our committee, are house republicans have met for a good number of hours in the last number of months -- our committee, our house republicans have met for a good number of hours in the last number of months. this is a 2000-page bill. was the president did simply deny the regulations being written. that is how he delayed the business mandate. we took an early provision that was bipartisan early on to take 737.ence on page

it would require that every business that had a 200 dollars transaction annually was going to have to file a 1099 form with the irs. at&t said, can you imagine just ?he cell phones with us that is millions of 1099's. we ended that provision. that was bipartisan. we came within -- very close of repealing the medical device tax . i've got a big company in my district, almost $95 million they would pay. that was a bipartisan idea to .nd that -- to end that i think you will see a number of different ideas. one of the ideas we would -- we talked about come a should there not be a delay in the individual mandate -- one of the ideas we talked about, should there not be a delay in the individual mandate?

to get them done, they have to be bipartisan. >> what are some other ideas? >> i have not talked specifically to paul about his proposal, but the idea of allowing folks to purchase insurance across state lines. i think there is almost universal support. i often hear defenders of obamacare talk about folks should not be discriminated against if they have a pre- existing condition. i think you have universal support, almost, for that. same thing for children 25 or 26 being under their parents' policies. i think that is a given. tort reform -- that is something the president talked about early on when he was first elected. pretty substantial savings if you can get something like that done. a lot of roadblocks that we have seen in the past. there are ideas. this is not a perfect bill, for sure. by almost everyone's estimation.

and shouldn't we go back and look and examine where these flaws are and see what we can do to fix them? ?> what about waiving penalties is there a point that you have to if it isn't fixed? >> i would like to think that has some bipartisan, generous support. a point was made in the hearing this week about some of the they werearly on, that e part of part d, a prescription drug benefit of medicare. program.a voluntary you were not forced into it. that was your decision. you had a number of different choices. most states offer a good number of different choices if you want to participate in that or not. i think that would be one bipartisan way. i think it would have some pretty good support. >> have you talked to democrats about that?

>> we are just starting. we had some other things that occupied us here for a couple of weeks. i am glad we had the hearing when we did. be -- iiscussions will think there will be a lot of discussions in the weeks ahead about different ways of fixing problems that are clearly there. someone who has been in washington for quite a few years -- >> not long enough. of people talk about the rebranding of the republican party. how do you think that is going? >> let's face it, the last couple weeks were pretty rough. the polls would show more so on republicans than democrats, but we have to govern. that is what john boehner wants. we are going to have the oversight role on lots of different things. we have the-- house, the democrats have the

senate as well as the white house. to get things done with this divided government, we have to work together in a bipartisan way. if you actually look at what we have done in our committee, whether he be health care, energy, a number of different things, -- whether it be health care, energy, a number of different things, we have had some pretty good bipartisan results. i have sat down with senator wyden a couple of times. they are looking soon at the senate at moving in an energy efficiency bill. we have some pretty early bipartisan support in the house, too. i have talked to senator wyden. if they are able to move their bill soon, we will take it up in our committee and move with regular order, open process. we have done some hydro electric bills. we have done some good health bills. we have fixed the sgr, the reimbursement for physicians

under medicare. that was a three-year process. that out of our committee, every republican and every democrat. frankly, if you look at the last congress, our committee, we had 88 bills pass. they came through our committee and passed on the house floor. 40 of them got signed into law. the pipeline safety bill -- that was sent to the house, voted out of two committees. the president signed it into law a year ago. it upgrades the safety standards for every new oil and gas pipeline built in the country. those are some pretty good things that we have been able to move. moved a major water resources bill. i think there are three people that voted against it. that is the type of thing that we need to be doing. working together, solving the

