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"War Room" Notes Describe IT Chaos At Healthcare.gov
dcblogs writes "U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has released 175 pages of "War Room" notes — a collection of notes by federal officials dealing with the problems at Healthcare.gov. They start Oct. 1, the launch day. The War Room notes catalog IT problems — dashboards weren't showing data, servers didn't have the right production data, third party systems weren't connecting to verify data, a key contractor had trouble logging on, and there wasn't enough server capacity to handle the traffic, or enough people on the help desks to answer calls. To top it off, some personnel needed for the effort were furloughed because of the shutdown. Volunteers were needed to work weekends, but there were bureaucratic complications."
As a former DoD software developer, let's review your comments.
According to the best source of info I could easily find, federal salaries made up just 13.8% of the federal budget as of 2005.
You also neglect some important questions:
Expensive compared to what? If they don't have to show a profit, etc., then can you objectively demonstrate that they're getting less done than a (potentially) lower-priced contractor?
Also, you fail to mention that there's a very open debate about if / when contractors are a better deal for the government than are civil servants. Partisan thinktanks have no problem making sweeping statements, but organizations specifically charged with reporting truthfully find that there's not enough data.
I hope you're also not going to compare the average salary of all public sector works vs. all private sector workers. Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.
As opposed to what contractors do? Good grief man, have you ever seen what private sector contractors do? I've seen plenty of silliness and inefficiency in civil servants, but I've seen countless times contractors milking / drawing out contracts, while often getting less done than the civil servants with whom they collaborate.
I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You're so frustrated with the negative examples you've seen of civil servants, that you simply assume the private sector is more efficient. And (2), you're confusing your complaints regarding the breadth and intrusiveness of the government's self-granted scope, with the quality of work being done by civil servants.
CBO estimated ACA would require $10B. Congress approved $1B. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-not-take-victory-lap-on-obamacare.html?m=1
Happened to me.
In 1981 I received SSI benefits because my father was disabled.
In 2012 I received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying they had overpaid me in 1981 and I owed them money.
After over 30 years!
I sent letter after letter, with the appropriate appeal form. They ignored all of them.
Just kept sending increasingly threatening letters. By the way, they were sending the letters to an address I ahve not lived at for over 30 years. Even though they have my current address.
I called, they could not help. Eventually someone was able to change the address.
They then sent a wage garnishment to my employer.
I called, reached a person who said 'fine, we'll reverse this'. But they didn't actually tell anyone.
So my employer deducted it from my wages. How embarrassing is that? They said I had to work it out with SSA.
And after that, the IRS deducted it from my tax refund. They too said I had to work it out with SSA.
Then I get a letter from the SSA saying 'we have recalculated your benefits and we owe you money'.
They sent me a check for over double what the had garnished from me.
No doubt i will get another letter in the future telling me I owe them money
You mean the party that kept sending bills to the senate ...
...without making any attempt whatsoever to make those bills something that could pass in said senate?
Yeah, them.
Note that the Senate during this time also sent a bill to the house. By all accounts, it was a bill that would have passed in the house with flying colors, and the POTUS would have signed. It would also have represented a tremendous victory for Republicans, cutting food stamps by 4 billion dollars, and all sorts of other assorted (IHMO evil) cuts to the poor that Republicans were wanting. In the Bush era a Republican house would have jumped right on this.
The house's Republican leadership wouldn't bring it up for a vote. In fact, they changed their own rules specifically to prevent anyone from being able to bring this passable bill up on the House floor. Why not take a big legislative victory? Because the Republicans in the House don't care about legislative victories. They wanted to shut the government down. Simple as that.
As a rational private citizen, not on the government payroll, lets review your comments.
According to the best source of info I could easily find [answers.com], federal salaries made up just 13.8% of the federal budget as of 2005.
According to the best source of info I could easily find [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921], federal workers are paid too much.
"Overall, the federal government paid 16 percent more in total compensation than it would have if average compensation had been comparable with that in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.
