Tavenner is sure to face an avalanche of questions and complaints from both parties. | M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO CMS head: Sorry for ACA site flaws

The first Obama administration official to testify about the botched Obamacare rollout Tuesday apologized to the American public and promised to fix the flawed website that has stymied enrollment and opened up the president’s signature domestic achievement to renewed GOP attack.

“I want to apologize to you that the website is not working as well as it should,” Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the House Ways and Means Committee. She is the highest-level official to issue such a direct apology. “I want to assure you that HealthCare.gov can be fixed, and we are working around the clock to give you the experience that you deserve.”


Tavenner also singled out CGI Federal as the only HealthCare.gov contractor that failed to meet expectations, saying it had “some issues with timely delivery.” At a separate hearing last week, contractors assigned to blame for the bumpy rollout to CMS decision-making, testing, and overall implementation.

Though Tavenner made clear during the hearing that she’s the top official overseeing the health care law’s rollout — “I’m in charge of the program,” she said — the former hospital official was spared some of the harshest criticism for the website mess. Republicans have reserved that for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who will testify at a separate House panel Wednesday amid growing GOP calls for her resignation.

Since failing to delay Obamacare with the government shut down earlier this month, congressional Republicans have turned to attacking the law’s stumbling rollout — and arguing that the website isn’t the only thing wrong with it. They say the health law is so broken that it is beyond repair, and that it’s causing rising prices, cancelled policies and disruption of health care for countless Americans.

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“These problems can’t be fixed through a tech surge, and they’re not just a glitch in someone’s health care coverage,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), as he opened the hearing. Camp and other Republicans pointed to growing reports of increased insurance costs and cancellation of individual health policies.

Tavenner deflected criticisms that the health law is driving up costs and breaks President Barack Obama’s earlier promise that people can keep their health plan if they like it. She defended the “transition” to a new individual insurance market that provides a more robust benefit package and greater consumer protections, especially if people get sick. She also noted that subsidies will cushion many people from higher prices.

“If you were diagnosed with asthma or high blood pressure or some other chronic disease, you might not be able to get coverage at all,” Tavenner said of the old insurance market.

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Lawmakers from both parties appeared ready to expand their focus beyond HealthCare.gov’s problems. Democrats, who don’t want to pile onto criticism of the law, spent their time highlighting Obamacare’s benefits and attacked Republicans for their entrenched opposition to the law.

Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), the committee’s top Democrat, said Republicans are more interested in disrupting the law’s implementation than in fixing it. But he, too, asked Tavenner to explain her agency’s efforts to repair HealthCare.gov, while Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) offered Democrats’ sharpest criticism of the day.

“Going forward, there can be no more excuses,” said Schwartz, who’s running for Pennsylvania governor next year.

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Tavenner’s appearance before the House panel provided lawmakers their first chance to grill an official directly involved in the botched rollout. Sebelius, who testifies at the Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, didn’t offer new revelations about website problems or repairs in her written testimony released in advance.

Tavenner said her agency didn’t know the extent of HealthCare.gov’s problems until the first week of the website’s launch. To accommodate what Tavenner acknowledged was a condensed time for website testing, CMS decided to delay some components, like the Spanish-language enrollment system. B

“There are always going to be issues of a new website,” Tavenner said.

CMS shared its decisions to delay those functions with Sebelius and the White House, but Tavenner declined to say who she had specifically consulted in the White House. She promised to provide that information with the committee after the hearing.

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Tavenner said she was confident that the federal exchange website would be working well by the end of November, as administration officials announced the last week.

Enrollment figures, however, remain vague. Fending off Camp’s persistent questioning, Tavenner repeated numerous times that the administration will make enrollment data available in mid-November. She deflected questions about early enrollment trends.

Four of the key contractors testifying last week blamed CMS for a lack of testing, late delivery of specifications and instructions, last-minute design changes and a general lack of coordination as the agency struggled to assemble a website that would serve as a portal to overage in 36 states.

CGI Federal - the contractor Tavenner singled out — had blamed CMS for failing to conduct comprehensive testing of the website before it launched Oct. 1. Quality Software Services Inc., a contractor that built the data hub at the heart of the exchanges, said it discovered coding problems with the main website before the launch and said the system should have had months of testing.

CMS has updated the website several times with new code, including bug fixes. It’s also adding more capacity, fixing signup and log-in problems, and trying to “stabilize” those parts of the website, allowing for the removal of the virtual “waiting room,” Tavenner said in her testimony.

Meanwhile, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Tuesday issued its first subpoena related to the law’s rocky rollout. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) demanded that QSSI — recently tasked by the administration to oversee HealthCare.gov repair — hand over contract information and communications with the Obama administration.

Paige Winfield Cunningham and Jessica Meyers contributed to this story.