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 Kurt DelBene, who recently retired as head of the software
company's Microsoft Office unit, will spearhead efforts to continue
the overhaul of the website, which was set up to provide federally
subsidized health insurance to millions of consumers in 36 states.
DelBene, who starts his new job on Wednesday, takes over only days
before a December 23 deadline for people to sign up for coverage to
begin on January 1, which could cause traffic on the newly revamped
site to soar.
Zients, a longtime aide to President Barack Obama, oversaw a
five-week emergency fix that turned HealthCare.gov from a crippled
online portal to one that now operates smoothly for most visitors.
Zients, an expert in crisis management, starts a new job as top
economic adviser at the White House in January.
While the consumer-facing part of the website has improved,
officials are still racing to finish critical "back end" features.
Missing pieces include software that will enable the federal
government to verify enrollment data with issuers and to pay plans
billions of dollars in federal subsidies on behalf of lower income
enrollees.
The administration is also trying to fix some troubling glitches. An
official said on December 6 that about 10 percent of applications to
the main website are not being accurately transmitted.
"Kurt will ... focus on increasing system stability, redundancy and
capacity, and building on improvements to the user interface, while
continuing to prioritize security and privacy issues," U.S. Health
and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a blog
posting.
DelBene is expected to remain in the job at least through the first
half of 2014.
The website's ability to handle rising volumes this month and early
in 2014 could have far-reaching implications for Obama and his
Democratic allies in Congress. They have been battered by Republican
criticism over the botched website and other issues related to
Obamacare, as attention turns to next November's mid-term election
battle for control of Congress.
A new Reuters-Ipsos poll of 1,558 American adults, conducted
December 13-17, showed that 55 percent disapprove of Obama's job as
president. But on the question of which party has a better plan for
healthcare, Democrats still outpace Republicans 29 percent to 19
percent. The data has an overall margin of error of 2.8 percent.
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VOLUNTEER WORK
As head of Microsoft's most profitable division, DelBene was in
charge of providing complex software and services, including Word,
Excel, PowerPoint and the Microsoft Exchange email system.
Under DelBene's leadership, Microsoft moved toward making the Office
suite of applications available online, a departure for the company.
DelBene, husband of U.S. Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington,
is volunteering, a White House official said. He will return his
entire compensation, which was not released, to the Treasury.
DelBene earned $7.59 million at Microsoft during the company's
fiscal year that ended June 30, 2013.
Zients was brought in two months ago to take charge of the
contractors working on HealthCare.gov.
The website could not handle traffic when it launched on October 1,
slowing enrollments and creating a political embarrassment for
Obama, who had promised a smooth roll-out for his signature health
reforms. While now functioning better, it continues to have
problems.
Sebelius credited several Democratic senators, including Jeanne
Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Chris Coons
of Delaware, with the idea of keeping a point person in place for
the website.
DelBene's appointment was lauded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.
"Kurt is a talented and capable executive, with a track record of
successfully managing complex large-scale technology projects,"
Gates said in a statement provided by the Department of Health and
Human Services.
DelBene, whose last official day Microsoft was on Monday, started
work at the company in 1992.
He previously worked as an associate at consultant McKinsey & Co and
on the technical staff at telecommunications pioneer Bell
Laboratories.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Jeff Mason and David
Morgan in Washington and Bill Rigby in Seattle; editing by Chris
Reese, Dan Grebler and Steve Orlofsky)
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