Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov’s Chief Project Manager at CMS Says He Never Saw Memo Uncovered Warning Of “Limitless” Security Risks Of Obamacare Website

The roll-out of Obamacare has gone from complete incompetence to a full blown scandal …

CBS BOMBSHELL …

Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov’s chief project manager at CMS  in charge of building the federal health care website  testified for nine hours behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee in advance of this week’s hearing that he was kept in the dark about serious failures in the website’s security. Chao stated that he was unaware of a September 3 government memo written by another senior official at CMS that found two high-risk issues. In fact he testified that he had been told just the opposite. Chao is the individual who gave the go ahead for Healthcare.gov to go live on October 1, 2013; however, it appears that the person in charge of the project was kept in the dark. Chao testified that it was the first time he saw any such memo that said “the threat and risk potential (to the system) is limitless. When asked whether he was surprised he never saw any such memo he replied, “Yeah … I mean, wouldn’t you be surprised if you were me? It is disturbing. I mean, I don’t deny that this is … a fairly nonstandard way” to proceed.

How does somebody not tell the project manager of system vulnerability findings? Someone is either lying or purposely set out to mislead to make sure this was implemented on time irregardless of the risks. The real question is did the Obama administration know this and were they directing the implementation be on time at all cost? Sorry folks, I am a healthcare project manager and I have never heard of anything like this. Heads would roll if anything remotely like this occurred.

“What I recall is what the team told me, is that there were no high findings,” he said.

Chao testified security gaps could lead to identity theft, unauthorized access and misrouted data.

According to federal guidelines, high risk means “the vulnerability could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse affect on organizational operations … assets or individuals.”

The author of the security memo in question, Tony Trenkle, retired from CMS last week. Hmm, so did he retire, did he just have enough, or was he forced out?

The CIO for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Tony Trenkle, is leaving CMS, the agency embroiled in the ill-fated rollout of government’s Healthcare.gov insurance marketplace website.

Trenkle, who directs CMS’s Office of Information Services and oversees $2 billion in annual IT spending at CMS, is departing effective Nov. 15 to take an undisclosed position in the private sector. His departure was announced in an internal agency memo released today from by CMS chief operating officer Michelle Snyder.

Must see VIDEO that ALL  should watch of the risk that Obama and his minions put “We the People” in by accessing Healthcare.gov to the “Limitless” Security Risks

CBS News:

CBS News has learned that the project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website’s security. Those failures could lead to identity theft among buying insurance. The project manager testified to congressional investigators behind closed doors, but CBS News has obtained the first look at a partial transcript of his testimony.

Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov’s chief project manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), gave nine hours of closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee in advance of this week’s hearing. In excerpts CBS News has obtained, Chao was asked about a memo that outlined important security risks discovered in the insurance system.

Chao said he was unaware of a Sept. 3 government memo written by another senior official at CMS. It found two high-risk issues, which are redacted for security reasons. The memo said “the threat and risk potential (to the system) is limitless.” The memo shows CMS gave deadlines of mid-2014 and early 2015 to address them.

Virginia Democrat Calling For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients

Welcome to Obamaland: This is still America, isn’t it … For Democrats woman have the right to choose for an abortion, but doctors should be forced to accept Medicare and Medicaid, UNREAL!

Virginia Democrats are calling the forcing of all doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid. Unbelievable, but this is what we get these days from a ‘Gestapo-like’ government that believes in forcing people into doing things when it comes to healthcare. Remember when “We the People” thought it was unheard of to think that the Obama regime could force Americans to buy insurance? Currently physicians have the option of accepting Medicare and/or Medicaid patients. Many physicians do not because of the low reimbursement rate, especially with Medicaid. Imagine being paid $12 for an office visit? It is actually for profitable to see a Medicaid patient for free. However, Democrats now want to force doctors to accept government healthcare. What has happened to this country? These people will not be happy until they destroy the healthcare system in this country and force a single payer system upon us.

The Weekly Standard asks, could Obamacare affect Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial election and sink poll leading Democrat nominee, McAuliffe?

From The Mason Conservative:

Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients.  Forced by government decree, mind you.  A birdie sent me this:

FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.

She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors’ costs.  She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.

Democrats appear to want to make physicians slaves of the state, but Democrats don’t admit they would just drive more doctors out of practice into retirement and other occupations.  The Obamacare law and regulations are causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, drop many doctors and hospitals. The HHS internal forecast is 93 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to the Obamacare law and rules about adequacy of insurance. (more)

As discussed at Legal Insurrection, one of the consequences of Obamacare is the millions of individuals going to be enroll in Medicaid. So now there will be an even greater percentage of the healthcare pool where healthcare reimbursements do not cover costs.

The great Obamacare reform is turning into the great thrust of tens of millions of people onto Medicaid.

The problem is, fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicaid patients because the reimbursements are so low.

