Your understanding it correct. The government's CMS took on the role of integrator, including integration testing, and they on up to the White House were calling the shots.

This included a very late first set of requirements (delayed in part by a 3+ month freeze before the 2012 elections), per the NYT 7 major changes in the last 10 months, the major change in August to registration first, no window shopping (for which there is absolutely no technical or legal need), and changes continued through the week before launch.

CMS did not see fit to start integration testing until 2 weeks before launch, the tests, or at least the 200 simulated simultaneous login attempt failed hard, yet they launched the site anyway.

CMS has now lost their role to QSSI (who they in a panic proposed to fire 3 days into launch) and the fix-it czar is saying the right thing, like his highest priority is to stop sending garbage to the insurers, a colossal problem no one else in the effort has publicly been willing to even acknowledge.

Now the contractors have a chance.

As for these yahoos, all but the Filemon Vela are clearly in competitive districts, and his is brand new. Sounds like they're feeling the heat; I fear they'd better get used to it.