HealthCare.gov’s New Chief Fixer Doesn’t Know Who’s on the Team
QSSI’s Group Executive Vice President Andrew Slavitt testified Thursday. Evan Vucci/AP
By
Joseph Marks
QSSI said Thursday it wasn’t familiar with a plan to fix the ailing marketplace; On Friday it was leading the team.
In light of Friday’s announcement that the contractor QSSI will be serving as overall coordinator for the HealthCare.gov fix, it’s worth pausing over this exchange during Thursdays House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing between QSSI’s Group Executive Vice President Andrew Slavitt and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.
Gardner was questioning Slavitt and another contractor’s representative, Senior Vice President for CGI Federal Cheryl Campbell, about President Obama’s promise to bring in the “best and brightest” of the private sector as part of a “tech surge” to repair HealthCare.gov.
Gardner: QSSI, do you know who the best and brightest are who are coming in to fix this mess?
Slavitt: No.
Gardner: So are you still consulting with CMS [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] on this?
Slavitt: I’m just not familiar with this situation.
Now, according to Jeffrey Zients, the White House’s former chief performance officer who’s been brought in to oversee HealthCare.gov repairs, QSSI appears to be the leader of the “best and brightest” working on the fix.
So how could one of the firm’s leaders have been unfamiliar with the plan?