>> well, i think the estimates at the congressional budget office, it would have increased the deficit by $110 billion in the first decade and close to a trillion dollars in the second decade. we know we have 42 or 43 million americans without health care, some medicaid eligible and some over the medicaid eligibility. 30 governors so far, republicans and democrats, have declared their support with moving ahead with medicaid expansion, but absent the affordable care act, those folks would be without any kind of health security, and in the private market, what we know is it takes a real toll. but i'd say the biggest issue is not just the financial toll, not the community toll, not the country toll, which is significant. i have a good friend who runs the cancer center at the university of kansas. i was with him and cancer researchers recently, and he said if you get a cancer

diagnosis, you are 60% more likely to live five years and beyond if you have insurance than if you don't. i think that's a pretty powerful statement for why we need affordable health care for all of our citizens. >> well, thank you. the republicans have not been able to defund or repeal it, but they have denied requested funding, they've raised arguments about death panels and socialized medicine, and they've worked to intimidate groups that could help the implementation effort. there's a spreading of misinformation about the cost of coverage. we hear some of that today, and to actively dissuade the uninsured from seeking coverage. so madam secretary, how are these tactics impacted your ability to implement the affordable care act? >> well, i don't think there's any question that a lot of people need a lot of information. i think it's one of the reasons we had millions visit the site, try to visit the site. it's why i am so frustrated and disappointed that the site is

not fully functional and why i'm so committed to getting it functional, because clearly, there is a demand. we need to get information to people about the law. this is the law, this is not any longer a debate. it was a law passed by both houses of congress, signed by the president of the united states, upheld by the supreme court. the president was reelected. it is the law. and people have benefits and rights under that law, and we've got to get that information so they can make good choices for themselves and their families. >> well, thank you. it is the law, and, frankly, i find it disconcerting that my republican colleagues have done nothing but root for this law to fail for the last three and a half years. and now there's a big show here of being upset at problems with the website and keeping people from signing up for coverage fast enough. so i would just say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you're really on the wrong side of history here. the website will be fixed and millions of americans will be able to get quality affordable health insurance coverage

through the affordable care act. and again, i thank you for being here today, madam. >> mr. pitts, chairman of the health committee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, madam secretary. have you personally tried to register or enroll on the website? >> sir, i created an early light account so i would see the prompts that were coming to people who were interested. i did work my way to the application feature fairly early on, but frankly, i have affordable health care, so i -- >> i wondered if you have been through the process that millions of americans are having to go through. madam secretary, the initial website crashes appear to be largely a result of the decision to prevent browsing of the plans. cgi federal testified at our hearing last week that they had designed the website to allow users to browse and compare plans before having to create an account. ms. campbell told us that two weeks prior to the october 1st

launch, they were told to turn off the browsing feature. were you aware in september that this decision was made? >> sir, i wasn't aware of that particular decision that was made by the cms team. i was aware that we were pearing back some features to not put additional risk on the website. >> and who made that decision? who made that decision? >> administrator tavenner made that decision. >> and do you know why that was made? >> yes, sir, because we were anxious to get the website up and running and functional, which we clearly have failed to do to date, although i would suggest the website has never crashed. it is functional, but at a very slow speed and very low reliability and has continued to function. having said that, they paired down some of the features, feeling that it would be better to load them in later. one was the shop and browse

feature. another was the spanish version of the website and the medicaid transfers. all three of those issues were paired down in september to not load the system. >> thank you. thank you. last week, cgi federal and qssi testified that cms was responsible for end-to-end testing and that they believe that months of testing would have been preferable to two weeks. do you believe that two weeks was enough time to complete testing of the entire system? >> clearly, not. >> and when were you made aware of the result of the test,

>> now in "the washington post" on october 21st, there was an article that said about a month before the exchanged open, a testing group of ten insurers urged agency officials not to launch the site because it was riddled with problems. were you aware in september that insurers recommended a delay in the launch of the exchange? >> i was not aware that they recommended delay. i know everyone was concerned that there were risks and there were likely to be problems with the brand new integrated insurance system. i don't think anyone ever estimated the degree to which we've had problems in the system, and certainly, the contracting partners did not. >> and did hhs respond to the insurers' recommendation to delay the launch? >> sir, i can't -- i wasn't in the meeting. i don't know what occurred in the meeting, and i don't know who they talked to.

>> can you find out and answer that question for us? >> sure, i will get back to you. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. green? >> thank you, mr. chair. madam secretary, thank you for taking time to be here today. i represent parts of east and northeastern houston harris county and our district has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country. even worse, we have one of the highest rates of people that have jobs but don't receive their insurance through their employer. it's for this reason i believe houston would be a good place for you to come and spread the word about the benefits of the affordable care act, however, you're unable to attend because of scheduling conflicts. hopefully, we can have agreement some time in the future you'll come to the fourth largest city that probably has the highest number of uninsured in a metropolitan area and we're in the area of texas with the highest uninsured in the country. it's important to me and our constituents to get it right, and that's why i share your and the president's disappointment the website's not working as planned.

november 30th is not soon enough. many of my constituents have been waiting for years to be able to purchase health insurance and we owe it to them to get the marketplaces up and running. the contractors have not served our country well and should fix it or not be paid. now we're hearing about the cancellation letters being sent by insurance companies to customers notifying them that their plans are no longer offered. are these americans losing their health care coverage because of the affordable care act, or is it because these plans were changed after the enactment of the act? >> i would say it's the latter, sir. if a plan was in place since the enactment of the act, no one would have received a cancellation. >> if somebody in america had an insurance plan before the act and the president was correct, if you have -- if you like what you have, you can keep it. the plans were changed, so now they have to comply with the new law. >> they can either choose to be grandfathered and keep the same plan, which meant the same benefits and actually the regulation allows insurance

companies to charge medical inflation, plus a trend line, so they didn't have to charge the same price. they could increase it, they could increase co-pays, they could increase co-insurance. what they couldn't do is cancel benefits that the policy holder relied on. they couldn't disadvantage the policy holder, but if that plan is in effect, absolutely, it's still in effect. >> but some of these millions of letters we're hearing about are probably because their plans changed? >> absolutely. and again, in the individual market, plans change every year. insurers design new products. >> even in a small business market that happens. these plans are not allowed now because they are completely inadequate and don't offer the minimum essential benefits, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and having been a state legislator and i know as governor in kansas, i assume every state has some type of minimum mandated benefits that they have for their health insurance plans. >> they do, but it applies, again, sir, in the past usually to the group markets, where 90%

of covered americans get their policies. this market has always been the wild west. >> the americans received those letters from their companies about cancellations, they are eligible to purchase plans on the exchange? >> or out of the exchange. individuals who don't -- aren't interested in some kind of financial help can go outside the exchange, inside the exchange. their insurer can offer them plans. they have choices they've never had before. >> because of the benefits of theca affordable care act, 80% their premium dollar will come back to them? >> that's correct. >> i don't know any states that have that 80% requirement. >> no state had it, i would suggest, in that kind of broad base prior to the affordable care act, so it's -- >> let me give you an example of one of the plans i found out during case work, a large company provided $25,000 maximum benefit for their employees during the year. most of the employees didn't know about it, until this one constituent found out that she

had cancer, and the bill ended up being $300,000. and so that's some of those plans that are not being allowed to be sold now, is that correct? >> well, not only would the plan have a limit on out of pocket costs per year, it would have a limit on a lifetime out of costs, and it will take away the notion that you would run out of your coverage in the middle of a treatment, which a lot of plans do. >> i know i'm out of my time, but it's like buying a car, if they look good, but if it doesn't have a motor, it's no good to have that car. >> save a lot of gas -- >> jebt lman's time has expired. gentleman from oregon, mr. walden. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, governor, secretary, delighted to have you before the committee. you and i both know how important this issue is to all americans that we get it right. so i hope you can appreciate we're trying to understand what we missed along the way, and one of the things that bothered me was the letter that was sent from your agency to the gao back

in june 6th. and i'll read in part, it said, "we're in the final stages of finalizing and testing the i.t. infrastructure that will support the application enrollment process. hhs is extremely confident that on october 1st, the marketplace will open on schedule and millions of americans will have access to affordable quality health insurance." i'm just an average guy from a small town in oregon, but when i read that, it tells me you believed everything was good to go, the testing was in place, and we should have full confidence everything would work. correct? >> that's the letter i signed, yes, sir. >> actually, it was signed by your assistant. >> yes, yes. >> same point. i went into this believing your response, your agency's response, things ready to go, we should have full confidence, when someone uses the word "extremely confident," tells me you're extremely confident. second piece, the witnesses last week, i asked about the end-to-end testing and what the

industry standard would be, and they said it will be should have been months, especially for a project of this magnitude, yet we heard it was only two weeks. now in august, gci told cms in their report -- >> cgi. >> i'm sorry, cgi, thank you. august 9th there was not enough time in the schedule to conduct adequate performance testing. did that make its way all the way to you, and do you think there was adequate time? >> sir, clearly, as i've said before, we did not adequately do end-to-end testing. the products were not locked and loaded into the system until the third week in september. each of the component parts was tested, validated, independently val validated. >> i'm sorry. all those worked, they told us last week their individual modules were tested and met specification, do you concur

with that analysis, based on what you know? >> i do concur with the testing, yes. >> it really was end to end, which is why some of us thought we should delay until it could be done right to avoid this very collapse that now is upon us. i realize not everybody agreed with that. the second piece gets back to "the washington post," which you haven't had a chance to read this morning, but the four pinocchios about the president repeatedly saying if you have a plan, you'll keep your plan. we all heard that to mean, i have a plan with a company, i will continue to keep it if they make minor changes, when, in fact, no, that's really not what's going to happen. if minor changes are made, that means the plan changed, that means you don't get it. >> sir, that isn't true. the rules did not say what you just suggested, and i think the estimate given that there would be turnover in the market was really an outside projection. it wasn't our rules. it's a snapshot of what happens in the market, that plans change

