Democrat calls for ObamaCare probe (Video)
By Jonathan Easley
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) will ask two oversight agencies for a full-blown investigation into the problems surrounding the ObamaCare launch.
Hagan, who is up for reelection in 2014, is asking her Senate colleagues to co-sign a letter asking two agencies to conduct “a complete, thorough investigation to determine the causes of the design and implementation failures of HealthCare.Gov.”
“These problems are simply unacceptable, and Americans deserve answers and swift solutions,” Hagan writes in a letter obtained by The Hill. “Taxpayers are owed a full and transparent accounting of how the vendors contracted to build the site failed to launch it successfully.”
The letter, which is in draft form and could be changed, is addressed to the Government Accountability Office and the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Flaws singled out by Hagen include website crashes, error messages, log-in and account creation difficulties, privacy issues and bad data being sent to insurance providers.
Hagan’s letter focuses primarily on the contractors the government hired to build the website. A handful of companies, CGI Federal and QSSI in particular, have been under the microscope since blaming HHS for the site’s botched launch in front of a Congressional panel last month.
QSSI has since been named the general contractor tasked with fixing the HealthCare.gov’s problems.
Hagan’s letter highlights the anxiety over ObamaCare being felt by centrist Senate Democrats facing reelection next year.
She is one of three red state Democrat facing reelection in 2014 who support a bill that would allow people to keep their existing health insurance plans under ObamaCare. A fourth, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) faces reelection until 2018.
Hagan was also one of several Democratic senators up for reelection next year who met with President Obama last week on the failures of the ObamaCare website.
She said she used that meeting to express her "deep frustration" about the failed site, and said the administration needs to fix it quickly.
Red state Democrats like Hagan, Pryor, and Manchin, as well as Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), have openly criticized the rollout ahead of what is lining up to be a competitive election cycle where Democrats will be under pressure to hold a majority in the Senate.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/189890-democrat-calls-for-obamacare-probe
