Republican leaders have questioned HHS and contractors helping with the healthcare reform law's implementation about the technical problems the health insurance exchanges have experienced since they opened last week.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for information regarding issues such as people not being able to create accounts on HealthCare.gov, dysfunctional drop down tools and the federal exchange site crashing due to high traffic.
The letter requests a detailed explanation of all technical problems and the administration's plan to address them, among other information.
House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders have also sent letters inquiring about exchange functionality issues to Secretary Sebelius and contractors assisting with the exchanges. The contractors include the IT companies Quality Software Services and CGI. Committee members have asked for an explanation of the exchange system testing, the results of that testing and what changes have been made since the exchanges opened for enrollment.
Last week, HHS said it expanded HealthCare.gov's capacity after the site functioned slowly and did not work for some users due to overcapacity, with 4.7 million people visiting in the first 24 hours following its launch.
President Obama addressed the technical problems at a press briefing last week, comparing the issues to a glitch Apple found and fixed during a recent rollout of a new mobile operating system. He told reporters that every new product rollout will encounter some technical problems.
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