Republican members of Congress are now moving up the chain of command to find who to hold accountable for failed launch of the Obamacare health insurance exchange website. Todd Park, chief technology officer of the U.S., is next on their list.

 

Park has recently been subpoenaed to appear before a House GOP-led committee hearing Wednesday. In a Nov. 8 letter accompanying the subpoena, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Park “is the only witness unwilling to appear voluntarily” at recent congressional committee hearings to explore the problems with HealthCare.gov.

 

[See also: HealthCare.gov costs $174M -- so far .]

 

Over the last few weeks, administration officials have said the website is functional, though slow, and will steadily improve to full speed by the end of November.

 

Supporters of Park have launched a website, “Let Todd Work,” to gather signatures of those who want to prevent Park from testifying. More than a thousand people have signed, including Aneesh Chopra, the former and first-ever U.S. CTO.

 

"In his career, Park created and launched the first Health Data Initiative, supported and promoted the wonderful Blue Button Initiative, and created the Presidential Innovation Fellowship, a program that's brought innovation to government and saved taxpayers millions of dollars," the website asserts.

 

The "Let Todd Work" website also urges Republicans and Democrats to work together on pushing Obamacare forward.

 

At an Oct. 28 House hearing, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., expressed frustration with his “alarmist” Republican colleagues for being quick to judge the success or failure of Obamacare on the first few weeks of roll-out. Republican-sponsored Part D, the prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries, also had a slow start, he said, yet Democrats waited six months for a hearing.

 

[See also: What happened to Healthcare.gov?.]

 

"Our country does have a problem with healthcare and all the computer programmers in the world can’t fix it," McDermott said. "ACA is now law folks; stop this kind of sniping. Make it work.”