Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have requested information about the Obama administration's contract with consulting firm Accenture, which CMS selected last month to oversee maintenance of the federal health insurance exchange site, HealthCare.gov.
In a letter to David Moskovitz, chief executive of Accenture Federal Services, lawmakers requested the company brief the Energy and Commerce Committee no later than March 6 on how Accenture obtained the one-year, $91 million HealthCare.gov contract, the terms of the agreement and work that has been and will be performed.
The committee members have also requested various documents concerning the status of the federal exchange site, Accenture's work on the site, work that any other contractors have done and communications between Accenture and the White House, HHS, CMS and the Centers for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Last month, CMS chose Accenture to replace the original head HealthCare.gov contractor, IT company CGI Federal, following the federal exchange site's glitch-ridden rollout.
Since its launch this past October, HealthCare.gov has experienced numerous technical issues. Although the site's functionality has improved with repair efforts, CGI came under fire for its part in the bumpy rollout.
In December, a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee investigation released a report showing CGI was assessed by the Department of Labor for $1.7 million in wage and safety penalties from 2007 to 2012. CGI was also cited for 13 wage and safety violations during that time period, according to the report. Additionally, Vermont and Massachusetts officials have withheld payments to CGI for constructing less than satisfactory websites for their state-based exchanges.
In late 2013, CGI officials testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the federal exchange site's rollout. CGI and other contractors that testified told lawmakers the site wasn't tested enough before its launch.
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