Washington, D.C. — This morning, Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (TX-26) questioned some of the contractors that build the health exchange websites during a House Energy and Commerce hearing. After the hearing he made the following statement:

“At today’s hearing we received confirmation out what I have been saying for months: there wasn't anywhere near enough testing of this system. The contractors today testified that they needed months to properly test the website, but where only given two weeks, even after asking for more testing. It’s irresponsible of the Department of Health and Human Services to rollout out such complex software without testing it properly.

I’m frustrated by the number of questions that are left to be answered. Who gave the order to turn off the browsable, so that people would have to give all of their data before getting a quote? When will the website be ready? Who made the decision to limit the amount of testing?

At today’s hearing all the contractors said that all of their software worked fine, but that it was someone else’s fault. Unless someone is willing to admit that there are problems, how can we ever hope to fix it? I hope Sec. Sibelius is prepared to answer our questions next week when she testifies.”