Posted on 12/18/2013 8:44:27 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The House Oversight Committee's top Democrat is accusing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) of deliberately stoking fears about HealthCare.gov with partial and misleading document releases.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) cried foul on Issa's habit of withholding portions of documents about ObamaCare and charged the committee chairman with "cherry-picking" evidence to heighten concerns about the enrollment website.
"The chairman's actions are a reckless and transparent attempt to frighten Americans away from the HeathCare.gov website and deny them health insurance to which they are entitled," Cummings wrote in a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Cummings disputed Issa's recent allegation that users' personal information is in jeopardy on HealthCare.gov.
Issa drew his conclusion from a contractor's old security assessment without noting that the company deemed the issue "closed" ahead of the site's launch, Cummings wrote.
The letter intensifies a bitter dispute between Issa and the Obama administration over Oversight Republicans' approach to investigating the rollout of ObamaCare.
Tensions are also high among partisans on the committee after several investigations in which Democrats accused Issa of overreaching.
The fight's latest round took place Tuesday after Issa said that documents he obtained through subpoena show federal health officials downplayed key security concerns at HealthCare.gov ahead of Oct. 1, when the site went live.
Issa did not release the documents, citing separate concerns for security, but stated in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that her department showed a "disturbing lack of judgment" when it came to safeguarding the system.
"The American people have a right to know the risks they face on HealthCare.gov when they submit sensitive personal information," Issa wrote.
HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters disputed the claim that health officials ignored key vulnerabilities ahead of the site's launch, stating that each piece of HealthCare.gov was tested by an independent party prior to Oct. 1 with no findings of "high" risk.
"All high-, moderate-, and low-security-risk findings ... that launched on October 1st were either fixed, or have strategies and plans in place to fix the findings that meet industry standards."
In addition, Peters said that all operational components of the website are compliant with federal requirements.
“Security testing is conducted on an ongoing basis using industry-best practices to appropriately safeguard consumers’ personal information," she said.
Issa’s effort to obtain physical copies of six security reports prepared by contractors has sparked a battle with the administration.
While officials have permitted Issa's office to view the documents, they have sought to prevent him from obtaining copies, arguing the information would give hackers a "roadmap" into HealthCare.gov.
The feud came to a head on Monday, when the White House general counsel and seven top Democrats went around Issa in a letter to Boehner, asking him to intervene to ensure the chairman wouldn’t leak the documents to the press.
Issa and his Republican colleagues argue that copies of the documents are essential to their duty of investigating ObamaCare's botched rollout.
A spokesman for Issa shot back at Cummings.
"Ranking Member Cummings' false claims and continued efforts to obstruct oversight add insult to injury for Americans reeling from the inept implementation of the health law," Frederick Hill said in a statement.
"The American people have a right to know who made reckless decisions to launch a website with both functional and security problems to meet an arbitrary political deadline."
When the RATS cry foul, the GOP must be doing something right.
Does he want some cheese to go with that whine?
Security can’t be “deemed passed”. It’s either there or it’s not. Further, mitigation strategies are for things like corrupted backups or worm attacks, not theft of patient data. “Mitigation” smacks of “closing the barn door after the horse has fled” in those situations, because the info is already out there. There is no realistic way to make such information invalid once it’s been stolen, so there is no realistic way to “mitigate” PII theft or medical record disclosure.
I don’t know what difference it makes, Issa is totally ineffective anyway
Forgot to add: that the security issues were suddenly declared “closed” really smells of a bureaucratic decision, rather than any actual resolution. They simply declared the problems non-existent, as if that somehow makes it all better. This is a habitual response for this administration, and while it might sort of work with political crises, it absolutely does not fly in the world of demonstrable security vulnerabilities.
You can keep your healthcare, period. You can keep your doctor, period.
Who is misleading who?
For any government to mandate purchase of health insurance is a blatant offense against economy and conscience. For all their squealing over “risky schemes” when it comes to Social Security, the Rats have no problem when it comes to Obortion care. It needs to be nuked, not nitpicked. It needs to be truncated in terms of law, and soon.
This was the guy who was “really pissed off” at how the OFHEO (?) investigations of Fan and Fred that were coming up with massive overleverage and reckless relaxation of loan underwriting were of course designed to deny Blacks the right to own their own homes. This happened mid-late in 2nd GWBush’s term. With this guy, it’s all race, all white devils, all the time.
I wonder if Cummings has to buy his own knee pads or are they a token of appreciation from 0bama.
The severely retarded Elijah Cummings again.
#1) No religion yapping.
#2) No politics welcome.
On my once a week beer and burger sneak-outs from the house I've noticed that rule #1 has been lax-ed and the results are so far nice. Rule #2 has been quartered and dismembered due to unanimous opinion.
The over 45 crowd is becoming alert and in some cases eager for deployment. That's even before the beer courage!
Yes, he really is one gigantic, stinky piece of sh•t. I despise the SOB.
Ujama!!! Black unity so this sub-idiot will pimp Hussein till the bitter end. His ugly mug (Cummings) gets undeserved TV face time. He is so effin stupid
Dems say, "Hey, that's OUR tactic. You can't use it!"
Cummings is a disgrace. He has a safe seat that was Gerrymandered for him
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