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Some info behind the building of healthcare.gov (hint: it's *way* more than just a website)
Don't Blame The Law, Blame The System
http://crooksandliars.com/jamie/dont-blame-law-blame-system
So why is this system such a complete and utter failure? There have been tons of articles speculating what went wrong, but being in this industry they just didn't seem to add up. That's until now. Thanks to the Sunlight Foundation (http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/2013/aca-contractors/), we now see that the major problem is one we all know too well. That would be cronyism, and cronyism is never as prevalent as it is in federal procurement.
According to the report, there were a total of 47 contractors that worked on the project. Now let me be clear that something like this isn't uncommon. Healthcare.gov is more than just a website.
As matter of fact, the website is one of the smaller parts. Behind the scenes you've got this new hub that the website connects to to verify income, residency and a bunch of other things. That "hub" connects to numerous government agencies to determine this. That means the hub had to be developed, then integrated with systems in DHS, Social Security, the IRS and a bunch of other agencies. Once all that was done, the website's back-end got developed to communicate with the hub and get this data. There's a lot of moving parts here and if one goes down, everything goes down.
But when you look at these 47 contractors, you see a lot of big names. Look even closer and you see all but one has a long history of government work. We're talking about companies such as IBM, Verizon, Northrop Grumman and even Booz Allen Hamilton. A lot of these companies thrive on government contracts, so they know how the game works.
According to the report, there were a total of 47 contractors that worked on the project. Now let me be clear that something like this isn't uncommon. Healthcare.gov is more than just a website.
As matter of fact, the website is one of the smaller parts. Behind the scenes you've got this new hub that the website connects to to verify income, residency and a bunch of other things. That "hub" connects to numerous government agencies to determine this. That means the hub had to be developed, then integrated with systems in DHS, Social Security, the IRS and a bunch of other agencies. Once all that was done, the website's back-end got developed to communicate with the hub and get this data. There's a lot of moving parts here and if one goes down, everything goes down.
But when you look at these 47 contractors, you see a lot of big names. Look even closer and you see all but one has a long history of government work. We're talking about companies such as IBM, Verizon, Northrop Grumman and even Booz Allen Hamilton. A lot of these companies thrive on government contracts, so they know how the game works.
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