There was progressively increasing knowledge that there were problems in meeting that launch date. And did mr. Cohen know that . I dont know that. But either through lack of oversight, he should have known it, or he knew it and reported this committee under oath that everything was fine on august 1, it was going to be ready for launch. What youre telling us is theres ample evidence in whats reviewed that people within hhs knew it was not ready and people under oath told this committee something entirely different. I dont know what specific individuals knew or did not know, but we saw evidence in the files that we reviewed that there was knowledge within the agency that the operational readiness was in jeopardy. Thank you. Im over time. This is an important issue. So youre saying people within the agency knew that the website was not ready, correct . Yes or no. We saw you saw it that people do you think that people in the agency knew that the website would collapse on october 1st . Yes or no. I cant speak to that. You dont have any, do you have indication from the files that people in the agency knew that the website would not work on october 1st . Yes, we saw that, yes. Can you produce that to this committee, please . There was a series no, can you produce it . Absolutely maam, yes. Thank you. My next question because miss tavener and mr. Cohen did come in and testify under oath several days before as the chairman has said that the webswould wo. Do you have evidence in your file that this website would not work . Yes or no. Thank you. In your opening statement, it talks about provisions of gao to strengthen the website for security concerns. Is that correct . This particular report [inaudible] okay. So you are not looking ng at privacy and security . Other teams within gao are looking at and that work are you aware of any Security Breaches in the websites . Yes or no. No, i am not. Okay. Now the gao made five recommendations you referenced in your opening statement, to cms to avoid the mistakes that you had identified. Is that correct . Yes. And i just want to go through those recommendations, because you said we should, and i think its important to know. The recommendations i think are good recommendations, but theyre a little vague, and so im going to ask you about each one of them, if you have specific details, but then also im going to ask you, mr. Woods, to supplement your testimony and provide to this committee and to cms specific details on each one of them, because i think its important for the kcms to actually be able to implement these recommendations and our last witness said he agreed with the recommendations and he did want to implement them. The first recommendation is that cms should take steps to assess the causes of the increase in costs of the continued development of healthcare. Gov, and the delays and functionality of the website, and develop a plan to mitigate those costs and delays. Can you briefly give us a little more detail on what steps the gao believes cms should take to make those assessments . Certainly. We did see Cost Increases in the accenture contract, the current contract. What steps do you think cms can take to rectify these problems . We think that they need to step back and identify the causes, the reasons why costs continued to increase in that particular contract. Okay, and do you have any thoughts what should be included in a mitigation plan . They need to make sure that costs are under control and that the schedule can be met. Yes, i think those two things are key. Now the next thing the gao recommends is that Quality Assurance surveillance plans and other oversight documents are collected and used to monitor contract performance. How can those documents be effectively used to monitor performance . The Quality Assurance surveillance plan is a standard document thats required in most efforts of this size that provides a road map for how the agency, any agency is going to oversee the contractors performance. Right, does the gao have thoughts on how it can be used to do that . Yes. Okay, if you can give us that information, that would be great. I want to go through your other recommendations. Certainly. Briefly, while i still have time. The gao also recommends that kr cms formalize existing guidance of responsibilities of personnel assigned oversight duties. The roles and responsibilities were spelled out in some way. How would formalizing existing guidance prevent confusion about the responsibilities and authority Going Forward . This gets to the issue of unauthorized individuals making changes. Okay, great. And when they learned of that, there was internal guidance provided to all of the people, but that has not been institutionalized. It has not been made part of the permanent guidance at okay so they already have a way theyre doing it, that just needs to be formalized. It needs to take the next step. The next thing you recommend giving staff direction on Acquisition Strategies, and developing a process to ensure that Acquisition Strategies are completed on time. Can you flesh that out a little bit for us . That was a very important deficiency that we identified. Yes. Is that there were a number of steps that cms took to expedite the rollout of this healthcare. Gov, but each of those individual steps added risk to the process, and the purpose of the plan or the Acquisition Strategy is to first of all identify those risks, to be able to come up with a plan to address them, and we found that that Acquisition Strategy was not prepared. So does gao have some ideas what this process could look like if it done appropriately . The process is already in place. Okay. He to regulations that hhs are very clear. In fact, this was done. Zero great, it follows as. Perfect. Last, do you recommend ensuring information type allergy and governments for approval to 4 . What ackley does that mean . What report are you referring to . What are the requirements and why did the board approved health care. Gov . The mac the agency had its place and provided for an oversight board. The problem we found is those governance board meetings were held and decisions were not made as we would have expected to approve or make modifications. So once again, this is have to follow. There