Uh Oh. The Affordable Care Act costs more than projected.

In 2011 CGI Federal won the contract to build "a health insurance exchange that is federally-facilitated", i.e. the Obamacare electronic marketplace. The contract had a two-year base value of $55.7 million but was "worth up to $93.7" with extensions.

So far the Federal Obamacare website has cost US taxpayers $634-million, and it doesn't work. "Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only by Congress."
Ref: Digital Trends

For comparison: In 2004 Facebook received its first financing. Over the ensuing 6 years Facebook operations cost $600-million.

It has been an embarrassingly bad roll out from a technical point of view, but for the most part that has gone unnoticed because the Republicans shut down the government . What a perfect opportunity it would have been to score points against Obamacare, but they blew it.

With all the noise over this, only 17% of the govt is not running.

Good to see DD is back in business!

The exchanges have been overrun by a large traffic jam of people signing up....kinda like Amazon.com on cyber- Monday. I would call that a high-quality problem ...which also runs contrary to Don DIego's earlier concerns of few people signing up. Turns out all those deadbeats actually like the idea of having health insurance. Go figure.

Oh..and that "massive" 634 million pricetag Don Diego finds so alarming....lets put that in perspective.
That's less than the total amount of money lost in the economy after only 1 week of the GOP government shutdown. Costs 160 million / day to general economy

The last government shutdown cost taxpayers directly 1.4 BILLION dollars over 27 days. We are now in day 8 (?) of the current shutdown....the one where the electricty still comes on in Appalachia.
taxpayer direct cost of shutdown

So I guess its all a matter of what one views to be a waste of taxpayer money. Access to Health Insurance ....or a government shutdown on the basis of denying access to health insurance.

pjstroh- "The exchanges have been overrun by traffic of people signing up....kinda like Amazon.com on cyber- Monday. I would call that a high-quality problem ...which also runs contrary to Don DIego's earlier predicitons of few people signing up.

Turns out all those deadbeats actually like the idea of having health insurance. Go figure." DRMilled--- I would venture to say that the majority of those early sign ups are people with pre-existing conditions who have been unable to get any health insurance. As far as the deadbeats go, if they get insurance it will probably be paid for with the "free monies" they receive from the government. And, of course, the funds for the "free monies" and "government subsidies" are being generated and furnished by those who actually work and pay taxes.

What on earth is healthcare.gov???

Oh, that's where people have to go IF their state didn't set up a local insurance exchange! People living in civilized (non-Republican) states didn't have to deal with that problem so much.

The reports suggest that the system is not well designed; it is not just unanticipated demand.
And in any case, if one is contracted to provide a piece of information technology, one should reasonably be expected to anticipate the demand to be placed on the system.
Oh, . . . and no one knows how many people have signed up, . . . or at least, no one is saying.

As The Washington Post reports:

"The result has been particularly stark when compared with the slick, powerful computer systems built for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, which in 2008 harnessed the emerging power of social networking and in 2012 relied on aggressive data-mining efforts to identify and turn out voters. For those, the campaign recruited motivated young programmers, often from tech start-ups."

DonDiego supposes someone thought it was important that the campaign programs were sufficiently well designed to actually work. Obamacare, . . . not so much. "We have to pass it to see what's in it."

What a thoughtful comparison: A website that accepts monetary campaign funds vs one that manages health insurance enrollment to a nation of 300 million people - with different exchanges in each state.

If the big-slam-dunk-criticism against the exchanges is their imperfection in the initial rollout stage then I'm not too worried. I notice all the bugs in every new release of Microsfot Windows hasn't stopped Don Diego from wanting to post on these boards.

Good point actually. Punk rocker Harper Reed, the self proclaimed "coolest guy in the world," was the Chief Technology Officer for the 2012 Obama campaign.



With Republicans screaming about how Chuck Hagel was too much of a lefty, can you imagine what they would say if Reed was in charge of ACA tech?

i. That which forkushV objects to is a provision of the ACA.

ii. Some folks in non-Republican states are experiencing difficulty as well.
Headline: "Hawaii Relaunching Obamacare Exchange After Not Selling Any Health Insurance Due To Software Problems" [Well, at least we know how many Hawaiians signed up.]
Ref: CBS Washington