mr. secretary, in addition to mr. denham, my colleague and neighbor, i would like to know from you about the impact of the shutdown on the french camp project but i would like to specifically its priority. and i will take that off-line. now, as you know, the veteran service organizations staff members are used the va regional offices to help council veterans, but the staff members are not members are not employees of the va, could the va allow them to continue to use the facility? i've spent a lot of them are shut out from the facility to make, use those facilities to help council our veterans. >> i am told that we are not allowed to do that, but again, this is a day-to-day assessment. we go back and check to make sure that the interpretation of the law is clear. but these are some pretty well-defined rules that we operate under. the anti-deficiency act as provisions for two categories. one is protection of life and property, and the other one is necessary implication. >> well, where the any other functions that the v

mr. secretary, in addition to mr. denham, my colleague and neighbor, i'd like to know from you about the impact of the shutdown on the fringe camp project. i'd like to know specifically its priority. and i will take that offline. now, as you know, the veterans service organizations' staff members, the v.s.o. staff members use the v.a. regional offices to help counsel veterans. but the v.s.o. staff members are not employees of the v.a.. could the v.a. allow them to continue to use the facilities? i understand a lot of them are shutout from the facilities. could they continue to use those to ailt -- facilities to help counsel our veterans? >> i'm told that we're not allowed to do that. but again this is a day-to-day assessment. we go back to check that the interpretation of the law is clear. but these will some -- these are some pretty well-defined rules that we operate under. the antideficiency act has .rovisions for two categories one is protection of life and property and the other one is necessary implication. >> ar

mr. secretary. mr. michaud. >> thank you, mr. secretary, and i can understand why you can't predict what the senate will do, or the house, as far as that goes. but as i mentioned in my opening statement there are two areas we can solve this. one, the senate can pass the full appropriation bill that we passed four months ago to fund all of the day. or the houston that's a clean senate c.r. unfortunately, it still a c.r. but it will move us beyond this particular point. and i understand, that even with the full milcon the appropriation bill that are still services that veterans will not be able to receive because other parts of the federal government are not up and operating because of the shut down. i totally understand that, but it's my hope that the bulk of the va can be taken care. my question to you, mr. secretary, you mentioned trying to get the staff back up and running once the shut down is done. if, say today, that congress and the president was able to get our act together, how long will it take the va to get up and runnin

mr. secretary. >> your recognize. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, secretary shinseki , thank you for your service to our country. the government shutdown has caused a crisis that could have congress simply worked together to put people ahead of politics. it is unconscionable that congress continues to put political gamesmanship above the needs of our veterans. the best way to help veterans in my district and across the country is to end this reckless shutdown. now that the v.a. is required to furlough thousands of employees, how will that affect the claims backlog and constituents specifically in my district, meaning how will furlough's impact the l.a. regional office and the san diego regional office which review claims for veterans in my district? >> congressman, as i indicated , our availability of carryover funding for 2013, roughly $40 million, we exhausted that. we there and then had to furlough about 7800 people. we have about 13,000 benefits employees who are doing what they always do and that is process claims as quickly and as acc

mr. secretary. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chair and thank you, mr. secretary, for being here.your remarks on the importance of passing the complete and clean and tingling resolution. it will provide the certainty that i think that americans are looking for in their government and leaders. there was an attempt to provide 'sme funding for our nation veterans in the middle of this debate that we are having. thatnk there is clearly that underfunded a lot of areas. , just speak to that. you have mentioned a couple. if you could comment a little arounde specifically let's say that medical prosthetic budget that i do not wase was funded -- believe funded, you mentioned something on the technology piece. the office of inspector general, the v.a. home, and the like, if you could comment on that specifically about the impacts there. >> sure. as i indicated earlier, with advanced health care administration, a large portion of va is fully funded. i would say will over approximately 80% is funded. of our medicals activities that do not come under advanced appropriations. that do the decent

