LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
• The Republican-led House voted overwhelmingly Friday to add new security requirements onto President Barack Obama’s health care law, with 67 Democrats breaking ranks to join with the GOP in the 291-122 vote. The bill would require the secretary of health and human services to provide notice within two business days of any security breach involving personal data provided to the government through the health care website HealthCare.gov. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the site already has stringent security safeguard and that the administration opposes the measure as an unnecessary and costly burden.
• Fire departments won’t have to provide coverage to volunteer firefighters under the federal health care law, the Treasury Department said Friday, easing concerns that the overhaul would force departments to slash volunteer hours or benefits. Firefighter organizations and chiefs throughout the country had been calling on the federal government to ensure they were exempt from the law.
The government’s much-maligned health insurance website is getting a new outside contractor to steer the revamped portal through the remainder of open enrollment season.
The Obama administration and lead website contractor CGI Federal said Friday they had mutually agreed to part ways on HealthCare.gov. The site’s launch Oct. 1 embarrassed President Barack Obama and prompted a frantic reconstruction campaign. It largely works well now.
Government officials had little to say.
CGI’s current contract will not be renewed after February, a person familiar with the situation said Friday. The person requested anonymity because of federal rules regarding the privacy of contractors.
Instead, the administration intends to hire Accenture, a major technology consulting company, to run the federal website serving 36 states.
CGI spokeswoman Linda Odorisio said in a statement that the company played a key role in turning the website around, and that it remains a federal contractor on other health care projects.
The White House had hoped the website would make buying health insurance under the new law as easy as online shopping. Instead, HealthCare.gov choked up the day it was launched. Although hundreds of thousands of people tried to sign up, only a handful actually succeeded.
At first the administration said the problem was insufficient capacity to handle a high level of consumer interest. But major software and design flaws quickly emerged.
The administration later acknowledged that the site was down 60 percent of the time in October.
White House troubleshooter Jeffrey Zients managed to turn things around by the end of November. Since then, more than 1 million people have signed up for coverage, and when state-run websites are counted, enrollments total more than 2 million.
So far, senior administration officials have escaped any retribution for the debacle.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was surprised by the extent of the problems with her department’s biggest project. Republicans have called for her resignation, but Obama seems to be sticking with her.
Two senior HHS officials involved with the website have left since the launch, but their departures don’t seem directly connected to the problems. One had postponed retirement in order to help with the health care law and was praised by department leaders. The other had been looking to move to private industry.
CGI and other contractors have told Congress that they didn’t get enough time to properly test the system ahead of the administration’s Oct. 1 deadline for launching it.
Open enrollment season for the health care law’s government subsidized private insurance ends March 31.
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