so dramatically -- >> every year. >> -- over time, that the estimate was not because of our rules, but because of insurance companies' business decisions. >> you said those market rules looked like they had to comply with, correct? >> only if they chose not to grandfather the policy. that's -- >> that meant they couldn't make any changes. >> any grandfather policy stayed in place, still would be in place. none of these rules apply. >> but if they made any change -- >> they could make changes in pricing, they could make changes in benefits. they couldn't dramatically disadvantage the consumer, but they could have trend lines, they had a wide corridor to make sure that a similar plan, so if a consumer liked the plan, the plan, if it stayed in place -- >> here's what the practical implication, i have letters from constituents all over my district who have letters from their insurers who say because of obama care, they are no longer going to be in the individual market, or at least with that plan in the individual market, and the result is this

person from cove, oregon, i was paying $600 a month for a $3,000 deductible, now it's $800 a month for a $5,000 deductible. i've got others here i'll put in the record. a woman whose job she had 40 hours, now down to 29, neither has health insurance, nor enough income to live on her own because of the way this law is getting implemented. i realize my time's expired. >> gentle lady from colorado. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, and thank you, secretary, for being with us today. i want to follow up on a couple of those questions that mr. walden was asking you about cgi. as you know, chairman issa last night released this document, monthly project status report from cgi last night, and it looks to me as sort of a technical document that has a punch list of outstanding open issues. and some of them do highlight items that upon first read seem to be alarming. for example, one of the entries

said, due to the compressed schedule, there's not enough time built in to allow for adequate performance testing. and this certainly, in retrospect, sounds bad. but the date of the document that chairman issa released is september 6th, and then on september 10th, four days later, cgi came into this committee and testified under oath, quote, cgi federal is confident it will deliver the functionality that cms has directed. and we're trying to figure out, at least i'm trying to figure out, how cgi is now coming in and saying, you know, we warned everybody that this wasn't going to be ready, when they came in and directly told me that they would be ready to launch on october 1st. so it kind of raises a question, how these statements can be reconci reconciled. one explanation is cgi was lying to this committee. i think that's unlikely.

another is that cgi thought that the items flagged in the report were like a punch list that could be addressed. so here's my question to you, madame secretary, was cgi telling your department the same thing that they told the committee on september 10th, that the company was confident that its programs would be ready? >> congresswoman, all of the contractors testified here in september and again, i think, last week before this committee. and the testimony was fairly similar, that they were ready to go in september. they were asked in -- last week if they had suggested that we should delay the launch date. each of them said, no. >> they never asked you to delay launch date? >> they did not. and frankly, i think it is not valuable at this point to do a lot of pointing blame, fixing

the blame. what i want to do is fix the problem. i think we need the whole team to move ahead and we will report back regularly. >> but we're relying on these contractors who fix this, so that goes to my last question, which is, mr. zintz has now come in and he says the site is going to be up for the vast majority of users by the end of november, is that right? >> that's correct. >> and given what cgi told us and the other vendors, do you believe that that is correct? do you believe it will be pretty much ready to go by the end of november? >> i do. and i think that we are making improvements each and every day. it is easier to use now than it was two weeks ago. it is way from where we need it to be. >> so it's not like it's all going to be fine by the end of november, it's beginning to improve already. is that your testimony? >> it is a continuous process, as websites are. patches are made, fixes are made

on an ongoing basis, and as we find issues like congresswoman eshu talked about, we're fixing them in realtime. >> and you're going to guarantee, yes or no, people are going to have privacy? >> absolutely. >> immateri >> i want to say one more thing, i was on -- max got a letter from his insurance company that his insurance was cancelled, so what he did was he went on to the website and he found a better plan, and now he's going to sign up. so i would hope that that's what everybody would be able to do. and i thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. terry. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i'm pleased to hear that the website will be fully operational by the end of november, and would you be able to -- would you come back to our committee so we could see if that's actually accomplished and how it was accomplished? >> i will make every effort to

do that. >> okay. you were governor and state insurance commissioner in kansas, and i reached out to our state insurance commissioner and governor and found out that they have absolutely no data about nebraskaens who have either tried to enroll or enroll. as you know, nebraska's one of the states that opted not to do their own exchange and rely on the federal exchange. so it's interesting to me that neither our insurance commissioner, nor the governor's office, had any data about nebraskans and this -- enrolling in these plans. i also asked our insurance commissioner if any of the navigators, if they knew who the

navigators were and whether they had to apply to be certified or licensed, in essence, like an insurance agent would be. and they told me they have no clue who's been authorized by hhs to be a navigator and work with people in nebraska. so this is concerning to me, so i'm going to ask you a few questions along this line. first of all, do you have data on how many people in general in the united states have tried to enroll in a plan through this website? >> no, sir. we do not have any reliable data around enrollment, which is why we haven't given it to date. >> or have any data on how many people have tried to enroll, but because of the problems, have not been able to accomplish that? >> no, sir. i can tell you i met with insurers last week, and one of the priority fixes is the so-called 834s, the document

that sends an individual's name to a company and verifies it. that is one of the systems that is not working. >> i appreciate that. and the contractors i asked specifically about the information of how many people have tried to enroll and enroll, and they say they do have those numbers, but can't tell us that because of a contract with hhs saying that they are gagged on that information. >> i would suggest that the numbers are not reliable, according to the insurance -- >> my question is going to be, though, will you on the record right now authorize them to give us those numbers and let us determine whether those are reliable? >> no, sir. i want to give you reliable, confirmed data from every state and from the federal marketplace. we have said we will do that on a monthly basis by the middle of the month. you will have that data, but i don't want to turn over anything that is not confirmed and reliable, and that's what we'll do. >> but that data out there

exists. >> sir, i would tell you right now, it is not reliable data. according to the insurance companies who are eager to have customers, they are not getting reliable data all the way through the system. >> the number of people -- >> -- it's one of the real problems we have. >> -- that have clicked on or tried to get enrolled, i'm not asking what they enrolled in or whether they came in and said they were 65 and were quoted something that they were 27 years old. that should be a pretty reliable number just on the surface. >> the system isn't functioning, so we are not getting that reliable data. insurers, who i met with, said that that is the case. we know that there's 700,000 applications -- >> the reliability of that data certainly flies in the face of the testimony from the contractors. all right. i yield back. >> ms. capps. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, secretary sebelius for your presence here today and

your testimony. while i, too, am frustrated with the flawed rollout of healthcare.gov, i do appreciate your longstanding commitment to improving the health care options for all americans. and fixing this website quickly. i think it's important to note that in my home state of california, and other states, as well, the new exchange marketplace, we call it covered california, is working. and rates are as much as 29% less than those that they found on the marketplace last year. i'm thankful my constituents now have this option, and as i look around to implementation nationwide, it seems clear to me that political decisions in individual states have really made the difference for consumers. the governors and legislators, state legislators, that embraced this law are delivering for their communities, but those elected who are trying to ignore

the opportunities presented and continue to throw up roadblocks should not now seem surprised that there are significant bumps along the way. this seems, to me, to be completely disingenuous. having embraced the law since open enrollment began october 1st, californians have started nearly 180,000 applications with more beginning every day. i know my time is limited, but i want to have a second to mention the conversation i had just last night with a telephone town hall to my district on the central coast of california. one of the first callers i heard from was a mother from santa barbara. her name's merrill, and she wanted to tell me the story of her son. her son is 28 years old, and he had been paying $425 a month for his insurance before the affordable care act. she was happy to report that he has already applied through covered california and has found a policy that works better for him and has all the essential

health benefits covered, which his former policy did not, and now will only cost him $109 a month. this is significant savings for merrill's son, and this is a story that's being repeated at least in california often. so there are millions of residents in many states who have now set up their own websites and marketplaces, and those states, tens of thousands of people are now, as we speak, signing up for coverage, and this is demonstrating that the affordable care act is working. new york and washington, over 30,000 people have enrolled, in oregon, over 50,000 people have been enrolled, kentucky, 31,000 people have been enrolled. we could go on and on. the success of the data exchanges, which is where this is meant to be implemented, shows how badly this law is wanted and needed, how much it will be of help of people who want quality, affordable health care. my three quick questions to you are this, madame speaker, what is your assessment of how this

first month has gone in the states that are running their own marketplaces, which this congress intended that the affordable care act work? >> well, everything we hear from the state-based markets is that they are doing well. they have not submitted data yet. we, again, are working with them around a monthly schedule so that they will confirm medicaid data and enrollment data, and we'll see the real numbers at the end of the month and make sure that the -- they are available to the public, but everything we hear is that they see the same demand, they are eager to enroll folks, and that that is going smoothly. >> and what do you think this success shows about the demand and the interest for affordable health insurance on the part of constituents? >> well, i don't think there's any question that in spite of a series of roadblocks and blockades, and a lot of misinformation driven by about a

