The site healthcare.gov is one of the worst technical disasters in the history of computers and their networks. The White House knew it would be a disaster and opened it anyway. Now many Democratic politicians are running, not walking, away from it. Oh, a few die-hard fanatics insist the site stay up. But those more in touch with their constituents, know better.

Healthcare.gov not secure

Healthcare.gov is not a secure site. That is why CNAV refuses to link to it. We simply cannot assume responsibility for compromise of personal and financial information from visiting, much less creating an account on, that site.
Or in other words: Don’t go to the site. People will steal your identity if you do.

These harsh facts come from a usually non-political source: Information Week. They quoted four witnesses who sat at the green table before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Representative and Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) laid it on the line:

We know of at least 16 attempts to hack into the system. And I heard this morning that there were another 50.

That makes sixty-six times that someone tried to break into Healthcare.gov to steal confidential information about people like you. Those are only the ones the Committee knew about!

CNAV has said before that the site groans as if under a Distributed Denial of Service attack. The real threat is far more serious than that.

The four witnesses all said the site surely has suffered more attacks than these. And it cannot cope with them. The best thing to do, they all said, is: shut it down.

Obama knew healthcare.gov was bad

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius answers questions about health care during an AP newsmaker interview in Washington, Tuesday June 16, 2009. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

Remember Barack Obama’s press conference last week? He said he would never have launched healthcare.gov had he known how weak it was.

I was not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to. Had I been informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, “Boy, this is going to be great.” I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity a week before the website opened if I thought it wasn’t going to work.

Well, Obama lied again. Or else nobody tells him anything. That’s a dangerous place for the leader of the Free World.

Ed Henry at Fox News nailed the exclusive: the House Oversight Committee (Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman) got the smoking gun. Henry Chao, the lead IT man at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), warned on September 25: Healthcare.gov was not ready.

When Todd Park and Marilyn was(sic) here yesterday one of the things Todd conveyed was this fear the WH has about hc.gov being unavailable. He [Mr. Park] will come back again and ask on 9/30 because after knowing him for the past 3+ years I can tell when he will hang on to something for a long time. Todd does have a good point and I think we should have a more comprehensive answer as to how we will ensure high availability.

Todd Park is the lead IT man in the White House. The Marilyn is Marilyn Tavenner, the head of CMS.

Mr. Chao knew full well what the spectacle of healthcare.gov being down would look like:

Can you think about a better way to [tell] the public when the site is not available? I [can just see] in my mind all the major print and online publications taking screenshots of what is below and just ramping up the hyperbole about hc.gov not [being] functional.

And what was below? A screencap of the site, showing this:

The System is down at the moment. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Please try again later.

That’s like saying,

[Do, sol, ti!] We’re sorry. Your call cannot go through.

Did anyone tell Mr. Chao what to say after Kathleen Sebelius, with cameras rolling, watched as a healthcare.gov navigator got that same display? And then said,

It happens all the time.

Somebody needs to tell those people that

[Do, sol, ti!] We’re sorry…

doesn’t cut it!

Fox exclusive: Email shows WH had ‘fear’ Website wouldn’t work one week before Oct. 1

Democrats run from it

That’s right. Don’t believe what Nancy Pelosi says. She can say what she likes, as long as she enjoys the loyalty of San Francisco, California. Former Representative Harold Ford, D-Memphis, Tenn., does not share her bravado. Garth Kant at WND talked with him. Ford said two things:

1. The problems with healthcare.gov are worse than he thought. Shut it down. “Limping along” won’t help.
2. Even if Obamacare enrolls the 30 million people Obama hopes for, the system will not have enough doctors to treat them all.

Ford’s view is a minority view. But he has many Democrats on his side. Thirty-nine voted to try to roll back the cancellations. How long will it take for more to join them?

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