Remember that healthcare.gov was created by two different groups.
The front-end people did an okay job.
The back-end people is the Canadian company that has messed up.
The front-end people did an okay job.
The back-end people is the Canadian company that has messed up.
I am not especially patriotic, though I also don't really think patriotism is a bad thing. Nevertheless, learning that the contract was awarded to a Canadian firm makes me reel. I mean no slight to Canadians, but if we are going to overspend by 100x, let's at least send the money to our cronies in the United States! Just for appearances.
No, that's right wing spin. We spent $94M on this thing. Still absurd, but don't be misled by the spin campaign.
Also your math is off. A $10M price tag wouldn't be totally ridiculous. Consider the cost of a team of 50, including QA, design, product guys, engineers, management, lawyers, analysts, data entry, etc for a year. Add 30% to cover risk.
So, it's somewhere in the 10x too expensive region.
$94M for a website is absurd, and reeks of incompetence and bureaucracy.
$650M for a website would be downright fraudulent. It's not a coincidence that it's the latter number that's being talked about.
Your attempt to silence debate by shaming those you disagree with has been noted.
In any event, I still think that's 100x the actual value of the web site work. The site strikes me as the kind of thing a decent consulting company could execute for just shy of $1M.
My point earlier, though, still stands. It's surprising to me that the "best" firm at navigating our regulatory maze is Canadian. A credit to them, I suppose.
But you should note, the STATE run systems, are not built by the same canadian company.
Only the states that decided they weren't going to run their own exchanges and refuse federal funds to help people who need healthcare caused the federal system to be created.
Apparently New York and California developed pretty good enrollment systems of their own.
The federal system was only supposed to be a fallback, but it because a primary because of mostly right-wing run states.
The whole thing is so politicized I'm not surprised that truth and reality are the first to go. I wish HN could be the font of reason in a sea of moronity.
It's the kind of company that is years behind on programming practices and over-charges in the millions because their clients never have any clue of the difference between good/bad software.
They tend to target markets that have almost no real software servicing it so there is nothing to compare it to (eg. commercial insurance).
This has been a theme. Unfortunately, I expect it to continue.
Government procurement is an incredibly coreographed ritual with a minefield of rules and regulations designed to make the process as human-proof as possible. Unless there was conclusive evidence about CGI's lack of clues, the process would continue with them.