Posted on 11/30/2013 2:06:15 PM PST by kristinn
As a small coterie of grim-faced advisers shuffled into the Oval Office on the evening of Oct. 15, President Obama’s chief domestic accomplishment was falling apart 24 miles away, at a bustling high-tech data center in suburban Virginia.
HealthCare.gov, the $630 million online insurance marketplace, was a disaster after it went live on Oct. 1, with a roster of engineering repairs that would eventually swell to more than 600 items. The private contractors who built it were pointing fingers at one another. And inside the White House, after initially saying too much traffic was to blame, Mr. Obama’s closest confidants had few good answers.
The political dangers were clear to everyone in the room: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Kathleen Sebelius, the health secretary; Marilyn Tavenner, the Medicare chief; Denis McDonough, the chief of staff; Todd Park, the chief technology officer; and others. For 90 excruciating minutes, a furious and frustrated president peppered his team with questions, drilling into the arcane minutiae of web design as he struggled to understand the scope of a crisis that suddenly threatened his presidency.
“We created this problem we didn’t need to create,” Mr. Obama said, according to one adviser who, like several interviewed, insisted on anonymity to share details of the private session. “And it’s of our own doing, and it’s our most important initiative.”
Out of that tense Oval Office meeting grew a frantic effort aimed at rescuing not only the insurance portal and Mr. Obama’s credibility, but also the Democratic philosophy that an activist government can solve big, complex social problems. Today, that rescue effort is far from complete.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
To what purpose?
I’m sure George W. Bush is sitting at a computer furiously sabotaging the site at this very minute. Because its all his fault.
Kaslin, $640 million siphoned resulting in a dollar store website, and no-one is blaming anyone. This is Las Vegas in the ‘60’s/70’s. Pretty cool?!
This sentence seems to be somewhat at odds with the "Obama is one of the smartest human beings alive today - or ever - and is bored by things that ordinary people find challenging" story line we've been hearing lately.
If memory serves, we've been hearing that story line from the New York Times, among other all-in-for-the-lightworker MSM outlets.
It will never fail. It will only be "far from complete."
Just like liberalism, and socialism, and communism.
Conservatives fail all the time. Often, they fail before they implement a single policy.
Liberals never fail. They just run out of time, or money, or gullible followers. But they never fail.
There aren’t enough shovels around to shovel the bull crap being generated by a lying scheming implicit complicit lapdog liberal media syndicate.. Where caution is the better part of reporting and not fabricating or passing an agenda line on, well, too obviously anyway.
Amazing the Republic has survived as long as it has.
NO, belay that.
The blood of patriots has served us all well.
Lest we forget where we came from.
/sarc
Yes. What strikes me about this article is how inconsequential Obama is. They’re trying to save his presidency, but Obama is largely uninvolved in the effort.
All website stories have vanished from Google News after today’s crash.
The programming contract was given to Mrs Os friend from college as a non competitive bid. All government contracts require a minimum of three bids as I recall and if there is only one supplier, then a sole source contract may be awarded, Failure to do so is a criminal offense, a fraud and theft. How much did the Democrats and Obama get? Where are our Republicans / Tea Party candidates in their investigation of this BS?
Exactly.
That’s why all these articles about the website.
It’s to divert attention to the real problems ... which have nothing to do with the website.
Too many are getting sucked into the misdirection scheme the media running. By putting out so many articles about the website they figure fewer people will be focusing on the actual problems with Obamacare.
In fact, I wouldn’t put it past the Obama admin to have glitched up the website themselves as a delaying tactic.
BTW where is the bid from Google which is, I believe, correcting the big theft? Obviously Mrs O awarded a contract to the original parties without any competitive bid or justification of a “Sole Source” contract.
The excerpt makes me vomit. The citzens of the USSR got more objective news from Pravda.
Possibly, bnut I know of 4 contracts awarded under Obamacare where the winners were not the submitters of the lowest bid. I believe the Democrats are using Obama care contracts as a reward for political contributions. A mere slush fund.
Funny, I wrote to my Sen, Rubio with specifics on two contracts with the names etc on Aug 9. No reply yet even to the follow up letter.
Rubio is too busy with the gang of 8. Immigration laws are to protect American Citizens not foreign nationals. Get over it and go after the corruption.
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