mr. secretary. >> thank you, senator. senator toomey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary lew, you've said a couple of times in reference to previous discussions over the debt limit that it's different now. it's true it is different now. i would argue now it's much more urgent that we deal with the underlying fiscal problem. now, unlike in past years, we're spending $3.6 trillion. we've run up a string up unprecedented deficits. the modest improvement you alluded to, you know that's temporary. and it's scheduled, if there's no structural changes, for those deficits to get much worse not terribly far from -- from today. we now have a total debt that's over 100 percent of our total economic output, i believe already limiting economic growth and prosperity. we have trillions of dollars of guarantees that we didn't used to have. we have tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. we have large entitlement programs, the largest of which are all growing faster than our economy and, therefore,

mr. secretary. my colleagues have already expressed a series of dimensions in which both the shutdown and the threat of default i think effect our country domestically, economically. i want to look at a different dimension that both as domestic and global issues. any other role as i play as chairman, i worry about the incredibly, extremely negative effects with a government shutdown and the threat of default have on our foreign policy and our national security. both now and in years to come. the shutdown and the default affected some of america's near-term foreign policy prior to such as the president not being able to go to the asian economic summit. in his absence of those serving appropriate due to the crisis, feeds into existing fears. having traveled to the region, that our rebalanced asia is more rhetoric than reality. and who showed up and was more than willing to fill the void? china. and in doing so, america's loss is china's gain. and this is an opportunity about opening markets for u.s. b

mr. secretary. you and i both know that regular weer is not in the mode that are in today, but regular order requires a piecemeal approach of 12 appropriation bills. 126-plus days ago, this house on a bipartisan basis passed a v.a. military construction bill that fully funded, not just partially funded on a short-term basis, which is what folks are asking for now, a partial c.r., fully funded. yet that bill languishes in the senate. to my colleagues because it has been so long since we sent that bill over to the senate, there's very little difference, maybe a quarter of a percent difference between the two bills. it could very easily be brought forward and this would be off the table. and so my question is, and atement is, in years past, house and senate, regardless of parties and the white house have always come together and tried to find a way to prioritize how money would be spent, who would be at the top of the list as we started to shut the government down and run out of money and today, we don

mr. secretary. i would just like to acts that would put in the record the complete letter from the national association of manufacturer and i would read one sentence. a default would put upward pressure on interest rates raising both short and long-term cost of capital and discouraging business investment and job creation in america. >> thank you, senator. senator nelson. >> ten seconds. >> or thereabouts. >> i'm concerned that you've indicated that we might agree to a short-term extension on the debt ceiling. and i think that would be counterproductive, we would be back in this soup, right at the end of that short-term extension. i commend the president for standing firm. we can't negotiate over the debt ceiling. national security is another consideration. i'll put that in the record. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator. senator cardin. >> secretary lew, thank you for being here, and thank you for giving us -- it's our responsibility to pass an extension to the debt limit. it's congress'

mr. secretary, i look forward to your testimony and the questions to follow. mr., i want to thank you v-much for having this very important and timely hearing today. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. as you might imagine, this is a critical time within our government and certainly for our veterans out there. and that's why i asked the secretary -- and i am so pleased and on very short notice he was able to come in and give us some indication on where we are now and where we will be going in the future depending on how long this shutdown does in fact continue. i want to welcome to the table our first and only witness of this morning, the secretary for the u.s. department of veteran's affairs. your complete written statement, mr. secretary, will be nered into the record. and you are recognized for five minutes. >> great. members of the committee, thank you for entering my written statement. let me, mr. chairman, just recognize in the room here we have partners for all of us from our veteran's service organizations. i will tell you, they'v

mr. secretary? >> good morning, bob. it's good to be with you this morning. you know, i think that the simple answer is there's a majority in congress they believe is prepared to do the right thing, to opponent government and make sure we don't cross over that abyss that you describe. i hope that mat jort will be given a chance to vote. the stakes are really high. the american people have come out of the worst recession since the great depression. the american economy is showing its resilience. our leadership in the world is the strong-- we're the strongest country in the world. our currency is the world's reserve currency. congress shouldn't be created self-inflicted wounds that hurt the economy and the american people. i think congress can and should act. >> schieffer: let me tell you something, john boehner was just on abc with george stephanopoulos, and he didn't seem to think there's any way to get this started unless you all are willing to sit down and at least talk to him. here's part of what he said. >> we are not going topaz a clean debt limit increa

