WASHINGTON, DC - House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA) issued the following statement in response to reports that HealthCare.gov was successfully hacked. Pitts authored H.R. 3811, the Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act, which was approved by the House with a veto-proof majority in January. The White House threatened to veto this bill.
“Sadly, the news that HealthCare.gov has been hacked does not come as a surprise. Our efforts last January to improve health exchange security and transparency were vigorously opposed by the White House - even though we assembled a bipartisan, veto-proof majority. For months we have been demanding answers and transparency about the status of building and securing the exchange and our requests have been repeatedly met with resistance. Does President Obama still object to providing Americans with the peace of mind that they will be alerted if their personally identifiable information is jeopardized? The administration has been reckless in its implementation of the law, relying on a faulty and incomplete website from the getgo. It is time to correct past wrongs and finally put transparency first."
The Energy and Commerce Committee first raised concerns about the security of HealthCare.gov in October 2013 when it uncovered a document signed by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner that states, “Due to system readiness issues, the [Security Control Assessment] SCA was only partly completed. This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations."
