In a single statement on Tuesday, a Republican congressman managed to both pile on the Affordable Care Act’s technical problems and channel Ronald Reagan.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, called on President Barack Obama to pull the plug on the troubled website HealthCare.gov after the panel heard testimony from online security experts.
“President Obama has a responsibility to ensure that the personal and financial data collected as part of Obamacare is secure. It is clear that is not the case today. In their haste to launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears the Obama administration cut corners that leave the site open to hackers and other online criminals. As a result, the personal information that has already been entered into Healthcare.gov is vulnerable to identity thieves. We already know of at least 16 attempts to hack into the system. But we can assume that many more security breaches have not been reported.
“Given the testimony we have heard today, there is only one reasonable course of action. Mr. President, take down this website.”
The last sentence was ostensibly a reference to Reagan’s famous challenge to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a 1987 address at the Berlin Wall.