$400 million marketing campaign last year, americans are eager to see what their benefits may be under the law, what their opportunities are, how to get health security for themselves and their families, and we want to make sure that they see those benefits. the website is one of the ways to do that. the call center, on the ground enrollment, personal outreach, are a variety of ways, and i would tell your colleague, mr. congressman, i'd be happy to get you the list of the nebraska folks who are on the ground. it's available easily. it's public record, so i'd be happy to send it to you, so you could share it with your health insurance commissioner and governor. >> gentleman from the great state of michigan, mr. rogers. >> thank you. thank you, madame secretary for being here. short time, get through some questions here, if i can. is it your testimony that every night to try to increase the functionality of the system you're hot swapping codes? my understanding between 2:00

and 4:00, write new code, put it into the system, yes or no? >> clearly, i am not hot swapping code. there is a technical team -- >> you are in charge of the operation that hot swaps code on functionality. you're trying to improve the functionality, yes? that happens every night, yes? >> no, i don't think it does happen every night. it happens periodically during the hours of 1:00 and 5:00, but it is not a nightly feature. >> great. has each piece of that code that's been introduced in the system been security tested? >> that's my understanding, yes, sir. and the testing -- >> each piece of that code has been tested? yes or no? >> i don't know, but i can tell you that security -- >> that's a much safer answer, trust me. >> security is an ongoing operation that as code is loaded, you need to retest over and over and over again. whether it's pretested, i can't tell you. >> you need to test the code. is the end-to-end security test been conducted since healthcare.gov went live on october 1st, yes or no? >> my understanding is, there's

continuous testing as the temporary authority to operate calls for. >> yes or no, has an end-to-end security test on healthcare.gov went live, yes or no? >> i will find out exactly what testing they are doing. i know they are doing simultaneous testing as new code is loaded. >> are there any end-to-end security tests run after every new piece of code is put -- i'm not talking about testing the code, i'm talking about an end-to-end security test. >> i can get you that information. >> i can tell you they are not, and i'd be interested why not. if you go to tab two quickly in your book -- >> what book, sir? >> you have a tab there. if you go to tab two, right there. while you're looking, i'll read. dated september 27th, and it is to marilyn tavenner. let me just a couple of pieces here. "there are inherent security risks with not having all code

tested in a single environment. finally, the system requires rapid development and release of hot fixes and patches so it is not always available or stable during the duration of the testing." secondly, "the security contractor has not been able to test all the security controls in one complete version of the system." and if you look in the first part, which is most troubling of all, it says, "due to system readiness issues, the security control assessment was only partly completed. this constitutes a risk that must be accepted before the marketplace day one operations." and so let me tell you what you did. you allowed the system to go forward with no encryption on back-up systems. they had no encryption on certain boundary crossings. you accepted a risk on behalf of every user of this computer that put their personal financial information at risk because you did not even have the most basic

end-to-end test on security of this system. amazon would never do this. pro flowers would never do this. kayak would never do this. this is completely an unacceptable level of security, and here's the scary part, we found out after the contractors last week that an end-to-end test hadn't been conducted on security, not functionality, because if it's not functioning, you know it's not secure. your on going hot patches without end-to-end tests. the private contractors told us it would take a very thorough two months just for an integrated end-to-end security test, which hasn't happened, because you're constantly adding new code every night to protect the functionality of the system. you have exposed millions of americans because you all, according to your memo, believed it was an acceptable risk. don't you think you had the obligation to tell the american

people that we're going to put you in this system, but beware, your information is likely to be vulnerable? would you commit today, secretary, to shut down the system and do an end-to-end security test so that these americans can have their information -- >> no, sir. if you read the memo, our testing, daily, weekly scans are going on. this is a temporary authority -- >> that's not what the memo says, number one, and number two, the contractors will tell you -- >> mr. chairman, point of order. i think the witness ought to be allowed to answer what was a speech by the colleague, because he's raised a lot of issues. >> if the gentle lady will quickly answer. does the secretary wish to respond briefly? >> sir, i would just say this document is a document signed by administrator tavenner, which

discusses mitigation strategies for security that are ongoing and upgraded and an authorization to operate on a permanent basis will not be signed until these mitigation strategies are satisfied. it is under way right now, but daily and weekly monitoring and testing is under way. >> mr. chairman, there are people using this system today and she's just admitted the system -- >> mr. chairman, she didn't admit that. you said it, she didn't say it. >> gentleman's time is expired. mr. doyle. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madame secretary, welcome. those of us who fought for this law, who voted for this law, have a vested interest in its success, and the concerns that you here expressed on this side of the panel are real, because we want to see americans get health care. i think it's somewhat disingenuous for my colleagues on the other side of the podium

here to have this faux anger and this faux concern over a bill that they absolutely want to fail and have rooted for its failure and have voted over 40-some times to repeal this bill, never putting an alternative plan on the floor for the american people, but just to simply say they want to make sure this plan doesn't succeed. and i think the real fear is, that the plan will succeed and the american people will learn of the real benefits of this plan, not the propaganda campaign that's gone on by the republicans for the last three years. madame secretary, i think one of the keys to success of this plan is that we get young people to enroll in this plan. and i have some questions about some enrollment concerns that i have. now i understand that you've said approximately 700,000 people have applied for coverage via the healthcare.gov and the state exchanges, is that -- >> they've completed an application. >> right. which is different from enrollment.

>> that's correct. >> so my question is, are you expecting -- i know you don't have exact numbers yet, but are you expecting a large number or a small number of enrollments during the first month? what is your thoughts on that? >> well, our projections prior to launch were always that there would be a very small number at the beginning. we watch the massachusetts trend, which started slowly and built. i think there's no question that given our flawed launch of healthcare.gov, it will be a very small number. >> yeah, i mean, in the massachusetts plan, i think the first month it was 123 people signed up, less than 1% of the overall first-year enrollment in the first month. and we saw the same kind of numbers in medicare part d the first month of open enrollment back in 2006. madame secretary, young americans are the most likely age group to be uninsured, and a lot of us are concerned because of the problems that we've been having with the website, that a lot of these young folks may not come back on, you know, they

have very short attention spans. i've got four kids that all work on the internet, and if they can't get something in five minutes, they are on to something else. what do we do, and what plans are in place by your department to encourage young people to go back and revisit that site and to make sure that we're getting young people looking at that site and accessing it? >> well, step number one is fix the site, because we don't want people to be invited back and then have a bad experience a second time around. i think that's absolutely right. the site is particularly important to tech savvy younger generation folks who we need to enroll. i think that we have -- so fixing the site is step one, and step number two is getting information to folks that the law even exists. a lot of young people haven't followed this dialogue for the last three and a half years. >> yeah, i think we need a real marketing campaign, and we really need to reach out to young people.

>> we intend to do that. >> especially at the end of november when you say this site is going to be working a lot better, to make sure they are checking that site out. >> you bet. >> one of my four kids is self employed, 33 years old, paying about $140 a month for a blue cross plan, he's eligible for a subsidy. we browsed that site. he's able to get coverage for about half of what he's paying right now, and that's good news for us, because i think my wife is paying his premium, so i think we're going to save the money. so i think it's important we had to prod him to go on that site and enroll, and i think for a lot of young people, they are not going to do it unless it's easy, so it's important we get that fixed. thank you. >> i agree. >> dr. murphy, chairman of the oversight subcommittee. >> thank you, madame secretary, and welcome. you had mentioned that the people who did the technology on the website made a number of mistakes, you mentioned verizon. last week they said it wasn't their fault they were told within hhs there was some

problems there. >> sir, verizon wasn't involved in the website. >> with the data, i understand, i'm sorry. but they had a role, cgi had a role, other companies, et cetera. i'm just curious in this process, what decisions did you make that affected this for better or worse in terms of the data, the ease, or problems with the implement and being able to track how many people are actually enrolled? >> my decisions specifically to design the website, i was not involved. i am prohibited to choose contractors. we go by the federal procurement, and i got regular reports on exactly what was done. >> what about the part with regard to getting data in terms of how many people are enrolled or trying to roll, did you have any decisions in that process? >> the application process, to this point, does not work end to end very well. >> i understand it doesn't work. >> we do not have reliable data about the end of -- >> if you had asked them, look,

i'm in charge of this, i'm going to want a regular report, how many people have tried to enroll, how many people have enrolled, did you ask that question? >> we have prioritized for our contractors that specific fix, and believe me, the insurance companies are eager for us to get reliable data to make sure their data matches ours, and that is not there yet. >> i appreciate that. i'm trying to find out if you told them that was part of the plan. real quick, we're hearing from thousands of people who have had their policies cancel, in fact, i heard from one insurer in pittsburgh that just cancelled 30,000 individual policies. they said they expect 50,000 to 30,000 to enroll in the exchange plans. just so you know, to date, so far, the number of people who have signed up for their plan is ten. ten. now i'm concerned a lot of these individuals and families aren't going to be able to make it by january 1st, so i'm wondering, do you know how many families will not have been able to keep their insurance by january 1st, do you have any matrix to help you understand what that is

going to be? >> that has been in place at the state level, insurance companies must give their customers a 90-day notice about a policy change or a plan cancellation. >> i'm wondering if you have a mechanism whereby you will know if something built in this system -- >> i know if your constituents signed up for an individual plan, no. >> people across america. and do we know how many policies will be cancelled? is it 1,000, 10,000, 1 million, 5 million, do we know? >> we know that in the individual market, a number of of the plans having sold are not grandfathered and are not currently meeting the law. those notices have gone out. we know there are about 12 million people in the individual market. a number of them have grandfathered plans, a number of them have plans which meet the essential health benefits. >> let me put a face on that. person named paul wrote to me, i'm supposedly one of the families this act is supposed to help, but, in fact, is hurting

more. we'll have less money for food and other essential items. i have a wife and four children to take care of. another person wrote, "i received -- i had a 2013 plan which if you include the premium, total liability was $5,300. for 2014, the same program liability is $9,000." single mom writes, i'm one of the millions having their health insurance cancelled because it does not meet the standards of obama care. i liked my insurance, now i'm being forced to sign up for something that will be way more expensive. as a single mom self employed, i'm worried about how i'm going to pay my bills. i hope you have a mechanism to track who these people are. she's not eligible for other subsidies, but the costs are going to be driving her down. >> sir, again, i would suggest there is no requirement that any of those consumers sign up for a plan suggested by their company at a higher price. they have now options. >> but if a plan changes -- >> health underwriting, without preexisting conditions, with some guarantees around -- >> she's searching around and

