The PRIVATE business that built the ACA website is:

[gopiscrap]

CGI. This is just one reason why government responsibilities should NEVER be privatized!!!

[Zorra]

1. Recommend. nt

[malaise]

2. And they were given a lot of contracts by Bushco

Truth is stranger than fiction

[gopiscrap]

3. That's fucking crazy

they probably sabatoged the site

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. These businesses don't care who is in office

The site was not tested properly since they did not start development in a timely way, since the funds were not there to begin with.

Not everything is a conspiracy.

That said, no they should not be privatized, but we do not have the talent in-house, and more agile private contractors lack the ability to go through the system.

[Taverner]

8. True - it is what we call in IT "build and bolt"

Company X is hired by Company Y to create something

Company X delivers, and their contract is over

Employee Y (or more likely, a contractor from Company Z) is hired to maintain the site

In this case, Company Y has not paid employee Y or contractor Z to maintain it because, shutdown, and the something goes off line.

[Taverner]

9. Let me add that a crucial step has been omitted because of the shutdown

That is the day or so Engineer from Y trains Employee from X or Contractor from Z - - and it probably won't happen without, you guessed it, another contract

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. And there is another aspect to this

Smaller companies have no clue how to navigate the system. So they are locked out even if they could do it far better. Of course we are not hiring the talent into the Federal Government either. It is a symptom, truly, of what ails us as a nation.

[freedom fighter jh]

28. If gov't doesn't have the talent in house,

that could be because the decision was made to contract out anything that can be contracted out.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. About forty years ago when that started

yup

[malaise]

7. Company Behind Troubled Obamacare Website Donated Heavily To Republicans In 2012

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/company-behind-troubled-obamacare-website-donated-heavily-to
<snip>
Republicans’ new Obamacare attack line hinges on allegations that the contractor in charge of building the disastrous healthcare.gov website landed the gig through sweetheart deals from the Obama administration.

But according to Federal Election Commission records, that company’s PAC gave more to House Republicans than House Democrats during the 2012 cycle — including a $2,000 check for the GOP’s chief scandal investigator, Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa. What’s more, executives of CGI Federal personally gave more than twice as much to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney than to President Obama. The contractor has also feasted on more than $2.4 billion worth of IT work dating back to the early Bush Administration.

So far, none of that has stopped the Republican National Congressional Committee from suggesting CGI netted hundreds of millions of dollars to create the dysfunctional website because of its ties to the White House

On Wednesday, the NRCC blasted the Republican National Committee’s email list heralding a petition it had started that would urge Congress to investigate CGI-Obama ties. The email noted the importance of finding out, among other pressing questions, “How did [CGI] get contracted to do it?”
------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't rule that out

[Taverner]

10. Not every company is an "Activist Company" (damn, I love that term!)

They might be, but more likely they get a lot of government business because both sides are creating contracts (wars need IT too)

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Darrell gets the heavy donations from anybody and everybody since

he is the third most powerful man in DC, by position. The first is the POTUS, the second is the Speaker. In the 19th century Speaker and Potus were 180, with the POTUS being the second most powerful man in DC. The Fourth most powerful post in DC is Leader of the Senate.

Fun fact, Chairmans of the House Ways and Means Committee are the most likely to face criminal prosecution, independent of party.

[malaise]

13. Yes Ways and Means find many ways and means

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Dan Ronkenkowsky (and I know I spelled it wrong)

is my all time chairman. He ran from his jail cell.

[malaise]

18. LOL it's Rostenkowski

The best movie about these morons was The Distinguished Gentleman - it exposed the entire farce until the ridiculous soppy end.

[Blanks]

23. Lobbyists. My favorite part.

[malaise]

24. Yep

I must have seen it ten times.

[Zorra]

16. Experian did also. nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

31. Is this somehow supposed to exonerate the WH or just show a different flavor of

nincompoopery?

[malaise]

32. Huh? n/t

[Nuclear Unicorn]

34. It seems a good deal of the thread is attemptng to say the administration

hired their political enemies so that blame could be shifted to those hired. However, the hiring decision was is still where this all started.

[Zorra]

38. Read: Everything is about Obama. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. Wait - a Canadian company?

If it isn't an internal fed project, they couldn't have at least sourced it to a US contractor? No offense Canuks.

[Auntie Bush]

20. I've been annoyed that the job was given to a canadian Co. too.

Why wasn't it given to an American company? We needed those jobs and obviously could have done a better job. Since that co was heavily ReThug....I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately sabotage the web site. What better way to turn off people.

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. Yes, all high volume web activity should be government-built

Just look at the Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, and Google disasters, to name but a few.

Utter, sheer incompetence, all.

[MoonRiver]

15. I wonder who is responsible for the decision to use that company.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Fairly low level Federal employee

The company hit all the wickets regarding contract work.

[MoonRiver]

21. For such a huge and important undertaking,

the decision about what company to use should have been made at the highest government levels, imo. Now, I'm just hoping they fix everything ASAP!

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. You would be surprised what levels

these procurement decisions are made. Best case mid level. They do not go even to just under cabinet, never has, never will.

[MoonRiver]

25. I wouldn't know, but now it's clear what the consequences are of those decisions.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Well during the War (in a desert mind you)

Halliburton decided that you could get toilet paper in theater, as well as food. They were never punished for it.

Never mind dependents were sending toilet paper to units deployed.

And that is a well known example. They have made those goofs since at least the Vietnam war, and they have never been punished, and keep winning contracts, since they know HOW to navigate the system.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

35. It was a half-billion dollar website. This wasn't low-level.

There were many reasons this thing is going so poorly, starting with a Scope of Work that wasn't finalized until March of this year.

[SamYeager]

17. You shoudl also never turn software development over to 536 executive managers

Want to really screw up software development? Let Congress design the requirements.

[judesedit]

27. Who cares how much it costs. Take it back and start over with a vetted American company

Let stand the current enrollies. They can be transferred to the new system later. You have until January, although I know you will be inundated with hits. Get it in place, train the phone staff and the preparers, then let the information fly.

[gopiscrap]

30. agreed except don't privatize the thing

[Nye Bevan]

40. I'm not sure what you are saying.

Are you advocating that the Federal Government should build a huge, brand new software company in house? You think that such a venture would attract talented programmers and engineers?

[mazzarro]

33. Truly disappointed that the administration did not see this as a key project and

thus put the right emphasis to its development. Now it has to pay for this critical oversight.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

36. If this was really a website built for private industry

it's be profitable. This is what you get when you decouple expenses from returns.

[grahamhgreen]

37. How much $ did they walk away with?

[Nye Bevan]

39. I bet Google would have built it for free,

in exchange for being able to place discreet ads on the site.

No cost to taxpayers, and a well-designed system that would actually have worked. Unfortunately the crappy company that actually got the job had very good lobbyists.