mr. secretary, to the issue of how bad it could get. we don't know how bad it would get because there is no historical precedent. as lloyd blankfein of goldman sachs said yesterday on the hill. therefore why would we want to get to that point? if it could be, we don't know, as bad as the 2008 financial crisis, isn't it worth it to at least give a little on some aspect of what this group of republicans want so you then can at least move forward? >> you know, you have to kind of realize what we're actually seeing. we're seeing demands of extraordinary nature, not to solve all the problems of the country but just to open government for a few weeks. these are not, this is not the way to run the greatest country in the word. we can not be in constant threat of shutting down the government or not paying our bills. we need to engage in meaningful negotiation and meaningful compromise but we have to be done with this brinkmanship. liz: part of the problem with never having seen what happens if we hit the debt ceiling and default is, is that, a

mr. secretary. >> well, a high honor indeed., of course, i'm completely unworthy of, but nonetheless, i shall accept it in the spirit given on behalf of all the their -- nare-do-wells there in the shadows where they belong. >> where they belong. >> thank you very much. good luck. >> thank you. >> i know you're very proud. >> thank you. >> of the guys, so thank you very much, and i'll put this -- >> [inaudible] >> okay, barbara. >> we want to have both of you gentlemen about views of what's going on with the national security agency. mr. secretary, to start with you, because you jointly oversea the nsa and as a senior member of the national security committee, clearly, this is in your portfolio as well, so what did you know about collection of intelligence from world leaders communications whether it was data or whatever it was, what did you know about it? when did you know about it, and have you discussed it with the president and feel it appropriate? why is it appropriate? mr. minister, how worried is your government that the u

mr. secretary for being here today. given your testimony, earlier today you said that i'm responsible for the implementation of the affordable care act. i've heard you referred to and maybe yourself as the point person for the rollout, the architect of implementing affordable care act. so you are kind of the president's point person, are you not, for this rollout? >> yes, sir. >> i earlier you were asked -- there's a lot of things striking about the rollout of this and about affordable care act all together, but the thing most striking to me, is when we had the point person for the rollout here, and you're not going into the exchange. i've heard you say, that -- and you got advice from the foekds behind you, but i'm asking you today, can you tell the american public if your advisers behind you, if they happen to have given you wrong information, if it is possible for you to go into the exchange, like all of these millions of americans going into the exchanges, will you admit to forego your insurance plan you're on now a

mr. chairman. secretary lew, you've said again today the president won't negotiate on the debt limit. and the president, as was noted earlier, has asserted that there haven't been additional items added to debt limits in the past. and, as you and i have talked about, and as you know, when you look back at the last 30 years of the history of debt limits, it's the only thing that has worked. in fact, every significant deficit- reduction package that has passed this congress in the last 30 years has come in the context of a debt limit. i found one that didn't. it was in 2005 for about $40 million, a relatively small deal. that's the way it has worked. and it's gramm- rudman, it's the 1990 balanced budget agreement or the andrews air force base agreement. it's the 1997 balanced budget agreement. it's pay-go rules that many in this committee on the other side of the aisle talk about favorably. of course, it's the 19 -- it's the most recent budget control act, just a couple of years ago. all in the context of the

mr. lance. >> i guess i won the lottery on the two minutes. madam secretary -- >> the gentleman's 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. why in your opinion was there not more than two weeks? >> again, we had products -- the insurance policies themselves by companies were loaded into the system. so we could test up until then, but it wasn't until september, mid september that was done. again the contractors said we would have loved more testing time but we think we are ready to go ahead. >> i believe that will ultimately be a dispute between c.m.s. and h.h.s. and the contractors. if there's anything we can do regarding that because obviously that didn't work. i had thought given the signature issue of the president, the website would be redy. number two, in my judgment, the president's statement were overstatements. the four pinocchios is an indication of that. there is a report in the new jersey newspapers this morning tha

