WASHINGTON -Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside) sent a letter on Tuesday to California Attorney General Kamala Harris about CoveringHealthCareCA.com, a website being promoted by California Republican officials, which he said features fraudulent, inaccurate and misleading information about the Affordable Care Act.
In the letter, Takano asks Harris to issue a “cease and desist” letter to the operators of the website as it violates state law that prohibits domain names that are “confusingly similar” to another entity.
“The domain name CoveringHealthCareCA.com is very similar to the state’s official marketplace website,” Takano says in the letter. “Like the other websites your office shut down, the domain name alone could lead consumers to believe they are on the official site, rather than an imposter.”
Takano also points out the site’s technical problems, as “links direct visitors to the wrong place, formatting is inconsistent across browsers, and most disturbingly, when visitors submit their financial information to calculate the ‘IRS tax penalty,’ incorrect information is generated for consumers who would be exempted under the law.”
Takano’s office also received a flier from a Republican state legislator that encouraged his constituents to visit the fraudulent site, instead of CoveredCA.com. The flier states CoveringHealthCareCA.com is “a starting point to learn how the law will affect [them] and what [they] will need to do to follow it.”