John McAfee Turned Down GOP Request To Diagnose Healthcare.gov

House GOP officials reportedly tapped eccentric former fugitive John McAfee to figure out what went wrong with Obamacare’s online health insurance rollout.

CNBC reports that McAfee, who made his name in tech security before fleeing to Central America last year on suspicion of murder, was asked last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to look at the launch of Healthcare.gov and to diagnose the problems with the rollout.

Specifically, they asked McAfee to “guide our oversight and review of” the implementation of the federal marketplace.

“Given the failures of Healthcare.gov, and Mr. McAfee’s expertise, I was hoping he might be able to discuss his views with staff on the hill,” congressional staffer Sean Hayes wrote in an email to McAfee’s lawyers. “It would be an informal discussion: we would take notes but these would not be for attribution, it would mainly guide our oversight and review of the program.”

The consultation never happened, but we know that McAfee isn’t exactly a fan of the infrastructure that was put in place.

In an interview with controversial conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, McAfee said that the best thing to do with Obamacare would be to “start over.”

“My advice would be: Throw it away, and start over,” he said. “You cannot fix the system that’s there. It is impossible, the way it is architected, any good programmer will tell you, it’s just not going to work… It will never work the way that it is.”

President Obama has said that web technicians have been working around the clock to diagnose Healthcare.gov’s issues.

“No one is madder than me about the fact that the website isn’t working as well as it should… It’s going to get fixed.” —President Obama

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 21, 2013

Consumer Reports advised complete avoidance of the website until the issues are solved, and even it’s original, highly-compensated designers have distanced themselves from the project.

McAfee also told Jones about the planned consultation, and said that he turned the request down because the committee wanted to do it over the phone.