Dems summon witness to defend HealthCare.gov
House Democrats are angling to get ahead of new GOP attacks on ObamaCare, one day before lawmakers will meet to scrutinize the healthcare website’s security flaws.
Armed with new evidence of security problems at HeathCare.gov, Republicans are set to go on the attack against the Obama administration during a hearing Thursday of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
{mosads}Democrats are bringing in a new witness to the hearing — an information specialist with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — to emphasize that no consumer data has ever been stolen from the site.
Democratic members of the Oversight panel are accusing Republicans of ignoring requests to investigate what they call “actual data breaches” at popular companies such as Target and Home Depot.
“While Republicans pursue their obsession with denigrating the Affordable Care Act for political reasons, they are disregarding repeated Democratic requests for real oversight,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), a ranking member of the committee. “We should be investigating real cyber security breaches that actually compromised the personal information of millions of Americans across the country over the past year.”
The hearing on the website security comes at a crucial time for the Obama administration, with new sign-ups beginning Oct. 1. A new poll released Wednesday found that 54 percent of voters are concerned about the security of government healthcare websites.
The capacity of HealthCare.gov also came under fire in a report by the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday. The report, which was commissioned by the GOP, warned that the site was still not secure, even after more than a year of fixes.
One of the lead investigators on the report — Greg Wilshusen, an information security specialist with the Government Accountability Office — is slated to testify at the hearing.
Cummings asked the committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to invite the DHS official late Tuesday.