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Oregon Sues Oracle For "Abysmal" Healthcare Website

Posted by timothy on from the finest-consultants-in-the-land dept.

SpzToid (869795) writes The state of Oregon sued Oracle America Inc. and six of its top executives Friday, accusing the software giant of fraud for failing to deliver a working website for the Affordable Care Act program. The 126-page lawsuit claims Oracle has committed fraud, lies, and "a pattern of activity that has cost the State and Cover Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars". "Not only were Oracle's claims lies, Oracle's work was abysmal", the lawsuit said. Oregon paid Oracle about $240.3 million for a system that never worked, the suit said. "Today's lawsuit clearly explains how egregiously Oracle has disserved Oregonians and our state agencies", said Oregon Atty. Gen. Ellen Rosenblum in a written statement. "Over the course of our investigation, it became abundantly clear that Oracle repeatedly lied and defrauded the state. Through this legal action, we intend to make our state whole and make sure taxpayers aren't left holding the bag."

Oregon's suit alleges that Oracle, the largest tech contractor working on the website, falsely convinced officials to buy "hundreds of millions of dollars of Oracle products and services that failed to perform as promised." It is seeking $200 million in damages. Oracle issued a statement saying the suit "is a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Cover Oregon and the governor for their failures to manage a complex IT project. The complaint is a fictional account of the Oregon Healthcare Project."

8 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Reputation by Livius · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know if Oregon's suit has merit or not, but that sure sounds like my employer's experience with Oracle.

    1. Re:Reputation by alx512 · · Score: 5, Informative

      My employer unfortunately uses Oracle's HR management systems also. Worst piece of enterprise software I've ever seen. I have physical pain any time I have to use it. Their big iron databases used to be the shit, but even those seem to be going the way of the dodo as much cheaper, easier to use options are available these days.

    2. Re:Reputation by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Informative

      It sounds like Oracle's fucking business model. Overcommit, underbudget, get the job by being the "cheapest". Once the client's committed to your implementation, claim that the project brief was misleading or something and massively jack up the budget or leave the client with a stinking piece of shit.

      My university's management, financial and student software was upgraded by Oracle. Something like 70 million dollars later, the web frontend is a complete farce full of atrocious design decisions, confusing options and ridiculous limitations. The employee backend is so complicated and useless that you need a fucking MANUAL to use it, and most people need assistance to do basic tasks such as budgeting their funds.

  2. Lawsuits by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have no doubt at all that Oracle committed fraud and lied a lot. I have no doubt Oregon's project management failed to give adequate oversight to the project, failed to adequately specify the project, and repeatedly changed what little specification they provided.

    Neither matters. I have no doubt this lawsuit will ultimately fail, because the Oregon attorney general doesn't have the technical ability to prove the fraud and lies. The state has already proven they don't understand what they're doing. We're about to get a second demonstration.

  3. Deflect Blame? by ZeroSerenity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "is a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Cover Oregon and the governor for their failures to manage a complex IT project." It shouldn't be their job, that's what they paid you for.

    --
    For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
  4. The blame lies with Oregon by Munchr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have no love for Oracle, but the blame cannot be placed at their feet. As has been reported in local Oregon and nationwide news, Oracle insisted Oregon hire a project manager and systems integrator, either because the contract did not permit Oracle to fulfill those roles or Oracle was not capable of performing those roles. Oregon refused those requests, despite many warnings from Oracle and Cover Oregon's own director that without such services the site would not be ready to go live. Instead, Oregon placed a gag order on everyone involved in the project to hide the problems from the public. This is very much a problem caused by Oregon, not by any willful fraud by Oracle. This is also SOP for Oregon Government, with just about any project they undertake. (Full disclosure, I am one of many pissed off Oregonians.)

  5. Not all states failed by kybred · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's a success story about Kentucky's Kynect Exchange.

    They need not have worried. Over the past year, Kentucky’s health care website has proved to be a huge success. More than a half-million Kentucky residents have signed up for the Bluegrass State’s version of Obamacare. A majority of Kentuckians approve of it. That this has happened in a deeply red state is unexpected but hardly an accident.

  6. Re:Oracle sucks. by umdesch4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not a PhD level database guru, but my career has been almost entirely working with databases over the last 20 years. I can say that the underlying technology of the Oracle RDBMS itself is light years beyond other systems. I'm not an advocate of anything Oracle has done in other arenas over the last 10-15 years, but I experience an existential crisis every day in my job where I love working within an Oracle database, but hate pretty much everything about the company that owns it.