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.
When Jill says
A corporation is run by individuals knowingly committing fraud. These individuals are rich and well connected or part of the group that runs things. JTās post is about some of those individuals who work for or own corporations and benefit from fraud.
It is vague, but it is in direct reference to the earlier stated government/corporate colluders. I thought that was pretty clear even thought not grammatically correct unto itself.
slohrss29 wrote: “it is in direct reference to the earlier stated government/corporate colluders.”
Can you name them please? Which corporations and which government colluders is she talking about?
I just did the math, and wonder if that costs more or less than paying 6,000 federal insurance salesmen $50,000 a year for five years to do the same work….
NEWSFLASH! One’s sinful nature does not disappear because of one’s lot in life.
You could focus all of your vitriol on one class of people and never run out of targets. There is one class however that deserves careful scrutiny;the political class. They have the same sinful nature as everyone else and the constitutional duty to provide security for ALL citizens from the sinful nature of ALL citizens. Our constitution and a civically competent electorate are our only defense against the sinful nature of the political class.
If you want to identify among the electorate the enablers of the political class then look no further than those willing to wage class warfare on their behalf.
That’s the problem with gov. We have the shining banking and Homecare.gov. examples. The crooks are the government. There are laws to deal with the bank problems… but, like everything else in government, they only use the laws when it’s good for them. The banks should have been closed, assets sold off, henchmen in jail. I knew that “too big to fail” was a set up when I first heard it. Controls beyond human manipulation are important to have to keep situations from bubbling up. Look at this web vendor fiasco.
Accountant said I can only deduct half of my hotdog. Guess I could get 2, then get a whole hot dog deducted.
Jill, I wonder if that’s where the term Robber Barons originally came from? Seem like that group has been reincarnated in today’s corporate elites.
David, Nick and others,
I did make specific references to the people who committed fraud. These people are rich and well connected. What is the problem you are having with this truth? It’s clear that you allow yourself to say that someone is poor and committing fraud. How are these statements different?
I find this a diversion from what is happening. There is a corporate/govt. nexus wherein well connected and wealthy people get together to rob money from taxpayers. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.
It is ridiculous to turn that reality into the idea that every person who runs a corporation is rich, well connected and committing fraud. It’s that whole committing fraud part that is wrong.
Jill, I must have missed where you named the corporations or people that you are talking about. Can you name them please?
I agree with you about the govt/corporate nexus. It is caused from people in government wanting the money that the corporations have been able to get voluntarily from citizens, and from the people leading the corporations wanting favors from the government who take money from citizens by force. You misportray it when you describe the motivation of corporations being to rob the taxpayer. If they had that motivation, they would be leading government rather than a corporation.
David, I was the President of an S Corp. I guess I was evil.
slohrss, Just discuss you business w/ the hot dog vendor. Legally deductible.
Even World of Warcraft cost under 100 million to develop
I think Jill did identify them, by calling out the very ones who commit the fraud. I’m a corporation (such as I am) and I didn’t feel singled out. Going to try to sneak a hot dog through today on a deduction though. Never seems to work though.
DBQ, Karen is a spring chicken compared to you old horse!!
John, That’s another pet peeve of Karen. Liberals love their choo choo’s.
I’m a small business woman as well, jointly with my husband. I’m also retired from over 20 years as an independent financial adviser (series 7), RIA (series 65), financial planner, currently life and health insurance licensed (although inactive because I’m retired and clipping coupons, did I say that retired thing already? and busy with my husband’s business). I more than agree that Obamacare is a disaster. I spoke out against it from the beginning. It is going to bankrupt the insurance industry, drive medical professionals out of the industry, bankrupt small hospitals and more importantly cause rationing of services and unavailability of services that will result in pain, suffering and death as well as stifle medical innovation for decades to come.
Well Nick, Karen and I both live in this nut job state. Oh, the high-speed rail to nowhere other than the contractor bank’s accounts.
I think the argument has been the subsidies were “intended” to be available and somehow was left out of the final draft. They will be begging SCOTUS to amend the law which is not their job from what I understand. This is what has led me to ask that question. There is absolutely no rational explanation that it was not left off on purpose to put the red-state governments in a position to defy the will of their constituents.
DBQ, KarenS is a small business woman and has written eloquently and passionately on this Obamacare disaster.
Karen, You live in a socialized state that will be bankrupt soon. I love the state but they need to clean house in Sacramento.
“If qualified IRS tax credits were available even if the States did not set up an exchange”
Were they available? That is the big IF. It is my understanding that the credits, by the wording of the actual law, were only available through State established exchanges. That the Feds decided on their own, against the wording of the law, in administrative actions not even through the fabulous Executive Orders, to extend it to Federal Exchanges is one of the big bones of contention.
If it occurs that the Supreme Court decides that the subsidies through Federal Exchanges are illegal, against the wording of a law passed by Congress…….a whole lot of people are going to be very screwed and I imagine more than a bit angry.
Speaking of government waste, CA just enacted a massive gas tax for Climate Change. The carbon tax already netted $1 BILLION in a year for CA. This new tax will be up to $1.20/gallon. The money will go into a fund that Gov Brown has earmarked (illegally) for his vacation pork High Speed Rail project that is a gift to his Union cronies. It will actually cause a net increase in pollution.
Oh, and one must also consider that carbon taxes don’t actually decrease any carbon. They’re just another new tax for politicians to waste. But, hey, we’re the state with routine million dollar office remodels, so what do we expect?
I was talking to a few ladies from the former USSR. When one was visiting her homeland, her son got extremely sick. She had to bribe the doctor at the socialized medicine hospital to ensure he got good care. Her mother died of cancer, and the socialized medicine had a terrible pathology lab that kept getting the biopsy results wrong, took forever to run them. The whole thing was slow, poorly run, and gave bad medicine. But the people there are resigned and fatalistic. They would never give it up because they were raised socialist. But they also think their lot is to die if they get sick, and that poor medical care is just a fact of life.
If people keep pushing for single payor, one day that will be the US.