CMS Official Says '30 to 40 Percent' of Federal Exchange Not Working; CNN Ignores
On Tuesday and Wednesday, CNN ignored a bombshell revelation that "30
to 40" percent of the online federal exchange has not been completed
almost two months after its rollout.
CNN prefaced the hearing Tuesday morning by reporting that ObamaCare's
"top technology manager" Henry Chao was set to testify before Congress.
Although CNN.com reported Chao's words, the network completely missed the story.
CNN.com reported:
"Earlier on Tuesday, CMS Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao
told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the federal
marketplace was just 70% completed, meaning 30% of the marketplace
still needed to be developed.
"'That 30% represents the payment aspects and the accounting aspects of
making payments in the marketplaces, for all marketplaces, not just
federally facilitated marketplaces,' Chao said. 'And that functionality
has to be in place for the January 1 effective date enrollments.'"
Even MSNBC picked up on the horrific ObamaCare news. On Wednesday's The Cycle, Ari Melber stated that "on Capitol Hill Tuesday, one of the men who built Healthcare.gov testified that up to 40 percent of the IT systems for the site still need to be built."
In fact, Avik Roy noted that Chao was somewhat unclear and that he could have meant that "between 60 and 70 percent" of the exchange was not complete. Regardless, his testimony means that ObamaCare was introduced with about a third of the federal online exchange not working.
— Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Matt Hadro on Twitter.