was a process in place they did not follow. Indulgence. North carolina for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Woods, for being with us today. As im sitting here listening to your report findings, i am incredibly amazed by the inefficiency that went forward with a plan of action that was in place, and i keep coming up with the same question of why. Why were these steps taken . Why was action taken the way that it was . Why were there unauthorized individuals making decisions. I think one of the most glaring questions that i have based on your findings is that, and you use the word, that they expedite, they took measures to expedite the rollout, that that added risk, obviously, and it was a failed strategy essentially. Why, in your opinion, based on your findings, did they stay with that october 1st rollout date, when they knew based on what im listening to, that it was not going to be accurate and successful and that it would be a failure . Well, the law itself, the Affordable Care act set a hard deadline of january 1st, 2014, and they needed to have some period where consumers could determine their eligibility, look at plan availability, and make decisions about what plans they wanted to choose by that january 1st date. So they stuck with the october 1st date, knowing that their time was running out, and that they so now this is me just again trying to process why they would go forward with something that obviously was not put together well and steps were taken, it wasnt an efficient system and yet they were moving forward, so based on your knowledge, they had to go forward with that october 1st date, so that they could have the enrollee numbers that they were looking for by january 1st. Regardless of the fact that it wasnt going to work . Thats been cmss position is they needed to stick with that october 1st. They had to stick to that date because they needed those numbers of individuals signing up essentially. Yes . Well, they needed to comply, to have a system in place by october 1st, by january 1st in order to comply with the Affordable Care act. Okay. So im going to go back to some of the questions also on the tech surge, when the tech surge was implemented. To the best of our knowledge and based on the report findings, we understand there was a tech surge in october to fix the site after healthcare. Govs failed october 1st launch. Based on your investigation, what actions did cms take in october to fix the site . In october, they continued to work with cgi federal, but the level of frustration reached the point in november of 2013, where they sent yet another letter detailing the shortcomings of the contractor, asking for corrective action plan. Cgi responded to that and clearly disagreed with cmss assessment at that point. Okay, so they were disagreeing with it. There were other contractors involved, too, is that correct . There were many other contractors involved, right. But particularly it was cgi that, where the frustration was, where the disconnect was. They were responsible for the heart of the system, if you will. Okay. And thats where most of the dollars were in terms of contract expenditures. So to that point based on the fact that cgi was the main contractor for that, were there other contracts, was their contract extended . Were there any new issued contracts based on the frustration that cms had . The cgi contract had been extended earlier until february of 2014. And that was before october 1st . I believe that was before. It was already extended before october 1 as soon as. Thats correct. Okay, so then to that point, were there any other, again, getting back to this, were there any other contractors that were selected knowing cgi was not doing necessarily what was necessary for the repair of the website . The only contract that im aware of is the new one to accenture to continue with development of the federally facilitated marketplace. And can you refresh my memory on when that actually took place, when the new contract went forward . That was january of 2014. That was january, okay. Okay. Well, mr. Speaker or excuse me, sorry, mr. Chairman, i have gone over on my time and i apologize. Thank you, thank you mr. Woods. Thank you. Now going to recognize the gentleman from virginia, mr. Griffith, for five minutes. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it very much. The report indicates that cms did not engage in effective planning or oversight. What do you recommend they do in the future to make sure they have proper planning jeempb sight . Because they apparently dropped the ball. They have the tools in place. Okay. One of the primary tools is a strategic plan, an Acquisition Strategy is what its called. Theres actually a template in the hhs regulations for each of the areas that needs to be addressed, and fundamentally, its a tool designed to identify the risks that the agency is undertaking and to be able to come up with a plan to be able to mitigate those risks, but they did not follow it. So the tools are there, they did not use the tools that were there. I want to ask you an openended question because i think its important that we get this perspective from time to time, and that would be out of the report what have with he not asked you about that we probably should have asked you about or the people watching this at home, something they ought to know about your report that you havent already covered in your testimony here today . One thing that comes to mind is the next Enrollment Period. I think people are wondering are we going to experience similar problems or are we in better shape. Thats why we have one of our recommendations thats focused on the current contract with accenture, where weve seen some cost growth, and we think the agency needs to make an assessment of why that cost growth has occurred, whether they are in fact on schedule and whether there are any risks to the 2015 Enrollment Period. My hearing is not as good as it should be. Youre talking about the cost growth . What was that phrase you used . Cost increases. Okay. And we have somewhat of a disagreement with the agency about the term cost growth, and thats why im reluctant to use it. Their position is that any cost increase since about april of this year is totally