she can't find a plan she could afford. she can't find a plan she can afford. >> gentleman's time expired. gentleman from north carolina, mr. butterfield. >> mr. chairman, before my time begins, i have a parliamentary inquiry. >> go ahead. >> mr. chairman, i'm always sympathetic to committee decorum and i want to ask unanimous consent to display the democratic twitter handle. >> go ahead. >> hear no objection, thank you. secretary sebelius, thank you so very much for coming today. i would like to ask you about the document that my republican colleagues have just released. this document is an authority to operate memorandum to operate the federally facilitated marketplace for six months and implement a security mitigation plan. this document, as i understand it, describes security testing for healthcare.gov. it says that security testing of the marketplace was ongoing

since its inception, and into september of this year. in fact, it says that, "throughout the three rounds of security control assessment testing, all of the security controls have been tested on different versions of the system." that's good news. but the bad news is, that it goes on to say because of system readiness, a complete security assessment of all the security controls in one complete version of the system were not tested. this document indicates that cms postponed a final security assessment screening, but in its place, cms did put in place a number of mitigation measures, and it concluded that these measures would mitigate any security risk. question, are you familiar with this document? >> yes, sir. >> is it correct that this document recommends implementing a dedicated security team to monitor, track, and ensure the mitigation plan activities are

completed? >> yes, it does. >> now is it correct that this document recommends monitoring and performing weekly testing on all devices, including internet-facing web servers? >> more than recommended, it's under way. >> is it correct this document recommends conducting daily and weekly scans? >> yes, sir. >> does this document recommend conducting a full sea test on the marketplace in a stable environment? >> yes, sir. >> is it correct that this document recommends migrating the marketplace to cms's virtual data center environment in the first quarter of next year? >> yes, it does. >> my understanding is that an independent security expert, the miter corporation, is performing security testing on the code that powers the website on an ongoing basis, is that correct? >> that is correct, and mitor did an assessment of the system, gave us a preliminary report, they are in the process of

posting their final report. that did not raise flags about going ahead, and the mitigation strategy was put in place to make sure that we had a temporary authority to operate in place while the mitigation was going on, and then a permanent authority to operate will be signed. >> finally, do you have confidence in these and other measures you are taking to protect the security of americans' personal information? >> i do, sir. >> thank you. this is the third time you've said it during the hearing, and we believe you. thank you. what you're telling us is that these remedial actions and the ongoing security testing from mitor are protecting the security of the website. that's a message that it's important for the public to hear. my republican colleagues do not want this website to work. i am convinced of that. they want to block the aca at all costs and even shut down the government to stop the law. for the last four years, they have taken every glitch, every simple glitch, and hiccup in the

law and tried to exaggerate its significance, and that's happening today and it's so disappointing. thank you, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> dr. burgess. >> mr. chairman, i wonder if i may make a unanimous consent request also? >> yes, go ahead. >> i would like to request unanimous consent my opening statement, which we were not allowed to be given could be made part of the record to this hearing. >> no objection. >> further, i do have a number of questions, many have come from constituents, i would also like to submit those for the record and ask the secretary for her attention to those so we can get answers, because they are, after all, important questions. okay, thank you, mr. chairman. it just came to my attention that on cnn, the cnn's website, that the site was hacked just last week, and i will be happy to make this available to you. i don't think -- >> the cnn website? >> the cnn website? >> cnn ran a story that the healthcare.gov website was hacked last week.

i would appreciate your response to that. mr. terry asked a question about he wanted to get the information about the number of people that signed up. you said you wouldn't provide that because it wasn't accurate woch . would you provide us with the number of people that have been able to enroll on the telephone? the president gave an 800 number during the speech. can we get a number of people that enrolled on the telephone? >> no, sir. we do not have reliable enrollment data. we'll have that you to by the middle of november as we committed to. we are collecting state data and telephone data. we're collecting paper data. we're collecting website data. we want it to be reliable. >> reclaiming my time, telephone doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to compile since the number is likely quite low. >> the telephone goes through the system. >> you have -- the president designated, i call it a glitch czar. you're familiar with his pintment to the -- i asked him to serve in this capacity, yes. >> many of ounce the subcommittee of oversight

investigation were not as comforted as you by that selection. his history with this subcommittee is not great. he was involved with solyndra. we asked him to testify in 2011 and he refused requiring a subpoena. will you commit to making him available to our subcommittee for our questions? >> congressman, you're welcome to ask him to come before the committee. he is volunteering his services to us for a period of time. he has been appointed by the president to start in january as the head of the national economic council. he was the deputy director at omb for management and performance. i'm thrilled he is willing to take on this assignment and help us drive the management. >> again, his appearance here will be important. now, a lot of people are asking if the president's words leading up to this law if they matter. and the statement in "the

washington post" today edited the president's statement, if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan. if we deem it adequate. that seems like a more operational statement. especially if you go back just a few years into the federal register and i'm quoting from the federal register from july 23rd of 2010, just a few months after the law was signed, the rule -- the interrim rule for the dealing with the grandfathering written in the federal record because newly purchased individual policies are not grandfathered, the department expects a large population of individual policies will not be grandfathered covering up to and perhaps exceeding 10 million people. i hope the president was apprised of that before he made the statements. clearly his statement wasn't operational? >> again, that's an insurance company choice. that was a snapshot whast marof

market looks like. it was employer-based coverage and individual coverage. >> but those were the comments that were recorded. now -- >> this isn't a government takeover of anything. these are private insurance plans. >> i do have to ask you this. you served at the pleasure of the president. we're all aware of. that but we've had many of your employees here in front of this committee. and do you have to ask yourself, are they being purposely misleading or are they really not that smart? so i'm going to ask you this morning for the sake of the future of health care in this country, will you please ask for the resignation of gary cullen because he misled us. >> i will not, sir. >> the gentleman's time expired. >> a point of personal privilege. i think the record ought to be clear about jeffrey science. he was invited with less than a week's notice to come before this committee. he couldn't make it that day. he asked for some other day. he went to omb and had nothing to do with the solyndra

contract. did he come before us and talk about it. the sole role is to represent omb. i don't think he ought -- there ought to be any disparagement of him. he is a very wealth regarded public servant. >> the gentleman's public will stand. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome madam secretary. now we all agree the website problems must be resolved. this country invented and developed internet and the concept of the web sites. so there are high expectations. the fact that the hired private contractors didn't build the website in three years is inexcusable. i hope those at fault will be held accountable. we can't lose sight of the big picture that, when this is all said and done every american will have affordable quality health insurance and health care. this is a goalie believe of all democrats and republicans. the aca is working in california

and is working in my district in sacramento. i just want to tell you about a letter i got from the constituents. dear congressman, as a self-employed contract employee i've had individually purchased health insurance for 11 years now. insurance that has gone up every year, sometimes more than once. insurance that wouldn't let me add my daughter when my sex husband stopped his insurance policy that covered them both. insurance that i underused for fear they would drop me. insurance that just dropped me anyway because they decided they will no longer offer individual plans. this could have happened to me at any time. i'm so grateful that the affordable care act provisions make it possible to get health insurance beginning in january for me and my daughter. as all this is happening, i have finished graduate school and started my own business. slowly but surely things are happening and i will be hiring my first employees in the next six months. the provisions of the aca are helping me in this, too. i can clearly see what would

cost me to provide health benefits for my future employees, understand the costs and build my business plan accordingly. and that is just one of the letters i received. now, i've also heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle complain again and again about how health care reform is increasing health care costs. but the empirical evidence shows something quite different. the recent trends in medicare spending growth are really quite remarkable. medicare spending growth is at historically low levels growing by less than .5% in fiscal year 2012 following slow growth in 2010 and 2011. the same is true on the private side of health care. personal consumption expenditures on health care, everything from health insurance to drugs to hospital care rose by just over 1% in the past year. this is the slowest increase in nearly 50 years. madam secretary, what does this

data tell us about what has happened to health care costs since the aca became law? >> well, you're absolutely right. in the last 3 1/2 years since the president signed at fordable care act, we have seen a great slowdown in the extraordinary cost increases year in and year out for health care, in the medicare plan and medicaid plan and in private insurance and in underlying health care costs which affect every american. some of that is to do with some of the features that are currently in place around different care delivery and different payment systems that we are helping to draw and given the tools we have with the affordable care act. more quality outcomes, trying to prevent hospital readmissions, looking at hospital acquired infections, medical homes that prevent people in the first place or help them stay healthy in their own homes and in their own places. >> so it's true that private insurance costs are growing at the slowest rate in decades.