nation's problems in a thoughtful way. certainly, i'm committed to doing that as chair of the energy and commerce committee. >> we have time for a couple more questions. i want to ask you about pipeline safety. there was a headline about a spill this past week. it was not discovered by the pipeline company. it was discovered by the farmers. >> i read that story. >> it has brought up a lot of concern about going forward with the keystone xl pipeline. the regulations for old pipelines are such that there are no real standards from the agency that is supposed to monitor them. they are regulated on areas where it is environmentally sensitive or there is a large population, but not in remote areas. >> a couple things. we had a bad spill in michigan a couple years ago that just -- that was just outside my district. new to being the chairman

of the committee. i said we need to upgrade these standards. we had a number of hearings, brought in all the stakeholders. what can we do to ensure safety? we had millions of pipeline -- millions of miles of pipeline. there are lots of ways to transport oil and gas and other hazardous things. pipelines have a pretty good safety record. but we knew they could be better. which is why i teamed up with a major democrat and former chairman of my committee to the two of us shepherded -- the former chairman of my committee. the two of us shepherded the bill through with dozens of standards. one of which was that when a pipeline company, under the old standard, they had to report in a timely manner when they had a spill to the federal regulatory agencies. what does that mean? it was literally a day were two before the word came out -- a day or two before the word came

out. when aa number of things pipeline goes under any type of major river or stream. instead of being just trenched. sayaw a spill -- i want to it was at yellowstone river in montana a couple of years ago. a trench pipeline that had some flooding, some boulders broke a hole in it. a sizable spill. under the bill that we passed, it will be dug in 20 feet or so but need the riverbed. the riverbed.th but that applies to new pipeline. the san bruno explosion in california -- a congresswoman from that area came and testified. increased penalties and increased damages. as it relates to the keystone

pipeline, they changed the route . it does not go through the same aquifer that it did before. different routing. nebraska now supports -- the governor now supports it. we knew that there was more that we could do, and we did that. >> but what about the pipelines that exist? your regulation doesn't deal with that. >> eventually, they will be replaced. it is pretty hard to impose a new building standard on literally a million miles of pipelines that are already there . with the keystone pipeline, if it is ever built, there will be more safety standards on that than what we were able to get signed into law by the president. >> let me just follow up on keystone xl. this will have to be the last question. that oil has been coming into this country for 25 years, and it is coming without the keystone xl pipeline.

there are many other pipelines that cross that border. why is it even needed? it is coming without keystone xl. >> we want to be energy independent from the rest of the world. canada has been a major importer of oil and gas. we get a million barrels per day today from canada. a lot of it actually comes into my constituency. then it is piped across the state of michigan. the argument is, if we already get a million bales -- barrels per day, why don't we want to take an additional 750,000 barrels of it and displace what is coming in from maybe a country that is not so friendly to us, whether it be venezuela or someplace else? canada is going to do this anyway. if they don't send it here, they are going to send it someplace else, china, india, who knows? refine itke this oil, here, create the jobs here, and use it to displace oil that

comes from somewhere else? >> all right. chairman upton, we have to leave it there. we are out of time. thank you bar -- very much for being on "newsmakers." with jake sherman of politico and siobhan hughes of "the wall street journal." siobhan, chairman of the energy and commerce committee, fred upton, what did he say about the strategy going forward, dealing with the affordable care act and the glitches we have seen in healthcare.gov? >> this week, we thought the republicans were shifting gears and focusing solely on oversight. what we heard is there might be some type of legislation around the corner am awaiting penalties -- around the corner. waiving, p penalties, perhaps. >> did it sound like they might have some support from democrats? >> this exposed a very flawed website to sign up for health

care. the democratic line has been this is unacceptable. this cannot go on. step would bext we are not going to find people for -- fine people for a website that does not work. the question for republicans will be how do they define when the website is working. it will be at a nut to crack, to put in legislation that the penalty will kick in once the website is operable. how do you define operable? a lot of hurdles there. there will be discussion and legislation down the pipeline. >> so, if you don't impose the fine, have you effectively delayed the individual mandate, which is what republicans were aiming to do? >> absolutely. the penalty is the mandate, which is what forces individuals to participate. you don't have participation. without participation, are the economics going to work? this will be a tricky needle to

