# I pit the idiots who couldn't get healthcare.gov up and running despite being paid $600 million **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 26, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277 "2013-10-26T02:46:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/1 "2013-10-26T02:46:03Z")
If you get paid $600 million to set up a fucking website and insurance market over 3 years, I don’t think any excuse is acceptable for poor performance. People have set up perfectly good ecommerce website in their fucking garage in less time and for about a millionth the cost. How is this website so fucked up? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/2 "2013-10-26T02:57:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How is this website so fucked up? Yeah! What’s this about health care? ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/3 "2013-10-26T03:14:34Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How is this website so fucked up? Who really knows? Failed software projects are often due to poor communications within and between teams. Teams should start together and leave together at the same location, and too many people is as easily the problem as too few. That’s just a wild guess as to what could be wrong; [roughly half of software projects](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-history-of-software-project-failure.html) failed even before work at home. States which are cooperating with the Affordable Care Act are mostly OK. The fact that my state refused to create its own web site, and thus has to rely on the federal backstop, is bad. The giant hole caused by our refusing the medicaid expansion is much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/4 "2013-10-26T03:24:20Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you get paid $600 million to set up a fucking website and insurance market over 3 years, I don’t think any excuse is acceptable for poor performance. What makes you think they spent three years on ut? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/5 "2013-10-26T05:54:48Z")
I tell you, what I want is answers at a congressional hearing asked by people whose jobs depend on this thing failing. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/6 "2013-10-26T05:58:04Z")
Who the fuck got paid $500 million? AFAIK, the project was split over multiple contractors, none of whom got $500 million. That was actually a problem - coordinating multiple contractors into producing a single product. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/7 "2013-10-26T06:35:37Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > AFAIK, the project was split over multiple contractors And nobody went “Oh, shit.” at the very notion ? Had they even _met_ a software development project before ? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/8 "2013-10-26T06:47:02Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If you get paid $600 million to set up a fucking website and insurance market over 3 years, I don’t think any excuse is acceptable for poor performance. > > People have set up perfectly good ecommerce website in their fucking garage in less time and for about a millionth the cost. How is this website so fucked up? It was not 600 million anyhow, that number has been repeated by the right wing media and the real numbers have been reported elsewhere, this is IMHO one big demonstration of how the right wing media lies by not reporting the correction when it is already known. > **[The Myth Of The $634 Million Obamacare Website](https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/myth-634-million-obamacare-website)** > [@](#): > > “Who pays $634 million and has three years and screws it up that bad?” asked Fox News’ Sean Hannity on October 18. Added Rush Limbaugh: “That website, by the way, the original projected cost: $93 million. The end cost: $643 million. I kid you not.” > > Wow, $550 million in cost overruns for [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) since 2010 when the health care reform law was passed? > > That’s false. > > The life of the $600 million figure appears to be the latest example of how misinformation is fermented within the right-wing media and then adopted as quasi-policy by the Republican Party. After all, Rep. Camp is holding a hearing specifically to determine why the government’s $600 million health care website doesn’t work, even though the site didn’t cost $600 million. > > The eye-popping $634 million figure was first trumpeted in a piece by Andrew Couts at Digital Trends on October 8. It pointed out that the Montreal-based company awarded the contract to build [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov), CGI Federal, had received $634 million in government contracts related to health care. (Digital Trends later amended the article and lowered the figure to “more than $500 million” that was allegedly spent “to build the digital equivalent of a rock.”) > > Stunned by the bloated figure, Couts noted “Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year.” > > Conservative commentators loved the report and quickly referred to it as fact. > [@](#): > > Independently, the Sunlight Foundation estimated it cost $70 million to build the much-maligned website, not $634 million. (Officially, CGI was awarded a $93 million contract for the [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) job.) > > And today in his Fact Checker column in the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler looked at the question of the [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) cost and concluded, “A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million.” Kessler noted that the cost for the entire health care project beyond the website would be “at least $350 million.” > > Despite those red flags, the bloated figure has been widely embraced as factual within the conservative press. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/9 "2013-10-26T06:53:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > [The Myth Of The $634 Million Obamacare Website | Media Matters for America](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/24/the-myth-of-the-634-million-obamacare-website/196585) I already showed to you, on the other thread, that the estimates in this article are too low. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/10 "2013-10-26T06:59:36Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I already showed to you, on the other thread, that the estimates in this article are too low. No, you did not. But thank you for showing all that you are just a knucklehead. Your result was obtained by adding all the cost of the protect beyond the website. Media Matters already mentions your number also as related to the whole protect and not the website And still less than the price mentioned by the media you rely on. If you are not capable of seeing why those sources insist on the even larger and not supported number you are not capable of noticing when they are pulling your leg. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/11 "2013-10-26T07:08:23Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > No, you did not. But thank you for showing all that you are just a knucklehead. You didn’t read the WaPo article I cited, did you? Your cite shows $70M for CGI. Mine (which comes from the hearings) shows $112M for sure (and probably $196M when it’s all done). And that’s just for one contractor (out of 50 or so). But it’s very convenient for you to ignore it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/12 "2013-10-26T07:26:09Z")
