Washington, DC - Rep. Pete Olson (TX-22) today voted to require the Obama Administration to notify any American whose personal information has been comprised by a data breach of the health exchanges created under Obamacare. The Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act, H.R. 3811, requires the Department of Health and Human Services to notify individuals within two business days if it has been determined that a security breach of the healthcare exchanges (both state and federal) jeopardizes their personal data and information. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 291-122.

“Healthcare.gov was full of problems from day one.  It was outrageous that the President and his Administration were telling Americans to register in these exchanges, knowing that they were not secure.  While the Administration claims that some of the problems have been addressed, the security of Americans’ personal information is still at risk," Rep. Olson said. “While I will continue every effort to repeal Obamacare and implement reforms that ensure access to affordable healthcare for all Americans, we must protect individuals now through quick notification if their personal information has been compromised.” 

In exercising congressional oversight on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we have uncovered facts that raise serious concerns regarding the security of the law’s exchanges.  We have learned that the Department of Health and Human Services did not perform a full Security Control Assessment before the website went live on October 1st. Why? Because you cannot test something that is not complete, and the health exchanges are still not fully built. The failure to conduct adequate end-to-end security testing also led officials to write CMS Administrator Tavenner, “From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development, exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk…” For more information on security risks visit: http://energycommerce.house.gov/fact-sheet/health-exchange-security-and-transparency-act#sthash.NLAfduOP.dpuf.

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