14 DAY TRIAL // HealthCare.gov has been heavily criticized from day one due to the numerous functionality and security issues. However, at a House of Representatives hearing on the security of HealtCare.gov, Henry Chao, the deputy CIO for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), seemed confident that consumers would see improvements to the site each week.
On the other hand, the hearing with the Energy and Commerce Committee focused a great deal on the website’s functionality, rather than how secure it was.
Just before the hearing, The Washington Post published a document showing that a private consulting team that had assessed the online health insurance enrollment system warned that it would be risky to launch the website on October 1.
Chao said he had not read the report. However, he has argued that the system has several layers of protection in place to mitigate information security risks.
He is confident that HealthCare.gov will be “greatly improved” for most users by November 30.
In addition to Chao, President and Chief Information Officer Foreground Security David Amsler, Senior Vice President, Health Services Creative Computing Solutions Maggie Bauer and Senior Vice President and General Manager Center for Connected Government MITRE Jason Providakes also testified.
Chao appears to be right when he says that improvements will be seen each week. For instance, today we’ve seen that HealthCare.gov no longer shows search hints. A couple of days ago, experts noted that the search hints displayed in the search box revealed the large number of attempts to hack the website.
A report from the Department of Homeland Security has revealed that only 16 cyberattacks have been aimed at the website. However, experts argue that these are likely only the attempts that posed a real risk.
Here is the complete video of the hearing on HealthCare.gov security:
