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Oregon Suing Oracle Over Obamacare Site, But Still Needs Oracle's Help

jfruh writes Oracle and the state of Oregon are in the midst of a particularly nasty set of lawsuits over the botched rollout of Oregon's health care exchange site, with Oregon claiming that Oracle promised an "out-of-the-box solution" and Oracle saying that Oregon foolishly attempted to act as its own systems integrator. But one aspect of the dispute helps illustrate an unpleasant reality of these kinds of disputes: even as Oregon tries to extract damages from Oracle, it still needs Oracle's help to salvage the site.

25 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. grow your own exchange by BringsApples · · Score: 4, Funny

    Then I guess all of the folks of Oregon will just have to grow cannabis and self medicate till this thing blows over.

    --
    Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    1. Re:grow your own exchange by Virtucon · · Score: 2

      With booze and gambling and hookers?

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    2. Re:grow your own exchange by F34nor · · Score: 2

      Portland is almost unique in the U.S. as we allow the combination of vices, all nude and liqueur in the same venue. Granted the stripper is going to be a PhD. candidate in women's studies with two kids but... TITTIES!

    3. Re:grow your own exchange by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or they could just hire programmers directly. The gov't doesn't have to just hand out juicy contracts, it can employe people directly. But as everyone who's been completely ignoring the increased efficiency of the DMV and post office knows it's scientifically impossible for the gov't to do that. That and it's still 1950 and Leave it to Beaver is in it's 3rd season...

      --
      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  2. Mistake #1 by maz2331 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Using Oracle. Even their flagship DBMS product is a nightmare to configure and try to get decent performance out of - unless one hires a 6-figure DBA to constantly babysit the damn thing.

    1. Re:Mistake #1 by thieh · · Score: 2

      Haven't Oracle bought that too? Use MariaDB instead.

    2. Re:Mistake #1 by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What is the better choice?

      That 6 figure DBA is just as qualified to maintain any of the free alternatives. So why pay Oracle?

      I maintain an Oracle app/DB and they're deprecating some major functionality and refuse to support older versions that do have it, so I'm supposed to come up with alternatives. I strongly favor an open/free alternative. My management came to me and said "But how do we get support?!?!" to which I replied "We haven't had support for over 10yrs, why start now?"

    3. Re:Mistake #1 by Virtucon · · Score: 2

      I was thinking chisel and stone tablets. Much more durable than paper. Less chance for data loss except if you drop them.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    4. Re:Mistake #1 by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What is the better choice?

      There are many better choices. There are fifty states, and Oregon's website is widely regarded as the worst, despite spending far more than almost any other state.

      Better choice #1: Spend $0, and just use the federal site. More than half the states are doing this, and none have regretted it. There is no rational reason for each state to run their own site.

      Better choice #2: Use a small lean team of state employees, so they have skin in the game because promotions and raises depend on their success. Starve them of resources, so they have no choice but to keep it simple and focus on basic functionality. This is what Kentucky did. They spent 3% of what Oregon spent. Oregon ended up with the worst site. Kentucky's is widely considered the best.

      Really bad choice: Use a contractor, that has a vested interested in a broken and bloated site, that needs lots of continuing maintenance.

      Absolute worst possible choice: Use a contractor with a long and horrible track record of late deliveries and busted budgets. I have never EVER heard of anyone that used Oracle as a contractor and was happy with the result. Using Oracle is like buying a book from Amazon that has 1.000000 stars after 600 reviews.

    5. Re:Mistake #1 by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, this is healthcare we're talking about. Pin and paper. Use the pin to prick your finger, and sign the paper.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    6. Re:Mistake #1 by F34nor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Same reason that Regence BCBS blew $500 million on their REMAC project trying to replace IBM mainframes with PCs. They listened to ass-hat consultants and ignored the nerds. If your computer consultant arrives in a suit and a Lincoln Town Car DON'T FUCKING LISTEN TO HIM.

