Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141120 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings November 20, 2014

President obama will unveil an executive order on immigration policy tomorrow night offering temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants. The measure could provide permits for up to 5 million people. You will have live coverage at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspan. A house panel looks at the technical and Security Problems with the healthcare. Gov website. We will hear from the chief Technology Officer todd park korea congressman paul brown shares the subCommittee Hearing. This hearing on the committee will come to quarter. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. Good morning and welcome to todays hearing. In front of you are packets containing the testimony, biography and the truth and testimony disclosure for todays witness. I recognize myself for five minutes for an Opening Statement. I want to thank my colleagues for being here today and i want to especially thank the witness for his presence. Weve been waiting a very long time to be able to question you. Im sorry we have to come to the point of issuing the subpoena to get that to happen but im glad you are here today. The committee has invited you several times, on five different occasions. We wrote directly to you as well as to the correct or character of office of science and Technology Policy. None of those invitations to listen to the yes response that we got as a result of the subpoena. In the course of the correspondence several claims were made as to why you were not the individual to answer the Committee Questions such as that the personnel havent been substantially involved in developing or implementing the federally facilitated marketplace measures. To protect the website you do not manage those responsible for keeping the site safe. And youre not a Cyber Security experts which is an interesting description of you to say the least. You are the cofounder of Athena Health which is one of the best in the industry that became very wealthy in doing that. As an employee you helped launch the smarter it delivery agenda which created a new u. S. Digital service. And you created a version of health care. Gov. How do these activities not require cybersecurity expertise. November 13, 2013 in sworn testimony on the oversight and government reform you said that you did not have a detailed Knowledge Base of the website before it was launched and that you were not deeply familiar with the development and testing regimen that happened prior to october 1. The committee has in its possession documents that appear to contradict much of what youve said in your prior congressional appearance. As well as what the ostpp explained. But they were not easy to come by despite the letter last december and despite asking about them in a Briefing Committee arranged on your behalf in september a briefing that was counseled the evening before it was scheduled to take place when your colleagues informed you that it there would be transcribed. I find the white house lack of transparency in tolerable and an obstruction to the Committee Efforts to conduct oversight. It took the subpoena to get you here and another to compel your documents from the white house but even with that, we have yet to receive all of your documents in compliance with our issues september 19 exactly two months ago. Committee staff have engaged in multiple reviews with white house lawyers yet there are still documents being withheld in the Committee Without the claim of a legally recognized privilege. That begs the question what are you hiding mr. Park. Perhaps its that you knew that there were Serious Problems prior to the launch, but you didnt convey them in your briefings with the president. They were ignored because of this, no matter what the consequences may be here we are a year later in an impression to the beginning of the second open enrollment with questions that still remain about this 2 milliondollar debacle that you are a credited with fixing and that i might add got hacked this summer and according to the recent Accountability Office report still has weaknesses as they see both in the process used for managing Information Security as well as the technical implementation of the security concerns. We look forward for this opportunity to ask you some of our questions. Also now i ask unanimous consent to submit documents for the record which will be referenced in some of our questions. Without objection, so ordered. Before i yield to the Ranking Member ms. Bernice johnson my friend from texas. They will come back to that statement later on. I might add that this is like the last time a cheering the subcommittee on oversight hearing and i would like to thank my friends on both sides. Theyve worked very hard as bipartisan management possibly can you might not have agreed on issues, some do and some dude didnt. But its something that i have been very privileged to chair and i wish all of you to not recognize the Ranking Member for her statement. Thank you mr. Chairman and let me express my appreciation since it might very well be the last. We have maintained a great relationship. 9 of the time we disagreed but i want to welcome the former chief Technology Officer of the United States to this Committee Hearing and i appreciate the willingness to appear before us. I want to apologize for all of the political sphere that is unfolding around your appearance please keep in mind that the hearing is largely an excuse for the majority to again express their dislike in the Affordable Care act and the online marketplace that has led to millions of americans medical coverage. I know they do not like obamacare into the majority voted at least 53 times during this congress to repeal or dismantle. Nevertheless i want to add the members here today to remember that he isnt personally responsible for a ca for the problems october 1, 2013. It is clear that you were not responsible for how the website performed october 1. And doling out the responsibility since day number one i think it was fair to assign which has the involvement in developing the website. Of course your job at the white house would have more insight than most into the center for medicare and Medicaid Services we are doing and developing the program. But the management of the program was up to cms and the people doing the Actual Development work were contractors who answered to cms. It doesnt be quite to being involved were directly responsible for the website and of course your real job during the period had deleting more to Push Technology into the American Economy and across society. For example, you were working with the government easily accessible that can spur innovation, profits and jobs. As it has been demonstrated by the way that the publicly available Weather Service data spawned the weather forecasting industry. I think it is fair to say that fundamentally you were working to make services of the government more only available to citizens. You are working to help reduce information cost in various areas of the economy the notably to let consumers get a that consumers get a better idea about Energy Consumption and sourcing. You were facilitating the dialogue to bring experts on particular social issues face to face with experts from the it world. Laudably you were part of an initiative aimed at stopping Human Trafficking and another initiative designed to find ways to harness the disaster response. I know that as eyesight these examples im just scratching the surface of the scope of your day job. Regrettably the committee has made no effort to understand this raw portfolio of your competence and has shown little appreciation for your patriotic desire to serve even though it meant leaving Silicon Valley it starters and venture capitals. From the bottom of my heart i want to thank you for all you do try to do with fixing the healthcare. Gov website after october 1. I hope that your experience will not diminish your sense of pride and accomplishment or enthusiasm for Public Service. We need people like you to be willing to come serve this country. Thank