I am astonished at the ineptitude of our state government, in implementing the ACA! Since we already had a working website, I assumed that, with a few tweeks, MA would be in great shape for the ACA (especially in a state with so much technological sophistication). But NO: after totally messing up the first attempt, I understand that MA is now deciding to spend another $121 million dollars, in the hope that we will will have something up and running for the next enrollment period.
How can this happen? Will anybody be held accountable? Where is the outrage?
There is lots of outrage, David. It’s just kind of subordinated into the general frustration with the national health care roll out. There have been lots of discussions about this, but ultimately, it is just one of those bad situations that hardworking people in the trenches — programmers and bureaucrats and insurers, and, of course, health care customers — have to struggle their way out of. It’s clear that at the national level, political considerations superseded sound management considerations — any responsible decision-maker unconstrained by politics would have insisted on holding up the rollout until things were more ready.
Will,
How was the vendor chosen? From what I can read, CGI doesn’t have the best track record and they’re a foreign company. Massachusetts obviously has a strong software industry so why wasn’t this contract awarded to a local company? Is the state getting a refund for the botched work?
Also, I know quite a bit about large software projects and this web site was not complicated relative to what’s done in the private sector. At least on the federal web site, really bush league mistakes were made. The state needs to take a serious inward look on this one.
Agreed on the need for an inward look on this. There has been a lot of examination of the situation. Let me see if I can get you a better report on what people have been saying about it.