The latest figures are in on the seemingly bottomless hole that is healthcare.gov, the troubled federal insurance marketplace web site. By any measure, the Obama Administration was grossly negligent in the creation of the system, which ultimately failed on its rollout despite numerous warnings of substandard work, overruns, and major technical problems. It appears that we are not done with bill for the program. A new Inspector General report stated that the Obama Administration issued sixty contracts from 2009 to 2014 to build Healthcare.gov, which had already cost roughly a half a billion dollars by February 2014. However, the Administration has signed new contracts that obligate the taxpayer to cover an addition $300 million, and the estimated value of the sixty contracts totals $1.7 billion. Despite numerous accounts and reports on the mismanagement of this program, there appears to be little real effort to hold anyone accountable as we continue to pour hundreds of millions into this system. The contracts include money to CGI Federal, the well-connected company that was partially response for the disaster in October as well as other controversies in large contracts.
With some contracts obligating as much as $200 million, healthcare.gov has become a major cash cow for some companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and HP Enterprise Services. Of the 60 contracts, nearly $800 million has been committed for the development of the Federal Marketplace as of February 2014.
Worse yet, The Hill is reporting that the Administration is due to pay at least 20 contractors more than their original estimates for work on HealthCare.gov and the rollout of ObamaCare. Thus, the overruns are continuing and, despite the dismal work done on the rollout, even the most dubious companies are continuing to benefit from the windfall. Most notably, while one 2011 contract with CGI Federal was estimated to be worth $93 million at its awarding, CGI Federal could ultimately receive more than $200 million. The CGI Federal contract (and its dismal performance) has been the source of considerable criticism over the companies connections to fundraising for the Obama campaign and personal connection to the First Lady (Toni Townes-Whitley, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, was a Princeton classmate and friend of First Lady Michelle Obama). I am less concerned over the personal relationship allegations (which seen speculative at this point) as with the simple question of how a company (one of a number of companies) could continue to produce subpar work on a major federal project and still receive massive overrun payments.
What is maddening is that the House of Representatives killed one of the oldest programs in the United States, the page program, for $5 million dollars but it barely makes news that we will spend $1.7 billion on a grossly managed marketplace website. Overruns are shrugged off and you will barely find any mention of the IG report among the major media.
Nick, here’s your comment that I’m referring to: “John Oliver, My family and the Jesuits taught me ALL sides of the social contract. The cultists only speak of the helping those who need help. I firmly believe that. But, they must TRULY need it. This administration has tried to recruit people to get assistance, from food stamps to cell phones, to all types of assistance. The OTHER side of the social contract is being honest, honorable, working hard and doing what you can for yourself. Obama threw that out the window. Dependence is what he wants. Then the party of freebies has a slave for life.”
I can’t read that another way than how I did above. What am I missing?
Nick, Why do you think Obama is giving freebies to poor people? Did I misunderstand what you wrote?
Twitter is a public forum. I had someone tell a lie about me on Twitter, saying I was on Workman’s Comp and that I was cheating on it! Wow. I’ve never been on Workman’s Comp ever. Why would someone go out of their way to tell such a lie about another person? it seems so low, hateful, vile and WIERD.
Jill, Anyone who has read my comments knows one of my pet peeves is corporate welfare. I wrote about it just the other day. I voted for Nader twice for 2 simple reasons, his stance on corporate welfare and the duopoly. Otherwise he is an outlier IMO.
Lso Jill, I agree that Obama most certainly is NOT a socialist, not nearly. He is much closer to George Bush in policy and politics.
Jill, I so agree. Corporate welfare seems to be acceptable to those who bemoan that the government takes their hard earned money and gives it to the ‘undeserving’. I ask, why are corporations more deserving of taxpayer dollars than the truly needy?
Nick,
Your comment about hard work and the social contract is interesting because it reveals a common misconception about Obama and this govt. Obama is not a socialist. He (or rather USGinc.) does give out trillions of dollars (freebies) to the undeserving. It’s just that the undeserving aren’t people who are poor. They are people who are wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice and they are well connected into the structure of govt./corporate power.
