I have often lamented how there does not appear to be any real sense of accountability left in Washington. (For a column, click here). Billions of dollars are wasted or programs are run into the ground, but rarely are people held accountable. Part of the reason is the duopoly of power. Politicians have so convinced voters to adopt this red state/blue state paradigm that Democrats and Republicans will no longer tolerate any criticism of their respective leaders or parties. It is, to put it simply, nothing short of a scam. We have become so programmed by the respective parties that any negative story about our respective party automatically unleashes an attack on how much worse the other party is or would be in a given area. It is the same phenomenon that we saw during the Bush Administration where Republicans remained silent in the face of failed policies and poor administrative decisions. We have become a nation of apologists.
One of the greatest examples that I have previously discussed is the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Democrats deserve ample criticism first for a law that was poorly drafted and vetted (when I spoke on Capitol Hill before its passage, I said I was in favor of national health care but thought this was one of the worst crafted major pieces of legislation I had seen go to the floor of Congress.). After doing a uniquely bad job in drafting the law, the Obama Administration then did an absolutely appalling job in managing the program in its critical rollout despite years of planning and billions in costs. Now, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has completed its investigation of the disastrous rollout and found gross negligence that drove up costs and crippled the start of the program. The response? Crickets. Nothing.
The GAO concluded that the Obama Administration lacked the most basic management discipline in creating “effective planning or oversight practices” for Healthcare.gov — the key component of the rollout. Investigators found gross negligence with the Administration constantly changing directions to contractors, widespread confusion among Administrators, and millions of unnecessary cost overruns. It also included over 40 instances where Obama Administration officials increase expenditures without authority. In the meantime, insiders benefitted from the gushing of federal funds like Jonathan Gruber who received almost half a million dollars as a consultant. The government has spent some $840 million on Healthcare.gov and its supporting systems. Almost one billion on a website that failed.
Take the computerized sign up system. Thousands of companies have such systems in business. However, the Obama Administration drove up the costs from $56 million to more than $209 million from Sept. 2011 to Feb. 2014 and still produced a dysfunctional system. The verification system for information was allowed to grow from $30 million to almost $85 million. A contract for fixes to the website, also grew from $91 million in January to $175 million as of last month. Website fixes went from $91 million in January to $175 million as of last month. That’s right, the costs are increasing for such fixes. At any private business, such a record would result in massive firings and a stockholder revolt.
Contractors who were widely criticized for negligence were warned but ultimately paid in full. Take Virginia-based CGI Federal, which built HealthCare.gov. The system failed on the first day and led to a snow balling catastrophe. However, the Administration paid all of CGI’s $12.5 million in fees, withholding only $267,000. We previously discussed the company’s highly dubious record.
While the Administration and former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius later said that they were entirely unaware of the problems, that was obviously the problem. It was their job to be fully aware — not just to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at problems and hope everything was fine for the rollout. The problems were so extensive that contractors refused to sign off on the rollout. CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner had to personally sign off (an unusual act) because no one else would. Wasn’t that a bit of an indicator that the system was not ready?
None of this matters of course. For Democrats, any criticism of Obamacare is treated as a criticism of Obama in today’s encoded political discourse. Ironically, the negligence of the Obama Administration in the rollout helped worsen the view of voters toward the law and the Democrats. Disapproval of the law now stands at 55 percent and Obamacare is featuring prominently in the backlash. This could have been quite different if the Administration had done a competent job at the rollout. The Democrats are at risk of losing both houses and many of those losses may prove to be self-inflicted wounds from simple negligence and the lack of accountability.
Here is the report.
Help. The Vortex of Doom ate my comment. Help, please.
When you have a community organizer in charge, what the heck do you expect to happen? The government needs to go to zero based budgeting which is process in which each project, job, department, etc. starts with zero dollars and then has to justify every person, every paper clip, etc. for the next year. A couple of the cities in Arizona use it and it is very helpful in keeping costs down. Arizona, itself, also has ‘sunset laws’ which requires certain government entities to justify their continued existence every 5 or 7 years. We also underpay our lawmakers, so it is a part-time job. They do not want to stay in session any longer than they have to. Pay raises are approved by the people. They haven’t gotten a raise in some time.
