Reform Update: GOP panel subpoenas more documents about HealthCare.gov site

House Republicans continue to deliver on House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) promise, made in the wake of the government shutdown and debt-ceiling fight, to focus on “aggressive oversight” of the healthcare reform law. The latest target is security concerns related to the federally facilitated marketplace.

In letters sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and four government contractors involved in the rollout of the health insurance exchanges, the House Energy and Commerce committee subpoenaed more documents about the federal website where individual Americans without coverage can buy private insurance, which continues to suffer technical problems. “It is imperative that everything is being done to protect Americans' sensitive personal information,” Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a news release. “But as each day goes by, more concerns are being raised with HealthCare.gov's security, as well as the administration's competency to fix the lingering problems.”

The move followed intense House hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday that featured the Obama administration's top health officials fumbling through explanations for the ongoing technical flubs.

Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has subpoenaed Sebelius for documents related to the federal Web portal that requires HHS to provide documents related to technical problems with the website—as well as the testing that went into the federal online system—by noon on Nov. 13.

On the same day, Issa's committee also released a series of documents about early enrollment figures in the exchanges that his panel received in response to a request sent to 11 contractors involved in the rollout. According to the committee, the numbers came from notes taken during War Room meetings at CMS' Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, where both administration officials and contractors discussed the launch of HealthCare.gov. One set of minutes from an Oct. 3 meeting said there were 248 enrollments as of Oct. 2, which was the second day of open enrollment.

Lawmakers have pressed HHS and the CMS for hard figures on early enrollment. Obama administration officials said they will release those numbers in mid-November.

CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner will face more questions and criticisms about the botched launch of HealthCare.gov when she appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at 10 a.m. ET Nov. 5.

Geisinger Health System will host its first Comparative Effectiveness Research and Policy Conference on Nov. 14 in Washington. The Danville, Pa.-based system announced in a news release that while most of comparative effective research—which the ACA has encouraged—centers on concepts related to population health, Geisinger will “open the door on applying the most effective treatment strategy combined with quality-of-life options to a specific subspecialty: neurosurgery.

Follow Jessica Zigmond on Twitter: @MHjzigmond