This post by JT clearly shows the ill gotten gains of lazy, incompetent and already insanely rich corporations/executives. This govt. has given out at least 23 trillion in payments to the banking executives who brought down our economy. This govt. hands out trillions more to war contractors. They take it to make more war. While all of these people are undeserving, they are not poor. They are thieves and the govt. helps them steal the money.
It’s weird that ordinary citizens focus our worry on welfare cheats when just one minute’s income of these corporate citizens equals a lifetime of welfare cheating!
Obama isn’t into helping the poor. His actions are quite clear on this account. I have to put it down to effective propaganda that both his detractors and supporters believe Obama is a socialist who cares about the poor and hands out freebies to them. Nothing could be further from the truth! He’s on the side of the undeserving powerful. Please check out my link above to Fergusons’ police dept. Again, amazing amounts of miliatary equipment (freebies) were given to the undeserving.
That pattern is clear, constant and destructive of our society.
Professor Turley,
“However, researching people or trying to strip people of anonymity is creepy and will not be allowed.”
While I support the desire some have to remain anonymous I would like to suggest adding a clause that you lose your right to anonymity if you contact another contributor by tracking them down on Twitter for instance, and disclose yourself using another name without a request to keep it anonymous on your blog.
This might eliminate the creepiness that comes from having someone stalking you outside this blog.
Thank you
Samantha, We’re cool. In honor of you, and to show my respect I’m going meatless for dinner tonight. Fresh Tomato, basil, salad w/ fontinella cheese and a crusty Italian peasant bread. Probably not your cup o’ tea but no meat! Actions speak louder tan words, paisan.
I have reviewed my comment at 4:21 above. I can see where my composition was sloppy, making it possible for someone to interpret my comment as trashing Nick. In no way was my comment meant to trash Nick. Instead it was only meant to be helpful, to merely point out that Nick’s word always passed the spam filter, but one of my words had not, which word, btw, came from a cut and paste from an article in a magazine. By simply putting quotation marks around Nick’s word only made my comment more confusing.
Nick, you already know I was not trashing you.
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Jonathan Turley
Hey Darren, My comment posted after Annie’s. Now it has completely disappeared. Is it possible to find it again?
Thanks!
Samantha,
You have had another comment deleted under the civility rule. If you cannot comply with the rule, I ask that you refrain from posting comments on this blog.
At first glance this will seem OT but it’s not. There is pattern here, similar to the Obamacare debacle: “Much of the military equipment we’ve seen over the past few days in coverage of the Ferguson, Missouri riots was provided to law enforcement by the 1033 program, a Defense Department initiative that transfers excess equipment to state and local law enforcement.”
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/aug/15/we-have-pentagon-1033-program-data/
This article lays out who is doing what, where and for how much. USGinc. is making choices.
Why was my comment deleted? Was it because I cut and pasted Samantha’s comment? I don’t understand.
slohrss29
“Social contract?? Great!! I want the Wall Street social contract.” Me too!!!
That’s one hel+ of a contract them fellers got!
A comment with “ba$tard” (without $ sign) goes to spam, but Nick’s “horseshit” doesn’t. Go figure.
Samantha,
I have deleted a comment in violation of the civility rule.
Annie,
I have deleted a comment in violation of the civility rule.
Thank you Sir. I had tried to edit the first which explains the two.
Darren, I have recruited some good new people. I explained to Aridog and Dust Bunny Queen how govt. like wordpress is! Any help you could provide them in retrieving their comments would be appreciated. They are people worth keeping. I told them you are the work horse here. I always appreciate your fine work.
Thank you Nick. As a reminder if anyone loses a comment suddenly, and it does not have any obvious profane words or more than two links, it is most often spam filtered. Just make a simple comment such as “Help, Lost a comment” and if one of us are around we’ll try to retrieve it if it is approvable.
John Oliver, My family and the Jesuits taught me ALL sides of the social contract. The cultists only speak of the helping those who need help. I firmly believe that. But, they must TRULY need it. This administration has tried to recruit people to get assistance, from food stamps to cell phones, to all types of assistance. The OTHER side of the social contract is being honest, honorable, working hard and doing what you can for yourself. Obama threw that out the window. Dependence is what he wants. Then the party of freebies has a slave for life.
Darren,
Would you please get the first of two posts out of the filter @2:28? Thank you