>> that's true. >> am i also correct that the aca premiums are coming in lower than predict by experts like the cbo? >> well, they're about on average about 16% lower than was estimated that those premiums would be and that's the premium, not accounting for the number of uninsured or underinsured americans who will then qualify for financial help since they don't have employer coverage, they get some help from the taxpayers paying for that coverage. >> thank you, madam secretary. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, when you spoke at the democratic national convention in charlotte last september, one of first statements you made about the affordable care act was, "but for us democrats, obama care is a bad drama because no matter who you are, what stage of life you're in, this law is a good thing. first, if you already have insurance you like, you can keep

it." i'd call this a red herring that misled voters intentional or not. now perhaps had you known that millions would lose their coverage, families would face financial disaster as one constituent recently told me. or that exchange rollout would be plagued by multiple delays we've seen. you would not consider it such a badge of honor. the fact is your words and those of the president as he came pained last year that if -- campaigned last year that if you already have insurance you have you can keep it seemed to be refuted by the millions of cancellation notices already sent to americans just in the past few weeks. whether your statement was inaccurate or as mr. hoyer said yesterday, not precise enough, it does strike me that millions of individuals who by listening to speeches like yours voted believing one thing now find themselves without coverage and are now scrambling to find coverage in a marketplace that

offers more expensive plans with fewer options. in response to my constituents' calls for herngslp, i created a portal on my website, no patches forris or fixes needed. it allows them to tell me about their personal experiences. my office received dozens of complaints regarding increases in their monthly premiums. i received one such notice from a mother in her early 50s who just received a notice that not only will her insurance premiums double but she will also have to switch insurance to insurers to keep her doctors due to the fact of at fo of the affordable care act. i can tell you just in my district many more are experiencing this situation. madam secretary, this is akin to telling seniors that in a few weeks they're medicare coverage will be dropped. or their premiums will double.

i know that neither you nor the administration would ever advocate for such a policy. yet, here you are subjecting those currently in the individual market to such government intervention. and i would hope that you would agree with me in recognizing that these increases are a heavy hardship on my constituents on all of our constituents, republican or democrat. now get to my questions. you know the health care law included a hardship exemption from the individual mandate. yet, the administration has failed to finalize the application form for the hardship exemption 3 1/2 years after we passed this law. as of today, can an individual apply for hardship exemption from the individual mandate on heal heal healthcare.gov. yes or no? >> i don't know. >> i do. it's no. on october 15th, politico

reporting that if the on line system for getting into obama care is rickety, the system for getting out of the mandate doesn't even exist yet. hhs says it will take another month at least for the administration to finalize the forms for the hardship exemption from the individual mandate. why has it taken 3 1/2 years to finalize a simple application form for an exemption from the individual mandate? >> sir, as you know, the individual mandate is not in place until next year. we have made it very clear that if somebody is medicaid eligible in a state that doesn't choose -- >> my last question and my last second. 16 million people in the individual market have or will receive cancellation notices stating their health insurance coverage does not meet minimum coverage requirements of the affordable care act. it grants you the power to determine the criteria for

hardship exemption. will you provide all of these individuals a hardship exemption since the affordable care act is taking away their plan? will do you that? >> no, sir. and i think those numbers are far from accurate. 95% of americans who have health insurance will be in a continuous plan, medicare, medicaid, employer based, va. 95%. 5% who are in the individual market, a portion of those 5%, a portion of them, about 12 million people, a fraction of those 12 million will have a plan that doesn't meet the criteria and has not been grandfathered in. they are indeed receiving notices. many of those individuals, half of them, will be eligible for financial help getting a new plan and they have many more choices in the marketplace. so we will not have a blanket exemption. >> sounds like a hardship to me, madam secretary. >> the gentleman's time expired. mrs. christianson.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you madam secretary for being here and thank you for all that you and your staff at hhs has done in implementing at fordable care act to insure it provides the many benefits to children, women, to medicare beneficiaries and to ensure security to those who already have insurance as well as lower costs. of course, the biggest complaint has been about the application and the enrollment website. we have heard over and over from you that those are being addressed. but you would recall and i know my colleagues would recall that congressman rush and i have always been concerned about those who do not have internet access, those who are uncomfortable using the internet and would not use it. so i just wanted to just remind everyone that there are other avenues for enrolling either by telephone or by paper either alone or with the help of a

certified application assistant. but my question goes to one of the rumors that is circulating. there many resume norz about how the affordable care act affected part time workers. some of my colleagues on the other side claim that the companies are moving workers to part time jobs because of the health care reform law and that low wage workers are being detrimentally affected. and i understand why these claims are being made as just another part of the on going effort to undermine the law. would you take a few minutes and just set the record straight on the part time issue? >> certainly. 95% of businesses in this country are small businesses, under 50 full time employees. and there is no responsibility that any of those employers have to provide health coverage for their employees.

on the other hand, there are now tax credits available for some of the smaller employers who want to offer coverage to actually come into the marketplace. for the other businesses, the businesses hiring 50 or more, there is a standard that says an employee is considered full time if he or she works 30 hours a week. and that really came from a market snapshot with help from the small business administration of where employee benefits were in the private market based on hours of work. what was a part time or a full time employee? what we know about the economic data is the high point of part time workers was in 2008 and 2009 at the height of the last recession. it has been decreasing each and every year. there is no data to support the fact that there is an uptick

based on the impending affordable care act. i'm sure that there may be some individual employers making some business decisions about how many workers they want full time and how many part time. but i can tell you there is no economic data or employment data that supports the notion that this is an effective law. >> in fact, it's my understanding, that part-time workers are at the lowest percentage of workers in many, many years right now. >> well, for the if i ever tifi part-time workers have options for affordable health care. they never had that before. they've never had options in the marketplace. they never had some health purchasing coverage for themselves and their families. their full time colleagues have but they have not. so they will have options. >> and just to be clear, i had another really long question. the last part of it, it would be fair to say that the every point along the way you expected this

website to work based on everything that you have been told by the contractors up until that point. >> i expected it to work and i desperately want to get it working. >> more than anyone else, i am sure. and we are committed to fixing it. the only thing that i think builds back the confidence of the public is fixing it. >> thank you. >> gentle lady's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman for holding the hearing and thank you for being with us. last week when the contractors built the system were here, i asked them all under oath if they had actually delivered the system they were contracted to build. and all four of them answered yes. i want to ask you, did the contractors deliver the system that you contracted them to build? >> i don't think i can accurately answer that question. what we know is we've a system that doesn't function properly. >> we definitely know that. >> as we fix things, we'll know more about what is broken along the way. and i'll be able to -- >> so would someone in your office know -- someone oversaw

the implementation and they said this is the product we contracted and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to build or wasn't. does somebody have the ability to get that information? >> we can say that products tested individually verified individually. >> but clearly was an integrated system. >> and don't work well together. >> but, you know, i used to write programs for a living. i develop software products for a living f you're developing a system, it's irrelevant if one component works by itself. but when you plug it in together it doesn't work, that's a system that doesn't work. one question i had and others had, somebody in your agency made a decision to change the system. instead of grog a browse area built where somebody on kayak or just like on amazon.com could go shop for products, look at prices before they purchase, which is how consumers are used to doing this y'all made the decision to change it around and gather all the information first before you could let them see

prices. was that you who made that decision? >> no, sir. >> was that miss taverner? >> yes. >> and a team that looked at -- >> did that team make that decision because once they saw the prices, and we're getting reports from all our constituents of dramatically higher prices than what they were expecting. did you make the decision because you knew that when they saw the prices they may not want to bite product so you wanted to gather the information first? >> sir, first i did not make the decision. i was informed about the decision. we didn't -- >> do you agree with the decision? >> it rolled off a number of features. they can see the products. there is no requirement to buy anything. >> i spent two hours to get into a system. i never once did get to a point where i can see the price and got the blank screen that's other people got. i want to share stories from some of my constituents. i -- we started a page on our -- on facebook and twitter and we're collecting share our stories. we're getting lots of stories

from my constituents. i want to read a few of them. randal said my health care premium went up 30% to over $350 a month increase. we have michelle, our insurance premiums are going up $400 a month and our deductible increased. then you have shawn from could having ton, my current plan through united health scare no longer being offered in 2014 due to obama care. in fact, i received a letter stating that the new health care law was indeed the reason for the removal of my current health care plan. madam secretary, what you would tell shawn who liked his plan and now lost it? he was promised by you and the president he'd be able to keep that plan. what would you tell shawn now that he lost his plan? >> i would tell him to shop in the marketplace and out of the marketplace. >> do you really think that's acceptable answer to shawn. >> if united chose not to keep shawn's plan in effect for shawn -- >> because of the law. >> sir, the law said if you keep

shawn's plan in place, if he liked his plan, if you only -- then the plan is still there. >> you and i may disagree over who you work for. i work for shawn. you work for shawn, madam secretary. shawn lost his plan that he liked. and there are thousands and millions of shawns throughout this country that lost the plan they liked because some bureaucrat in washington said we think your plan is not good enough even though you like it, even though you were promised can you keep it, you're now not able to keep that plan. i think you deserve to give shawn a better answer than you just have to go shop for something else even though you like your plan. >> the gentleman's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam secretary for coming to day. i'm going to follow up on mr. doyle's line of questioning. one concern i have with the fallout from the website is that many users who tried to sign up and discouraged becausest proble of the problems will be too

discouraged to come back once the site is fixed. what do you plan to do to get those folks to come back? >> sir, we intend to invite them back. formally by e-mail, by message. but we don't want to do that until we're confident that they will have a different experience. so fixing the site is step one. and then inviting people back to the site to make it clear that when our timetable is fulfilled, they have four months to shop for affordable health coverage on a fully functioning site. we know we're going to have to spend special time on young and healthy merns wamericans who thy don't need insurance, aren't aware of the law, don't want to use a failed or flawed site. we have to spend some particular attention on them. >> thank you. have the software spes infectioinfectio specifications including the test specifications, has that changed since the initial rollout?

>> i know that there certainly are some changes because since october 1st -- i'm sorry. >> yes, since the rollout. >> the specifications haven't changed. we are certainly fixing, as i say, speed and reliance is one of the issues we're taking a look at. that's the performance side. but there also are some functionality sides that things do not work as they can including the enrollment passed on to insurers. so we're fixing functionality. i don't think that's a change in the specs. i think it is actually making the system work the way it should. >> well, are you -- is the department doing a prioritization on the problems? >> yes. >> can you describe that a little bit? >> yes, as of last week when jeff signs joined us for the short term project, we asked him to lead a sort of management

team. we have pulled in all of our contractors as well as additional talent that they may have available. we have talked to tech folks in and out of the private sector and insurance, some of their tech experts to get all eyes and ears, made a full assessment, developed a plan for fixes along the way, have a punch list for going after those fixes and we are doing a daily tech briefing and blog to tell people what we have found, what we have fixed, what's coming next, what the functionality is and we intend to do that until it's fully functional. >> thank you. madam secretary, looking past the initial problems with the aca rollout, do you think that the affordable care act will be successful in bending the health care cost curve and reducing the fraction of our national economy that goes for health care?

