Quote, aca testing bulletin, healthcare. Gov could only handle 1,100 users day before launch, unquote. He then accused jay carney and mr. Park of making false statements to the American People by suggesting that officials estimated capacity at about 60,000. That is what the chairman said. And i quote, jay carney is being paid to say things that arent so. But in this case, todd park and other people who knew the facts, who had to know the facts, and the facts were from documents we received from lead contractors that slowed down to an unacceptable level at 1,100 users. Well, in fact, todd park was telling us that at 60,000 was the target, and that 250,000, they just couldnt handle it, unquote. As the basis for that allegation, the chairman quoted from a testing document that he released, which says this. And i quote from the document. Quote, ran performance test overnight. Working with cgi to tune the ffm environment to be able to handle maximum load. Currently we are able to reach 1,100 users before Response Time gets too high. Mr. Chao, it is my understanding that the imp 1b environment was only a sample testing environment, not a test of the full Production Capacity of the entire website. Am i correct in that . The gentlemans time is expired. The gentleman may answer. Youre correct. The what we call implementation 1b environment is about 10 the size of the full production environment. Thank you. Yield back. I thank you. Now go to the gentleman, mr. Meadows. Mr. Meadows, would you yield for just ten seconds for a comment . Certainly, mr. Chairman. I could never understand how this could handle 60,000 simultaneous users but only do six in a day. Unlike maybe some of the smart people here, i just dont get it, that six in a day doesnt seem like 60,000 simultaneous users. I thank the gentleman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank each one of you for coming to testify. And mr. Park, you are not old enough probably to remember this, but i remembered the 6 million man. You are now the 600 million man because youre coming in to fix all this. So were hopeful that you, based on the people that i represent, that youre successful by november 30th. We do want to ask you, though, how do we define success . Because the talking points are all that its going to be fixed for the vast majority of americans, as they go on, and we see mr. Langford here. He cant get on. So what is success . Is it a 98 without wait time . How do we define success, so on december 1st, well know whether you were worth 600 million or not . Thank you for your comments and your question. First of all, im just a small part of the team working to fix this. Whats success . So success is first of all, the site will most definitely not be perfect. Even sites that are mature i know. But how do you when the president asks you, were you successful, how do you define success . So first of all, you want a system thats stable, so its up and running consistently. What percentage of the time . 98 of the time . Well, the one proxy that we are using is actually just for performance in general is Response Time. And error rate. And if the system actually has issues and goes down, then these things can then exacerbate im going to run out of time. What i would ask you to do is for the record, is get to the committee to disseminate it to all of america what success is. Ill do that. Thank you. Mr. Chao, much of your testimony is a little different. But i also know that you had several meetings, ongoing meetings with white house staff over this process, is that correct . I accompanied maryland tavner and other directors, such as gary cohen. So how many times were you at the white house . Over the course of three years, maybe less than two dozen times. The law suggests 29 times, is that correct . Would that be in the ballpark . That might not be accurate because some meetings were canceled. Who conducted these meetings . Jean lanborn . There were meetings conducted by her. Also, i met with steven vanroekel. Im asking about the white house meetings. There were 29 white house meetings of which you had this group. Who was who were the people in the room . Were you in there . Im not trying to be difficult, but there are different parts of the theres a White House Conference Center the meetings with jean, that she was leading, the 29 meetings, or two dozen. That was probably less than a handful. I guess my question is, im a little confused how the president would be surprised that this was such a debacle on october 1st, if you all were meeting regularly with the white house . Why would they be surprised on october 1st that it didnt roll out the way everybody thought it should . I think the subject matter, at least with my attendance being there, was to discuss things such as the status of the hub development. So did anybody express concern there was a problem . That october 1st there was going to be a problem . No. There was no one in that room so we had all the brightest minds in the world in this room and no one anticipated a problem on october 1st . They were highly specific issues such as working on 6103 requirements with irs, privacy act implementation with ssa. They were very operationally specific so you all werent meeting on how the website was going to work . None of you . Not meetings my meetings were more operationally focused about implementation. All right. So it is plausible that the president would be surprised that this wasnt going to work . Based on those meetings . I wouldnt know that. Okay. Who would have been in the best position to be able to advise the president that we were going to have this just unmitigated mess . Anybody in that room . Who should we bring back here, i guess is what im saying, mr. Chao, that can help the American People understand why this was such a fiasco . I really dont have an answer to that. Its amazing well, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Its amazing how we can find, you know, how you cant answer a simple question for the American People. I dont think thats for me to decide. Thats why im not answering. I asked the question, its for you to answer. So my answer is, its not for me to decide. Mr. Meadows, your