Report: Verizon called on to improve Healthcare.gov
The Obama administration has recruited Verizon to help improve the flawed Obamacare website HealthCare.gov, according to USA Today.
The telecommunications giant already has information technology contracts with the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HHS is now reportedly relying on Verizon's Enterprise Solutions division, which provides communications and IT services to business and government clients, to improve the performance of the website.
President Obama on Mondayassured the public that his administration has recruited "some of the best IT talent in the entire country" to create a "tech surge" to fix the website. His administration, however, has not said exactly who is part of that tech surge.
- Marco Rubio: Postponing Obamacare mandate a "prudent approach"
- Another Obamacare fix potentially in the works
- In depth: Obamacare kickoff
"These are additional contractors, as well as a few experts who are part of the presidential innovation fellows program, which was started by the president in his first term -- and it pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits and acadamia with top innovators within government to collaborate," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
The administration has come under considerable scrutiny for the flawed rollout of HealthCare.gov. The website serves as the online health insurance marketplace for 36 states. The remaining states have built their own websites (referred to as exchanges). Open enrollment on the exchanges lasts through March, and the government estimated earlier this year that as many as 7 million people nationwide would enroll in private health insurance plans in that period.
New reports suggest the Obama administration launched the federal website -- after spending close to $400 billion building it, according to one government report -- even though testing conducted prior to the Oct. 1 launch date revealed its shortcomings.
One test conducted days before the launch showed the site crashing after just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously, the Washington Post reports. One insurance IT executive familiar with the rollout told the Post that a testing group of insurers urged the administration to delay the site's launch about a month before it went live.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tested HealthCare.gov itself ahead of the launch instead of taking the typical step of using private software developers to conduct integration testing.
According to a new CBS News poll, Americans seem well aware of the issues with Healthcare.gov -- 49 percent say the sign-up process for insurance via Obamacare is not going well. Still, 38 percent say they can't evaluate how it's going.
Amid the reports of the website's glitches, Consumer Reports found a software tester to go through the sign-up process, who ultimately consumers to wait another month before trying to use the website. Consumer Reports later clarified it still believes the state-based exchanges are "the best place to buy coverage on your own."