    7. Re:Mistake #1 by Hamsterdan · · Score: 2

      Kinda obligatory www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAtRCJIqnk

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    8. Re:Mistake #1 by meglon · · Score: 2

      Technically they had the choice of opting to make their own, with the default setting to use the federal site if they didn't make their own. Most of those are them federal government haters that decry "big" and "intrusive" federal government, yet continue to suck money out of the feds to make up for their shortcomings in their states economy.... and when they're given the chance to reduce that "intrusiveness," they opt to be lazy bitches and use the feds site.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    9. Re:Mistake #1 by canadiannomad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Much as I'm not a fan of Bill gates, mistake #1 is not following the rules of automation:

      The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

      -- Bill Gates

      --
      Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
    10. Re:Mistake #1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or use PostgreSQL.

    11. Re:Mistake #1 by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Live in a red state that didn't accept the expansion. Now I get to deal with $120 a month insurance bill, a $5000 deductible

      If you live in a blue state, your options are pretty much the same. The only difference is that you are also paying more taxes so your state can give $230M to Oracle, so Larry Ellison can afford to buy his own private island. He don't get to be that filthy stinking rich by being frugal with his client's money.

    12. Re: Mistake #1 by Bartles · · Score: 2

      Better choice #1: Spend $0, and just use the federal site. More than half the states are doing this, and none have regretted it. There is no rational reason for each state to run their own site.

      The text of the PPACA and Halbig. That's a pretty big reason

    13. Re:Mistake #1 by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      No, this is healthcare we're talking about.

      No, this is health INSURANCE we're talking about.

      They're related, but not identical.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    14. Re:Mistake #1 by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2

      But /dev/null benchmarks faster. If only it supported sharding.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  3. Re:normal by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

    this is how disputes over large projects between large organizations are almost always handled, nobody takes their ball and goes home just because something is disputed unless one or both organizations have a serious cult of personality issue.

    Right... I think everyone doing business with Oracle is Simultaneously working on a project, negotiating their contract renewal and in legal preceding. That's how Oracle works.

  4. Re:ok by Virtucon · · Score: 2

    It's a contract dispute as alleged by Oregon: fraud and poor performance. A court trial in this case would be warranted if the parties couldn't work it out amicably. Having dealt with State and Federal contracts I tell you that some of the deliverables stated in contracts leave huge holes. The vendors more often than not can't change them and so eventually you get to a point where either the customer is happy or they withhold payment or sue you because their nebulous requirements weren't met.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  5. Re:ok by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it's a shame oracle has never done a state or federal contract before; otherwise, they would know more about how to write a contract and scope of work. I'm sure the next time will go smoother!

  6. Re:ok by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Insightful

    i was shopping for a developer company to make a public website DB thing. I was getting all sort of stupid responses. One firm bragged that they use "waterfall", which means they would sign on to do $X worth of work but would not agree to deliverables because it's fluid and agile. is this what the industry's like? lactarded.

  7. Oracle’s Oregon Website Failure .. by lippydude · · Score: 2

    Oracle wouldn’t be my first choice but it sounds like they put it up for a bidding process and when everyone saw how complicated the project was, Oracle’s the only one that hung in there.”

    It’s hard to judge the quality from the outside, but if you look at their front end website, there are a lot of things they didn’t do. When you look at their technology practices, even the ones we can see from the outside, it’s obvious they didn’t put their ‘A’ team on this. So, yeah, I do think that Oracle didn’t do a good job and they probably shouldn’t have taken it in the first place, because they’ve taken on something it would be impossible to do a good job on.” ref

  8. Oracle told them up front by Grand+Facade · · Score: 2

    To hire an industry coordinator but Kitzhauber let the clowns do it in house.

    Oracle wrote a letter to them warning of potential problems without proper project management.

    Oracle was only contracted for limited aspects of the project "time and materials".

    Oregon (Kitzhauber) needs to cut it's losses and pull the plug on "Cover Oregon".
    I think they think it is some kind of honey pot they are going to skim revenue from, but so far all they have done is squander millions of my tax dollars for something the feds already provide.

    --
    Rick B.