time is expired. I strongly suspect that as is often said in politics, that success has many fathers, quite a few mothers, plenty of relatives. But failure is an orphan. Youre going to find an orphan here, if ive ever heard or seen one. With that, the patient gentleman from massachusetts, mr. Lynch, is recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the members of the panel for coming forward and their willingness to help the committee with its work. I do want to say this at the outset, that my experience in massachusetts with the Massachusetts Health care, the socalled romney care, that was a precursor to this in many ways, im speaking of the Affordable Care act, also rolled out very, very, very slowly. Thats my experience, being on the ground in massachusetts, when that plan went forward. So it was very slow in ramping up. Of course, it didnt have the you know, the urgency of this program. It was sort of planned that way. And i also remember the Medicare Part d act which was a Republican Initiative also rolled out extremely slowly. And i know a lot of my seniors, i had to do 16 town halls around my district to try to tamp down the backlash because of the slowness of how that was ramped up. So this is not this experience is not out of line with those other two programs. And so i just wanted to make that note. I have had a chance to go out and talk to some of the outreach workers. A lot of the outreach on the Affordable Care act in my district is being conducted through the local Community Health centers. I have basically an urban district. So the health care excuse me, the Health Center employees are going out and signing people up. One of the concerns that theyve raised is that the Affordable Care act is so focused, and sort of facilitated by an email address, people have to have an email address in order to interact with this whole thing. And if you look at the demographic of the 31 Million People who were trying to get health care to, that were not receiving health care before, the poor, the elderly, thats exactly thats a high correlation between folks who didnt get health care before and dont have an email. And so the outreach workers, when i said whats your biggest problem, they said, well, when were working with the elderly and were working with lowincome families, the poor, they dont have an email address. And the system weve got is basically it requires an email address. And to do otherwise, to get to that you know, to scratch that itch, were going to have to somehow close that gap. Because a lot of these folks dont have email addresses, and yet theyre the very people were trying to get the health care to. So has any thought been given to, look, this was supposed to be the easy part, getting people up on the grid. Im not talking about making Health Care Affordable or highquality health care, just getting them up on the grid. This was supposed to be the easy part. So i am concerned about where we are today. And where we need to get to in order to meet any definition of success. So what are we doing about those people who dont have an email address because theyre poor, elderly, theyre not on the grid, how are we going at them . Anybody got an idea . We do operate call centers. We have 12 call centers in which people can work with a live person online to fill out the application, and to go through their determination process and to select the plan and get enrolled. The workers i talked to said its 31 or 34 pages. Are you going to go through a 34page application on the phone . I think what happens, the call center experiences, really isnt necessarily youre filling out a paper application. You can start that way, and submit it that way, but i think you can also start with a call center representative. Im not so sure thats working. That might be part of our problem. I have a district where i have a lot of seniors, a lot of folks that are struggling. Weve got to figure that one out. We can certainly go through that process or procedure. That would help. The other situation is this. At the same time that were trying to get this up, and get people on the grid, we have employers that are making decisions not to continue Health Care Plans for their employees. So theyre unplugging and sending people to the exchanges. So ive got employers out there, a lot of them in the Construction Industry, that are saying, i know i used to provide health care for you, but now i want you to go to the exchanges and get them there. So theyre unplugging. They used to provide health care. And now these employees in the Construction Industry are trying to plug in. And theyre having these problems. And im wondering, is there any way to sort of make sure that that unplugging doesnt occur until we have a platform that were confident people can plug into . Because i think theres going to be a gap here. And its it concerns me greatly. That we have so many people in the Construction Industry that are and ive met with Union Employers, about 50 Union Employers and about 35 nonunion or open shop employers that are both having the same problem. And i think theres just a mismatch in whats going on here, where the employers are disengaging and sending their employees to the exchanges, and when they try to go to the exchanges, theyre having problems signing up. And im wondering if theres some corrective action that we might be able to take, either delaying the, you know, the process for employers to disengage, or just giving people time to hook into this system that is quite that is not ready for primetime. Gentlemans time is expired. You may answer. If the gentleman would yield just briefly. Sure. I was hoping you would suggest the question of, cant we do this by mail. Thats an inside joke. In all seriousness, the fact if somebody doesnt have email capability, why couldnt they make a call to a call center, receive those many pages, fill out the paperwork, return it in a selfaddressed envelope, so that in fact the post office could ensure that the elderly people not comfortable with email and so on i wont take longer time than you did. But i know that generally, we are trying to get away from a paper process. And so i suppose as a last resort, it might be necessary. But its not the ideal certainly not. I yield back. Can i just answer that . Were not considering that as a last resort, because paper is a little inefficient. But we do make accommodation which, if you want to start the process in paper, you can, and then mail it in to our eligibility support worker contract, which will then take you trhrough the rest of the process. We go to the gentleman from michigan, mr. Mosh. