Top Tech Review for HealthCare.gov

Yesterday at the White House President Barack Obama held a meeting with the top CEO’s in the tech world concerning the Obamacare website known as www.healthcare.gov. The intent of the meeting was to provide HealthCare.gov with a top tech review for better performance and security after the recent National Security Agency concerns. Whether the surveillance programs of the NSA are a threat to the HealthCare.gov website still remains to be controversial but since the launch date of HealthCare.gov in October the fact has been very clear that with all of the problems users have had, something must be done to fix the site.

As a result, Obama selected top tech officials from a variety of backgrounds to meet with him in determining the issues that can be resolved and the methods in which to resolve them. Of the top tech officials meant to review the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, were Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Reed Hastings who is Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Joining the CEO’s, 11 other tech world officials were in attendance at the meeting held by the President. In a formal announcement of the meeting a White House official stated, “President Obama will meet with executives from leading tech companies to discuss progress…with HealthCare.Gov and how government can better deliver IT…The meeting will also address national security and the economic impacts of unauthorized intelligence disclosures.”

While part of the discussion that took place was over the addressing functionality of HealthCare.gov much of the topics on everyone’s mind was about the controversial NSA scandal, in which the NSA was taking unauthorized surveillance of telephone calls and other communications.  Due to recent actions revolved around the NSA, including a judge ruling of the NSA misusing information being unconstitutional, many top techs were concerned majorly with the security of internet communications. Many outsiders believed that the reason for the meeting had been due to an open letter sent to the President and Congress which, according to Swampland Time stated, “This summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide.” This letter came addressed from officials of Yahoo, AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Twitter. The letter opened the concerns of top company officials as to how the government gathers information technology. After the meeting the White House stated that the President successfully listened to the group’s “concerns and recommendations” over the NSA scandal.