mr. guthrie. >> thank you, madam secretary, for being here. last week mr. lau was here and the president talked about the alternatives to the website, his phone calling or using paper, paper application. what he said an i think you've said it with the phone, they take the paper applications but enter them into the same web portal. so i know you get around the issue of getting on and getting logged off but there's still issues with data within the web portal. you can't even get reliable data who's even signed up. he also said because of the surge in paper applications, it's like six to eight weeks to process. so if november 30th is when this will be ready that they can use, even if you do it now, eight weeks are getting close to january 1st. and somebody does lose their insurance so they're signing up to this and they get to january 1st, even though you have a march 31st open enrollment, is there a contingency plan for these people to continue their insurance? >> sir, i think that we have improvements every day on the speed of the site. sirco was giving you

mr. chairman. madam secretary, before, during and after the law was passed the president kept saying if you like your health care plan you can keep it. so is keeping his promise? >> yes, he is. >> okay. what do you say to the 300,000 people in florida you just mentioned or to the 28,000 in tennessee that can not get health insurance? their plans are terminated. is keeping his promise to them? >> first of all, congresswoman, they can get health insurance. they must be offered new plans, new options, either inside the marketplace or if they don't qualify for a financial subsidy they can shop, they absolutely will have new coverage. >> what do you say to nbc news who says millions will lose their coverage? >> in all deference to the press corps, many of whom are here today, i think that it's important to be accurate about what is going on and i would defer again to the president of the blues plan. >> reclaiming time. >> they will be offered new plans. >> madam secretary, let me tell youing. >> -- while. >> what do yo

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 t

mr. secretary the last brian is our next speaker transportation brian. (clappin (clapping). nient of all the legislature wars figure out over this bridge having worked from bill to mr. burton to daryl stein beggar interest to look at the combined contribution if it were not for kelly your tolls would be much higher to pay for this bridge. and thanks to patterson and ma iron there as high as they all right. are are. our last brian has been rescued by governor brown who appointed him our secretary of transportation. he's president this role his whole life. so let's bring brian kelly to the microphone and give a big applause to all our brian's. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> well, thank you steven e steve i'm not sure though how to respond to this picture. i want to commit all brian's on their names. i'm honored to think here. i've been sobered with this project throughout any 18 years as a staff person in the state senate and more recently in the brown administration for the past 15 months. i'll say over the 18 years this project has had an effect on me. it's had time to inspire me and frustrate m

mr. secretary, you mentioned consequences. as you look down the road -- i think mr.ale addressed this at one of his briefings -- there already are some reviews of how many civilians and how much force reduction overall there will have to be, reductions in force. can you talk a little bit about, as you look ahead, what are you warning congress and the country about in terms of the number of forces that you're going to have to cut in order to meet these lower budget levels, the number of civilians you may have to lay off? and what does that do to u.s. readiness and morale of your workforce? >> well, i'll leave the specific numbers to bob hale, but let me respond in a general way to your questions. let's start with the impact on morale. i don't think anyone questions that the uncertainty that shutting down the government and closing down people's jobs has brought a great amount of not only disruption to our government, to our country, but to their lives, to the civilian personnel whose lives have been disrupted by this particular shutdown. then you add further to that t

mr. secretary, you mentioned consequences. as you look down the road -- i think mr. hale addressed this at one of his briefings -- there already are some reviews of how many civilians and how much force reduction overall there will have to be, reductions in force. can you talk a little bit about, as you look ahead, what are you warning congress and the country about in terms of the number of forces that you're going to have to cut in order to meet these lower budget levels, the number of civilians you may have to lay off? and what does that do to u.s. readiness and morale of your workforce? >> well, i'll leave the specific numbers to bob hale, but let me respond in a general way to your questions. let's start with the impact on morale. i don't think anyone questions that the uncertainty that shutting down the government and closing down people's jobs has brought a great amount of not only disruption to our government, to our country, but to their lives, to the civilian ersonnel whose lives have been disrupted by this particular hutdown. then you add further to that t

mr. guthrie. >> thank you, madam secretary for being here. last week mr. lau from second quarter cowas -- serco was here. president talked about alternatives to the website and calling or using paper application. what you said with the phone, but they take the paper application but enter into the web portal. you get around issue getting logged off but there issues with data in the web portal. you can't even get reliable data who is even signed up. he also said because of surge in paper applications like six to eight weeks to process. so if november 30th when this will be ready they can use, and even if you do it now, eight weeks you're getting close to january 1st. somebody does lose their insurance, so signing up for this and they get to january 1st, even though you have a march 31st open enrollment what happens, is there contingency plan for these people to continue their insurance. >> sir, i think that we have improvements every day on the speed of the site. serco was giving you early snapshots of difficulty of accessing the site. i think that is greatl

