NOTICIAS

Congress must address the faulty website, IRS penalties and privacy concerns, Rubio says

Washington, D.C. – In this week’s installment of Marco’s Constituent Mailbox video series, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) responds to constituents who have written to him about problems they’ve encountered with ObamaCare’s websites.

In an email, Bob from Ormond Beach voiced his agreement with Rubio that the individual mandate should be delayed until the websites are fixed, although he disagrees on the larger point of repealing ObamaCare.  

In response, Rubio said, “[T]his law needs to be repealed. There are so many problems with this law that I could have a four hour video describing to you not just the problems we’re facing now but the problems we’re going to face down the road. But this law needs to be repealed. But I think your email is illustrative of something else, and that is you are someone that supports the health care law, you claim that you know people whose premiums are going down, and I’m sure there are people out there that do. But for every one of those, we’re getting 10-15 letters of people whose premiums are skyrocketing, and I think that’s only going to get worse, especially if these exchanges fail as they are destined to do. And so, again, I feel it’s important to repeal this law, but in the interim, I’m glad you agree with me that it’s unfair for the IRS to go after and punish people for not having health insurance when the website they’re supposed to use to buy that health insurance doesn’t work.”  

In a second email, Daniel from Estero raised security concerns about entrusting the federal government with his personal information on a broken website.  

In response, Rubio said, “The security of these websites is simply inadequate, so you have a right to be concerned about how this information can be used. And I think we need to ask a lot of harsh questions about what is the security on these websites because people are leaving their most sensitive economic information on that website. And if that is ever breached – whether it’s a hacker or an inside job by someone, a rogue operator who decides to make some money on the side by selling that information to someone who uses it to steal people’s identities – people are going to be hurt badly as well. It’s something that’s not getting a lot of attention, but I’m glad you wrote in because it’s just one more problem with this website. Not only is it not working, but it does not protect personal information in an adequate way.”  

View Rubio’s full video response here. For television stations interested in airing today’s response, a broadcast quality video is available here.  

Earlier this week, Rubio issued a call to Floridians to share their stories regarding problems they have experienced so far during ObamaCare’s implementation. Rubio is encouraging constituents to share their stories via Rubio’s official website, rubio.senate.gov.