Accenture Faces Mid-March Healthcare.gov Deadline Or 'Disaster'

PapayaSF writes "TheHill.com reports that Accenture has two months to fix HealthCare.gov by building a 'financial management platform that tracks eligibility and enrollment transactions, accounts for subsidy payments to insurance plans, "provides stable and predictable financial accounting and outlook for the entire program," and that integrates with existing CMS and IRS systems.' The procurement document, posted on a federal website, states that if this is not completed in time, there will be 'financial harm to the government' and 'the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized.' Risk mitigation (which pays insurers who enroll a higher-than-expected number of sick patients) must be accurately forecast, or it might put 'the entire health insurance industry at risk.' Accenture will also have to fix the enrollment transmissions, which have been sending inaccurate and garbled data to insurance companies. Because the back-end cannot currently handle the federal subsidies, insurers will be paid estimated amounts as a stopgap measure. The document also said that officials realized in December that there was no time for a 'full and open competition process' before awarding Accenture the $91 million contract. What are their odds of success?"

Comments

Open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is government software like this thing not open source? What is the motivation for it being closed source?

Re:Open source

[Joce640k]

Money.

Re:Open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Two reasons:

1. People are (god help me, I feel a fedora sprouting from my head and hairs growing from my neck as I type this) sheep. Your average person would lose their goddamned shit if they didn't have someone telling them what to do and when to do it. This is the end result of an education system that teaches blind love of authority, followed by corporate structures that do the same with regard to their employees. Thinking is hard. Decisions are tough. Et cetera.

2. The only way to resolve the problem of the system is to vote in people who will change it. But if we vote for the wrong people, those other people might get elected! And they'll destroy us all! We'd better just vote for our team. Oh, yes.

Close to 100%

[artor3]

It'll be "good enough". Accenture built the California site, which works fine, and the insurers really want it to work, so they'll accept less than perfect.

Of course, the summary is designed to make everyone say "THERE'S NO CHANCE!!" It's kind of insulting in its blatant demagogy, but I've come to expect that here.

Who are Accenture?

[CuteSteveJobs]

Accenture, from the multinational corporation formerly known as Arthur Andersen, changed their name after the Enron scandal, formerly residents of tax haven Bermuda, now residents of tax haven Ireland http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2013/11/06/if-ireland-is-not-a-tax-haven-what-is-it/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen#Enron_scandal

Re:Who are Accenture?

[Dodgy G33za]

Accenture worked on the Australian Taxation Offices "Change Program", which cost billions and was a debacle. From the moment that they got the contract it was all about trying to progressively descope so that they had to deliver less and less. They delivered a fraction of what they said they would and many years late.

But then they have a habit of employing smart young non-techies and then putting them in technical positions, and work practices that border on a cult.

Why anyone would throw money at these clowns is anyone's guess.

Re:Who are Accenture?

[Tom]

Why anyone would throw money at these clowns is anyone's guess.

Because they are highly respected in management circles. You get the tech view on them and I have to agree that I would never, ever, ever hire them unless you put a gun to my head or something equivalent. But management thinks differently. From what I've grasped, they deliver excellent work, as far as management is concerned - that means regular status updates in easy-to-digest powerpoint slides, solid contract work, and instantly available expertise (if you tell them you need an expert on your big-ass storage system, tomorrow, they'll fly someone in and send you a bill).

All of these and many similar things are like miracles to a beleaguered manager who needs to save his neck from the management layer above him who's asking for his head in order to save their own.

Re:Who are Accenture?

[jonbryce]

Andersen Consulting split off from Arthur Andersen a few years before the Enron scandal.

Re:Who are Accenture?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good at management? Ok here is a story from Norway, I won't name names but I personally know the lead developers of the project. Accenture was hired by DNB to work on a pension system, worth "billions". The application was utter crap, atleast the lead developer said so. So one day DNB (which had employees in Accentures offices due to the project) came and had some change requests – Accenture's management estimated it would require 2000 man hours to complete the task (pulled a random number out of their frickin' management ass). At the same time DNB's person in Accenture's offices had contacted the lead developer and asked him about this change also. He fixed the issue even before Accenture's management had the opportunity to talk with him, 8 hours spent.

Accenture is nothing but a fuckin' scam, good at snake oil talk – officials working with this company is probably very very incompetent or even worse corrupt.

Re:Who are Accenture?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice paranoid conspiracy theory. The same Wikipedia article to which you link contains the facts: Accenture is not Arthur Anderson; it's the renamed Anderson Consulting, which split off from AA in 1989, 12 years before the Enron scandal. AC had nothing to do with the Enron contract; that was all AA. The renaming of AC to Accenture was due not to a PR decision by AC, but to a 2000 court order in AA's favor, awarding AA all rights to the "Andersen" name. AA subsequently renamed themselves "Andersen." all this took place the year before the scandal came out.

The Enron scandal took down AA; their involvement as the actual shredders destroyed their reputation. Accenture, having nothing to do with it, was largely unaffected and unharmed.

Re:Who are Accenture?

[Mr D from 63]

I worked with a customer that used them for building a new data mgmt system. Instead of guiding the team to starting with the basic structure and build on it, they wanted to map every conceivable use. A huge amount of time/money wasted on hypothetical data structures and unneeded complication. But, as you said, they had executive mgmt sold that they were the right company. They have good salesmen.

Unless they are replicating an existing system, I wouldn't use them.

For some, thinking is *impossible*

[Taco Cowboy]

Two reasons:

1. People are (god help me, I feel a fedora sprouting from my head and hairs growing from my neck as I type this) sheep. Your average person would lose their goddamned shit if they didn't have someone telling them what to do and when to do it. This is the end result of an education system that teaches blind love of authority, followed by corporate structures that do the same with regard to their employees. Thinking is hard. Decisions are tough. Et cetera.

It's only partly because of education, but for the *most* part, it's the innate human instinct to "go with the flock", and yes, just like the sheep.

Idol worshiping is everywhere, from movie stars to athletes to religious figures to even people of the most untrustworthy occupation - politicians - flocks of sheep pay their homage to their idols.

Whatever their idol did, no matter how wrong it is, the sheep will find excuses to defend - even when it is utterly *un*defendable, they still try their best to defend.

Like the original contract for this website which went to a college buddy of the POTUS' wife, without open bidding.

If we are to criticize the award of that original contract to someone who has no clue in setting up a website, the sheep will be rubbed the wrong way and they will revolt. They will attack whoever dare to criticize their idols.

Re:The odds of success are zero

[DexterIsADog]

Why is everyone responding couching this in terms of a binary success/failure? I have worked in the health insurance industry for 20 years, through lots of business, state regulation and federal regulation clusterfuck deadlines, and the typical pattern is;

Note that a deadline is approaching in a year or so
Meet occasionally to marvel at how complex the change will be until 6 months before the deadline
Assign a team to do the work with 4 months to go
Have an "oh shit! ALL HANDS ON DECK!" come-to-Jesus meeting two months before the deadline where the CEO kicks some rhetorical ass
The team works like hell to implement what they can
Mid-level managers identify the *least* required functionality to avoid firing/contract penalties/lawsuit and/or prosecution
Deliver *something* that technically meets the requirements
Get an "attaboy" from the CEO on the heroic work done by everyone involved

I'm not even being sarcastic. This is how it works. ICD-10 ring any bells?