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Lead Contractor On Health-Care Web Site Led By Execs From Troubled IT Company
thomst writes "The Washington Post's Jerry Markon and Alice Crites report that 'The lead contractor on the dysfunctional Web site for the Affordable Care Act is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show. CGI Federal, the main Web site developer, entered the U.S. government market a decade ago when its parent company purchased American Management Systems, a Fairfax County contractor that was coming off a series of troubled projects. CGI moved into AMS's custom-made building off Interstate 66, changed the sign outside and kept the core of employees, who now populate the upper ranks of CGI Federal.'"
Fire them all with prejudice.
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The "experience" looked for in a company looking to win a government contract like this is, well a track record in winning government contracts.
They know the tricks and hoops to go through to get to the end and win the contract. They probably also have good contacts that help them win it in the first place.
Ability to actually manage the contract and deliver the result. Pretty much irrelevant.
Basically good bullsh*tters, bad managers.
yes do this.
I've read through some comments below & really that's all there is to say about this.
Debating 'gov't VS private sector' can be interesting or it can be excruciating. In this case we can surely fault the government for being dumb enough to pay these companies...so there's that...then of course the companies's work was shit...
Bottom line in thsi case is the same w/ most 'gov't VS private sector' debates....private sector can be more 'cutting edge' than government but government has the accountability of the people.
For the 'rollout' of a long-planned government that has State/Federal differences & the insurance industry there's no reason to spend 100's of Millions on routine IT work.
The US just paid these companies to hire IT workers to make the site to specifications. The gov't could have hired IT workers directly.
The problem with the debate is that so many 'government contracts' are basically ***government subsidies of industreis*** with tax dollars for the businesses in a particular political area, not on market forces.
If government contracts weren't doled out as political favors the data wouldn't be so noisy.
Thank you Dave Raggett
And what was the graduating class of 1985's size? In 2012, it was about 1200. So let's say in 1985 there were 1000. Given that this is Princeton, it's likely that SOME of them are doing well in their careers, maybe even so far as to be execs at some companies.
Unless there's even a hint of something illegal (or even unethical) going on here, I'm more likely to chalk it up to pure coincidence. What are they supposed to do - disallow any company with executives that happened to have attended school with the Obamas from doing govt work? If that's the case, I doubt there will be many qualified companies left
No, this just looks like guilt by association.
It is counterproductive. If everything is the fault of some guy in the past, long gone from politics, then that lets the current guys get away with whatever they like. We can only hope to improve the decisions politicians make by holding them accountable. If they have an automatic out of "Oh the bad guys in the past did it!" then nothing gets better.
Not only that, but when things went south on Part D, the democrats did everything they could to help fix the problems. With the ACA, the republicans have acted like complete assholes for the entire time, doing everything they can to undermine it, then undermine anything they can and tie it to the ACA.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
This is such an inane line of reasoning.
The things that are Bush's fault 5 years ago are still Bush's fault today. They'll still be Bush's fault in another five years, and in fifty years, and in fifty thousand years. The blame doesn't shift to the new guy just 'cause he's now occupying the same address.
If the Bush administration approved this company for no-bid contracts, how the flying fuck can you try to pin that on Michelle Obama? You think Obama's first act of office should have been to throw out every single piece of paperwork filed from 2001 to 2009, and start it all over from scratch?