>> well, i think that we have already had some success. i think the goal is to continue to achieve that, fully insured population arguably with preventative care, an opportunity to see a primary care doctor and not go through the emergency room will in and of itself reduce costs. having people identified earlier who may have serious problems and managing those problems will reduce health costs. i think the delivery system also needs some considerable help in paying for a number of procedures, number of tests, number of prescriptions but paying for health outcomes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and madam secretary, thanks for being with us today. appreciate your testimony so far today. what i'd like to do is i'll get these two you. there are so many -- these are questions that we've received

from our constituents back home specifically about what's going on with the website and for them. so what i'll do, i'd like to get those two you. but there is a lot of questions here. a lot of thoughts gone into a lot of the questions. but if i could start with last week's testimony when our -- four of the contractors were here. and in one of the questions that i had posed to miss campbell from cgi and her testimony she stated that they delivered the medicare.gov and federalreporting.gov. were the sites more or less complicated than the site that we were talking about here today? and she said, of course, the site today was more complicated. and in the questioning and from her testimony, and we've been hearing about this testing that wasn't happening that we had individuals out there saying that about two weeks had been done, but i ask her about was

there sufficient enough time when they did medicare.gov? and the response she gave me back was on medicare.gov which is a less complicated site and she stated we had sufficient time to test the system before it went live. and i asked her in a follow up then, what was that sufficient time? and she said we had a number of months before the system went live at that time. and i just want to make sure because again, you know, sometimes things don't get reported accurately. and the "u.s. news and world report" on october 18th of this year and there is some questions going back and forth. i want to make sure that you were quoted properly. after two weeks of review, the hhs secretary concluded we didn't have enough testing specifically for high volume for very complicated project. the on line insurance marketplace needed five years of construction and a year of testing, she said, we had two years and almost no testing. is that correct?

>> i don't know the quote. i never suggested that we needed five years. i don't know where that is from. >> that's one of the things we're going to check. >> we clearly ever didn't have five years. the law was signed in 2010. >> and then last week you -- when you were down in texas you were being asked by a report bert system and the launch. and one of the parts of the question was that at what point did you realize the system wasn't going to be working the way that you envisioned before the launch and why didn't we stop it before the launch? and, again, this is what was reported. we knew that we had another six months we would probably test further. but i don't think anyone fully realized both the volume caused such problems but volumes also exposed some of the problems we had. now going back though to miss campbell's statement that they tested more extensively on a

system that was not as complicated but hhs, cms decided to go forward with only a very short period of testing. do you think that was acceptable? >> clearly looking back, it would have been ideal to do it differently. we had a product that, frankly, people have been waiting decades to have access affordable care. medicare existed well before the website. it's a program that started 50 years ago. the website was an additional feature for consumer ease and comfort. and so they were not launching medicare. they were not delivering health benefits to seniors. they were putting together an additional way to enroll in medicare. i would suggest, sir that, we had deadlines in the law that people had benefits starting january 1st. we wanted a extensive open

enrollment period so that a lot of people who were not familiar with insurance didn't know how to choose a doctor or choose a plan had never been in this marketplace or people who needed to understand fully what the law offered had ample time to do that. so the date that i was required to select for open enrollment, that's again part of the statute, how long would open enrollment be? we picked that date. all the contractors that began early in this process in the fall of 2010 when we issued -- i'm sorry, 2011 when we issued the initial contracts to cgi and qssi new the october 1st date. that was not changed. it wasn't added to as we got closer to system, one of the reasons again that we paeared down what needed to launch is an attempt to minimize the risk to the system to get people to their ability to see clearly what they were entitled to, what

the plans were and if they chose to to enroll. clearly, the testing should have been longer, should have been more sufficient. >> gentleman's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, people who are watching this hearing might be under the sum that is there is some kind of political debate going on over the affordable care act. i think people in iowa don't care anything about who's winning the political debate. they want these problems fixed and they want them fixed now. i think that's the responsibility of everyone in this room to make sure that that happens. i tried to go into the marketplace on october 7th and i encountered problems immediately dealing with the security code questions which required you to select dates. one of them was type a significant date in your life. today is my birthday. so i put that in. i tried three different ways of entering that date and got a

message each time, important this is not a valid answer. same thing for the third date entry. and a lot of times when you're registering online for anything and you have to put a date in, there will be a little prompt that tells you what the format is you're required to enter. do you know, have we solved this problem in the security code area? >> yes, sir, one of the initial issues was just getting people into the site and the id proof clg is a two-step process, one is that you give some preliminary information and you set up a pass word. but the second to insure that your personal data can't be hacked, can't be interfered with is the second step where some personalized questions which only can be verified by you are indeed part of that. again, that was a -- an initial holdup in the system. we focused a lot of attention on

that. the first several days it was fixed only to then discover that there were system problems throughout the application. and that piece has been fixed. i would suggest it also was a function of trying to make sure we had the highest security standards, that we were not cavalier about someone's personal information being able to be addressed and attached. it was a functionality that didn't perform properly. but it does now. >> one of the things that keeps coming up in this hearing because you are from kansas is references to the "wizard of oz." people went to see the wizard because of the wonderful things did he. the affordable care act is doing a lot of great things in iowa. the des moines register said that iowans buying health insurance will face the lowest premiums in the country. increasing competition in our state. iowa consumers are able to choose from 40 health plans in

the marketplace. you've mentioned the growth of health care spending is at the slowest rate in 50 years. 50,000 iowa seniors received prescription drug rebates. bans on pre-existing conditions are allowing people to get coverage and switch carriers. and now insurance premium increases are subject to review and can be rejected by the people reviewing those plans. but all of these good things don't mean anything unless we solve these problems. and what i need to know is how confident are you that the problems will be fixed by december 1st? >> well, again, congressman, i have committed to that date because that is the assessment of both inside and outside experts have analyzed. i think they kicked all the tires and looked at all the system. i know that there's no confidence in that date until we deliver on the date. i'm well aware of that. and that's on me.

>> since americans were supposed to have six months to sign up, would you support insuring they still have six months by extending the open enrollment period for two more months? at this point they would have a fully four months of fully functional always to sign up. again, there are alternate ways and the website right now that people are getting through. the open enrollment period is extraordinarily long. it's about six times as long as a typical generous open enrollment period. and it's important for the insurance partners to know who is in their pool so again they can stay in the market next year and know who they're insuring. so we think that the timetable will allow people four months time to fully use the website. they can use it right now. they can use call center. they can go to navigateors and enroll. >> the gentleman's time expired.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being theer day. i'm sure there are other things you'd rather be doing. but we welcome the opportunity to have this conversation. i'm going to ask the clerk to bring you a document for you to look at so i can ask you a couple questions. if can you go to page 8 on that, i have highlighted an item there. but this is a copy of a cgi slide show from october 11th discussing technical issues that must be addressed within the website. and on page 8 what i've handed you, cgi recommended that cgi and cms have a review board to agree on which issues can technically be solved and which should politically be solved. was such a review board convened? >> sir, i cannot tell you. i've never seen this document and i'm not aware of this recommendation. >> and cgi is responsible for the website, correct?

>> cgi is responsible for the application. >> for the application. >> yes, sir. >> does it surprise you that in a slide show that they gave in october 11th they acknowledged political reasons for -- >> again, i've never seen this document. i have no idea what that means. did ask you cgi when they came last week? >> can you find out for us if such a review board was done and if any decisions were made on political reasons or on the other reasons and find that out for us? >> sir, i -- that question needs to go to cgi. i can ask them to report to you. >> this is their document? this is not our document. >> you would turn to page 9 of that document, please. it states challenges on page 9 that says under challenges, unable to determine at this time whether low enrollment counts are attributable to system issues or due to users choosing not to select or enroll in a

plan. so those are two completely different issues, obviously. if it is the system issue, that's something you have confidence that at some point will be resolved, correct? >> yes, sir. >> and if it's a user selection issue, that's an entirely different story, is it not? >> yes, sir. >> okay. now, you know, when you use the phrase earlier about a punch list, that's like having somebody move into a house. someone's buying a new house and they go through and they have been told this house is going to be ready on october 1st. they load up the van, they come in and they get in and it's not finished. part of the plumbing is not right. the wiring is wrong. and they go in. this creates the situation where we -- health care shouldn't be a zero sum game. i mean we want to be fair to everyone. we want to help people who are vulnerable. but at the same time, we shouldn't have to hurt folks. we've got people in my district,

in my state who are getting notices of cancellation. they're being told of higher premiums that they're having. and these are great concerns that we have. and how do we work through that? and i want to say i appreciate you accepting responsibility for these initial rollout failures that we've had. but who is ultimately responsible? it is the president, correct? >> for the website? >> the president is ultimately responsible for the rollout, ultimately. >> no, sir. we are responsible for the rollout. >> but who do you answer to? >> i answer to the president. >> all right. so is the president not ultimately responsible like a company ceo would be? >> sir, he's the president of the united states. i have given him regular reports and those -- i am responsible for the implementation of the affordable care act. that's what he asked me to do. that's what i'll continue to do. >> so you're saying the president is not responsible for

