It's About Time CGI Was Booted! Michelle's Girlfriend's Company Got A Reported $1 Billion! Nice Payday!

Administration Dumps CGI as HealthCare.gov Contractor

Friday, 10 Jan 2014 03:28 PM

By Courtney Coren

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The Obama Administration is dropping CGI Federal, the contractor responsible for building the glitch-laden HealthCare.gov website that has been a major source of the problems that hit Obamacare when open enrollment began in October, a source tells The Washington Post. 

Federal officials will sign a new contract with the consulting firm Accenture for a 12-month period worth about $90 million to take over and fix the problems that continue to plague the government-run site, the source said. The CGI contract is set to expire at the end of February.

Accenture is a large consulting firm that has done work for states before but it has not done any major work for the federal government. It was the firm behind California's state-run health exchange website, CoveredCa.gov.

The consulting firm refused to comment on any potential contracts it currently has in the works.

"We are in discussions with potential clients all the time but it is not appropriate to discuss with the media contracts we may or may not be discussing," Joanne Veto, Accenture spokeswoman, told The Post.

Government officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees HealthCare.gov, would not confirm the change either.

"We continually evaluate our needs and remain focused on ensuring consumers have access to affordable, quality coverage," said CMS spokesman Aaron Albright.

While the front-end of the website was largely fixed by Nov. 30, 2013, there are still major problems with the back-end that is supposed to communicate with insurers. It has made it difficult to complete the enrollment process and left many without insurance even though they thought they had signed up.

Because of these lingering problems, the decision to end the contract with CGI on the part of the government does not come as a surprise.

The sources that spoke with The Post said the decision was made by CMS because of frustration with the quality of the work from CGI as well as the pace of the work when the company was repairing the website.

According to a report released by Bloomberg Government analyst Peter Gosselin, CGI was paid more than $1 billion for the deeply flawed website.

Tech experts who analyzed the website have said it shouldn't have cost more than $10 million to build HealthCare.gov.

Related Stories:

• Obamacare Contractor Linked to 20 Troubled Government Projects
• Govt Official: Security Problems Plague Health Website

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Government Not Required To Tell You When Your Data Has Been Stolen By Hackers! Make You Feel Good?

John Fund: Feds Violate Hacking Disclosure Laws on ACA Site

Thursday, 26 Dec 2013 07:05 PM

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The federal government has exempted itself from having to tell people signing up for the Affordable Care Act whether or not their classified information has been hacked by cyberthieves, says John Fund, a national affairs columnist for National Review Online.

"They've exempted themselves from the law and it's just appalling. I mean every private business, if you're a customer and you get hacked, they have to tell you at least about it so you can change your credit cards or take other precautions," Fund told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The state healthcare exchanges … they have to in most cases tell you but not the federal government. In other words, it's one law for thee and one law for me, is the government's attitude."

Fund, who is also senior editor at The American Spectator, said officials last year decided to give themselves a pass on having to disclose anything about hacking problems."In 2012, they had a meeting on the final rules of Obamacare. Security experts showed up and testified … you've got to include this warning, this transparency rule, and they said, no, we choose not to," he said.

"Now, the reason why that's important is this: in September when they were rushing to get the website up … it was such a mess that the chief information security officer … refused to sign off on the website being safe from hackers and from others and then her boss refused to sign off on it."

In an article on the National Review website Monday, Fund referenced the recent hacking that threatens the credit and debit card information of 40 million Target customers, a security lapse that has led to widespread criticism of the retail giant.

Fund wrote, "At least Target informed its customers of the security breach, as it is required by federal law to do. HealthCare.gov faces no such requirement; it need never notify customers that their personal information has been hacked or possibly compromised. The Department of Health and Human Services was specifically asked to include a notification requirement in the rules it designed for the health-care exchanges, but HHS declined."

Republicans on Capitol Hill have also made comparisons with the Target hacking.

"The difference is that Target notified consumers when a breach occurred, but the scary part here is that [Obamacare] consumers are not necessarily going to be told that their personal information has been breached," Tom Flanigan, press secretary for Republican Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee, told Newsmax Tuesday.

"No one is forced to shop at Target, but they are forced to participate in the exchanges and to input very personal health information," Flanigan said.

Black has introduced the Federal Exchange Data Breach Notification Act of 2013, which would require the federal government to notify individuals if their personal information has been exposed or compromised.

 

CNN reported in November that more than a dozen cyberattacks were attempted on the website up to that time, according to a Homeland Security Department official. The article reported the House Homeland Security Committee testimony of database expert Luke Chung, who told the committee that the many technical failings of the website did not bode well for its ability to secure data.

"[When you have an environment where the developer can barely get the web site functional, security is way down on the list of things to take care of. Security has to be built-in at the very beginning not at the very end," Chung said.

