SALEM, Ore. — Independent investigators looking into the failures with the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange have not been able to talk to six Oracle employees whom they’ve asked to interview, a state official told lawmakers Friday.
Oracle Corp., the main contractor working on the troubled technology, has made available only one senior staffer who wasn’t among the six that investigators asked to interview, said Sarah Miller, Oregon’s deputy chief operating officer who is overseeing the contractor performing the review.
Miller said Oracle has allowed questioning of its chief technology officer, who she said reports directly to the company’s CEO, but she wasn’t sure how involved he was in developing the technology.
The review is being conducted by First Data Government Solutions at the request of Gov. John Kitzhaber.
The lack of complete participation by Oracle concerned Rep. Jessica Vega Pederson, a Portland Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Legislative Audits, Information Management and Technology.
“The best way for us to find out what happened is for us to talk to all of the people who were involved,” Vega Pederson said. “It doesn’t seem like Oracle is giving First Data the opportunity to do that.”
An Oracle spokeswoman, Deborah Hellinger, declined to comment.
Oregon is the only state that doesn’t have an online portal where the public can sign up for health insurance through a marketplace required under President Barack Obama’s health care law. The state recently launched its enrollment system for insurance agents and community organizations that have been trained to use it, but there’s no target for when it might be available to the general public.
Miller said the state produced 2,500 documents and First Data interviewed 67 people over the past three weeks, including officials from the governor’s office, two state agencies, legislators, Cover Oregon and many of its vendors.
