Issa Subpoenas Sebelius for HealthCare.gov Docs

On Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, subpoenaed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for documents related HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare exchange website that has had numerous malfunctions. 

The subpoena “requires HHS to produce documents related to technical problems with HealthCare.gov, the testing that went into the website and the number of people who have enrolled and attempted to enroll in federal exchanges through HealthCare.gov by 12:00 p.m. on November 13, 2013.”

Issa’s announcement comes a day after Sebelius testified before Congress, took full responsibility for HealthCare.gov’s failures, and said the launch of the website was a “debacle.” 

Issa said Americans deserve “to know why the Administration spent significant taxpayer money on a product that is entirely dysfunctional and puts their personal information at risk” and mentioned that website, “is just the beginning of the problems with the health care law.”

“ObamaCare is the president’s signature legislative achievement, and it’s given us skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs, fewer choices, and the cancellation of millions of people’s current health insurance coverage, directly contradicting the president’s promise that if you like your existing health insurance, you can keep it,” Issa said in a statement.  

The document request was originally made on October 10, but HHS refused to provide lawmakers with the requested papers. 

“The Administration’s failure to provide answers about what led to the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov and what is being done to fix it is completely unacceptable,” Issa said. “The evidence is mounting that the website did not go through proper testing, including critical security testing, and that the Administration ignored repeated warnings from contractors about ongoing problems.”