Posted on 07/31/2014 9:31:21 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A rushed team at the Department of Health and Human Services failed to plan properly or watch over contractors hired to set up and run the online health insurance exchange, setting it up for its spectacular blowout when it rolled out last October, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And unless HHS acts, more problems could happen this year, the report warns.
Federal officials had just three and a half years to design, build and launch the online marketplace from the time the Affordable Care Act was signed in March 2010 to the time it had to be ready in October 2013, and the rush job fell apart, the nonpartisan General Accountability Office said.
To make matters worse, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that runs the site, threw good money after bad, the GAO says in the report, obtained by NBC News.
“The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) undertook the development of HealthCare.gov and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices, despite facing a number of challenges that increased both the level of risk and the need for effective oversight,” the GAO report reads.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
My 18 year old son and three of his stoner friends could have written the web site in between games of beer pong and episodes of that 70’s Show.
General George Catlett Marshall only had three and a half years to mobilize, train, deploy, plan, and choose a commander for the Army that invaded the continent of Europe in June of 1944. How did he manage? Clearly the contractor's fault. And George W. Bush.
Wrong! The HHS allowed cronies to raid the money BEFORE they bothered to work on the system of redistribution.
Three years? Morons. Well, morons and off-shoring...
I can’t believe the language and implication here. They only had three and a half years??? Shouldn’t that have been plenty of time to get the website up and running and work out the kinks???
What would the liberals have said, if Bush had three plus years to implement a law or program, and it failed so miserably? And doesnt that episode show just how much Obama and his administration are lacking in basic management skills???
And these clowns want to run healthcare for the country.
And none of these frauds who stole taxpayers’s funds went to prison...
Having been on both sides of the aisle....as contractor and gov’t representative....I can say that you must absolutely have someone of authority running the contract...grasping the full details of what is required...and pushing the contractor team each single day. That’s the only way that you meet objectives.
The big three screw-ups that I saw....(1) a contract manager who is continually bombarded by higher-up dimwits who continually change the game plan. (2)Contactors brought in and just refuse to cooperate with the plan and the manager won’t terminate them. And (3) Lack of audit capability to show what’s going on or how you are progressing.
In this case....I don’t think anyone in HHS really knew the intended goal on day one....I doubt if the contractors understood the goal on day one...and no one was ever going to be held responsible for failure. Based on this...it was a remarkable one-star marginal episode....doomed for failure.
As an example, look at our president.
Real management requires experience, talent and leadership. Real management focuses in framing the specifications, then fulfilling the design within the assigned timeframe and budget.
Let us never lose sight of this fact: Obamacare was designed from day one to fail miserably. How else to implement single payer?
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