based on new requirements. So its unfair to call that cost growth. Our position is that when you look before that, when they initially awarded that contract at an estimated value of 91 million, and now its at 175, that the agency needs to make an assessment about why that, why those costs increased from the 91 to 9the 175, and that is not the end of it. There are, that contract continues in place today. Our numbers are dated in terms of, you know, we completed our audit work a couple of months ago, so costs on that particular contract are almost certainly higher today than they were at the time that we completed our audit work. We think the agency needs to make an assessment about why costs continue to grow. Well i think they do as well, and i appreciate you raising that point, and its kind of interesting that it would seem to me some of those new requirements are probably because it didnt work the first time around. Wouldnt you agree . There are enhancements to this system. Theyre constantly changing and trying to make improvements to the system. The ones early on i think youre right, that those are related to the inability of the system to function as intended originally, but the agency tells us that the more recent Cost Increases are due to enhancements. All right. Well i appreciate that, and i appreciate your testimony here today, and im happy to yield my last 55 seconds to whomever might want it. I will, thank you. Thank you. I do have one followup question, and it has to do with the conversation you were just having with my colleague. When were talking about the Cost Increases, you had mentioned the enhancements are what has been cited as the reasoning. My question for you is did cms get congressional approval for the additional funding or spending i guess i should say . Im not aware of what that process was at all. So to your knowledge, based on the report, you did not see any effort put forward to come to congress for additional funding for spending . I cant speak to that. We didnt see it, but that wasnt part of our review. Okay. Thank you, mr. Woods, and thank you to my colleague for yielding. Thank you. Im going to do a second round with ms. Dagett and i. Followup here. Are you saying that cms is not analyzing why the contract with accenture is growing in cost . We dont think that they have done that fully yet. This original contract which was a cost plus contract, who signed that contract . Who is responsible for that . Those contracts are signed by the contracting officer, and as i said, i dont have that name. Those have to be approved by mr. Cohen or miss tavener in the chain . I dont know. Is that something your study encompassed to find that paper trail or look at that . We did not review that, no. Let me ask you, too, you talk about the pressure of deadlines, january 1, 2014, but a number of delays were put into place, employer mandate, or the retirement issue, enforcement of canceled plans, individual mandate to the shop plan. Should the rollout have been delayed as well . Im not sure about that but your observation about delays is accurate, when they realize that they would not be able to be fully functional by october 1st, they did make some tradeoffs, and pushed projects that they thought they were initially going to be able to complete by october 1st, pushed that off into the future, and the Small Business program that you mentioned is one of them. The Financial Management module was also pushed off until a later date. But none of those delays caused a delay on the website. None of those many of those things i mentioned, they didnt cause a delay in the website readiness. These several dozen other changes internally which were one of the factors in the delay, in the website readiness, though, am i correct . Well, the website was launched, im not sure but you had said a number of decisions made during i guess it was 2013 to 2012 were part of the complexity. One there wasnt proper oversight of the contract and second a number of internal changes were made by someone who didnt have the authority to make those changes. Thats correct. So do you know or can you find out for us in terms of someone making these changes, who approved the decision for them to make these changes, or who gave that person the authority to be in that position to make those changes . Do you have that information . There are a number of people working with the contractors on a daytoday basis, and the 40 instances of changes or direction to the contract was made by multiple individuals. Some of these were technical people, as i said, working side by side with the contractor, some of them more and more senior officials. All of the changes, though, ultimately, were ratified by the person with authority to do that, and that is the contracting officer. But what did it go to the level of miss tavener or mr. Cohen . I dont know. Is that something your records to review . We need to know if your records show or if you can find out for us. You have an excellent investigation but its very important to know this, if they knew or should have known in terms of approving these changes or being aware that the website wasnt ready or, well, let me ask that part. Do you have any information on those . Well, as i said, well certainly review our materials and provide an answer to that question. Because it comes to this point, this committee, members of each side of the aisle have different points with issues with regard to health care reform. Thats fine, part of what makes our nation great, people have differences of opinion, they move forward on that. There are certain standards within a committee that i think she with you be unified in understanding that if someone comes before the committee under oath and claims that something is ready to roll on october 1, thatter should be able to sign up, knowing full well that its not, its either incompetence, its dereliction of duty, its sloppiness, its lack of supervision oversight or its perjury to this committee, perjury in terms of making a claim they know is not true or making a claim they have no business of making. The only answers to questions like this is the website ready october 1 is yes, no, or i dont know. Anything beyond that, when the claim was made by mr. Cohen to this