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2013-10-26 Home Front: Politix

Oh REALLY?!: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare

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Posted by Uncle Phester 2013-10-26 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 A look at the Statement of Work (SOW), contract mods, deliverables, number of personnel assigned to the contract, hours worked by each, invoices, ETF (electronic funds transfers) ...... details please, the details.

Testimony from the 'Government' Administrative Contacting officer (ACO), Procurement Contracting Officer (PCO), and Contracting Officer (CO) would likewise be helpful.

Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-10-26 02:40|| 2013-10-26 02:40|| Front Page Top

#2 Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.

That's the reason these people cannot afford to give up power.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-10-26 06:48|| 2013-10-26 06:48|| Front Page Top

#3 #2 Could be high crimes and misdemeanors found here.
I hope someone runs the traps.

That's the reason these people cannot afford to give up power.

The trouble is...I have been convinced for decades now that from the House on up, by the time you get that seat on Capitol Hill or further down the street you've compromised yourself so badly in one form or another that if anyone really applied the laws you'd have all but a handful being marched out the door in cuffs, and they'd be looking real close at the ones who were left. There will be no impeachments or prosecutions, not out of political partisanship but self preservation.

It's broke now. Beyond any possible question or argument. The only question left is if we'll have the courage to do anything about it, or if we'll just watch it happen.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2013-10-26 07:09|| 2013-10-26 07:09|| Front Page Top

#4 Besides being sole-source, I'll bet it's cost plus. Overruns are a feature, the big money is in the change orders.

And there appear to be lots of change orders.

Posted by KBK 2013-10-26 09:06|| 2013-10-26 09:06|| Front Page Top

#5 During my 30+ years as a software geek I spent probably 5 years as a systems auditor. We found all sorts of funny business in the contracting process and it has been my belief from day 1 that this debacle would include everyone of them...plus a whole lot I've never seen before.

I was right.

Posted by AlanC 2013-10-26 10:01|| 2013-10-26 10:01|| Front Page Top

#6 The giant sucking sound you hear is the Chicago-style vacuum cleaner that sucks up money and directs it towards cronys, friends, and fellow-travelers.

Posted by JohnQC 2013-10-26 10:33|| 2013-10-26 10:33|| Front Page Top

#7 Inbreeding.

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-10-26 10:58|| 2013-10-26 10:58|| Front Page Top

#8 Strange, Mr. "Jerkface Killa" has nothing to say about this particular thread...

Posted by Steve White 2013-10-26 11:35|| 2013-10-26 11:35|| Front Page Top

#9 ...Mr. "Jerkface Killa" should drop his last 'nym...

Posted by Uncle Phester 2013-10-26 12:51|| 2013-10-26 12:51|| Front Page Top

#10 This was all totally predictable and, in fact, it was predicted. The only thing we need here is a graphic of Gomer Pyle saying "Shazam!". Either that or the surprise meter.

It's a good bet that healthcare.gov was engineered to fail so the gummint would be compelled to throw even more money in Ms. Townes' direction. It's a gravy train and she be ridin' in style.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2013-10-26 13:11|| 2013-10-26 13:11|| Front Page Top

#11 typical Canuck troll

Posted by Frank G 2013-10-26 13:40|| 2013-10-26 13:40|| Front Page Top

#12 Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.

Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.

CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacares problem-plagued web portal.

Instead, it appears they used what amounts to a federal procurement system loophole to award the work to the Canadian firm.

CGI was one of 16 companies that had been qualified by HHS during President George W. Bush's second term to deliver, without public competition, a variety of hardware, software and communication products and services.

In awarding the Healthcare.gov contract, CMS relied on a little-known federal contracting system called ID/IQ, which is government jargon for Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.

CGI was a much smaller vendor when it was approved by HHS in 2007. With the approval, CGI became eligible for multiple awards without public notice and in circumvention of the normal competitive bidding procurement process.

The multiple awards were in the form of task orders for projects of widely varying size. Over the life of the CGI contract which expires in 2017 the IT firm can receive awards worth anywhere from the $1,000 to $4 billion, according to a contracting document provided by CGI to the Washington Examiner.

This is apparently the route chosen by CMS officials in awarding the Obamacare Healthcare.gov website design contract to CGI.

Between 2009 and 2013, CMS officials awarded 185 separate task orders to CGI totaling $678 million for work of all kinds, according to USAspending.gov, a federal spending database.The Obamacare website design contract was for $93 million.

There is no evidence CMS issued any public solicitation for the Obamacare website contract. The Examiner asked both CMS and CGI for copies of any public solicitation notice for the Healthcare.gov task orders. Neither CMS nor CGI furnished any such public notice.

Posted by KBK 2013-10-26 13:57|| 2013-10-26 13:57|| Front Page Top

#13 You might think that the Federal procurement process was designed for crony capitalism these days.

Posted by KBK 2013-10-26 13:59|| 2013-10-26 13:59|| Front Page Top

#14 Much more here on conflict of interest surrounding new lead integrator:

The acquisition raised conflict of interest worries. The Hill reported that one critic familiar with business rivalries of the insurance industry compared [Optum's] purchase of QSSI to the New York Yankees hiring the American Leagues umpires.

Posted by KBK 2013-10-26 14:12|| 2013-10-26 14:12|| Front Page Top

#15 In awarding the Healthcare.gov contract, CMS relied on a little-known federal contracting system called ID/IQ, which is government jargon for "Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity."

also known as an As-Needed Contract, selected by RFP. Typically these are for small task orders, of unknown duration, cost. NOT a $400 Mil no-bid job. Think Mooch's Black Thug Amiga executive with CGI may have benefited?

Posted by Frank G 2013-10-26 14:16|| 2013-10-26 14:16|| Front Page Top

#16 CGI got kicked off a health care project in Ontario last year for failing to deliver.

Posted by SteveS 2013-10-26 15:06|| 2013-10-26 15:06|| Front Page Top

#17 CGI: "Ask us about our Canuck Gun Registry work!"

Posted by Frank G 2013-10-26 15:09|| 2013-10-26 15:09|| Front Page Top

#18 LOL I love it when a troll stirs up Frank.

Posted by Shipman 2013-10-26 17:10|| 2013-10-26 17:10|| Front Page Top

#19 You might think that the Federal procurement process was designed for crony capitalism these days.

It's actually designed with heavy social-engineering aspects that have been legally taken advantage of by entities it was not intended for.

For example, a large services provider can legally set up or enact an arrangement with a business given an advantage under the procurement process. Hence a woman-owned, minority-owned, disabled veteran-owned business providing IT services can receive a federal contract, and then subcontract those services out to a larger IT services provider. Said business may have a physical presence that is nothing more than a 'rented' office cubicle and a phone, or in the case of a business providing a physical item, also a drop-ship facility.

When a race has it's own Princeton "Good Old Boy / Girl" network, can they still be identified as "disadvantaged..?"

Yes, legally , it can.

Posted by Pappy 2013-10-26 18:32|| 2013-10-26 18:32|| Front Page Top

23:57 Redneck Jim
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22:40 Uncle Phester
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