You also neglect some important questions:
Is the scope of the federal government too large ? I.e., have they destroyed freedom to create a nanny state ?
If federal employees are getting less done than you'd like, is it because they have 0 accountability to the public ? Could part of that be due to the fact that they take money from citizens with a gun to their head, and have no incentive to work faster or smarter or at lower cost ?
Expensive compared to what? If they don't have to show a profit, etc., then can you objectively demonstrate that they're getting less done than a (potentially) lower-priced contractor?
Expensive compared to the private sector, by 16% each, after accounting for all factors, according to the CBO. As for how much they get done, the answer is, nothing. They get nothing done, because, government employees do not contribute to productivity. They are all administrative overhead to an otherwise productive private sector.
Also, you fail to mention that there's a very open debate about if / when contractors are a better deal for the government than are civil servants. Partisan thinktanks have no problem making sweeping statements, but organizations specifically charged with reporting truthfully find that there's not enough data.
Well, it'd be nice if contractors were used, but the fact of the matter is, the bulk of the work for healthcare.gov was handed to the administrations cronies.
I hope you're also not going to compare the average salary of all public sector works vs. all private sector workers. Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.
The CBOs data suggests you are just flat out wrong concerning this statement.
As opposed to what contractors do? Good grief man, have you ever seen what private sector contractors do? I've seen plenty of silliness and inefficiency in civil servants, but I've seen countless times contractors milking / drawing out contracts, while often getting less done than the civil servants with whom they collaborate.
So the federal government does not behave responsbily with tax payers money and fails to properly manage its contractors. Agreed.
I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You're so frustrated with the negative examples you've seen of civil servants, that you simply assume the private sector is more efficient. And (2), you're confusing your complaints regarding the breadth and intrusiveness of the government's self-granted scope, with the quality of work being done by civil servants.
I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You derive your income as a contractor, who is all too happy to keep milking the taxpayers and the federal government while not delivering anything of any real value, in any sane amount of time, in any satisfactory level of quality. And (2), you're confusing the justification of your own actions with actions that are truly just.
All that reads like pretty standard War Room activities for a launch of this size. There is a reason they chose the name "War Room" for these things. It is just a central location where issues are triaged, and it can be chaotic after a launch. This is an example of the press trying to make a big story out of something that isn't news by reporting on something that most people don't understand.
I would be more concerned by the lack of a war room than from war room chaos.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Did you actually read the CBO document? I have read it and it says the exact opposite of what you believe it to say. As an example, you said:
...Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.
The CBOs data suggests you are just flat out wrong concerning this statement.
The CBO report says, and I quote: "Both high and low wages tend to be less prevalent in the federal government than in the private sector, so the range between those wages—the dispersion of wages— tends to be narrower for federal employees." The report that you reference also states that employees with less than a high school diploma are overpaid compared to their private counterparts by 21%, while doctoral-level employees are underpaid by 23%.
Translation: The government cut taxes and relied on the capital gains windfalls from speculative bubbles to fund itself. This went about as well as you would expect.
May the Maths Be with you!
And it just might be even more complicated than both of you think. Yes, the insurance company is a private corporation, but it is following book loads of rules promulgated by the Federal Government. Yes, for all practical purposes, the Government is in charge of your healthcare.
Yes, the ACA made it harder for the insurance companies to do some things, like drop you for pre existing conditions, but the insurance companies recieved lots of carrots for that particular stick. The big failing of the ACA, IMHO, is that it did not come down hard enough on the insurance companies - they are the big winners in all of this.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
bills meant to defund or stop the implementation of something that is already a law?
Well, yeah. That's the exact job of the House of Reps. Please refer to the constitution for any further guidance on this matter.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
So in other words you don't realize that as a healthy person you already subsidize the uninsured. Hospitals have to charge insured people so much in part because they have to cover the costs of all the people that have to treat who don't have insurance. So imagine if those people did have insurance! Of course you're going to have to help them pay for their insurance since the net affect is probably pretty minimal on a healthy person with insurance.