In his National Review article, Fund quotes Bruce Webster, "a consultant who has advised companies for 40 years on IT issues," terming the administration's hacking disclosure policy as "security through obscurity."

"They do not want to talk about their security measures; they do not want to talk about their security breaches; they do not want to inform affected citizens of compromised personal information," Webster told Fund.

"Their attitude reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s character Ernestine as an AT&T operator back when AT&T had a monopoly: “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Is Obama On The DL?

RJ Matson, Roll Call

Is ObamaCrapCare A View Of The Future--Will It Lead To Things Much Worse?

Obamacare: Echoes of Stalinism Past

Tuesday, 03 Dec 2013 07:08 AM

By Peter Morici Twitter @pmorici1

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D-day arrived for Obamacare Saturday, and began with an 11-hour shutdown of HealthCare.gov — the problem-plagued website intended to provide easy access to affordable insurance for millions of Americans.

The contraption is functioning better but is still terribly inadequate. It can only handle 50,000 users at a time, well short of the volume needed to assist the millions of Americans who must purchase health insurance by year end or face fines.

Those eligible for subsidies must use the system, but often the system can’t verify eligibility for aid. Many are in limbo — applications already initiated are stalled, lost or otherwise can’t be completed.



Healthcare.gov software to get insurance companies paid subsidies is not functioning effectively, and the small business site that was to offer group coverage has been postponed one year.

Eventually Jeffrey Zients will have this monster fulfilling all its functions, but likely it will be a balky, frustrating website, much like other federal websites or those run by private firms enjoying monopoly power.

Health insurance will be right up there with dealing with tax filing. Bureaucrats will have easy access to sensitive personal data, which Obama administration political moles can use to target, harass and sometimes destroy critics, and simply occupy millions of hours of citizens’ time that could be used more productively.

Welcome to statism — the ants of capitalism herded into a bureaucratic hell to serve the masters of a grander design.

All this aside, let’s look at the list of promises that will remain unfulfilled when the website is fully repaired, no matter how well it may run:

• If you like your insurance, you can keep it.
• If you like your doctor, you can keep him/her.
• If you need help finding the coverage you need, we will make it easy.
• By organizing the healthcare market under the guiding hand of the omnipotent state, we will make insurance cheaper.

The first two promises are forever broken. Insurance companies can’t bring back most policies the Affordable Care Act declared illegal, a presidential edict notwithstanding.

And insurance companies are slashing doctors and hospitals from their networks to meet arbitrary Obamacare mandates.

Folks who had perfectly adequate policies, which were delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars in life-saving benefits from specialized physicians for cancer treatment and other complex illnesses, have lost those benefits and been offered replacement policies cluttered with unneeded services. For example, pediatric vision care for childless couples in their 50s and birth-control benefits for nuns.

Many Americans face death when old policies lapse and can no longer pay for the care they need. But as a Washington lawyer and ardent support of the president assuaged me, some sacrifice is needed by a few for the progress of the many.

Echoes of Stalin’s casualties building the Moscow subway!

Overall, premium costs are rocketing for many Americans, not because their old coverage was inadequate or because new coverage is better, but because they are in markets now served by fewer providers and less competition than before. Businesses are forced to jettison full-time positions in favor or part-time workers to avoid paying health benefits they can no longer afford and avoid penalties that will be imposed beginning in 2015.

Americans are burdened with about 20 new taxes and fees and higher premiums and co-pays for insurance policies that work about the same or worse for most middle-class families — the folks the president and his fellow Democrats say they want to help.

It took a triumph of hubris for the president to believe he could sign a single law that would replace markets in a U.S. healthcare sector as large as the economy of France.

Only God can make a tree, and in his creation, only the invisible hand can make a market.

When the government tries to replace free markets, it plays God — and does so very badly.

© 2013 Moneynews. All rights reserved.

Problems Will Continue With ObamaCrapCare Site. It Is Not Easy To Fix The Unfixable.

Sen. Corker: Obamacare Woes Aren't Over With Website Fixes

Sunday, 01 Dec 2013 01:23 PM

By Sandy Fitzgerald

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The ongoing issues with the Obamacare website — and a set of just-unveiled improvements — are just a portion of the problems that will continue to haunt the healthcare law and its implementation, Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker says.

"There are thousands of entities around the country that easily could have set this [website] up with $600 million in three years," Corker told CBS' "Face the Nation" guest host John Dickerson Sunday.

Even with all that cost "we get calls from incredibly distressed citizens who have had their policies cancelled yet are unable to enroll in a new plan," Corker said. "I do hope that the efficacy of this is much better today and will improve. But at the end of the day, there will be few winners. Most Americans are going to find a less-dynamic health system."

Corker said Americans will see that their healthcare costs will be a lot more, while their choices will be far less.

Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, also on the Sunday show, said that the website's error rates are being reported at under 1 percent, and 90 percent of the time, the system is now stable.

