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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Healthcare.gov site and backend marketplace built on NO BID contracts given to?

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.
Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.
Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.
Having been a supplier of research equipment to federal instituions such as the Uniformed Services Univ, Bethesda, NIH, and various research VA institutes (yes there are some) I know about no bid contracts, and MY PERSONAL experience is that they are created to justify a particular desire of the grantor,and then the ‘bid’ construct is built to restrain choice to a single particular. Sometimes with regards to equipment, or EXISTING software there are actual criteria with regards to EXISTING specs which can be the bricks around which the construct is created. I have never PERSONALLY seen it any other way.
In this case, a no bid was awarded to a classmate of the 1st lady. I IMAGINE it was built around some past experience of this outfit, CGI Federal, or some unique character of their development dept.
No matter. The fat is in the fire. 
The Daily Caller repeatedly contacted CGI Federal for comment. After publication of this article, the company responded that there would be “nothing coming out of CGI for the record or otherwise today.” The company did however insist that The Daily Caller include a reference to vice president Cheryl Campbell’s House testimony. This has been included as a courtesy to the company.
Ms. Campbell’s testimony which I had the opportunity to watch live, was in my opinion, UNQUESTIONABLY a spew of words so jargon loaded as to bury the impatient and then bleary eyed committeemen and ladies into quiescence of some sort. Of course, so were the other 2 testimonies I could STAND to listen to. It was in the midst of this vomitus, btw, that Waxman told the world that Obamacare was a success except for web site.
Having written, and been project manager for this sort of stuff, it is not credible that those in charge of any section of this clattering train did not know the disaster that awaited except thru purposefully non testing so as to avoid the knowledge in the fact that the software was not and might never be ready.
And so back to the contract. Given the importance of this law to Obama, and to the way history has looked at Social Security, and Medicare as societal changing moments, what the fuck was Obama thinking when he let a no bid go to his wife’s pal? Or was some underling, aware of the relationship  and knowing HOW THE CHICAGO WAY WORKS, ensure that this played out this way?
Poorly conceived. Poorly executed. Filled with ‘the dog ate my homework’, and the blame game, and finally denial so incredible that those buried in it, actually manage to convince themselves and each other of an alternate reality. 
Either way, this roll out IS the Obama Administration. Delusion giving rise to outrage. Poor strategic choice whose defense in failure is driving divisiveness.
That is what history will record, and on a no bid?
Hysterical.
Deserving.
Third world.
Now, the USA.
We voted for THIS.

5 comments:

  1. 'Quid Pro Quo" Do You hear the lambs Clarice?

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  2. Remember the Cheney-Halliburton scandal? The mainstream media hopped right on that one.

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  3. Just read the following at a Can Jewish blogger her site:

    CGI, the clunker-creating Quebec tech firm which, had the Obama team bothered to conduct due diligence, would have been revealed to be behind some dubious enterprises (including the then-Liberal government's dubious and dumbass "long gun registry" scheme.)

    Hmmmm......Gun registry?????

    http://scaramouchee.blogspot.com/2013/10/turkey-time-latest-plan-to-get.html

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  4. It would be interesting to follow the paper trail for this contract since its inception. There is a long line of command from the top to the bottom, and for the contract to be signed.

    I wonder how the "old hands" bureaucrats handled this situation. If it were me, I would have passed it on to the next level without my OK, and with a note saying the contract is not following government procurement practices.

    Every one connected to this contract should be fired, except maybe those who objected to it in writing.

    ReplyDelete