(Adds details of report and quotes from hearing)

By Roberta Rampton and Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, who has portrayed himself as surprised by technical problems with the government’s new health care website, was briefed earlier this year on a consultant’s report that warned of possible widespread site failures, the White House said on Tuesday.

There have been weeks of questions about whether Obama understood the depth of the site’s problems and let it open anyway, or simply “did not have enough awareness” of them, as the president stated at a Nov. 14 news conference.

While the government says it is improving the portal’s performance every day, security experts told a Republican sponsored congressional hearing Tuesday that in their opinions, it is still not sufficiently secure to be used confidently by consumers.

Read More: http://www.trust.org/item/20131120000405-i0srg/?source=hpbreaking