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 released this document, monthly status report from cgi last night and it looks to me like sort of a technical document that has a punch list of outstanding open issues. 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 develop -- deliver the functionality that cms has directed. and we're -- 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 rea

mr. secretary, it's great to have you.e president fielded questions on this, namely from a local affiliate here in new york said and tried to defend the degree to which he has compromised over the next couple of years. he says when i do it i get hit as hard from the left as i do from the right. where is he wrong? >> i'm having a hard time hearing you, could you repeat the question, please? >> sure. how should the president be acting in compromise in situations like this. >> i think, obviously, the president has tried to do what he can to try to see if we can develop some kind of reasonable approach here that wouldn't involve shutting down the government and defaulting in terms of our debt. and what i'm hopeful of is that it appears that the congress is going to do the right thing, end the shutdown, extend the debt limit, and get to work on the budget. that's what the president wanted. that's what john boehner wanted and what all of the leadership wanted. they're at least at this point headed on the right track. >> i wonder

mr. secretary can you tell us >> the first thing the president said his greatest education was on the south side of chicago. he learned a lot of lessons and he has asked the entire constant to travel around the country and learn the lessons from the community that have not just envisioned but create revitalizations. he told us to learn but the other message he wanted to make sure i got out if we're going to continue to live up to the ideals of our founders in america if this is a country no matter where you come from or what you look like if you work hard and play by the rules he can get ahead. we need to live up to those ideals and that means in neighborhoods where traditionally kids have had a tough time getting ahead and even though their lifespan was determined by their zip code we can't allow that. for promise zones his promise is to quadruple our budget and all those investments will help what the community of admission has become >> anyone else? okay. thank you >> thank you.

mr. secretary, thanks very much for joining us. i don't know if you prefer mr. secretary or governor. you have two good titles there. but take us into her seat right now. she is under enormous pressure. how do you think she got into this mess? >> wolf, i have to say that the seeds of this problem were sown a year ago as the administration made decisions not to issue regulations that were required for those developing the system to actually do it properly. and meps whhence when the site go live, it had been inadequately tested. they were issuing regulations in september for an october 1 implementation. i'm sure that will come up in the hearing today. but i think in terms of looking at causes, i think that's a big one. >> so who is to blame for that? >> well, let's just say i don't think that secretary sebelius made all those decisions to defer them. i think that was in large measure a decision made i suspect by the white house as they were navigating through an election at that point in time. and that was a political call they made and they're now making -- now having to deal with the

mr. secretary panetta and sherman nussle. is there any reason to expect this budget conference to be any more successful than the supercommittee was? [laughter] has anything changed? you still have the major sticking points that prevented them from doing anything. >> this is not going to be easy. nobody ought to assume that this is going to be easy. the hard work begins now. the kind of game playing that went on over these last few weeks with the shutdown of the debt limit and all of the threats and counter threats that went on, that's kind of politics of this town. the hard work is to sit down and walk through the entitlements and determine what reforms need to be made, what savings can be achieved, look at discretionary spending, lay out a path for that, and look for tax reform. somebody was with me at the time we sat down at andrews air force base and went through that process and walked through all of the entitlements and walked through discretionary spending and then walked through the whole tax arena. we finally came to

