Obamacare sure to sign its own death certificate

[regulator 0]

Washington (CNN) - The Obama administration has tapped the world's largest consulting firm to take over its beleaguered Obamacare website.

Accenture, a consulting and technology services company with 281,000 employees and $28.6 billion in revenue, won the one-year contract to continue fixing HealthCare.gov, the online health insurance marketplace set up by the Affordable Care Act. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services made the announcement Saturday.

"As CMS moves forward in our efforts to help consumers access quality, affordable health coverage, we have selected Accenture to become the lead contractor for the HealthCare.gov portal and to prepare for next year’s open enrollment period. We are pleased that more than 1.1 million consumers already have enrolled in a private plan in the federal Marketplace thanks to existing efforts and look forward to working with all of our contract partners to ensure a smooth transition of this work," the agency said in a statement.

As lead contractor, the company will be in charge of not only improving the current site, but also preparing it for open enrollment next fall. The task includes 24/7 customer support, eligibility and enrollment functions, and transmitting the personal data in enrollment forms.

“We are honored to be part of the team of technology and healthcare companies and government professionals helping the federal government meet the healthcare coverage needs of its citizens,” said David Moskovitz, the chief executive of Accenture's federal services. “Accenture will bring deep healthcare industry insight as well as proven experience building large-scale, public-facing websites to continue improving HealthCare.gov."

CMS will pay Accenture $45 million for the initial phase of the contract. The two sides are still defining the extent of Accenture's work, and a final value for the contract will be decided then.

Obamacare's site launched on October 1, 2013, to disastrous reviews, as users experienced major problems accessing the site, creating profiles and selecting insurance plans.

The White House later fired the original contractor, CGI Federal, and it cut ties with the company Friday, choosing not to renew its contract.

CGI's original contract for HealthCare.gov was for two years and valued at nearly $100 million.

During testimony before Congress in October, CGI Senior Vice President Cheryl Campbell denied any wrongdoing by her company, telling legislators that it was not "unusual to discover problems" in a system with so many concurrent users that would need to be addressed after going live.

Fixes since have resulted in improved performance of HealthCare.gov. At the end of 2013, more than 2 million people had signed up for coverage, with about half enrolling through the federal marketplace, officials said.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/11/white-house-awards-accenture-healthcare-gov-contract/?hpt=hp_t2




The company I was employed with had an announcement a few years ago that they were going ahead with 'project atlas'. Simply put, the entire shared services division was getting outsourced to accenture. The company couldn't do local support so they teamed up with the company I work for now. So before this there was a guy named Lloyd Pitchford. (british douchebag) This guy was working for British Gas and he outsourced his whole IT department for the contract with Accenture. Approximately 3 years went by and after 3 horrible reviews in a row they learned that a vast majority of the time tickets would be created but rarely got any call backs and accenture was getting paid for the tickets they created...not closed and british gas broke their contract and sued Accenture to which they won around 240 million pounds. So this same guy leaves british gas and gets a job where I was working at. Next thing you know we were getting outsourced to accenture as well. Of course his wife is a VP at accenture...so I'm sure he's getting paid hand over fist for the deal and intertek was supposed to save 240 million dollars a year for switching to accenture...but after getting thrown under the bus for more horrible reviews at intertek the company I work for now only does per event work for them. And now Accenture is going to be working the healthcare.gov website? This has to be intentional to make sure obamacare fails to default to a single payer system. Which single payer or socialized medicine could be around the corner. I'm sorry but after dealing with accenture many many times I wouldn't let them change bedpans at the hospital much less run the fucking website.

[tkhayes 348]

I predicted it from the start f the ACA. It will fail, and it will be replace with Single Payer, or similar system, and I bet $100 that the Republican party is the one that brings it into being.

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I think single payer has been the goal of obamacare from day one. It was designed to fail from the start.

[tkhayes 348]

that may be, but it will still be the end result because it is the correct solution.

[shropshire 0]

I've had some pretty shite dealings with this and other 'Consultancies' too.
In the main, I've found that a company calls these folks in to tell the people who know about our company ... how to run our company...Which was a real kick in the teeth for the folks that have been working long and hard at that company.

Our company 'seemed' to be saying "Hey, we're paying loads for these people they MUST be better than you lot!! So S.I.U.C.C or leave .......... so I did. I'm not teaching some scroat in a suit!!

Then the 'Expert consultants' turn out to be highly paid trainees using OUR money and SKILLS to learn new things.

Fancy smancy Powerpoints and suits do not equate to skills

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Stumpy 284]

shropshire

Then the 'Expert consultants' turn out to be highly paid trainees using OUR money and SKILLS to learn new things.

This is all too common with PwC and Accenture and others (I worked for PWC for a while). The old bait and switch.
License to print money.

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[grue 1]

If you can't be part of the solution, there's a hell of a lot of money to be made prolonging the problem as a consultant.

cavete terrae.

[Stumpy 284]

Bingo - cue many many consultant jokes

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[davjohns 1]

grue

If you can't be part of the solution, there's a hell of a lot of money to be made prolonging the problem as a consultant.

Nice quote.

To the OP, I note that government programs are tied to the pockets of millions of taxpayers. It's like lifesupport. I am not aware of many government programs that failed due to impracticality, impossibility, redundancy, or a host of other things that would have killed a private sector undertaking.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[turtlespeed 221]

davjohns

***If you can't be part of the solution, there's a hell of a lot of money to be made prolonging the problem as a consultant.

Nice quote.

To the OP, I note that government programs are tied to the pockets of millions of taxpayers. It's like lifesupport. I am not aware of many government programs that failed due to impracticality, impossibility, redundancy, or a host of other things that would have killed a private sector undertaking.

Just because you believe, or even note that millions are taken, doesn't mean that the programs are unfunded, even if they failed.

It just means that bureaucracy trumps all and it means that the government spends it all and expects more.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun