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.'"

Comments

CGI Federal and CMS are literally useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire them all with prejudice.

Software with a sixth sense?

[memebrain]

The only part of the article that stood out as unusual to me was "AMS-built computer systems sent Philadelphia school district paychecks to dead people". Now that is a seriously innovative program that can find and send a check to someone on the other side.

Re:Software with a sixth sense?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Heh. Here in Chicago we let the dead vote. Twice.

the experts in CGI scripting

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the technology for web sites that can scale to serve dozens of concurrent users.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Same ol.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's alot of money to be made by doing it badly. And then being paid forever to 'fix' it.

Job security.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

What bid . . .?

Revealed: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is top executive at firm that that built disastrous Obamacare website after being awarded no-bid $93m contract

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477403/Michelle-Os-Princeton-classmate-exec-company-built-Obamacare-website.html

. . . it just shows you where the real value of a good education is . . .

Pb instead of Au?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if they choose a lead contractor instead of a gold contractor what are they supposed to expect?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:But their bid was lower!

[Opportunist]

Well, some go to college to get to know something, others go to get to know someone...

21st time is the charm!

[davidwr]

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try again.

Re:21st time is the charm!

[Anonymous Coward]

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try again.

That's what the contractor's loop iteration code looked like.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[juliuszs]

Did you even bother to read it? Did you miss the point that it was Bush administration that approved them for no bid contracts? Did your knee hit your chin? Do you need a dentist?

Finally, something we can all agree on!

[larry bagina]

Liberals hate corporations. Conservatives hate the government.

But when it comes to government contractors like CGI we can all put aside our differences and hate them together.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[dkleinsc]

The reason government contracts are broken is because they exist.

For some reason, in the US it is more politically acceptable to pay a private firm $200K per worker for a government contract than it is to pay $150K per worker to hire people to do the job. And this is not a partisan thing, since the biggest area where this kind of silliness happens is obscenely high military budget, and that gets reapproved without much serious question. It creates a lot of opportunity for graft among anybody controlling a government purchase, costing even more public money unnecessarily.

By contrast, the UK government has an IT department that is in charge of all government websites. If they need more people to do the job, they hire them. If they need fewer, they lay people off. And overall, they get better results for less money because that one department can coordinate efforts in a way the multiple US contractors simply can't do.

Of course they are

[sugar and acid]

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.

It's our culture.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anybody else that works in Fairfax considers this a surprise. All of our companies have shady backgrounds with government contracts. Overpaying for a shitty website is just a distraction compared to real world problems.

fair comparison

[globaljustin]

he's not deflecting you are...

the whole 'Obamacare rollout has been awful' is such a misreported story...making a comparison to a rollout of a similar program from the other party helps frame the issue properly

Re:fair comparison

[meglon]

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.

Re:fair comparison

[HereIAmJH]

the whole 'Obamacare rollout has been awful' is such a misreported story...making a comparison to a rollout of a similar program from the other party helps frame the issue properly

Take all the politics out of it and tell me if the project is in serious trouble. The federal website has cost ~$175 million and supports 36 states. Total signups are 27,000 during the first month. The 14 states that created their own sites have signed up 79,000. That's an awful lot of money to support less than 1000 unique transactions per day.

I suppose there is always the possibility that the opposition is running a clandestine DDOS, but the information coming out of various investigations is that they created a Rube Goldberg system and nobody wanted to hear that it wasn't going to work. I don't necessarily hold Sebelius responsible for the website's failure, I doubt she was involved other than having her underlings giving her rosy "we'll get it done" reports. But there is definitely a management problem with regards to contractor oversight.

Re:So it is a Canadian Company? Even worse, Qu

[Anonymous Coward]

In Montreal, where CGI HQ is based, the organization is referred by many in Quebecois slang "Criss de Gang d'Incompetent" (CGI) == Fucking group of incompetents.
This was taught to me by a former CGI employee.

They are well know (like other three letter oursourcing groups like IBM and CSC) to underbid to get a contract and under deliver. I've heard former high level CGI executives (who after they left) admit this and chuckle about it out loud.

The truth it so many other large firms do the same thing.

best point to be made here

[globaljustin]

Fire them all with prejudice.

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.

Re:best point to be made here

[St.Creed]

Shorter: Dilbert's company got the contract, due to their extensive experience in the industry.

Do it in-house, instead. Career professionals are better than contractors.

You obviously never worked with government employees. The combination of protected work + low pay does not tend to attract the best and brightest, in my experience.

Re:best point to be made here

[dbIII]

So? Other governments don't have protected work and low pay and they are still governments. You don't have to settle for shit. Actually get off your arses and vote and you may get a government that pays more attention to people who are not just in it to play political games.

Re:best point to be made here

[Aighearach]

I've been to the Post Office, they do a great job. In my State the DMV does a great job, too. I buy permits for commercial mushroom harvesting on National Forests, and except for during the shutdown (not their fault) they give great service.

You want bad service, forget government, try a multinational corporation!

And the pay is typically industry average, with strong benefits. Probably why places like the Post Office can give large and difficult tests and only hire the people with the highest scores.

