As watch the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, it is impossible to avoid a degree of dissatisfaction with open enrollment and systems tools to facilitate coverage. It does not matter that we are receiving reports of 17 million unique hits to the website, and 560,000 calls to the call (assistance) center, a web based system that has failed such a critical program is unacceptable.
USA Today reported last Thursday, the site was developed with 10 year old technology. Is it possible the ACA now plagued with a failing of government procurement: the low contract bid? It does not appear low bid is the problem, but it is disconcerting to find the company contracted to develop the ACA enrollment system has a long history with the Bush Administration. CGI has reported $2.4 billion in information technology (IT) projects since its first contracts during the early years of the Bush Administration. The Washington Post provides a look at how CGI via two US acquisitions strategically positioned itself for lucrative government contractors (including the ACA contract).
CGI Federal is a relative newbie on the U.S. government IT contracting scene. It bought the U.S. contractor American Management Systems in 2004, but only started ramping up business after 2008, and accelerated in 2010 with the $1.1 billion acquisition of U.S.-based military IT contractor Stanley Inc. That sent its contracting work through the roof:CGI Federal's contracting volume over the years. (USASpending.gov)
Still, CGI is only the 29th largest federal IT contractor, with about $950 million in contracts in 2012, compared to number one Lockheed Martin's $14.9 billion. They also don't make high-profile weapons systems, but rather the guts of government Web sites that rarely bear their names.
If you notice the graph above starts in year 2001, we offer this: "No, we are not "laying it on Bush." We are questioning the wisdom and effectiveness of federal government procurement via 'letting' the contract to CGI without proper scrutiny for stakeholder in Washington DC. We do not hesitate to posit accordingly, despite the fact CGI has assisted in development of various state ACA website. State ACA websites are a far different project than a system to accommodate enrollment for million should the demand exist. Someone in the Administration did not practice proper contractor relationships including periodic checks, forced last minute modifications, failed at validating system testing, and system corrections.
An NBC news segment from last Thursday provides sad details of the failed CGI project. The broadcast segment also clearly states there were warnings. Warnings that apparently went unheeded, and most assuredly went investigated; thus more criticism of some entity in the project management team at HHS.
Some writers are questioning the wisdom of awarding such a critical contract to a company that has a history of donating heavily to the GOP. While CGI has a history of donating to Democrats as well as Republicans, The Center for Responsive Politics reveals in 2012 CGI contributed $184,700 527 committees. The contribution breakdown is as follows:
| Recipient | Total | From Indivs | From Orgs |
|---|---|---|---|
 Republican Governors Assn | $147,700 | $0 | $147,700 |
| Democratic Governors Assn | $35,000 | $0 | $35,000 |
The Center for Responsive Politics offers more details related political CGI contributions. In fairness, we will state CGI contributes on a more bi-partisan basis when consideration is given to individual politicians. Here are other writers who are not only not being "fair", some are suggesting a lack of effort to deliver an effective system for political reasons. We will not go there, just yet.
As indicated by BuzzFeed, the problem is not so much patronage and political subterfuge related to CGI, the problem is that of the federal government contractor. Where have we witness problem related to contractors int he recent past? Edward Snowden was released from contract with the CIA, only to successfully completed his espionage mission via the NSA.
In any case, the ACA enrollment system is flawed (to say the least). The Administration has posted a brief summary of their efforts to make improvements( posted it below).
Site Tags:
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Over the past two and a half weeks, millions of Americans visited HealthCare.gov to look at their new health care options under the Affordable Care Act. In that time, nearly half a million applications for coverage have been submitted from across the nation. This tremendous interest – with over 19 million unique visits to date to HealthCare.gov– confirms that the American people are looking for quality, affordable health coverage, and want to find it online.
Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans. Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site, while others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion. The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better.
Aside from the difficulties since launching the site, there are parts of the overall system that have proved up to the task. The “Data Hub,” component, which provides HealthCare.gov with information that aids in determining eligibility for qualified health plans, is working. Individuals have been able to verify their eligibility for credits, enabling them to shop for and enroll in low or even no-cost health plans.
WHAT HAPPENED – WHAT WE ARE WORKING ON
Since launch, when we first recognized these issues, we have been working around the clock to make improvements. We have updated the site several times with new code that includes bug fixes that have greatly improved the HealthCare.gov experience. The initial wave of interest stressed the account service, resulting in many consumers experiencing trouble signing up, while those that were able to sign up sometimes had problems logging in.
In response, we have made a number of improvements to the account service. Initially, we implemented a virtual “waiting room,” but many found this experience to be confusing. We continued to add more capacity in order to meet demand and execute software fixes to address the sign up and log in issues, stabilizing those parts of the service and allowing us to remove the virtual “waiting room.” Today, more and more individuals are successfully creating accounts, logging in, and moving on to apply for coverage and shop for plans. We're proud of these quick improvements, but we know there's still more work to be done. We will continue to conduct regular maintenance nearly every night to improve the experience.
TECH SURGE
To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering.
Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov. We're also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them. We are also defining new test processes to prevent new issues from cropping up as we improve the overall service and deploying fixes to the site during off-peak hours on a regular basis.
Most importantly, we want to hear from you, and make sure that your experience with HealthCare.gov is a positive one. If you have any comments, either complimentary or critical, please let us know by sharing your feedback at https://www.healthcare.gov/connect/. We've already heard so many stories of individuals getting health insurance for the first time, and we are dedicated to making that possible for all Americans.
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We also await President Obama's comments later today regrading the ACA, improvements and, we are certain, serious words about his concerns for the system failures.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg Business Week published a piece last week Friday, that has garnered our attention and appears to coincides with our concern for systems issues and contractual arrangements necessary for completion of government programs.
