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We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

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Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#101

Post by forgottenpass »

pingswept wrote: post #91

Hmmm. I just created an account. The site loaded quickly. Took maybe 2 minutes to create an account. The password rules were weird, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. It seems to me that scaling a site from 0 users to millions in a couple of weeks is hard. If it's working now, which is seems to be, what's the problem? (OK, I'll concede that $634M is totally and completely insane. But I'm not convinced by the…

Shhh... this thread is for tossing eachother off about how much better we envision we would do in the same circumstances and indulging in the schadenfreude that comes with the first time you figure out just how much of a boondoggle government contracting has become.

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#102

Post by mgkimsal »

pingswept wrote: post #91

Hmmm. I just created an account. The site loaded quickly. Took maybe 2 minutes to create an account. The password rules were weird, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. It seems to me that scaling a site from 0 users to millions in a couple of weeks is hard. If it's working now, which is seems to be, what's the problem? (OK, I'll concede that $634M is totally and completely insane. But I'm not convinced by the…

Can you actually log in and do anything? I created accounts last week, and now can't log in with them, or can log in and get a blank white screen.

I've just tried creating yet another count. It's hung up on 'step 3' ('please wait' - modal spinner, assuming it's emailing my email address). 3 minutes spinning so far.

OK - it just got done. Got an email. Clicked the link. Logged in. Pause... Taken to https://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/auth/userprofile which is just a white screen.

So... still not working for at least some people.

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#104

Post by sally84 »

josefresco wrote: post #36
wikiburner wrote: post #4

Scaling on the web is basically a solved issue for sites with such limited functionality. Even the CIA is using AWS, so I can't believe the regulatory and security hurdles were prohibitive. To spend this kind of money on sites with these kinds of results is just disgraceful: "The site is so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully purchased healthcare through it was in the 'single…

Beware of potentially politically motivated garbage quotes. The referenced Washington Post article quoted an "insurance industry official" who would only speak anonymously: “Very, very few people that we’re aware of have enrolled in the federal exchange,” said one insurance industry official, who like many in the industry, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for possibly offending the Obama administrat…

You do realize people are purchasing Obamacare through those insurance companies, right?

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#105

Post by doneallison »

wikiburner wrote: post #87
tokenadult wrote: post #57

National Public Radio had a good report on 8 October 2013, "Health Exchange Tech Problems Point To A Thornier Issue," http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/08/230424... that discusses the broader issue of United States federal government contracting for information technology services. Some reforms are suggested in that story that would help more competent startup companies compete against the establishe…

I wonder if there's an idea for a startup for startups here: Navigating Govermental Bureaucratic Morass as a Service

It's not exactly what you're describing, but RFP-EZ isn't far off: http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows/rfp-ez

Their website is now apparently in open beta: https://rfpez.sba.gov/

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#106

Post by Shivetya »

ctdonath wrote: post #96
ktavera wrote: post #83

For all of you that didn't know, this project was never put out for bid with an RFP. It was sole-sourced to CGI Federal without any competitive bids. "Federal health officials have not yet explained why CGI was given the contract or why it was awarded on a sole-source basis." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-h... [Edit to add source]

Upvote this. Heck, push it to all your favorite news outlets. There's no reason why one obscure company should get the contract without viable competitors.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/canadian-firm-hired-to-build-t...

Based on that article, the OP is wrong, the six hundred million is across all contracts, the ACA site which most people are aghast at is just under 60 million of that.

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#107

Post by mgkimsal »

ktavera wrote: post #83

For all of you that didn't know, this project was never put out for bid with an RFP. It was sole-sourced to CGI Federal without any competitive bids. "Federal health officials have not yet explained why CGI was given the contract or why it was awarded on a sole-source basis." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-h... [Edit to add source]

Are they not also a Canadian company?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGI_Group

Why we'd be committing to using non-US companies to develop US systems... I guess it must happen sometimes, but on something this ... public?

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#108

Post by hackula1 »

dfc wrote: post #54
JPKab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is truly an awful scenario. As I stated recently in a comment on this subject, Federal contracting is a Rent Seeking scenario: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking I have a weird role: I work at a company which does tons of Federal contracts, but also has lots of private sector work. I keep my sanity by doing short term consulting with private clients. There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but…

There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but it really is awful. What are you referring to with "it"? The folks at your company who do federal IT work? Government IT employees? Federal IT consulting?

All of them. The companies have people that are ostensibly part of the same system. These are the guys I have seen recommend a Silverlight app... in 2013.

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#109

Post by joering2 »

ktavera wrote: post #83

For all of you that didn't know, this project was never put out for bid with an RFP. It was sole-sourced to CGI Federal without any competitive bids. "Federal health officials have not yet explained why CGI was given the contract or why it was awarded on a sole-source basis." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-h... [Edit to add source]

At least good to know CGI Federal is an American breed company!

Re: We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404

#110

Post by 3minus1 »

Hi, I actually work for CGI Federal on a closely related website to healthcare.gov. There's some inaccurate speculation going on in this thread that I want to correct. Employees at CGI Federal are not payed hourly. Also, a lot of people have mentioned cronyism, which I think is baseless. CGI Federal already had contracts for Medicare.gov and CMS.gov, so when CMS had to build healthcare.gov, CGI was an obvious choice.

edit: Also, the projects I work on are Agile and I get to use other technologies besides .Net framework (e.g. node.js and backbone.js)

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