I used to be a Wildland Firefighter, and only the very best can get a job on the rare Government crews. The government pays less per hour for their own crews, but the workers make a lot more. The worst crews can be reliably identified as being the contractors with the lowest rates.

My public utility, which is run by a board that my community directly elects, has low rates and great service. If the power is out, they get it back on way faster than a commercial utility; and I pay less per kilowatt! And the workers get competitive pay.

Just about any government worker, if you look a the quality of work they do and ask, "what would cost to get this same level of service from a contractor?" The answer will always be "more than it costs now." And if you do it, and then pay that extra, the quality will almost never actually be the same.

Re:best point to be made here

[clarkkent09]

Good news for you is that mental health coverage is mandatory for all plans under Obamacare. Come to think of it, it is good news for anybody crazy enough to enter their confidential personal details into a site apparently designed by a team of chimpanzees on crack.

Re:best point to be made here

[sumdumass]

Actually, it is government that is incompetent. From the start there were problems with the law that Reid and Pelosi ended up making comments about not knowing or understanding what was in the law to the most recent comments made by President Obama in that nobody knew the law would cause people to lose their coverage when he signed it. Then you have decisions made not because they were technically sound, but because they were politically motivated by politically appointed personnel known to be loyal to party agendas. The company that got the job owed its fortune largely to politics as well. Even if we discount the ties Michelle Obama has with senior officials of CGI, the bidding process was expedited which locked out most of the competition to only 16 companies of which only 4 placed bids on. I'm not aware of any details of the other 3 bids or why CGI was selected over them.

This entire process has been ran as if the senior management held honorary positions with no intent on actually managing but rather just having a name associated with it. Sadly, Obama himself seems to have conducted quite a bit of his presidency in the same ways with everything that he knows nothing about until he reads it in the news paper.

Also, I don't think this is a fair comparison of government verses private sector. I can't find anything that CGI has been part of that wasn't government initiated or funded. It's like saying that if Microsoft was to spin off it's Microsoft Office department but still manage it, that it is a completely separate company competing with Microsoft. The only thing that seems to be private sector about this company is the fact that they work by contract with several different governments instead of being employed directly by one. But when you look at other areas where the private sector actually works in the private sector, you clearly see how the private sector does it better and cheaper then the government.

Road construction and maintenance is one of those areas. I used to work for one of the county engineers offices in my area (one political office that is actually expected to get results). The road crews were great at minor repairs and some projects where larger projects like bridge replacements were usually bid out at a lesser amount then it would take the road crew to do half of. But this also shows that it is important to have the abilities to do some stuff in house also, just not all one or the other. Filling pot holes being bid out would probably cause citizens to go postal. Digging up water or sewer lines and repaving after the repairs is another problem that cannot wait for a bidding process where in house shines the best. I seriously doubt there will ever be a private verses public sector argument that is always 100% correct unless it discounts stuff like that and even then, it is showing how both are needed to be efficient and competent.

Re:best point to be made here

[Aighearach]

You should look it up, those are fake temporary losses because congress required them to pre-fund their pension plan for x years, something nobody else has to do, and something that was done specifically to create the lie that they're losing money.

They make money, but they're forced to save more than they make. I mean, don't just repeat thin, obvious propaganda like a right-wing shill. Either care enough to google it one time and find out it is a lie, or find a better propaganda line. This is slashdot, kiddo. We expect better.

Now get off the lawn, and take your lawn signs with you!

Re:best point to be made here

[iluvcapra]

These problems apply to all large organizations, not just governments, s/constituent/shareholder, s/congressman/management. Large corporations are often profoundly mismanaged, work is diverted to friends, mistakes are covered up, and the management hand-pick their oversight and their replacements. Large corporations don't have to be efficient, they simply have to make more than the competitor in a give period of time, that leads to

What's more important is the kind of organization, the values, and the stakes– the behavior you describe would be considered absolutely unacceptable from a general in a war, even though the size of the organization is comparable. We'd never accept that "It's human nature" for a general to sell secrets to the enemy, or order millions to their death, just because he doesn't have a concrete economic incentive to delivery military victory on a quarterly or annual basis.

Eisenhower didn't win World War II because of the bonus, Hitler didn't start it because of defense industry kickbacks; Walt Disney didn't create Mickey Mouse because he wanted to be a billionaire, nor did Van Gogh paint a starry night to make a killing at an art auction. The Pope doesn't get a premium for every convert, and frankly I doubt Larry Page and Sergey Brin had dollar signs in their eyes when they created PageRank, those came later.

The profit motive is best understood as a sustaining activity, something that incentivizes corrupt, uncreative people from becoming criminals. It cannot actually advance civilization though, this responsibility falls upon people who set their sights higher than a Lambo in the driveway.

Re:best point to be made here

[Aighearach]

and you reply that they would be making money if only government didn't run them in such a stupid way. Can you think about it for a second, but please feel free to stop if your brain starts hurting.

No, by brain is going to keep hurting because people like you think that electing Congress critters who intentionally do a bad job and create fake losses for the US Postal Service somehow means the USPS isn't doing a good job.

Yes, the elected officials suck. No, that doesn't mean the professional government workers suck, or that the USPS is doing a bad job.

