4 ms·

> We spent $650M on this thing No, that's right wing spin. We spent $94M on this thing. Still absurd, but don't be misled by the spin campaign. Also your math

by flavor8 13y ago

> We spent $650M on this thing No, that's right wing spin. We spent $94M on this thing. Still absurd, but don't be misled by the spin campaign. Also your math is off. A $10M price tag wouldn't be totally ridiculous. Consider the cost of a team of 50, including QA, design, product guys, engineers, management, lawyers, analysts, data entry, etc for a year. Add 30% to cover risk. So, it's somewhere in the 10x too expensive region.

sigzero 13y ago
No it's not "right wing spin". The bigger number is total awards to CGI as a company and the $94M is what they got for doing their part of the healthcare system. People are just confusing the two.
- flavor8 13y ago
  It absolutely is right wing spin. Yes, the bigger number is the total awards to CGI. But the story being pushed by the right wing is "we spent $650M for a website that doesn't work", which has confused a lot of people. $94M for a website is absurd, and reeks of incompetence and bureaucracy. $650M for a website would be downright fraudulent. It's not a coincidence that it's the latter number that's being talked about.
  - EdSharkey 13y ago
    In the big picture of the mess of the ACA from the bill writing to passage by way of reconciliation, push back of the states, twisted supreme court logic, the president deciding illegally what parts of the law to implement, and now this states' and federal IT debacle, I find someone getting dollar figure wrong as to how much the website frontend cost to be of no consequence. Your attempt to silence debate by shaming those you disagree with has been noted.
    - snowwrestler 13y ago
      ACA was passed under regular order.
yeukhon 13y ago
94M for 50 people? Organizations like Mozilla has 900 employees and the operation is probably around that. 94M that's almost 100M or 0.1 billion.
- w0rd-driven 13y ago
  94M for 50 absolute "rock stars" of course. At nearly a mil a pop for a years worth of sweat, swearing, and extremely undue stress </sarcasm>. I do have a small bit of sympathy for the obvious peons that did the bulk of the work. If the comments above regarding how this functions is any indication, these are certainly not "rock stars" but more likely intern/severely junior developers. A consulting place like this obviously can't afford to put their best and brightest on this but they sure can take the money as if they did. If they're suggesting this was their best and brightest work, they need to seriously evaluate their "ability" to handle web development of this magnitude. 650M total for yet more projects of this level of trash? Cancel the contract now while you still can and save at least some face.
- flavor8 13y ago
  I didn't suggest $94M for 50 people. I suggested $10M for 50 people for one year.
bhauer 13y ago
Like I said, I'm not following this very closely, so thank you for the tip that $650M is not accurate. Doing a Google search, the first article I found confirmed the $93M figure. And it was from Fox News of all places. So I'm not sure if the $650M thing is right-wing spin so much as confusion. In any event, I still think that's 100x the actual value of the web site work. The site strikes me as the kind of thing a decent consulting company could execute for just shy of $1M. My point earlier, though, still stands. It's surprising to me that the "best" firm at navigating our regulatory maze is Canadian. A credit to them, I suppose.

by flavor8 13y ago

sigzero 13y ago

No it's not "right wing spin". The bigger number is total awards to CGI as a company and the $94M is what they got for doing their part of the healthcare system. People are just confusing the two.

flavor8 13y ago
It absolutely is right wing spin. Yes, the bigger number is the total awards to CGI. But the story being pushed by the right wing is "we spent $650M for a website that doesn't work", which has confused a lot of people. $94M for a website is absurd, and reeks of incompetence and bureaucracy. $650M for a website would be downright fraudulent. It's not a coincidence that it's the latter number that's being talked about.
- EdSharkey 13y ago
  In the big picture of the mess of the ACA from the bill writing to passage by way of reconciliation, push back of the states, twisted supreme court logic, the president deciding illegally what parts of the law to implement, and now this states' and federal IT debacle, I find someone getting dollar figure wrong as to how much the website frontend cost to be of no consequence. Your attempt to silence debate by shaming those you disagree with has been noted.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    ACA was passed under regular order.

yeukhon 13y ago

94M for 50 people? Organizations like Mozilla has 900 employees and the operation is probably around that. 94M that's almost 100M or 0.1 billion.

w0rd-driven 13y ago
94M for 50 absolute "rock stars" of course. At nearly a mil a pop for a years worth of sweat, swearing, and extremely undue stress </sarcasm>. I do have a small bit of sympathy for the obvious peons that did the bulk of the work. If the comments above regarding how this functions is any indication, these are certainly not "rock stars" but more likely intern/severely junior developers. A consulting place like this obviously can't afford to put their best and brightest on this but they sure can take the money as if they did. If they're suggesting this was their best and brightest work, they need to seriously evaluate their "ability" to handle web development of this magnitude. 650M total for yet more projects of this level of trash? Cancel the contract now while you still can and save at least some face.
flavor8 13y ago
I didn't suggest $94M for 50 people. I suggested $10M for 50 people for one year.

bhauer 13y ago

Like I said, I'm not following this very closely, so thank you for the tip that $650M is not accurate. Doing a Google search, the first article I found confirmed the $93M figure. And it was from Fox News of all places. So I'm not sure if the $650M thing is right-wing spin so much as confusion. In any event, I still think that's 100x the actual value of the web site work. The site strikes me as the kind of thing a decent consulting company could execute for just shy of $1M. My point earlier, though, still stands. It's surprising to me that the "best" firm at navigating our regulatory maze is Canadian. A credit to them, I suppose.