Squeeky, OMG. Like most people, I get way too many forwards from friends. Some I just delete because the sender just forwards everything. Because of this, I RARELY forward articles, clips, etc. I just forward this to a bunch of people. I encourage anyone w/ a sense of humor to watch the 9 minute clip Squeeky posted.
The core problem, which is set in concrete for the foreseeable future, is that all major projects must be done by contractors. The projects then become merely means to enrich the contracting corporations and consultants. Corporations and consultants always advise the government to give more money to corporations and consultants.
The reason no one is ever fired is because there is no one to fire. The contractors are contractors, not employees. In the government you are dealing with either elected officials (who can’t be fired) or political appointees (who can’t be fired). Civil servants could be fired but they are not involved, except to administrate the policies of the political operatives.
And the politicians and appointees are happy with this because it secured future employment for themselves.
@nicks
You may enjoy this. I think it plays a part in the constant breakdowns of management.
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/comedian-evan-sayet-explains-why-stupid-liberals-succeed
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
And raff, this is NOT “old news.” Nice try.
raff, Govt. can solve a select FEW problems, but this monstrosity the duopoly has created CAUSES exponentially more. It must be cut drastically. It must be put on a high protein diet, taking away the carbs, being our excessive taxes.
I do believe it raff, and I always appreciate it. Hopefully you believe that. I would love to put that behind us.
Nick,
you won’t believe it, but I just released your comment in the spam filter.
This is old news about the obvious failures of the rollout. And yes Nick, government can solve many problems.
A good example of why we need more freedom and less government. The lack of fiscal responsibility will be our downfall.
The abject failure of this President pales in comparison to the gut shot taken by the philosophy that govt. can solve our problems.
Sue the bastids.
HELP, please. I just had a comment eaten. Thank you.
Sebelius, Obama, Obamacare are not the biggest victim in this fiasco. The notion that govt. can solve our problems took a gut shot on this. Obama thought his mandate was to usher in big govt., bigger than LBJ but like the patron saint of big govt., FDR. He has the ego of both, combined. He had both houses of Congress. The Dems did whatever they thought he wanted. They really had to guess on a lot of it because he is aloof. He seldom communicates, even w/ his own party. That is the antithesis of LBJ who was on the phone for hours daily. LBJ passes several piece of equal magnitude.
In 2008 I helped elect a man who was not qualified. I was swayed by the historical moment and his eloquence. I’m secure enough to admit I was hoodwinked. I knew it pretty quickly when I saw Obama surround himself w/ academics, like himself. I saw quickly he wanted big govt. But, even though I despise big govt. I was thinking, “Why surround yourself w/ academics when you want to build large organizations?” The reason was he likes people who are like himself. The reports from insiders is he is the antithesis of Lincoln who surrounded himself w/ “a team of rivals” as Delores Kearn Goodwin wrote of Lincoln.
Finally, this post is another superb example of JT’s intellectual honesty. I have been railing against the duopoly and it’s pernicious erosion of our freedoms for decades. At the core of the fundamental problems we have through Dem/Rep administrations is the lack of choice. Each party is willing to just bide their time. They know their equally arrogant and incompetent incestuous cousin will screw up and then they’ll be back in power. We have a govt. akin to an incestuous clan from Kentucky. They just dress better.
Top 10 Main Causes of Project Failure
1. Poor planning and/or inadequate process
2. Inefficient way to document and track progress
3. Poor leadership at any level
4. Failure to set expectations and manage them
5. Inadequately-trained project managers
6. Inaccurate cost estimation
7. Lack of communication at any level
8. Culture or ethical misalignment
9. Competing priorities
10. Disregard of project warning signs
To transform America
A missed opportunity
A genius failure
Who actually wrote this piece that we had to pass to find out what was in it?
Yet another waste of money the country does not have.
Money that could have built clinics and educated healthcare workers.
well, the problem is that u can run a campaign to influence a majority of voters, but that majority has the majority of people who do not know whether the sun revolves around earth or vice versa. However, managing difficult things, like dealing with people who think differently and introducing new sytems, as opposed to influencing the majority of voters, require real experience and real self advancement, both of them are lacking at the top level, unfortunately. Arrogance/narcissism are not good substitutes.
Well, what do you expect when you have a workforce where “getting fired” is not within their life experience. How about the VA mess? How many firings there?
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I have often called Mr. Obama ‘SPINELESS”…………. and now it appears………. I have been correct, the entire time………………….!