On Tuesday’s broadcast of Laura Ingraham’s radio show guest hosted by EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) detailed some of what he saw as questionable elements surrounding the Obamacare website.
On the heels of an announcement of a public relations blitz by the White House to sell the troubled 2010 healthcare reform law, Brooks, a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, explained to listeners why it was “deceptive” to suggest the latest iteration of Healthcare.gov is functional.
“First, it is deceptive for the White House to suggest that the healthcare.gov website is working,” Brooks said. “The ultimate purpose of it is to enable people to buy insurance. No one can do that now on healthcare.gov.”
“What the White House is portraying as success is whether you can register and say, ‘I want to buy this insurance.’ But that’s not the issue, if someone wants to buy the insurance,” he explained. “The issue is if they can actually purchase it. And to that extent, healthcare.gov is scoring a zero. That having been said, there are some very serious security issues associated with healthcare.gov.”
Brooks said that in a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, experts testified that the Obamacare site was a security risk and something for which he would advise his constituents not to sign up.
“Absolutely not–they should in no way, shape or form get on the healthcare.gov website unless they are willing to accept the risks that their identities will be stolen or that they will be subject to some kind of deception or fraud,” Brooks said.
Later, Arroyo asked how the company CGI Federal, which has been linked to at least 20 troubled government projects, was able to secure this contract from the federal government. According to Brooks, that was something that should be asked in Congressional hearings. But he speculated that it may have something to do with first lady Michelle Obama’s ties to CGI Federal Senior Vice President Toni Townes-Whitley.
“That’s a good question and we need to have public hearings on that,” he continued. “First, this was a no-bid contract. Second, the proposals that were submitted, the information that we’re getting in Congress is that CGI Federal’s was the only proposal that was fully considered by the federal government. You’ve all got all sorts of possibilities as to why CGI Federal got the work. They do have some experience in this field, although again some of it has been unsatisfactory. That might be it because they have the experience that other people don’t.”
“On the other hand, it might be that Michelle Obama’s classmate and Christmas guest Toni Townes-Whitley is a senior vice president for CGI Federal,” he continued. “It might be the personal relationship that played a role in CGI Federal. Or it might be some other explanation or reasons for why CGI Federal got this no-bid contract. It’s not just this one. Overall, they got around $422 million in Obamacare work.”
“But there needs to be some hard questions asked, particularly in light of something that occurred in 2010. And that’s where the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a federal government agency that awarded the Affordable Care Act contract to CGI Federal,” he explained. “They had previously rejected the company’s bid in 2010 to perform work on four healthcare IT information technology systems in part because of quote, ‘performance issues,’ end quote, in carrying out an earlier contract.”
“So you had the government giving a contract to a contract who had previously been rejected because they had not performed prior contracts. Now that should be a red flag,” Brooks stated.