thread. >> semantics wise? if you are republican, you are saying i think we just won on delaying parts of the affordable care act. >> for the democrats and specifically president obama, he was not seen as trading a government funding bill for an individual mandate delay. i haven't spoken to the president today, but if he has to delay the individual mandate, at least he is not seen as doing it as allegedly to horse trade with republicans. there is that piece for democrats. >> you are right that there is a semantic issue. if you just say we are waiving the penalty, that sounds a lot different than we are waiving the mandate. they can win rhetorically without winning in fact. >> even if they are not waiving it completely, even if they say

the penalty will not go into effect until april or may or june, it is a lot easier -- it does not sound as harsh as we are delaying the individual mandate. >> there are some senate immigrants who are up for reelection who are proposing this, along with joe manchin -- senate democrats who are up for reelection who are proposing this, along with joe manchin. what about senator harry reid? >> the unity between harry reid and obama -- they had never been closer. has been his soldier on capitol hill. that dynamic is going to remain. they present an unbelievably unified front. you see that cracking a little bit. we will have to see what republicans choose to do. >> preview for us this coming week. >> we will hear from secretary kathleen sebelius. a lot of republicans want to know did she know how serious the problems were. if she didn't, why didn't she?

this is going to be a key moment for her. also, what we heard the contractors say -- they are not sure if, under their contract, they can give congress all the information they are requesting. she will answer for that. are alsond means having hearings on the affordable care act. thank you both for being on "newsmakers." we appreciate your time. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> later today, c-span's profiles of two lawmakers to west virginia senator joe manchin and washington congressman cathy mcmorris rodgers. they talk about their childhood, family life, and their careers as elected officials. here is a brief look. >> i looked at it through the eyes of what i saw of robert c byrd and hist c. reverence for this great

institution. i would have thought when the chips were down, it was always country first, state second, and politics third. i would've always thought that. that is not what i see. i see 100 good people in the senate. i really do. i don't have anybody that i don't like. i like everybody. i try to get along with everybody. -- i dos e -- i do see i would question some motives and reasons of your service. i go back to john kennedy and i watched that speech on television, 13 years old, "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." it is our country. we own it. "we, theitution says people." if you own it, you have to take ownership. you have to take care of it. like owning a car, you have routine maintenance. now it seems like we have a country where people are saying, ask not what your country did to

you but what you can do to it. that is a long way in 50 years. >> i was single when i was elected to congress. thing that hast happened since i was elected to ,ongress was meeting my husband getting married, becoming a wife and a mom. our oldest was born with down syndrome. it isn't what you expect. it isn't what you dream. but i sit here today and i'm a better person because of him and what he has taught me. i'm the better legislator. he has given me a new passion for what i do here on capitol hill. >> how so? >> well, when you first get the news, it is some of the most difficult news that you receive as a parent. but i look back on it now and iw was immediately welcomed by the

disabilities community. people all across this country who have been through similar saidiences reached out and it's going to be ok. >> to hear more from these interviews, watch later today at 9:35 eastern time on c- span. you can also listen on c-span radio. -- we bring public affairs invents from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house event's, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete, tabitha gavel coverage of the u.s. house -- complete, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house. created by the cable industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. now you can watch us in hd. >> government contractors hired to build the healthcare.gov

website testified for the house energy and commerce committee this week. they talked about the reported problems and how they are trying to fix them. this portion of the hearing is 3 1/2 hours. [gavel] >> good morning. first, i would like to note to our florida colleagues who are unable to be with us, they are attending the funeral of our late colleague, for appropriation share -- former appropriation chair bill young. a friend to all here and a mentor to so many on both sides of the aisle. he is going to be deeply missed, particularly in his legacy of the establishment of the bone

marrow registry. something that will save tens of thousands of lives. we appreciate that work. the energy and commerce committee continues our ongoing oversight of the health care law as we examine the many problems, crashes, glitches, system failures that have defined open enrollment. over the past several months leading up to the october 1 launch, top administration feels and lead contractors appeared before this committee, looked us in the eye, and assured us that everything was on track. except that it was not. as we now know too well. why did they assure us that the website would work? did they not know or did they not disclose? that is what we are looking to find out with the contractors today and secretary sebelius next week. the companies that are here today all testified before the health subcommittee on september 10 about their work building the federal exchanges and healthcare.gov.

