Issa: ‘Best Practices’ Weren’t Used in Website Rollout

A Republican lawmaker who's pushing for repeal of the new health care law is criticizing the rollout of the HealthCare.gov website, saying "established best practices of our government were not used in this case."

As a result, Darrell Issa (R-California)  says, the health care law's promise of affordable health insurance "does not exist today in a meaningful way."

The California Republican, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, today convened the sixth major congressional hearing on the issue since the computerized insurance markets went live last month, and millions of consumers encountered frozen screens.

The panel's ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, is questioning Issa's fairness. He told the chairman that "instead of working in a bipartisan manner to improve the website," he'd "politicized the issue" by making "unfounded allegations."

A key issue for Issa is why the administration required consumers to first create online accounts at HealthCare.gov before they could shop for health plans. It runs counter to the common e-commerce practice of allowing anonymous window-shopping.

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