4 ms·
Canada has 1/10th the population of the US. I'm not saying the country is on par with the US, but it's not crazy to think that there's a Canadian company with
by loumf 13y ago
Canada has 1/10th the population of the US. I'm not saying the country is on par with the US, but it's not crazy to think that there's a Canadian company with expertise in government healthcare software.
I wouldn't feel better knowing this contract went to one of the many big US government contractors, and wouldn't be surprised to get a similar result.
- hga 13y agoWell, CGI Federal started as the civilian part of American Management Systems (AMS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Management_Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Management_Systems) in 2004, so it's kind of both (I was in a national security unit of AMS that got sold to the US firm CACI, although I declined to make that jump). CGI Federal is (at least now) responsible for CMS.gov and Medicare.gov. I can attest that the latter site's claims and Plan D (prescription plan selection) parts work well, even if they're a bit clunky. So sole-sourcing this part of Healthcare.gov to CGI Federal was not dumb at all. What was and still is dumb is having a bunch of unqualified federal bureaucrats and political appointees manage the whole thing (HHS s CMS and on up to the White House) play the role of integrator including integration testing (as is common in these political waterfall projects, why even bother when test failures have no effect on rollout???). CGI Federal? A Google/Facebook/Lisper dream team? You can't win when your customer makes major changes throughout the process, right through the week before launch. And apparently ignores every warning everyone makes, not to mention those failed tests.