briefingsaring and in with committee staff, these companies represented that the exchanges would be ready for open enrollment on october 1. they explained that their testing of the system had not identified any significant problems. this is not about blame, this is about accountability, transparency, and fairness for the american public. the broken promises are many. the president promised americans that they could keep their health plans if they liked them no matter what. yet here we are 24 days and open enrollment and more people are into open-- 24 days enrollment and more people are receiving cancellation notices in just two states than the 476,000 that have been enrolling. this is a troubling fact. the administration is appearing allergic to transparency, withholding enrollment figures. this is more than a website problem. frankly the website should have , been the easy part. i am concerned about what

happens next. will enrollment glitches become provider payment glitches? will patients show up and be told that they are not covered or even in the system? in a few months, families across the country will face penalties under the individual mandate. how can the administration punish innocent americans by forcing them to buy from a system that does not work and whose rollout has been a disaster? the american public deserves answers. we will get that from the lead contractors today, next week will be secretary sebelius' turn. i yield two minutes to the vice chair, mrs. blackburn. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank our witnesses for being here. we are looking forward to getting your perspective of what went wrong and how itwent wrong

-- and how it went wrong with the rollout. we were repeatedly told by members of the administration that everything would be working properly and it would be done on time. these false assurances seemed to sway some people on the other side of the aisle. they believed things would be done on time. yesterday, mr. waxman and i were agreeing on some things in a hearing. last month, we were disagreeing. he had said that nothing could be found from our committee's investigation of exchange implementation and readiness. we were quite concerned. the definition of nothing has turned out to be design choices in the exchanges that hide unaffordable premiums, glitches, dead ends, error messages, system breakdowns, and americans spending countless hours on a system not ready for prime time. we are going to join together for proper oversight of the health care law. this is taxpayer money on the

line. we need to be judicious. the past three weeks of exchange messiness have demonstrated that nobody can be a blind cheerleader for the affordable care act when they see problems right before their eyes. at this time, i yield -- is the gentleman from texas mr. barton -- i yield back to the chairman. >> the chair would recognize for an opening statement, the ranking member mr. waxman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. the affordable care act is an enormous success, with one obvious exception. it has a poorly designed website. the law has already accomplished a lot. millions of americans, especially seniors, have saved hundreds of dollars on prescription drugs. young people have gotten health

insurance coverage. 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 has not happened and what has not been successful is the early performance of the website. 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 who work for large employers like the federal government. democrats want healthcare.gov to

work. we want to know what is wrong with the website and how we can help fix it. we want to learn what the contractors can tell us about the problems and how they can be addressed. that is what all my colleagues should want, including my republican colleagues. that has not been their agenda so far. we have already documented a record of republicans attempting to sabotage the affordable care act, which they know will result in denying coverage to millions of uninsured americans who cannot find insurance under the market system that excludes them if they have pre-existing medical conditions or if they cannot afford coverage. from voting more than 40 times to repeal the law, from intimidating organizations that have tried to help the law

succeed, republicans have tried -- have encouraged their obstruct -- to obstruct implementation, to deny medicaid coverage, even though it is being paid for by the federal government. 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. we want families to have affordable health insurance. we have already seen extraordinary demands for this coverage being offered through the exchanges. one of the reasons that we were given that the website did not work is that it crashed with so many people trying to access it. we know that people want to shop and have a choice between different health insurance plans that are being offered to them

and have already been lined up to offer them private health insurance. we are encouraging our constituents to use other means of signing up like call centers and written applications while the website problems are being fixed. we are pressing the administration to redouble their efforts to fix the website. we welcome yesterday's announcement giving americans more time to sign up for the insurance. everyone has a responsibility to get health insurance. we expect people to observe that responsibility. but i cannot see that anyone is going to be penalized under the law if they have not been able to buy health insurance during this time where they have not had access to the exchanges. we need to start listening to our people who sent us to congress. they do not want the government shut down. they do not want congress to

