HHS Secretary Sebelius Admits to More Obamacare Nightmares

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius testified before the Senate Finance Comnittee on Wednesday, saying that the government needed to fix hundreds of problems with the Obamacare website for the federal health insurance marketplace, but she categorically rejected bipartisan calls from both Democrat and Republican committee members to delay parts of the new health care law. Just hours before Sebelius testified, the White House disclosed that the chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would retire. His office supervised the creation of the catastrophic website. The official, Tony Trenkle, will step down on November 15 “to take a position in the private sector,” according to an email circulated among agency employees. Trenkle job was to supervise the development of IT products and services, including the development of the website. Mr. Trenkle declined to discuss his plans with rhe New York Times, saying : “I can’t speak with you." Trenkle's retirement is part of a management shake-up announced by Michelle Snyder, the chief operating officer of the Medicare agency, who was herself deeply involved in major decisions about the website and insurance marketplace. The Trenkle firing is one more Obama move to push blame as far down his administration ladder as possible, all the while protecting himself and his senior cabinet members. In addition, while Secretary Sebelius was being roundly criticized by the Senators for the failure of the website, yet more website failures were being reported by officials of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid : “The site is performing slowly,” said Julie Bataille, a spokesperson for the Centers. “Some users have difficulty logging in and receive error messages.” Bataille said it was hard to pinpoint the cause because different consumers had experienced different problems. Some people who have created password-protected accounts have said that they cannot get into their accounts to shop for the insurance that will be required for most Americans by the end of 2014. Sebelius said officials had a list of “a couple of hundred functional fixes” that need to be made so the website could work smoothly for most users by November 30, a deadline set by the administration. “We’re not where we need to be,” Sebelius said. “It’s a pretty aggressive schedule to get to the entire punch list by the end of November.” With many people unable to obtain coverage on the defective website, lawmakers in both parties have suggested extending the open enrollment period or delaying the financial penalties for people who will be unable to buy insurance. But Sebelius refused to consider delaying the program. The chief architect of the health care law, Senator Max Baucus, the Wyoming Democrat who is retiring this year, urged Secretary Sebelius to speed up repairs to the website. At a hearing in April, Baucus told Sebelius that he foresaw “a huge train wreck” because the administration had done little to educate consumers or employers. He asked for periodic updates, and he said Wednesday that the reports were "totally unsatisfactory." Senator Baucus also asked if it would be feasible to shut down the website and make all the required repairs at once. “Why just keep limping along?” he asked. Sebelius said it was better to make the repairs “on an ongoing basis” while the system was running, or in the middle of the night, when it was scheduled to be down for repairs. In addition, when asked what the first issuance of enrollment data will show, Sebelius said the first official enrollment numbers are “likely to be quite low, given the struggles that people have had getting access to the site and getting information.” And several other serious problems with Obamacare enrollment were revealed Wednesday. It was confirmed that in late September, Snyder and Trenkle signed an internal memo acknowledging that security controls for the federal website had not been fully tested. They signed off on a six-month plan to reduce the risk that personal information might be inappropriately disclosed. And documents released Wednesday night by House investigators suggest that Obama administration officials knew even before the marketplaces opened for business on October 1 that the computer systems would not be able to handle anywhere near the anticipated demand. The “testing bulletin” suggested the website as of September 30 could handle only about 1,100 users at a time, even though officials had said it should have been able to accommodate perhaps as many as 60,000, according to the documents, released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And as if all these new damaging revelations weren't enough, Sebelius admitted Wednesday to the Senate Finance Committee that it was possible convicted felons could be hired as Obamacare ‘navigators,’ giving them access to personal information like Social Security numbers and addresses of anyone signing up for the program. Sebelius made the admission in an exchange with GOP Senator John Cornyn during the committee hearing. This is yet another breach in Obamacare user security because it is possible that convicted felons would have access to enough user information to easily steal the identity of users they are helping to enroll. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, Secretary Sebelius will not have to worry about any of these failures in the Obamacare website she is responsible for. Because, on October 23 Sebelius told CNS News that she will not enroll on Obamacare because she already has insurance. This is just one more example of Congress and the White House foisting onto defenseless Americans programs, reporting requirements, taxes - and health care laws - that they routinely exempt themselves from having to obey. It is easy to see why GOP Senator Rand Paul wants Congress to pass a law that would make it illegal for Congress to exempt its members from any law it enacts.