WASHINGTON — The administration forged ahead with the troubled launch of the ObamaCare Web site despite repeated warnings about lax cyber security, top tech officials said.
“I was frustrated by a number of requests I made that I did not receive [a response to],” Kevin Charest, the chief information security officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a deposition prior to appearing before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday.
Teresa Fryer, his counterpart at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the committee that she, too, feared the system wasn’t safe to launch.
“There is also no confidence that personal identifiable information will be protected,” she said in a memo that she wrote but decided not to send before the site’s launch.
The memo was obtained by the committee.
Both officials said the security holes were eventually fixed and the system passed a cyber-security test about 90 days after ObamaCare debuted Oct. 1.
They also said there has not been a successful hack of the Web site, but a shadowy group called “Destroy ObamaCare” has tried.
Meanwhile, the GOP-run House passed a bill that would require the administration to provide weekly updates about ObamaCare enrollments.