drive the country to the brink of default. they want this law to work, but they do want us to make sure that we hold everybody accountable and insist that the law and the promise of affordable health care become a reality for all americans. that means we have got to get this website fixed. that is why i am pleased we are going to hear from the four contractors today and next week from the secretary. if we want this law to work, we have got to make it right, we have got to fix it. not what the republicans have been trying to do, nix and repeal it. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back my time. >> the chair would recognize the chairman of the oversight subcommittee, dr. murphy. >> thank you. as chairman of the oversight investigations committee, i have heard promises from the administration officials that all was well with the health care law.

not true. either these officials were shockingly unaware of what was happening inside their own agencies or deliberately misleading our committee and the public, hoping this would turn around. 2 weeks before enrollment began, hhs' insurance czar told us that consumers could go online on october 1. not true. we were promised websites where people could easily compare plans and cost. $500 million later, the american public has been dumped with the ultimate cash for clunkers. except they had to pay the cash and still got the clunker. secretary sebelius has admitted hhs did not do enough testing.

but was her agency warned ahead of time this was an issue? were the contractors able to work with each other and complete testing? qssi states that the decision requiring consumers to register for an account before browsing was a contributor to the website crash on october 1. who made this decision? were they trying to hide the true cost from the public? the president is committing untold amounts of money for a -- an undisclosed plan, headed by an individual without technology experience to fix this. if contractors could not build tests and run a website, how do we expect anyone else do this? congress should press pause on the tech surge and figure out what went wrong before forcing the public to use a broken site. we want an explanation on how the system will be fixed, what it will cost, and how long it will take. after footing the bill, the american people deserve something that works or start over. take responsibility and tell us what is wrong and fix it, or try something else.

i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. hhs officials repeatedly assured this committee that the administration would be ready for october 1, 2013. this past july, the secretary stated that hhs would "flip on the switch on october 1 and tell people, come on and sign up." on august 1, administrator tavenner told us that cms would -- cms would finish end-to-end testing by the end of august. on september 10, the subcommittee held a hearing in which representatives assured us that their components would be ready on time. when the exchanges opened on

october 1, it was a disaster. -- it was nothing less than an unmitigated disaster. we are hearing reports that the administration was warned that the site was not ready for an october 1 launch. "the washington post" reported that as late as september 26, there had been no test to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end. secretary sebelius said just this week that almost no testing occurred. these past few weeks of exchange dysfunction, along with stories of hundreds of thousands of americans losing their existing health plans, help underscore why washington should not be running our private health insurance system. the botched rollout is all the more reason that the individual mandate penalty should be delayed. average americans deserve a waiver from obamacare, too. it is only fair when the

exchanges are such a mess. the companies represented today were in charge of building the exchange. but cms was responsible for ensuring everything works together properly. in light of all of the administration's assurances, are they simply incompetent or were they just lying to the american people? >> i have something i would like to put up. like all of obamacare, what it appears on the surface is not what it is. this is the terms and conditions that you accept at some point in the process.

that looks pretty plain jane. slide 2, what you do not see is this slide. it says you have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data stored on this information system. at any time or for any lawful government purpose, the government may monitor, search, and seize communication or data transiting or stored on this system. any communication may be disclosed or used for lawful government purposes. that is obamacare in a nutshell. it says one thing on the surface, does something totally different behind the scenes. my questions for the contractors about this lack of privacy and what they knew about it. with that, i yield back. >> the chair would recognize the member of the health subcommittee, mr. --

