'War room' notes offer inside view of chaos that surrounded Healthcare.gov launch

Nov 7 2013

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released more than 100 pages of documents showing how the difficulties and glitches were chronicled.    

The New York Times: Notes Reveal Chaotic White House Talks On Health Care Site
More than 100 pages of "war room notes" released by congressional investigators on Tuesday offer a window into the chaos that overwhelmed the Obama administration as the federal health insurance marketplace started up last month and officials realized that its problems could not be fixed quickly (Pear, 11/5).

Politico: Darrell Issa Releases 175 Pages Of Obamacare 'War Room' Notes
A slew of newly released notes documenting Obamacare's first month fill in more of the blanks of how the troubled launch unfolded but don't reveal any enrollment numbers. During the first few days following the federal exchange site's Oct. 1 launch, the Obama administration publicly blamed the HealthCare.gov glitches on high website traffic. But the 175 pages of notes from the Obamacare "war room" -; released Tuesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -; contain little to no mention of higher-than-expected volume (Cunningham, 11/5).

CNN: Documents Show First Days Of Obamacare Rollout Worse Than Initially Realized
A stack of daily updates written by Obamacare contractors shows the October rollout hit more walls than previously known: In the first days, half of the calls to the phone center had problems, paper applications could not be processed and up to 40,000 people at a time were sitting in the waiting room of http://www.HealthCare.gov. The 175 pages of internal updates during the sign-up chronicle the growing ailments and efforts to heal the system during October. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Republican Darrell Issa, obtained the documents from contractors involved and released them Wednesday (Desjardins, 11/6).

In other oversight news -

The Hill: GOP Lawmaker Subpoenaes ObamaCare Enrollment Data
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on Tuesday issued a subpoena to the agency responsible for implementing ObamaCare, requiring it to turn over all the data the agency has about how many people have enrolled in the healthcare exchanges. Camp previously requested the data from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Marilyn Tavenner at a hearing last month, but says the agency has refused to provide it (Easley, 11/5).