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im going to yield my time to my friend, the gentleman from ohio. The gentleman from ohio is recognized and without objection the gentleman of ohio will be able to control the time. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Park, mr. Meadows asked the pertinent question. There were a series of meetings held at the white house, weekly meetings that were presided over by folks in the white house. Mr. Meadows asked, who were those people who need to come in front of this committee that can answer these questions, like, why didnt you know the security assessment hadnt been done . Who can answer the questions about why they decided to go ahead and launch this on october 1st . And we know who that person is. Because according to the Washington Post story, november 2nd, a memo that they got from david cutler spells it out. Mr. Cutler said, we need to put someone from the private sector in charge, someone who has run a business and has that experience and expertise. The president said, no, he had already made up his mind, nancy ann deparl is that person. Thats the person we need, mr. Chairman. And mr. Cutler also points out, mr. Meadows referenced this as well, according to the memo, the overall head of implementation inside hhs was jean lambeau. Those are the two people we need. Would you agree, mr. Park . They need to come here and tell us what took place, why these decisions were made, why it was done the way it was done, these are the key people . This is the lady, the president said, no, thats who i want in charge. Even though peter or zack, zeke emanuel, and the president said no, i want nancy ann deparl in charge. Dont you think she should come in front of this committee, mr. Park . Respectively, i cant really speak to that, sir. Were probably going to have to do the same thing for her as we did for you. Well have to subpoena her. Last week the chairman and i sent a letter to the white house asking that simple question. The person hand picked by the president to run this operation, would she come before this committee to talk about the disaster this rollout has been. And the response we got back yesterday from the white house, who says, thank you for inviting us, but were not coming. So it looks like well have to do the same thing, mr. Chairman, as we did with mr. Park. According to the white house logs, mr. Chao, you said you had been there between 10 and 29 times to these meetings. Mr. Park, according to the white house log, youve been to nine of these where jean ran the meeting, is that correct, mr. Park . Nine times where miss deparl ran these weekly meetings . I cant verify that. Were you in meetings with nancy ann deparl at the white house . From time to time, yes. And was the and of course, the meetings were about the rollout of the Affordable Care act . And the website . As i recall, there were different kinds of meetings, and i attended were they about obama care, mr. Park . They were about the Affordable Care act. Whats your official title . Head of Information Technology for the entire United States . I assume it was about Information Technology, correct . No, actually, first of all, im a technology and innovation policy adviser in the office of science and technology policy, just to clarify. Okay. And i cant actually recall, like for the meetings, like what particular topics were discussed off the top of my head. Unless theres more specificity. At any time in these nine different meetings that you had, or more for that matter, meetings that you had, was the rollout of obama care discussed and the concerns about this thing not being ready on october 1st . Again, without more specificity mr. Chao, who ran the meeting the 10 to 29 times you were at the white house, who was in charge of running those meetings . Were they run by mr. Lambeau or miss deparl . I dont remember. In those meetings that you were at the white house, were any of those run by jean lambeau or nancy ann deparl . One was run by nancy ann, and just a couple i attended that was with jean lambeau. My role was to provide fiveminute status on the hub development. But i dont think, you know, it was im not worried so much about your role, i just want to establish the fact that you were at the white house between 10 and 29 times. Mr. Park was there nine times. Mr. Vanroekel, how many meetings were you at the white house . I dont recall. Were you in any meetings with jean ive been in the company of those two people. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. Those are the individuals that need to come in front of this committee and we cant accept the fact that we got a letter from the white house saying, thank you, but were not coming. I note for all members that there is a vote out on the floor, were going to go until the very last minute. I know what i would ask is, if do either of you have specific questions for mr. Park . I do not. Mr. Park, because we would otherwise keep you for longer than i think is necessary, i want to thank you for being here. I apologize to the other witnesses, you get to stay through the vote. But mr. Park, youve been a very cooperative witness. I appreciate your being here. I believe youre beening here as the person to look to get this right by november 30th. It was critical. I appreciate your being here. And without objection, youre dismissed. Just one more request. Would somebody send me contact info for congressman langford . Well have that Contact Information for you. I will do one other thing quickly. When you go back, since youre a federal employee, go to the fhbp website, and what youll find there in a pdf form is a spread sheet. Now, mr. Chao seems to think that it was not important to give people a Shopping List. But i will