>> thank you. i just heard the chairman of the health subcommittee safety wants to delay the affordable care act. i have great respect for the gentleman from pennsylvania. but here we go again, another cynical effort by the republicans to delay, defund, or repeal the affordable care act. i would like to think that somehow this hearing is above board and legitimate, but it is not. the republicans do not have clean hands coming here. their effort is not to make this better, but to use the website and the glitches as an excuse to defund or repeal obamacare. i think it is very unfortunate. there are millions of people out there who are trying to go on this website, like 20 million. they deserve an opportunity once this is fixed, the administration is trying very hard. they deserve an opportunity to have health care and not be among those 30 million or 40 million who are uninsured or do

not have a good benefit package. i would ask the republicans, let the goal be to fix it, not nix it. if that were your goal, i would feel good about this hearing. i do not see that happening. one of the things i wanted to bring is how democrats take a different approach to things. when medicare part d started up, there were all kinds of problems with the website. it went on for months, these are some of the headlines from the newspapers about the problems. do the democrats get up and say medicare part d is terrible, let's defund it? no, work hard, make it better. that's what we did. the glitches disappeared. the program became a good program. that is what i will like to see my republican colleagues do today. it is not the case. time and time again, the gop has tried to slow the progress of

implementing the aca. they were willing to shut the government down for three weeks, did we forget? they shut down the government because they wanted us to defund or make changes or delay the affordable care act. i hear my republican colleagues talking about that they care about money, federal or individual dollars. the information that has come out -- the gross national product lost $2.4 billion during the shutdown. 1/2 of 1% of the gross national product of the last quarter. you do not care. what about all the money you lost in the three weeks? you wanted to delay the affordable care act so it did not matter? no clean hands here. do you really care? i do not think so. i just wish that you would stop

the obstruction, work with us on trying to make this a better system. as my colleague mr. waxman said, this can be fixed if you will work with us. i yield to the gentlewoman from colorado. >> thank you very much, mr. pallone. we are here to find out what the problem is with the healthcare.gov website and how we can fix these technical problems. last month, we heard from cgi, qssi, serco, and at the facts, the same four contractors who are here today. they told us that the website would work. we asked them point blank -- they told us that hhs was doing an excellent job of testing the product. they expressed nothing but optimism. three weeks later, here we are. we are still hearing reports of problems.

i appreciate the contractors coming today. i give them the benefit of the doubt when they say things are improving. for the affordable care act to work, these problems need to be fixed fast. we need to hear exactly what they are doing to fix these issues and see clear examples of improvement and be provided with a timeline for how it will be fully optional. this is not our first experience with introductions of new health care programs. i was on this committee in 2006 when medicare part d was implemented during the bush administration. let's not forget what a mess it was and the significant problems seniors have with registering for benefits. i want to remind my colleagues on both sides at the -- that the difficulties passed

and were soon forgotten amidst the success of part d. i take the gestures on the other side of the aisle seriously. i hope we can work together to ensure the success of healthcare.gov. there is something else i remember from the introduction of the part d benefit. every single one of us, whether or not we voted for the law, worked together for our success. i found the newsletter that i sent out to my constituents after medicare part d -- i said, i oppose the law that created this program but people need to be armed with the information requested. i urge everybody to do that. my hope is that today marks the beginning of an effort on the majority's part to make sure that the health care law works and is successful. and americans can enjoy the benefits.

i think it is important to make that happen. i am so happy and touched to hear the majority express concern about making the aca work better. i hope that they are legitimate. this is what is going to give insurance to millions of americans who have gone without health care for many years because they cannot afford the program. with that, i yield to the chairman emeritus of the full committee. >> thank you. this is a wonderful opportunity for us to make the affordable care act work. i remind my colleagues the last perfect law came off of 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 to see that this law goes into effect and works and that we carry out our responsibility to the american people.

to see to it that we do everything we can to defend the constitution and the laws of the united states. i have heard some unfortunate things on the other side. they said we have to do everything in our power to prevent obamacare. obamacare, get rid of it. our friends on the other side have forgotten that. i hope they will continue to forget it. we have a chance to see to it that the american people get health care as a matter of right, not financial privilege. it helps all of the american people. now, a slow website is better than the alternative. her health care is a privil