The
government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health
care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to
Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc.
and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
However,
the project is not meeting up to its expectations as there have been many hitches
and failures with this website.
As
questions mount over the website's failure, insider interviews and a review of
technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex
system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that
congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private
developers with more expertise.
Project
developers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity — because they feared
they would otherwise be fired — said they raised doubts among themselves
whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each
other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was
nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer
said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
President
Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as
"kinks in the system." He also promised a "tech surge" by
leading technology talent to repair the painfully slow and often unresponsive
website that has frustrated Americans trying to enroll online for insurance
plans at the center of Obama's health care law.
"The
problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for
and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for
everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has
been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process.
And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I
am."
I
can’t imagined with the huge amount spent on this project, there should be
failures as experienced at its Introductory stage.
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