HealthCare.Gov Woes Highlight Government Hiring Of Old Contractors

[FarCenter]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One part of the Obama administration's technically flawed HealthCare.gov website is actually working as promised. Unfortunately, the company that built it does not intend to seek more government business.
Working out of a garage a few blocks north of the White House, a 12-person software shop called Development Seed built a customer interface praised for its elegance and stability, a bright spot in the rollout of a website that has been an embarrassment for President Barack Obama.

But chief executive Eric Gundersen said his company will not seek another slice of the $82 billion the U.S. government will spend on technology this year because of the paperwork and regulatory hurdles.

"We don't have proposal writers and lawyers. We have developers," Gundersen said.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/healthcaregov-woes-highlight-the-governments-innovation-problem-2013-11

Note that Development Seed was brought in by another larger contractor, probably to satisfy the government requirement to send a percentage of the contract to small and disadvantaged businesses.

[KT2000]

1. another problem

is that the government has spent their tech money on spying rather than updating and coordinating their other systems. Much is woefully out of date.

[FarCenter]

2. NSA did seem more competent, but lately they seem to be infected by the same procurement disease

After 9/11, they started to acquire more commercial off the shelf systems and to engage more contractors than before.