On Friday, 67 House Democrats broke with President Barack Obama and backed a bill that would require Americans to be notified immediately if a security breach on the Obamacare website is discovered.
According to The Hill, the Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act (H.R. 3811) passed 291-122.
The bill is only one sentence and says that no later than two business days after a breach is found on HealthCare.gov or any other Obamacare website, “the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall provide notice of such breach to each individual.”
Even though the government is not required to notify Americans under current law if there are security breaches, the White House alleged that “the government already has plans to tell people if their information has been compromised.”
Republicans were not buying the White House’s pledge.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Rep. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA.) said the bill is essential because even those who worked on the website have conceded that it was not thoroughly tested to ensure that the most sensitive information of Americans was not put at risk.
“The truth is that actual interviews and depositions taken of the highest-ranking people that helped develop this website, both public and private, shows there was no end-to-end testing,” Issa said. “It did not meet the spirit of any definition of a secure website.”
The White House, though, said it “opposes” the bill because it would “create unrealistic and costly paperwork requirements” to notify Americans of information that is allegedly publicly available.