The Republicans got religion, fiscally speaking. After George and Dicks Excellent Military Adventure, they have found the light, the true path of prudence and fiscal responsibility. And all it cost us was somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars. I say “neighborhood” because when there are that many zeros, things kind of lose focus. But anyway, the whores ended their shift at around 4 am Sunday morning, turned over their cash to the pimp, took a shower, brushed their teeth, and hustled down to the church to sing in the choir, hymns to fiduciary responsibility and careful management, hallelujah, hosanna, praise the Lord. This might be a good time for someone to point out liberal hypocrisy, kind of keep things in a non-partisan balance. Equivalence, very important to keep in mind, equivalence, how everybody does it. Of course, one side is trying to provide health care for our people, while the other was killing people we didn’t know who had never done anything to us. Or, so far as we know, ever even considered it. Important to remember that those things are really pretty much the same. You look at it in the right way. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/13 "2013-10-26T07:26:56Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You didn’t read the WaPo article I cited, did you? Your cite shows $70M for CGI. Mine (which comes from the hearings) shows $112M for sure (and probably $196M when it’s all done). And that’s just for one contractor (out of 50 or so). But it’s very convenient for you to ignore it. I did read it, what you show once again is that you did not read the cite I made. “A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million.” Kessler noted that the cost for the entire health care project beyond the website would be “at least $350 million.” And those numbers are indeed close to the WaPo cite, so even allowing for the goal post to be moved your sorry sources are talking about a number almost double as the full project and 6 to 5 times larger than the website proper. So really, the ones that told you the 600+ number should be dismissed as they continue to mention it. But past history just shows that you will continue to lap up their bullshit. Not my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/14 "2013-10-26T07:47:37Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And those numbers are indeed close to the WaPo cite, so even allowing for the goal post to be moved your sorry sources are talking about a number almost double as the full project and 6 to 5 times larger than the website proper. Again, CGI is not the only company responsible for “the website proper”. The website is a lot more than pretty pictures upfront. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/15 "2013-10-26T07:53:50Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Again, CGI is not the only company responsible for “the website proper”. The website is a lot more than pretty pictures upfront. Again, nothing there to refute my point. The numbers mentioned by the right wing media are off by more than a few 100’s of millions. And the more likely numbers for the site are much less than the 600+ value mentioned constantly by conservative sources with the intention now to seed FUD. It is clear that the more likely numbers are already known by them so for that and past history I can say that lies are their bread and butter. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/16 "2013-10-26T09:05:49Z")
I can’t even convince people to pay me $3000 for a website. I am doing something seriously wrong somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/17 "2013-10-26T17:11:28Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Again, nothing there to refute my point. The numbers mentioned by the right wing media are off by more than a few 100’s of millions. And the more likely numbers for the site are much less than the 600+ value mentioned constantly by conservative sources with the intention now to seed FUD. It is clear that the more likely numbers are already known by them so for that and past history I can say that lies are their bread and butter. Yes, cuz $350M is a reasonable figure for a web site. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/18 "2013-10-26T17:20:00Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yes, cuz $350M is a reasonable figure for a web site. It is not just the website you numnuts. 😛 Math is hard, specially for the right wing sources that will continue to use the unsupported number, why they will never be taken to task by the ones that get burned for depending on them? It is a mystery. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/19 "2013-10-26T17:24:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > It is not just the website you numnuts. $196M for CGI. $55M for OQSSI. That’s the web site and that is confirmed, hard numbers (you know, unlike the suppositions that you cited). $250M. Add a few other contractors to the mix (you know not just those two were involved **with the web site** ) and you easily get to $350M. As in (and I am quoting from WaPo) “The long list of contracts in the appendix of the GAO report does not give enough detail to fully determine which contracts are directly related to the Web site, though at a glance you could reduce the total to at least $350 million.” Note: reduce the total to the contracts related to the web site. Also note: that figure was when they thought CGI was paid $70M, not $196M. You numnuts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277/20 "2013-10-26T17:47:51Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > $196M for CGI. $55M for OQSSI. That’s the web site and that is confirmed, hard numbers (you know, unlike the suppositions that you cited). Reid it again, it is not Media Matters who reported the numbers but Fact Checker at the Washington Post and the Sunlight Foundation. They are doing the same as the ones you cited, estimates on the information they have. \*\* What is still missing? That $600+ number. \*\* > [@Terr](#): > > $250M. Add a few other contractors to the mix (you know not just those two were involved **with the web site** ) and you easily get to $350M. As in (and I am quoting from WaPo) > > “The long list of contracts in the appendix of the GAO report does not give enough detail to fully determine which contracts are directly related to the Web site, though at a glance you could reduce the total to at least $350 million.” > > Note: reduce the total to the contracts related to the web site. Also note: that figure was when they thought CGI was paid $70M, not $196M. > > You numnuts. Math is hard, how much is the OP number? You are the one with the reading comprehension issue. I already mentioned that granting your goalpost move the sources you rely on in your early post and the OP are still saying that $600+ millions were used, as pointed before it is a clear lie the longer those sources still report as fact. The point stands specially after your sorry obtuse tirade, the right wing media is not telling the truth. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idiots-who-couldnt-get-healthcare-gov-up-and-running-despite-being-paid-600-million/672277.md?page=2)