WASHINGTON (AP) — The HealthCare.gov federal exchange enrollment site has not yet undergone full security testing and has only a temporary certificate of authority to operate.
The troubled Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange enrollment system website received the temporary security certificate Sept. 27, just four days before it went live on Oct. 1, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The incomplete testing created uncertainties that posed a potentially high security risk for the website, according to the memo.
The memo called for a six-month "mitigation" program, including ongoing monitoring and testing.
That page was signed by three senior technical officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). All the officials deal with information security issues.
The memo came up Wednesday at a House committee hearing on PPACA implementation featuring Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius oversees CMS.
"You accepted a risk on behalf of every user … that put their personal financial information at risk," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Sebelius, citing the memo. "Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security."
Sebelius countered that the HealthCare.gov system is secure.
A permanent certificate will be issued when all security issues are addressed, Sebelius said.