hhs? >> sir, i didn't say that. >> so the president ultimately is responsible. i think it's great that you're a team player and taking responsibility, it is the president's ultimate responsibility, correct? >> you clearly -- whatever. yes, he is the president. he is responsible for government programs. >> my time expired. >> the gentleman's time expired. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. bring begin, i'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit into the record some articles from new mexico publications, first entitled small business owner health exchange will save me $1,000 a month. >> without objection. >> i see my time did begin there. so i'll try to get through this, mr. chairman. madam secretary, i was inkritrid by a line of questioning asking about the individual marketplace. how volatile was the individual marketplace before the affordable care act became law? >> i would say it wasn't a mark

marketplace at all. it was unprotected, unregulated, and people were really on their own. >> madam secretary, the kaiser family foundation reports have over 50% turnout of individuals that have coverage and individual market churn out coverage every year. they either lose coverage, priced out or drop it s that consistent with what you're aware snf. >> that's an accurate snapshot. about a third of the people are in for about six months. and over half are in for a year or less. >> so individuals that were in the individual marketplace before the passage of the affordable care act did not have the same protections as those in group coverage? >> that's true. >> and would those individuals in the individual marketplace sometimes have higher co-pays? >> higher co-pays, unlimited out of pocket costs for often coverage that was medically underwritten or excluded whatever medical condition they had in the first place. >> so these were typically one-year contracts. if they use the plan because

they got sick nor a car descent or a victim of domestic violence, sometimes they would be thrown off the plans or rates would go up? >> yes. >> i think that's important to note, madam secretary. and i'm intrigued as well that my understanding is that last month hhs conducted an analysis that found that nearly six out of tun uninhere issed americans will pay $100 a month. >> they'll have a plan if that is their choice. >> and that number would be even ier, would be better if more states chose the option of using federal funds to expand medicaid to cover the low income population? >> that's just a marketplace snapshot. those are people that will be in the marketplace. >> madam secretary, i don't think i heard anyone from the other side of the aisle today, my republican colleagues, ask you how can congress work with you and support you in fixing this website and fixing this problem? i hope that we all agree we want this website fixed.

i would yield to anyone that would disagree. seeing no one accepting that. i'm glad to hear that we agree with this. now madam secretary, what can congress do to work with you to fix this website? >> well, i'm not sure that there is hands on work that cyou can do. maybe we have some technical expertise, but i would say getting accurate information to constituents is helpful. letting people know that they can check out the facts in the law. that they may be entitled to some financial support. that cancellation of policies means that the policy that they had may not exist but they have a lot of choices of new policies and a law that now says they must be insured in a new policy. they don't have to be insured by their company at a higher price. >> i appreciate that. going back to the individual marketplace, madam secretary, did this congress in previous years before the affordable care act make it illegal for health

insurance companies to raise rates on someone after they submitted a claim for going to the hospital or becoming sick? >> no, sir. >> madam secretary, one last note here. it seems that we received some horrible news that there are bad actors already taking place of fraudulent web sites that imitate the health care xlafrpg or misleading seniors into disclosing personal information. i signed on to a letter to you led by my colleague representative out of california to request that you prioritize fraud prevention efforts. what has the administration done to prevent the fraudulent acts? >> i can tell you, congressman, the president felt very strongly that that needed to be part of our outreach effort which is it why the attorney general and i convened representatives of state attorneys general, insurance commissioners, the u.s. attorneys and the justice department and the federal trade commission which has jurisdiction to make sure that we first got out ahead of some

of this developing consumer outreach. no one should ever give personal health information because personal health information is not needed for the policies any longer. that's a red flag. we want to make sure that people turn over potential fraudulent acts. we have put training in place for navigateors. we have our law enforcement -- >> the gentleman's time has expired. i would just note that we -- with the indulgence of the secretary, we're hoping that we can have all members ask some questions but we also know that with four minutes we're going to have a little trouble. i'm going to ask unanimous consent that we try to limit our questions and answers to no more than two minutes. and i talked to mr. waxman. is that okay? because otherwise we will -- there will be a lot of folks who will not be able to ask a question at all. >> three of us. >> mr. chairman, i would submit that if the questions get submitted we would be happy to provide timely answers also. >> so can i do that?

so with that we'll try two minutes. mr. lance? >> i guess i won the lottery on the two minutes, madam secretary. >> time has expired. >> 20 seconds, mr. chairman. on the website, madam secretary, the contractors testified last week that they needed more than two weeks for end to end testing y in your opinion was there not more than two weeks? >> again, we have products, the insurance policies themselves by companies. we're loaded into the system. so we could test up until then but it wasn't until september, mid-september that that was done. again, the contractors said we would have loved more testing time but we think we're ready to go ahead. >> i believe that will ultimately be a dispute between cms and hhs and the contractors and if there is anything

question do regarding that because, obviously that, didn't work. and i had thought given this as the signature issue with the president that the website would be ready. number two, in my judgment the president's statementes were overstatemen overstatements. there's a report in the new jersey newspaper this is morning that 800,000 people in new jersey who purchased their policies in individual or small employer markets will be affected by this. mr. walden in a previous question mentioned the fact that in an individual market you would be able to keep your policy grandfathered. yet regulations issued by hhs say that grandfathered status would not be a continued for so much as a $5 change in a co-pay. is that accurate? do you believe that that is a significant change? >> sir, we gave, i think in, the

grandfather regulations a guide for how pricing could change, medical inflation and i think it was in most cases plus 15%. there were some individual consumer outfacing issues that were more rigid than that. but i would say that in terms of having companies being able to collect a profit margin, that was certainly built into the grandfather status. >> i think that's too little a change. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, honorable secretary. thank you for fielding our questions and for responding when you were extended the kurt stoi off -- courtesy to offer a response. as a strong supporter of the aca, i'm frustrated and it's fair to say the american people are frustrated as well. i heard you hear many times this morning say you're frustrated.

i think by and large people want this law to work. when i talked to folks back home in the capital region of new york that i represent, even people who oppose the law initially aren't rooting for the failure of the affordable care act. instead, they want congress to come together to fix these problems so that we can move on to real issues that matter like creating jobs and growing the economy. my home state of new york which also experienced website problems at the outset has now completed enrollment determination on over 150,000 new yorkers. with more than 31,000 having already signed up for quality low cost health insurance. given that many states have had success in overcoming the initial website issues, has hhs looked at what the state web sites are doing as it searches for solutions to fix health care? >> absolutely. and we shared a lot of the information going in. i think that the hub feature that we have in our website that all states are using including

the state of new york is fully functional. and that's good news for new york and california and other who's are running their own state web sites. but we are learning from them. we've shared information with them and we are eager for all the help and assistance moving forward. >> thank you. similarly, some states made the choice of rejecting medicaid expansion that would help some of the poorest citizens get access to the health care situation. this is despite the fact that medicaid expansion is entirely financed by federal dollars. can you comment on hhs' plan in the future to encourage more states to run their own marketplaces and expand medicaid so the law can function as designed? >> absolutely. most recently last week the state of ohio did move into the medicaid market. and we now have 30 governors, i think 27 states have fully completed the process and another three are in the process. republicans and democrats who

some of whom sued us about the constitutionality of the act who are now deciding that for the citizens of their state they want to be part of the expanded medicaid. we'll continue to have those conversations. it's not just about the marketplace. it's also about medicaid. >> thank you. >> the gentleman's time expired. dr. cassidy? >> you said that only if an individual policy is only canceled if it changes significantly. but to be clear, after may 2010 if co-insurance went up by any amount, even by a dollar according to your regulations, that would not qualify as a grandfathered clause. just to add that out there for the record. i gather even by a dollar. that said, i get a letter from someone in my district, adrian. she says that -- she lost her coverage. she lost her coverage because spousal coverage is gone. she's gone on the exchange.

she doesn't qualify for subsidy. but that her premium and out of pocket costs under any plan is $10,000 a year. she feels she -- she writes this. she feels betrayed by her government. she has to sit there asking herself is this fair? if you were she, do you think that this would be fair? >> dr. cassidy, i want to start by the amount that you gave is not accurate. i was told $5, not $1. >> that's for the co-pay, not the co-insurance. for the co-insurance, it's any amount. i have limited time. do you think -- if you were she, if you were adrian, do you think is fair? losing her spousal coverage and now $10,000, no subsidies? >> sir, i don't have any idea what she's looking at. i can tell you that, again, based on what we've seen in the market and what we've seen in the plans, people will be getting full insurance for the first time at a better rate. >> again this is what she reports. do you think it's fair -- if what she reports is true, do you think it's fair? >> i can't answer fair or not

fair. i don't know what she was paying or what she is paying now. did she have full insurance? >> richard writes that his daughter received a note that his premium is going up because she's being lumped with older, costlier patients. now it's possible that the only people that sign up will be those would are more costly. does hhs have plans on what to do if only those who are more costly sign up and premiums rise for snerve. >> everybody? >> sir, that's what we're trying to do to make sure -- >> but if only the costly sign up, do you have plans? >> that's the importance of the individual mandate you just outlined. getting rid of pre-existing conditions, making sure that people -- >> do you have backup plans? >> we will encourage others to sign up. it's why there is a penalty in place. >> is there to assume there are no backup plans? >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, nice to see you. come to this hearing with a little different perspective. kentucky's doing a great job with our exchange.