I know that somebody out there has had them lose a letter. I've never once in my life had the USPS fail to deliver an expected letter or package. Never. None of those close to me have, either. But almost everybody I know has lost packages with the commercial carriers.

Re:best point to be made here

[GodfatherofSoul]

This is a stupid talking point. The ACA isn't what's banning health insurers. These individual policies have a REGULAR 40-67% turnover rate. EVERY YEAR BEFORE THE ACA WAS ENACTED. All of a sudden, people are trying to claim that it's the ACA's fault that a regular trend is taking it's normal course. There's a quote in context from around 2010 where Obama talks about this in more detail, but of course a bumpersticker slogan works better than reality.

And, these policies were absolute BS in teh first place. They were like the $20 healthcare policies offered by colleges that covered jack squat.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[strength_of_10_men]

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.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even bother to read it? Did you miss the point that it was Bush administration that approved them for no bid contracts? Did your knee hit your chin? Do you need a dentist?

IT'S BEEN OVER FIVE FUCKING YEARS. STOP BLAMING BUSH.

Face it, Obama's a failure. Continuing to blame Bush for every damn thing is pathetic.

Government vs Private Contracts.

[trout007]

I have experience in both. In a private business contract both parties do their best to meet the terms of the contract. The reason is simple. It's expensive to go to court and bad for future business. I've written unclear requirements. When it was a private contract if they noticed it they would call for clarification and unless it was major there was no charge. A contractor that buckles and dimes you doesn't get a second chance to bid.
A Government contract is different. If there are two ways to interprete a requirement they will always pick the wrong way and do as much work as possible down the wrong path so they get a bigger change order when it's discovered. They never get punished because technically they are right. It just rarely happens in private business.

On the plus side

[DaveAtFraud]

They preserved the same consistent process. Let's hear it for repeatable software processes.

Cheers,
Dave

It's not just pathetic

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Graft all the way down

[SuperKendall]

I don't get why people have not yet figured out that most large federal projects are rife with graft - the only difference is you don't hold the crappy $800 hammer that results, unlike everyone who gets to see the substandard work that results from politically connected projects with something like a public facing website.

This is EXACTLY why federal spending must be reduced, because it is for the large part wasted to a far greater degree than state or city level funding (though there is graft there to, it just cannot be at the level federal graft is).

why am I not shocked at this?

[darkonc]

a company with a history of botching huge government contracts, gets another huge government contract -- and botches it.

I was wondering why this contract was costing so much to do so little.... It is all becoming a log clearer now. These people don't make money off of well managed projects (from the customer's point of view), they make money from BIG projects ... no matter how small they actually needed to be.

I'm sure that the botch is well documented ISO9000 style and all, but success was not necessary for them to get paid.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[theshowmecanuck]

when the contract is over the workers are not still on the government payroll

Until the next government project comes along (usually already starting or running) and they get hired as contractors again because they have experience in government contracting jobs. It's not like there will never be another government software project for them... they are happening all the freaking time. They could just hire the people and contract supplemental workers to work under the full time project managers. The benefit there is that with the same people working on all government projects the more likelihood that out of it will come a more cohesive architecture and even possible interoperability of services.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[artor3]

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?

what are these "incentives" you speak of?

[globaljustin]

Government employees have no incentive to spend public funds wisely

ok you got me...i'm curious...what do you mean by 'incentive'?

can you give a counter-example? something where a person **would** have the proper incentive as you define it to do *excelent* work on a project like this? how would that look?

you don't need to write a book, just give me an idea of what you mean

also, if you feel like it, can you explain how government contracts will **always** be doled out as political favors? Do you mean 'practically' always or are you saying its inherent? If so do you see any system anywhere that would do it by proper market forces?

Re:what are these "incentives" you speak of?

[stenvar]

ok you got me...i'm curious...what do you mean by 'incentive'?

The kind of rewards people receive for the work they do: increasing personal wealth, continued employment, peer recognition, higher salary, better office, new job opportunities, etc.

also, if you feel like it, can you explain how government contracts will **always** be doled out as political favors? Do you mean 'practically' always or are you saying its inherent?

"Always" not in the sense that every single one of them is, but in the sense that it is a very common part of government contracting that you cannot eliminate through reforms, regulations, or better government.

can you give a counter-example? something where a person **would** have the proper incentive as you define it to do *excelent* work on a project like this? how would that look?

If you run your own business, you have a strong financial incentive to make it easy for people to sign up with you and do business with you. Furthermore, if you fail to do so, you go out of business. Neither incentive nor mechanism exists for the government. Government services like this are mandatory, and government can't go out of businesses by people choosing to go elsewhere.

Re:But their bid was lower!

[chris.alex.thomas]

sure, I can agree with that, but surely when the contract was up for grabs, nobody thought twice to repeal that specific rule as it's obviously not a good rule to have?

so whilst the fault will always lie with bush, the responsibility for it's continuation will lie with the person who is sitting in the chair and not changing anything

Re:If it was Obama's signature legislation.....

[richieb]

Sigh.. do you understand how insurance works? If you have insurance via your job it also covers all kinds of stuff that you will never use...