tell you, if youre a federal employee, postal or nonpostal, you can go to that website, you can look at every single plan, and it will tell you how much the annual rate is, the biweekly rate, how much your government pays for you, and how much you will pay by plan. Now, thats not it doesnt let you endlessly look at the details of the plan, but for 230plus plans spread over not just 50 states, but the District Of Columbia and puerto rico, we provide this to the federal work force. I might suggest that if you cant get some form of legitimate open Shopping List up quickly, that currently telling people what their rate is, if theyre 27, or 50, is disingenuous because it distorts what the real rates are. And that a splash page like this, a pdf, so people could look at all the plans and by age, depending on what their age is, they would know what the rate is, could be done in a matter of hours by a 10th grader. And that might suffice until this program is available. Can i make a comment really quick . In my oral remarks, i mentioned that were working on a premium estimation tool that will give you more details than just the very course under 49, over 50, so you can browse plans. We are working on that. But understand, youre under 50, that misstates the truth. If you were picking it, you should have picked 64, and 29, and youd have gotten much higher rates if youre going to get anecdotal. A simple spread sheet that microsoft forget about microsoft super talc could have given you that spread sheet before many of my staff were born, and that could be made available very quickly. So i might suggest that the American People deserve to know that a plan based on their age is x amount, and a free look would be very helpful. And i commend you to look at fehbp and what we do for ourselves as federal employees. And with that, im going to go to the gentleman from michigan. I believe we have time. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, are you familiar with brooks law . Anybody . Brooks law . The first thing you learn in software development. You need to divert developers to training new developers, you edit to the project. Which kind of tells me that november 30th rollout is another hope and a dream. Are you familiar did any of you read this Information Technology critical factors underlying successful major acquisitions dated october 2011, nine best practices . Did you read it . I think ive perused it. Oh, good. Good. So youre familiar with well, you perused it, you didnt study it. Apparently you didnt. I was busy working on the marketplace program. I dont have a whole lot of time to read a lot of other materials. How about are you familiar with this fix that youre putting in for obama care . Youre diverting people that understand the software, to train people that additional help to come in and fix the problem . Yes, i think thats whats happening now. You think . Okay. Lets see. Im going to list three. Program officials, three of the nine best practices, essential to i. T. Program officials were actively engaged with stakeholders. Obama care rollout apparently lacks senior oversight from most Senior Technology officials including federal cio, federal cto, and hhs cio. Mr. Power, what should we take from this report . Mr. Powers . Powner . Clearly those are best practices. What we did, that was a report that we did. We always report on failures. So we actually went to ten agencies and we asked them for a success story. So theres seven success acquisitions in there and we asked why they were successful. None of that is a surprise. Its defining your projects right upfront, putting the right people in charge, Good Communications with contractors and managing best practices throughout the life cycle. So its something everyone at this table knows needs to be done on successful acquisitions. And, you know, mr. Chairman, i think fatar and where we look at the acquisition process, thats fine. Thats going to be very helpful. But a lot of this just gets down to solid governance and good management. Thats what the practices really highlight. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, id like to yield the rest of my time to mr. Meadows. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from michigan. Ive been running the numbers. And my understanding is were creating this site to create a system that is available for 17,000 users per hour, is that correct . The way it was described is that the first part of the process is, you have to register for an account. That current capacity is running at 17,000 registrations per hour. So are we building the system to be able to handle to capacity . 17,000, or higher than that . Its approximately 48,000 to 58,000 users in the system. By that, i mean you could be on the learn side, just looking at static web pages to actually actively filling out an application. I guess, whats the smallest end of the conduit . I mean, what truly is it 17,000, 25,000, or 43,000 . I mean, whats our smallest ability in terms of volume to handle in terms of capacity . I think right now, theres about on average somewhere between 22,000 to 25,000. Thats what were building the capacity, to 25,000 . Per hour. Its sitting right around that. Thats what were building it to . Thats the specs . Actually, exceeding that. Like for example, the front part, the Identity Management part, where were going to apply some improvement thats going to go to 30,000 registrations per hour. Let me tell you the reason why i ask. Ive done the numbers. If you take the number of uninsured americans that are out there, and if they got on the system today, 24 hours a day, which we know doesnt happen, it would be 43,000 people an hour. So were building a system that wont even take care of the uninsured people we have right now. So how are we going to be successful . Id like to look at your calculations in how 50 Million People. You can do it over the next 48 days. I dont think the estimates were i know the estimates werent there, but if you do the math, thats how it works. I yield back. I thank the gentleman. Im sorry that you have to look at his figures. In fact, the burn rate necessary to get done wasnt understood from day one. And the