as of this morning we had 350,000 people who explored the website. 59,000 started applications, 31,000 are now fully enrolled and new coverage and 5,000 just in the last week. and i think very importantly, more than 400 businesses have begun applying for their employees as well. so, yeah, the idea this is going to be bad for businesses is not borne out in kentucky. would it be safe to say that if 36 states have done what kentucky and new york and california have done instead of 14 that the rollout would have been much smoother and the website would have been much easier to construct? >> i don't think there's any question that, you know, in january of 2013 we knew how many states were not running their own website and i think mid-february we learned about partnerships. so it was not until that point that we learned that 36 states would actually be coming

throughout website. having said that, we should have anticipated. we should have planned better. we should have tested betterment we clearly are running very different vehicle for enrollment than we thought we were going to run in march of 2010. >> right. >> on the subject of cancellation of policies, isn't it true that first of all the federal government can't require insurance companies to sell insurance? >> that they can't -- >> the federal government can't require insurance companies to sell insurance? >> yes, sir. >> in fact, insurance companies all over the country are making very difficult decisions now about where they want to participate and where they don't. in some markets they're actually trying to get out of the market cancelling people because they want to play in other markets and so forth. they're all making the decisions now. >> we know we have more insurers. 25% more insurers in the individual market than we did prior to the law being passed. >> a lot of dynamics going on here that are not necessarily an indication that the president

misled anybody. they're business decisions being made? >> in cancellation policies that one-year contract notice is a routine in the individual market. it has been in place for years. and for a lot of people, they are being canceled because they're being notified you can no longer be medically underwritten. we won't ever have the kind of limitation on what your policy can pay out or charge you out of pocket rates. those policies will cease to be offered in the marketplace. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. guthrie? >> thank you, madam, secretary, for being here. last week we had a guess and the president talked about the alternatives to the website. his phone calling or using paper applications. what he said, i think you said it with the phone, they take the paper applications but they enter them in the same web

portal. i know you get the issue of being logged on and off:but there rish u there a -- but there are still issues. it is six to eight weeks to be processed. so if this will be ready in november 30th, you're getting close to january 1st if it's eight weeks and somebody does lose their insurance so they're signing up for this. even though you have a march 31st open enrollment, what happens to these? is there a contingency plan for the people to continue their insurance? >> sir, i think that we have improvements every day on the speed of the site. circo was giving you early snapshots of difficulty of accessing the site. i think that's greatly improved. >> they said just processing the paper, actually. >> i understand. but it is the site for -- they put the application into the site and get a determination. that's part of what the process is. so the site is part of the

portal all the way through. there is an integrated insurance vehicle. and so that will improve. and we, again, with four months of continuous service which is far longer than most people had, some of these cancellation numbers, again this was pointed out from florida blue cross, it's true of everyone else, these are not january 1st numbers. they are year long numbers. so over the course of 2014 when an individual's policy is due to expire, that individual -- >> but it could expire january 1st and not be able to get coverage if the website -- and the vendor said they needed months to test. they would have liked to have months to test. that's what they said f we're going to get to -- even if it works november 30th. >> we're testing as we go. there is beta testing going on now. that's how we are fixing and identify to identify things. people are getting through every day and we know more -- >> with the paper process, if it does take four weeks, november

30th and people's cancel january 1st, there needs to be contingency for that person. >> typical insurance is 2 to 4 weeks of signup. they will have two full months of signup. >> thank you, madam secretary, for bringing to millions of americans access to affordable comprehensive health care coverage that's going to be there when they need it. i want to thank you especially as a woman. women can no longer -- being a woman can no longer be considered a preexisting condition. women can no longer be charged more than a man for same coverage and have access to comprehensive benefits like prescription drugs and preventive screenings and free contraceptive coverage and maternity care which is often left out of coverage. the days of complicated pregnancy or domestic violence being a preexisting conditions, those days are over.

i want to say to my colleagues after a three and a half year campaign to repeal, to discredit, to even shutdown the government over obama care, i want to say, get over it. we all agree, that there are problems but these are problems that i see being fixed. i want to say that what we did under medicare part d can be an example of how we can work together. and in fact, chairman upton and i both sent a letter asking for more money for community based groups to help implement the program and make it work. we can work together. so if you could just briefly say how are the navigators -- how important are they in making this system work for the american people? >> well, what we know, congresswoman, a lot of people

are not web savvy and are not frustrated by the website because they don't have a computer. they don't want to use a computer, don't trust a computer. they need a live human being to ask questions and get questions answered and talk about the plan and talk about insurance. so the navigators play a hugely important role. we have 2500 trained navigators on the ground right now. we have thousands more community assisters are trained and ready to go. 45,000 agents and brokers have gone through specific affordable care act training. but those individuals working with their clients, customers and in the case of gafnavigator the public at large, they are not paid by a company and want to help people get coverage, they are hugely important. >> gentlelady's time -- mr. olson. >> i thank the chair and welcome madam secretary. >> thank you. >> i would like to open with a quote from american icon, i'll hold up a poster.

it says, if the user is having a problem, it's our problem. i'm glad to hear you raised this philosophy during your testimony today, ma'am. obama care was signed into law 1,256 days ago. and since then, there's been user problem after user problem after user problem. regarding healthcare.gov, your dputty administrator for consumer information, gary cohen, testified one month ago, where we are sitting, that cms has worked hard to test the infrastructure that will allow americans to enroll in coverage confidently and simply and securely, end quote. and yet according to forbes, and the wall street journal, you told them that you need five years of construction and one

year of testing. the program crashed and burned at least three times and the user is still having problems. it's been down the whole time you've been testifying. the system is down at this moment. my question, ma'am is very simple. when did you know these changes were going down? a month, a day, a quarter? and did you tell the president what you knew? >> sir, i was informed that we were ready to launch on october 1st and the contractors who we had as our private partners told us and told this committee that they had never suggested the delay and that is accurate. our cms team felt we were ready to go. i told the president that we were ready to go. clearly i was wrong. we were wrong.

i knew that in any big new complicated system, there would be problems, no one ever imagined the volume of issues and problems that we've had. and we must fix it. >> yes, ma'am. but credible journalists said you knew you needed six years -- >> that quote has been repeated. i can guarantee you i would have never stated that because the law was passed in march of 2010. i chose the open enrollment date. i don't know where the quote comes from but that is not from me. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> thanks for attending, i suspect deep down most support the concept of reforming insurance market so people have better access to coverage. we have disagreements by the means to get those in. it seems that every day we're hearing something new going wrong. i'm concerned the short term enrollment problems could become long-term insurance market problems. my constituents already losing

confidence the federal government is ready to pull this off and in order to restore the trust, to delay the individual mandate penalties until we're sure the system is going to work. not fair to penalize consumers when it is not their fault and make sure additional fits and starts won't cause larger problems. right now less concern about who's to blame and how to fix it and to ensure it doesn't happen again. all of our constituents want and need health insurance. it would be a huge mistake if we're blinded by our love or hatred that we miss opportunities to address its flaws. to the subject of technical problems becoming market problems. can problems of folks getting into the system snowball into risk pool problems where those who choose not to enroll affect the costs of those who do enroll? >> certainly a risk pool needs a balanced market. you need people who are older and sicker to be balanced with people who are younger and healthier, that's how a pool works. >> at what point will we see a

problem having the risk pool if the tech problems cause -- effect entering? what are we going to look for and use to decide something needs to be done? >> again, sir, we will be monitoring during the six months of open enrollment as will our insurance partners who is coming into the pool, that's why we want to give this committee and others reliable and informed data about not only who it is but what the demographics are and where they live. >> if things aren't better by the end of the next month, at what point do we think about further delays in posing penalties? >> i think that having a defined open enrollment period is one of the ways that you then make an assessment if you have a pool that works or not. you cannot have an unlimited open enrollment period with any insurance company because that really doesn't work. >> thank you. >> mr. mckinley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> last week -- last week the

cji representative at campbell said she met her contract obligations and met specifications and said the only problem she had was with pace. but the pace wasn't part of the specification. do you -- and we asked her, you would testify to, did -- she said you would testify that she did complete her contract in accordance with the specifications. would you? >> sir, i don't think it's how the product is working that it's supposed to work that anybody finished their job. >> they shortened our time with it. >> so, if she hasn't met their specifications and yet we're still using her, is the american taxpayer still paying money to fix the problems that she didn't do -- her company didn't do in the first -- >> none of our contractors have been paid of the amount -- >> will she be paid for this

work into the future? >> we will make that determination as the work goes forwards. as we learned what needs to be fixed -- we'll know about -- >> i'm sorry the time frame, cut it down. >> who owns the software, now that this has been developed with taxpayer money to develop the software to do this -- >> it is owned by the centers for medicaid and medicare services. >> will they be able to use it by license with other clients? >> not to my knowledge. i think it is specifically designed for the marketplace with these products in minds. >> the last question to try -- >> the clients are the american public. >> under iv and v, she testified that she thought that was something we should have done. under hhs, you recommend or the hhs recommends that for software development, they should have a independent verification and validation program. can you share with us in the time that's gone why we didn't

use iv and v -- >> i don't think that's accurate. at every point there is independent testing. >> independent. >> yes and outside -- >> you recommended verification and validation not someone within your staff? >> pardon me? there is a level of self-attested testing and cms testing and independent test on each piece of the contracting. >> not cns. >> that's what -- >> gentleman's time -- >> it needs to be done independently, people who do not have -- >> is expired. >> i'll get you the information. there are three levels of testing, one is independent for every piece of this contracting, yes. >> mrs. caster. >> good morning, when open enrollment began a few weeks ago the people back home in florida helping neighbors sort through the new options for coverage, the navigators, were taken aback

by how grateful people are to have new pathway to the doctor's office and the care they need. affordable options. the -- there are no longer being discriminated against because they had cancer. and diabetes or asthma. they are very grateful. they said, they said to me directly, it's like they found water in the desert. right now they are surprisingly -- they said it's taking time because people want to sort through all of these options. before they finally sign up at the end of the 26-week enrollment period. we must fix the marketplace to meet their expectations and we have high expectations for you and the administration. i think it's important to point out it's more than just a website. it -- despite the obstruction by republicans in my home state of florida, nationally,v