Over the weekend, NSA secrets-leaker Edward Snowden claimed to have hacked into HeathCare.gov, the federal Obamacare Marketplace site, and said he could fix it in exchange for immunity against prosecution for stealing government files. Though Snowden was spurned, telecom giant Verizon evidently was called in to help fix things.
"Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov," an HHS blog post said on Sunday, though spokespersons later would neither confirm nor deny Verizon's involvement.
Problems with HealthCare.gov range from inaccessibility to inaccurate information to faulty data collection, to name a few, and even President Obama claims to be "embarrassed" over the shortcomings.
Yesterday, the White House got further involved by announcing that a "tech surge" to repair the site would be led by über-fixer Jeffrey Zients, a former acting director at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).