you and i yield back. I disagree about a couple of issues. One is that we have recognized mr. Park publishers and responsibilities outside of being involved in healthcare. He said he wasnt deeply involved. There will be emails that you have that show us so it isnt easy or involved and it seems to be the mantra of this administration. They are not involved in have no responsibility for the issues but thank you. I recognize mr. Smith for five minutes. Americans have seen firsthand the misrepresentation around obamacare. First there was the broken promise that if you like your Healthcare Plan you can keep it. Then in a video that surfaced last week the mit professor principal architect of obamacare admitted how the administration sold this to the American People saying lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Basically of the voter or whatever but basically that was really critical to getting obamacare to pass. Finally come after a year request the administration agreed to have someone i worked in the white house testify about the lack of security of the healthcare. Gov website. Mr. Todd park is an officer for the office of science and Technology Policy to august, 2014. Joining adjoining the Obama Administration and the health and Human Services minister park was one of the architects for the website. Former health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius later called the website a debacle with the recent estimated cost of 2 billion. Today we will review the white house repeated misinformation about the healthcare. Gov website. The emails show 80 ~ knowledge of Cyber Security issues in the website. It was about the website security. Mr. Parker had several contractors review this and on october 10 soon after the website went operational to minister park read an article by David Kennedy the white house hacker to testify twice before the committee. The article was entitled is the Affordable Care website secure, probably not. He commented in an email how he was advised that they are on a level. We are asking mr. Park to explain his role in developing the website and what the administration knew about the risk of the website. As of today they failed to provide the committee of the list of documents that are subject to this subpoena. Of the ones we do have paint a different picture than that of the office of science and Technology Policy. As i said, the committee has not received all of the emails and documents that were subject. So another hearing may well be necessary. Finally i want to take a moment to thank the chairman of the Oversight Committee paul brown for his tireless efforts on the subject as well as for many others that have come before the subcommittee. We appreciate the Public Service and his dedication over the years to his constituents, to the conference and to the country. So thank you for all that youve done. We appreciate all your good work and i look forward to todays hearing. As i mentioned he will be joining us in a bit and he will give his Opening Statement at this time. If there are members that wish to submit additional Opening Statements they will be added to the record at this point. At this point i would like to introduce the former chief Technology Officer of the United States and assistant to the president. Prior to this role, he served with the u. S. Department of health and Human Services. And before entering federal Service Committee cofounded athena co. Led the development into one of the most Impressive Health it companies in the industry. As our witness should know, spoken testimony is limited to five minutes after which the members of the committee will have fiveminute speech to ask questions. Mr. Park is the practice of the subcommittee on oversight to receive testimony under oath. If you would now please stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear and affirm to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . You may be seated. But the record reflect that the is answered in the affirmative. I recognized mr. Park for five minutes to present your testimony. Chairman brown thank you for your service and jermaine smith, Ranking Member johnson, members of the committee, good morning. Im looking forward to the opportunity to offer testimony today. It begins id like to provide context for my time as u. S. Chief Technology Officer that will be helpful addressing questions that youve asked to answer. I am a health it entrepreneur by background and have been blessed with success in that arena. Only in america can this left two immigrants from korea have the kind of Business Building experience that i have been blessed to have. I love this country. Much and its been the greatest honor of my life to serve. In march, 2012 after two and a half years working at the department of health and Human Services i joined the office of science and Technology Policy. In this role my primary job was to serve as a the Technology Policy innovation adviser in the broad portfolio of issues working on the data policy initiatives have to advance the open internet and harness the power to fight Human Trafficking and more. My role was not to over see the internal federal budget on rations. However given my background and as he told entrepreneur i was asked to provide assistance which are managing the development of the Health Care Including federally facilitated marketplace for Health Insurance. I provide assistance in a few different capacities. For example he served as one of the cochairs in the committee organized by the office of management and budget in which focused on providing a neutral venue which agencies like cms and others could work through. A primarily in support which ended up going quite successfully. In early 2013 to help identify actions to improve the product execution as well as associated followon work from time to time i helped connect people to each other and served as a spokesperson and provided health on particular questions. However, to properly calibrate the expectations of the knowledge of the initial development of the new healthcare. Gov and the federal facilitated marketplace i wasnt a project manager managing and executing the operational work of building the new healthcare. Gov. This was the responsibility. I didnt have the kind of comprehensive detailed knowledge of the effort by the hands on project manager would have and which i have had about other projects in my privatesector work. I assisted the work as an adviser executing my duties as the White House Technology innovation adviser working on a broad range of issues as i described earlier. As the new federally facilitated marketplace rolled out in the fall of 2013 and as the extent of operational issues it became an all hands on deck moment and i dropped everything i was doing and increased my involvement dramatically shifting fulltime into the effort and working as part of the surge that improved performance on the site. I worked as part of feature 16 working around the clock. My focus was hoping to reduce the amount of time and improve the site speed and ability to handle high user volume and the functionality. The team effort drove massive improvement in the site ultimately enabling millions of americans to sign up for Health Insurance through the site many of whom had previously been uninsured. At the end of the day the last day of the extended and will that i went back to detect policy advisor and by involvement coordinating the scaledback dramatically. As another note i understand the primary interest has been the security. I do not have the expertise the professors and other experts who previously testified before the committee had. Responsibility for the cybersecurity rests with cms. My involvement has been rather tangential. We had a Privacy Group but it was staffed and led by industry personnel who occasionally asked the Overall Committee chairs to help facilitate the dialogue and who generally drove the ultimate answers themselves. There were small number of other occasions i was asked to serve summarizing the general context supplied by the hhs to function as a liaison or facilitator connecting people to each ot

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