CONTEXT FIRST – Tomorrow HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is set to testify before congress.   For those of you who are unfamiliar with how congressional hearings work there is a rule of bi-partisan discovery where Dem’s must share information to be used during the hearing with Republicans, and vice-versa.
This is done so that no-one is caught off guard with anything that takes place in the hearings.   It’s somewhat of a ruse (under the excuse of professional courtesy) that few people know about.  Congressional hearings are investigative only to the extent the questions being asked are not known by the opposing party.  However, each knows what documents and evidence the other has walking in.
Why is that pertinent?   Simply because when you see the media do these pre-hearing exclusive/confidential document stories you know the source of the leaked intel is the party seeking to diminish the impact.  It’s just how they roll.    The Dem’s gave this CGI report to CNN so that CNN could write up a story and remove the *shock value* in advance of the hearing.
Washington (CNN) – The Obama administration was given stark warnings just one month before that the federal healthcare site was not ready to go live, according to a confidential report obtained by CNN.
The caution, from the main contractor CGI, warned of a number of open risks and issues for the HealthCare.gov web site even as company executives were testifying publicly that the project had achieved key milestones.
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On Capitol Hill on Monday, Medicaid Chief Marilyn Tavenner, whose job it was to oversee the October 1 rollout of the website, said she did not foresee its problems.
“No, we had tested the website and we were comfortable with its performance,” she said. “Now, like I said, we knew all along there would be as with any new website, some individual glitches we would have to work out. But, the volume issue and the creation of account issues was not anticipated and obviously took us by surprise. And did not show up in testing.”
But the CGI document, which describes “top risks currently open” and “outstanding issues currently being mitigated” says the testing timeframes are “not adequate to complete full functional, system, and integration testing activities” and lists the impact of the problems as “significant.”
Another element is listed as ” not enough time in schedule to conduct adequate performance testing” and given the highest priority.  (read more)