Blame Cronyism for Obamacare Website Disaster
As we all know, the launching of the Affordable Care Act was a colossal disaster. We won’t even talk about the content of the law and the incredible burden it has placed upon health care providers, insurance companies, and worst of all, American consumers. We’ll confine this article toward analyzing the web site boondoggle which began on day one, October 1st.
Consider this: Before computers existed, the United States and its allies won a major war on two fronts on planet Earth, one against Nazi Germany and the other, imperial Japan in a period of 3 ½ years. That’s roughly the same period of time that was afforded the Obama administration to get a website in place for Obamacare.
But it failed.
Besides all the verbal tap dancing, has anyone in the administration competently explained how and why this happened? Has anyone been held accountable for the wasted expenditure of $678 million which, along with three years of preparation, should have been ample resources to launch a new web site? Have we been able to pinpoint the source of the incompetence?
Maybe the mainstream media won’t touch the subject, but the answer – or a good part thereof – is pretty clear. Start with Michelle Obama and that dreaded tag: Cronyism. That’s right, the company that earned the contract for building the website for 2/3 of a billion dollars was CGI Federal, whose senior vice-president is Toni Townes-Whitley. Whitley and Michelle Obama were friends and classmates at Princeton and both are members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni. It has been reported that Townes-Whitley and her husband spent Christmas at the White House with the Obamas in 2010, shortly after the contract award. That must have been a helluva toast.
What makes it more audacious is how the Obamas by-passed the normal government process of sending out specifications for bid, then evaluating and assessing all the companies that apply until the most experienced, most competent, most deserving and most cost effective win the bid.
But that didn’t happen in the Obama dynasty. While the House Committee on Energy and Commerce learned that four companies were prepared to bid for the contract, only CGI was considered, and then awarded the contract – No Bid! No competition.
There is no other explanation. It was a fix.
Not only did the administration employ incompetent people to set up a crucial website, they were equally responsible for failing to abide by the process that is supposed to prevent corruption in the system and assure Americans their tax dollars are well applied.
Where is the outrage by the mainstream media?
Sure, Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius is on the hot seat at all the hearings, and she should be fired as well. But don’t count on it. When the heat dies down, she’ll likely get a loyalty promotion much like Susan Rice who lied through her teeth to five television stations following the Benghazi fiasco. Fact is, Sebelius is a convenient distraction from getting to the truth.
Since the cat is out of the box, we have come to learn that if the web site was constructed by a few computer-savvy technicrats, they could have put it together in three days, not three years, at a fraction of the cost. But who was looking? (see link, below)
That might be a stretch, but I’d easily bet that a competent team who was properly vetted could have had the site up and running in a matter of weeks or months, regardless of complications. But that was not on the agenda for the Obama dynasty.
It is utterly amazing that this president skids scot-free on every scandal that points directly to the Oval Office, and never held accountable.
This one is obvious. Maybe, too obvious.
Yet, we – the American taxpayers – are, and will remain, the loser.
RELATED COLUMNS:
Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate was Obamacare website builder | The Daily Caller
Michelle Obama’s ‘no-bid’ friend spent Christmas at the White House – BizPac Review