"It can handle 50,000 users, 800,000 visits a day," Menendez said. "If that's the case, then that's good news."

The problems with the website, Menendez said, are technological and are hiding the benefits of the underlying program itself.

"What we've lost sight of is that the underlying program itself, the product of the health insurance that Americans will be able to access is critically important," said Menendez.

The HealthCare.gov site's problems, he said, are "the equivalent of having a great item that you want to buy in a store but not being able to get through the front door. Sounds like the front door has been opened successfully now and hopefully Americans can get access to that health care they desperately need."

But Corker said that as people start enrolling, he believes there are "going to be a lot of negative surprises as to what they're able to enroll in."

Further, Corker said, he doesn't know how to fix the many fundamental problems of Obamacare, because as one issue is solved, it affects other parts.

Corker said he's glad President Barack Obama is trying to "fix" the promise he made regarding people keeping their insurance, but "if that's the case, then you have this situation where potentially a death spiral occurs" if premiums sharply increase.

"I'm a strong supporter of dynamic marketplace exchanges," said Corker. "I do think we need to equalize the tax code so that if you buy it individually you get the same benefits that you do through a company where it's tax free."

However, he said the fundamentals were done in a "chaotic way" much like the rollout.

"They were done in a way that there wasn't a vision at the end, just an amalgamation of legislation that didn't have a central focus, so I don't know how you fix it," said Corker.

Meanwhile, Menendez said that he does not think, in the long run, that the botched rolloutwill harm Democratic senators trying to be re-elected.

"I look at New Jersey and I think it's a replication of what is out there for the nation," said Menendez, noting that 70,000 young adults remain on their parents insurance because of the new law, and 1.5 million women now get additional health benefits.

"I think senators will be in a great position to say, you know, look, we are doing dramatic changes that help you be able to meet the challenges for your family of healthcare and eliminate some of the greatest evils that existed under the previous system."

Related stories:

• Obamacare Woes Continue as Weekend Deadline Looms
  
• Doctor Shortage Looms as Obamacare Creates Medicaid Crisis
  

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

ObamaCrapCare Site Can Only Handle 50,000 At A Time--That Is Way Too Small

Obamacare Marketing Drive Delayed Over Fears of Website Crash

Thursday, 28 Nov 2013 12:15 PM

By Todd Beamon

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An Obamacare marketing campaign is being put on hold because the White House fears that a rush of customers to the hobbled HealthCare.gov website could crash the system.

"Our concern is that we want to make sure that people have the right expectation going into this," Jennifer Palmieri, White House communications director, told The New York Times. 

"Early October was a frustrating experience for users," Palmieri said. "We are preparing for the outcome that we have as many or more visitors as we had on Oct. 1."



About 4.7 million people visited HealthCare.gov that first day, Obama administration officials told The Times.

According to the report, administration officials are encouraging Americans to use the site but are working to not create too much demand. HealthCare.gov is greatly improved, officials said, but they cautioned that it might not work well for everyone.

"We are definitely on track to have a significantly different user experience by the end of the month," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told state and local elected officials in a conference call on Tuesday, The Times reported.

Sebelius was seeking to assure the officials that the administration would meet its Saturday deadline for having HealthCare.gov running smoothly.

The report strikes another blow to beleaguered HealthCare.gov, the main Obamacare website that serves 36 states that do not have their own insurance exchanges.

The site has been shut down to address technology issues, and HealthCare.gov crashed last week during a visit by Sebelius to a hospital in Miami.

In addition, Americans continue to have accessibility problems with the website.

The report also came on the same day the Obama administration announced a one-year delay for small businesses to purchase healthcare plans via HealthCare.gov.

According to The Times, White House officials said the site could now handle about 50,000 users at one time, but that number could leap to as many as 250,000 this weekend because of a Dec. 23 deadline to sign up for coverage that would begin on Jan. 1.

"The system will not work perfectly," Jeffrey Zients, who is now heading efforts to repair the website, told The Times last week. The site could handle 50,000 users, he said.

"To be clear, there will be times that volume on HealthCare.gov will exceed this capacity," Zients said.

Even Sebelius was vague about how many visitors HealthCare.gov might be able to handle on Saturday. She said in the conference call that there was not "a magic turn-on switch" that could be flipped to solve all of the website's problems, The Times reported.

Progress, however, has been gradual, and visitors can expect to find a better-operating site on Saturday, Sebelius said.

To ease pressure on HealthCare.gov, Americans can expect to find a "waiting room" for times when the site is operating slowly, The Times reported.

Visitors can ask the government to send an email telling them of a better time to use the site, and they then would go to the front of the line, according to The Times.



Related Stories:

• HHS Replacing Verizon With H-P for Obamacare Website
• Obamacare Website Won't be Perfect, Official Warns

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.