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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

#181

Post by h4rrison »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #85

This is what frustrates me about many of our non-USA HN'ers here: every time the state sponsored health care issue comes up, the non-USA folks can't wait to talk about how their country has it, or how it costs this little to get coverage for this or that problem in their country, and then they wonder why "you Americans" put up with the system you have currently in place (self-insured, no state plans - pre-Obamacare).…

As a non-USA HN'er, I'm not sure I agree with this as a perfect example of the case against a national health insurance system. I'm not sure any democratic country with a population of over 300 million people could smoothly implement such an enormous project without some teething problems. And 20 years from now, when your grandkids don't have to worry about health insurance, the world isn't laughing at your health system, and everyone has forgotten how some menus didn't work on a website that went over budget, I bet you'll be thankful someone finally did try to implement something big.

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

#182

Post by aperrien »

driverdan wrote: post #179
jljljl wrote: post #177

Reread the article, this is complete nonsense. The $634M number is 6 years of contracts, starting in 2008 (Obamacare was signed into law on March 23, 2010), which doesn't align with his claim that CGI Federal won the contract in 2011. The solicitation number he uses to filter the USASpending.gov site is also tied to a larger PECOS contract, and not to Healthcare.gov like he claims. We're being had guys. This is poor…

Maybe he got the total wrong for healthcare.gov but $634M should be enough to build and run every government website in the US for more than a decade.

> $634M should be enough to build and run every government website in the US for more than a decade.

And you know the requirements for the next ten years of computing technology how?

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

#183

Post by dmix »

jljljl wrote: post #155

This seems a little confusing to me. I'm using the site linked in one of the previous comments: http://usaspending.gov/explore?tab=By+Prime+Awardee&fiscal_y... This shows the $634M headline number as the amount of contracts paid to CGI Federal over a ~6 year period. It is filtered based on solicitation number HHSM500200700015I. A little googling returns the following page: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode…

> Before we all explode in outrage, are we sure that we are reading the details of this correctly?

> the ACA website cost only $93M

What more details do we need? There's much worse going on at the same time than that ridiculous number. But it is totally sufficient in on it's own to be outraged.

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

#184

Post by 300bps »

3minus1 wrote: post #110

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.…

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.

This is sort of like saying:

Also, a lot of people have mentioned nepotism, which I think is baseless. I've already done work for myuncleisgreat.com and myuncleiscool.com, so when my uncle had to build myunclerules.com, I was an obvious choice.

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

#185

Post by [deleted] »

alex_anglin wrote: post #124
mgkimsal wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As a Canadian, I don't have any affection for CGI. But I would point out that this goes both ways: Just yesterday a peace activist in Canada was acquitted for not participating in the Census because she objected to the use of back-end systems from Lockheed Martin. (Never mind that the Census is no longer mandatory...) Our nations do have a free trade agreement in place, which on the whole I would say has benefited bo…

[deleted]

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

#186

Post by LammyL »

alex_anglin wrote: post #124
mgkimsal wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As a Canadian, I don't have any affection for CGI. But I would point out that this goes both ways: Just yesterday a peace activist in Canada was acquitted for not participating in the Census because she objected to the use of back-end systems from Lockheed Martin. (Never mind that the Census is no longer mandatory...) Our nations do have a free trade agreement in place, which on the whole I would say has benefited bo…

Only the long-form census is voluntary. The short-form census is still mandatory, and not completing it could land you in court, like what happened here.

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

#187

Post by somebehemoth »

ctdonath wrote: post #173
somebehemoth wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the title of the article that started this discussion is, "We paid $634 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404". I'd say it is fair to point out that actual cost was ten times less than is claimed in the article. I agree that no-bid contracts are bad, but they certainly are not unprecedented. I guess I am just not getting the outrage other people seem to have here. Maybe because…

I guess I am just not getting the outrage other people seem to have here. "Buy my product or I'll charge you $3000" provokes ire, as does a subsequent "oh BTW, the website key to buying my product sucks, but that won't persuade me to delay enforcing the $3000 even though I've given all my buddies such wavers." Such gun-to-the-head tactics tends to elicit verbose nit-picking. Not hard to understand, even if you don't…

It is very questionable whether a tax penalty is equivalent to "gun-to-the-head tactics". Speaking of a tax penalty: where did you get $3000 from?

"The fee in 2014 is 1% of your yearly income or $95 per person for the year, whichever is higher. The fee increases every year. In 2016 it is 2.5% of income or $695 per person, whichever is higher." - from https://www.healthcare.gov/what-if-someone-doesnt-have-healt...

Someone making $300,000 per year might pay $3k in 2014. I'm failing to have empathy for this kind of person who refuses to have health insurance. Poorer people pay way less of a penalty and are entitled to subsidies that make refusal of coverage much less fiscally logical.

The outrage still makes little sense to me unless you ignore many relevant facts.

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

#188

Post by api »

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]

Very, very typical government contracting. Government IT contracting is like free money. Great work if you can get it, and getting it probably involves swallowing multiple congressmen's semen.

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

#189

Post by jonknee »

driverdan wrote: post #179
jljljl wrote: post #177

Reread the article, this is complete nonsense. The $634M number is 6 years of contracts, starting in 2008 (Obamacare was signed into law on March 23, 2010), which doesn't align with his claim that CGI Federal won the contract in 2011. The solicitation number he uses to filter the USASpending.gov site is also tied to a larger PECOS contract, and not to Healthcare.gov like he claims. We're being had guys. This is poor…

Maybe he got the total wrong for healthcare.gov but $634M should be enough to build and run every government website in the US for more than a decade.

That's a ridiculous statement. $63M a year to build, run, maintain and host unknown numbers of web sites (thousands!) and services that process trillions of dollars annually seems absurd.

The total budget for all government websites isn't important (for starters they aren't paid for out of one bucket), it's just important that individually each one is managed competently.

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

#190

Post by sailfast »

Things not considered by this and other articles that I would urge readers to consider: 1) RFPs are often written poorly by non-technical people, with requirements that are not accurate at the time. These requirements then change a lot to reflect reality which results in a lot of wasted effort and redirection. (This is probably also the case in large Enterprise implementations)

2) Compliance with government regulations costs money. Lots of money. This results in a lot more overhead. It also results in a lot more time to get people up to speed, on site, and going. This is why government contractors keep winning bids - compliance costs are huge barriers to entry.

3) Systems you need to integrate with in government (especially legacy systems) can be a complete pain in the butt. It's more likely you're integrating with some FORTRAN green screen than a nice JSON API. This makes large scale systems integration hard.

That said...the app is still very broken and there is obviously a failure here. Failure to test properly (otherwise poorly written tests), failure to open to competitive bids judging from another comment in this thread, and many other issues.

There is a LOT to be done to improve IT acquisition in government, and many things should have gone right that went wrong for the money spent (Figures I saw were more like $138 Million in other publications), but readers should please consider the organizational barriers and difficulties that exist and then factor it into the cost. It doesn't take the sting away, but it does lessen it a bit.

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