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The
Hill
House
Democrats break ranks with the White House on ObamaCare vote
By
Pete Kasperowicz
Dozens
of House Democrats broke ranks with President Obama on Friday to
support legislation that would require people to be notified of
security breaches under ObamaCare.
The
House passed the Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act, H.R.
3811, in a 291-122 vote. Sixty-seven Democrats voted for the bill,
ignoring arguments from party leaders that the bill was a "messaging"
vote meant to discourage people from signing up for insurance.
The
one-sentence bill says that no later than two business days after any
security breach on an ObamaCare site is discovered, "the
Secretary of Health and Human Services shall provide notice of such
breach to each individual." Republicans said that under current
law, the government is not required to notify people if their
information is put at risk.
"It
may shock some people to learn that there is no legal requirement
that the Department of Health and Human Services notify an individual
if his or her personal information is breached or improperly accessed
through the Affordable Care Act's exchanges," said Rep. Joe
Pitts (R-Pa.).
The
White House said it opposed the bill, arguing the government already
has plans to tell people if their information has been compromised.
But
that argument didn't sway a large group House Democrats, many of whom
fear the problem-plagued rollout of ObamaCare will cost them at the
polls in November.
House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa
(R-Calif.) said the new requirement is critical because a senior
official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
advised in September that the site should not be launched due to
security problems. Teresa Fryer, the Chief Information Security
Officer at CMS, testified before Issa's committee late last year.
"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
Friday. "It did not meet the spirit of any definition of a
secure website."
Democrats
rejected those arguments, and said Republicans were not explaining
Fryer's complete views on the security of HealthCare.gov.
"All
week, Republicans have been trying to make their case for this bill
by quoting from a memo drafted by the chief information security
officer at CMS about concerns before the website was launched,"
said Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on Issa's
committee. "But they omit one critical fact: this official never
sent the memo. It was a draft, and she never gave it to anyone,
including her own supervisor."
Democrats
said the GOP was trying to stir up fears about HealthCare.gov and the
other enrollment sites by raising the idea that people's personal
information could be stolen...
Read
the rest of the article at The Hill
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