Last week Heather sent me a link to Alex Marchant’s graph comparing lines of code in the Healthcare.gov site with other popular software and sites. Go see it, it’s a hoot.
Reagan famously said government can’t do anything right, and everyone elected since then seems determined to prove it. There’s something quintessentially American about purposely electing people who say the job can’t be done… no, wait. Not “quintessentially”… that other word… quixotically? Something like that. Tea partiers take note.
Anyway, when I tell anyone involved professionally with computer science that the Obama administration entrusted the building of the Health Care Exchange website to a raft of consultants, and the budget ran to more than $88 million (how much more, nobody seems to quite know!) none of them are at all surprised that the system doesn’t work and is laughably poorly constructed. Of course it won’t work if you don’t hire real experts into full-time, permanent positions to build and support it.
Currently it appears that we’re going to blame Canada for this debacle. And you do have to wonder what brilliant management consultant (I have heard the name Booz Allen whispered, but not confirmed) decided to hire CGI, who also failed to build a working healthcare system for Ontario, Canada last year. I mean, Canada’s single-payor! If a consultancy can’t handle a simple, already working system like Canada’s, how are they going to manage implementing the Heritage-foundation designed Affordable Care Act?