I have met numerous doctors who tell me they either refuse Medicaid patients or restrict them because the reimbursements do not cover their costs.  They also double and triple book, because so many Medicaid patients who make appointments don’t show up.  As to Medicare the payments currently are bearable, but only because private insurance payments for other patients make up the shortfall.

Increasingly, doctors are abandoning the government payment train wreck, and going all cash or some hybrid.  This all was foreseeable and was foreseen.

HIPAA Be Damned … Obamacare’s HealthCare.gov Users Warn of Security Risk, Breach of Privacy

What else could this disastrous web site possibly do wrong?

Obamacare’s Healthcare.gov website discloses eligibility letters written to other applicants. Hmm, thanks for the break of privacy of unsuspecting individuals who signed onto Healthcare.gov.  The security flaw disclosed eligibility letters addressed to individuals from another state. Just curious, was a data disclosure made to HHS in compliance with HIPAA privacy rules like many healthcare government contractors are supposed to do within a specified amount of time? Or do your own rules not apply to yourself?

As reported at The Weekly Standard, below is a screen shot of one of the “eligibility letters” he wasn’t supposed to receive.

From The Foundry:

Justin Hadley logged on to HealthCare.gov to evaluate his insurance options after his health plan was canceled. What he discovered was an apparent security flaw that disclosed eligibility letters addressed to individuals from another state.

“I was in complete shock,” said Hadley, who contacted Heritage after becoming alarmed at the breach of privacy.

Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September.

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina.

The document shows that administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were concerned that a lack of testing posed a potentially “high” security risk for the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states.

Security Risk

Last week, the Associated Press disclosed a government memo revealing the “high” security risk for HealthCare.gov. Those concerns surfaced at Wednesday’s hearing with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who claimed the system was secure.

HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters told the AP, “When consumers fill out their online … applications, they can trust that the information they’re providing is protected by stringent security standards and that the technology underlying the application process has been tested and is secure.”

However, that didn’t stop members of Congress from voicing alarm.

“You accepted a risk on behalf of every user … that put their personal financial information at risk,” Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) told Sebelius. “Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security.”

The Finger Pointing Begins … ObamaCare Website Contractors CGI Federal & QSSI Blame Obama Administration for Healthcare.gov Fiasco

All for one and one for all, never mind, scratch that.

Its ever man for themselves as the finger pointing begins as who is to blame for the Obamacare website rollout disaster. ObamaCare Website Contractors, CGI Federal and QSSI, are firing back at the Obama administration and saying they are to blame for the Healthcare.gov website debacle. The blame game has begun; however, in the end the buck stops with Barack Obama and his signature piece of legislation. HHS secretary Sebelius was in essence the project lead and was responsible for the contractors work was up to snuff. Obama is in charge of Sebelius. So no matter how anyone wants to deflect blame from Obama, this is on him.

This is why you never allow someone unqualified to run a country … And you voted him in twice, good grief!!!

Principal contractors hired to build the ObamaCare website HealthCare.gov are hitting back at the Obama administration for the site’s overwhelming technical problems.

Executives from CGI Federal and QSSI—the site’s main contractors—are among four companies testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Thursday on the glitches.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “serves the important role of systems integrator or `quarterback’ on this project and is the ultimate responsible party for the end-to-end performance,” CGI’s Senior Vice President Cheryl Campbell said in prepared testimony, according to the Associated Press.

“No amount of testing within reasonable time limits can adequately replicate a live environment of this nature,” she added.

Campbell also said, according to The New York Times, that all of CGI Federal’s work was done “under the direction and supervision” of the Centers for Medicare ad Medicaid Services.

The report notes she blames “another contractor” for customers’ problems creating secure password-protected accounts, but didn’t identify the group.  The Times said government records show QSSI had that responsibility.

Andy Slavitt, who represents QSSI’s parent company, said he also blamed the administration for the late decision to require consumers to create accounts before they could actually browse health plans. That change, he said, contributed to the overload.

Congressional Hearings on Healthcare.gov problems today.

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Says, “Obsolutely Yes,” Obamacare Just a Step Toward Single Payer Health Care System

Why is the following a surprise to anyone, this is the same thing Barack Obama said way back when … Welcome to Socialized Medicine.

According to the Las Vegas Sun, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law is a step toward an eventual all-out single-payer system where the government pays for health care costs instead of private insurers.  Reid stated that we  had to “work our way past” an insurance-based healthcare.”  No kidding, really? Why do you think the penalty to not provide health insurance is only $2000? It is so that all businesses will throw their employees on the Obamacare health care exchanges, rather than pay for their insurance premiums themselves. Once that reaches the tipping point, private insurances carriers will be history. Is that what you want America, the government as the sole entity providing you healthcare? Because the government has done such a great job with the VA, Medicare and Medicaid. GOOD GRIEF!!!

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

Don’t You Remember when candidate Obama said he was all for a single health care payer system? That was the plan all along.

 They want to control your life from womb to grave. It’s just a matter of whether anyone in this country cares enough for the US Constitution and the founding of this country to care about liberty.