they will be contracted to fix it.

as far as the eye can see.

How many in-house people did the HHS have to build such a massive system to reach tens of millions of Americans? I learned long ago it's better to hire an expert than just expect the guy in charge of the e-mail server at a sub-office of the FSA to handle it, especially something this massive.

EDIT: Also, I think the key word is 55, not private. Not only does it tell me just how complex the job was (making even more impossible for in-house work), but you literally had more than four dozen different groups of people, in God knows how many locations. You ever try to direct more than one team of software developers? It's like herding cats.

Now, multiply that by 55 times.

</devilsadvocate>

That said, it's a friggin' website. Watching Jake Tapper this week made me cry for journalism...

(What they cut out was the last question -- asking a WH person if Sibelius should get fired for a website being bad during a government shutdown)

WHY THE WEB-ONLY OBSESSION? Does he not know what a telephone is? Poor people are far more likely to have a pre-paid cell phone or a pay phone (yes, they do exist, especially in rural, poor areas) or a bus pass to go to the facilitators than to own a computer. Far better than negotiating with the public library staff for the needed time on the one computer in the corner while fending off the UI recertificers.

and dumping the old system. Perhaps build the main functions first, and then tie the parts that have to search the other agencies? I don't know enough about site-building to know, only how to make a simple site.

What I've seen of the problems appears to mainly be the issue with the front end site communicating with the other agencies.

Apparently the IRS, which was supposed to provide input to the project because people will be taxed for not having coverage, refused to cooperate until directly ordered by the White House, close to the deadline. This caused delays in testing, etc.

These things may or may not be factors:

What used to be known as the Peter Principle: people who are good at coding and developing software, etc. get promoted to management, but haven't got a clue about how to manage people. This results in incompetent managers.

Another factor may be that greedy contracting company executives hire as few programmers, developers and database administrators as possible and simply work them half to death. They're forced to work nights, weekends, give up vacations and so on. Exhausted people aren't doing their best work. The money that would have gone for salaries goes to managers as huge bonuses for making their workers meet impossible deadlines. In rushing the work, the quality falls short and vital tests are skipped.

OR AMAZON.