mr. secretary?ll, i think that the stock market is going to do relatively well in terms of short-term speculators. i think the bond market in terms of interest being paid and demanded to lend money to the treasury, is still going to be riled and we're still going to be seeing interest rates on short-term treasuries that are far too high relative to what you and i would like to see as the real risk. >> another quick look at the dow. we're up 201 points. again on the news that the senate deal has been reached. thanks so much for being us with. >> thanks ashleigh. >> we're going to shift our coverage down to washington, d.c. live. wolf blitzer is going to take over the coverage affair the short break. thanks for watching. we'll see you again tomorrow. it's time for advil cold and sinus. [ male announcer ] truth is that won't relieve all your symptoms. new alka seltzer plus-d relieves more sinus symptoms than any other behind the counter liquid gel. oh what a relief it is. than any other behind the coun

mr. secretary-general! >> what explanation is there for the fact that there is no compensation to the families of victims? >> i think i have made it quite clear the reason why this case is not "receivable". >> was it your decision ultimately? whose decision was it in the end? >> oh yes, it was my decision but based on careful consideration. >> do you think it's the right decision? >> (pauses)yeah... i think so. >> but for the families of the victims? >> why don't you, why don't you talk to my legal counsel? >> so you're saying there is no possibility at all of speaking with anyone from legal counsel? >> no... >> following the secretary-general's advice, i did put several calls in but was told the un's legal counsel was unavailable for comment. >> so we've spotted the secretary-general again in this room and we're going to try to catch him when he comes out. >> secretary, we haven't been given access to the office of legal counsel. you said we could get access to the... >> speak to my legal counsel. >> well

. >> secretary, mr. speaker, senator mcconnell was trying behind the scenes to get a provision in the deal that emerged in the senate that would give federal agencies more flexibility in dealing with sequestration cuts. as no one needs to tell you, the arbitrary, across the board nature of the cuts makes it very difficult for agencies. how important would that provision have been and how difficult is it for an agency to deal with that? >> it was a crazy, crazy formula. they designed it to be crazy, to basically do a meat ax cut across the board that was going to be so bad it would force them to do the right thing. that was the whole lodge ex, if you call it logic, of why they developed sequestration. they obviously didn't have the courage to deal with sequestration so sequestration went into effect. and it's created havoc across the board. particularly in the department headed. i would rather have the idea to move money around within the bounds of sequestration, i would rather them deal with the bigger i

mr. chairman. madam secretary, before, during, and after the law was passed, the president kept saying if you like your plan, you can keep it. is he keeping his promise? >> yes, he is. >> what do you say to the 300,000 people in florida you just mentioned or the 28,000 in tennessee that cannot get health insurance. those are terminated. is he keeping their promise to them? >> they can get health insurance. they must be offered new plans and new options in the market place and if they don't qualify for a financial subsidy. they absolutely will have new coverage. >> what are do you say to nbc new who is said millions will lose their coverage. >> with all deference to the press corps and many will be here today, it's important to be accurate and i defer to the president of the plan. they will have ongoing coverage and be offered new plans. >> madam secretary, let me tell you something. what do you say to mark and lucinda who had a plan they liked and it was affordable, but it is being terminate and now they do not ha

mr. chairman. thank you madame secretary for coming today. i'm going to follow up on mr. doyle's line of questioning. one concern i have with the fallout of the website is that many users who tried to sign up and were discouraged because of the problems will now be too discouraged to come back once the site is fixed. what do you plan to could to get those folks to come back? >> 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. 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 personal time and attentioning on young and healthy americans who don't start out thinking they need health insurance, aren't aware of the law, certainly don't want to use a failed or flawed site. we're going to have to spend particular attention on them. >> thank you. have the software specificat

secretary. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield backing >> mr. johnson. >> madame secretary, thank you for being here with us today. cms was the integrator of the website leading up to the october 1st roll out, correct? >> that's correct. >> you've testified you've now hired an outside company. who is that company. >> qssi who built the hub, yes, sir. >> this is the same company that told our committee last week they were not only the develop he ever of the hub and the pipeline but also an independent tester of the system. >> yeah. >> you've acknowledged in your testimony today that ip accurate testing played a significant role in this failed launch. aren't you concerned that qssi has lost its ability to be an objective independent arbitrator in addressing the problems that plague the system now? bass they're part of the tester, part of the developer, part of the problem? >> no, i haven't lost my confidence in them. i think the testing that they did is validating the pieces of the equipment what we've said since the launch is that we did not do ad

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