We previously discussed the gross negligence exhibited in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) rollout and how there appeared little accountability for such failures even when they cost hundreds of millions.(For a column, click here). Now it turns out that, after costing the country a fortune due to this shoddy work, the IRS has reportedly awarded the company yet another contract to do work on . . . you guessed it, Obamacare.
So it was only in January 2014 that Administration insisted that it had dumped the company despite CGI Federal’s 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). The IRS contract is worth $4.46 million and will expire in Aug. 15, 2015. At the time, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress that the CGI-designed website a “debacle” and “I am as frustrated and angry as anyone with the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov.” As I stated earlier, I still am mystified how Sebelius was not fired. However, if CGI is any example, she can now hope to be made Vice President or better.
Now the Administration has awarded an IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program. Wouldn’t the greatest failure in a federal contract weighed slightly against the awarding of the contract?
That seemed to be an issue with Vermont and Massachusetts which dumped the company last year.
However, CGI’s 2014 annual report reportedly omits its role in the prior disastrous rollout.
Re: “…the greatest failure in a federal contract…”
Have you ever heard of a little something called the Challenger disaster?
Who died because the website wasn’t stable?
Incredibly lazy post with a lack of insight or analysis.
What is it about a company being one of MANY that participated in a bad implementation (which multiple independent agencies have mostly said was the client’s fault) that should disqualify them from being awarded an analysis contract at a different agency?? This shows no awareness of the IT contracting environment, or the business environment in general. If a construction company has 2-3 bad projects out of the thousands it undertakes, you don’t try to run them out of business. Especially when publicly available tools would tell you that EVERY construction company has the same or worse track record.
Congrats on seeding the ground for the RW trolls to show up with similarly superficial POTUS-bashing.
The 2008 election was a Democratic landslide…..Obama in fact had large majorities in both houses. His seismic shifts in core positions, what he said were the cornerstones of Obamacare, were not due to gain advantage in getting it passed.
It was a sales job to the electorate…..lay out core principles in the campaign, get elected, then adopt a ” new set of core principles” for the law itself.
Tom Nash
Nice end run but you leave out a lot of stuff. Firstly what Obama could and could not do was as much directed by circumstances:
-opposition from Republicans,
-an understanding that the Congress would be Republican hands in two years and that hamstrung as he was he would have to do what he could as soon as he could,
-the fact that he was to a degree a neophyte regarding the issues and a certain amount of tripping and going back on initial moves was to be expected,
-the unfortunate need to kowtow to the insurance lobby a lobby that owns as many Democrats as Republicans,
-the obvious part of any new move which is that the results are partly known, partly unknown, and always hoped for,
-the lack of cooperation by those states that refused to go along-the main ingredient to the failure of the federal website,
-the constant negativity of Republicans which contributed at the very least to few people signing up,
-the confusion due to all of the above.
I could go on and on with more ingredients to this mess, however, it is more a work that can and should be fixed, refined, and addressed with the objective of making it a success than the failure the Republicans make it out to be. If you dig a little deeper you will find that the private sector is making more money than ever, more people are doing better than doing worse, and pretty much all one wants to hear is what one will hear.
The major lesson in this is that government seems to be more about discrediting the opposition and gaining power than developing systems for the benefit of the average American. Also, regardless of the problems Obama may or may not have created, the vast preponderance of faults lie with the system as it has metastasized over the past fifty years. Think carefully, the US is the only country with this sort of problem and it is the one country that should be able, due to population, technology, and government systems in place, be able to make a flagship out of a basic single payer system with optional private sector involvement. Step back a little and look at the big picture. Then go in and deal with it tree by tree.
Isaac…..we actually have some area of agreement. I do agree with your statement that “The only point of contention is how much will be saved” in administration costs by adopting a single payer system.
And there may well be some truth, at least with respect to health care, in your earlier observation that “Americans as a whole are a confused and disassociated people”.
When voters buy into statements like “the average American family will save $2500” under Obamacare, when a candidate lays out core policy positions, then does a 180 ( Obama argued firmly AGAINST the mandate……Obama argued against taxation of Cadillac plans, did a 180, then pushed the implementation of that tax back a few years……Obama promised transparency, and we saw the Cornhusker Kickback, the Loiusiana Purchase, and a poorly understood ACA passed in the dead of night by “reconciliation”.
I think these factors may well account for some of the confusion and disassociation you referred to, especially on the part of voters who actually find Obama credible.I think that the results of the 2014 election are an indication that an intentional “lack of transparency” on a huge scale tends to piss off a lot of voters.