ObamaCare spending to top contractors tops $1 billion (Video)

The Hill ^ | October 24, 2013 | Jonathan Easley

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A surge in government spending in the six months before the ObamaCare exchanges went live pushed federal spending to top government contractors over the $1 billion mark, a new study finds.

According to the report released Thursday by Bloomberg Government analyst Peter Gosselin, federal spending ramped up in the months leading up to Oct. 1, with $352 million of the $1 billion in federal contracts to the top 10 ObamaCare contractors awarded during this time.

“In a typical IT project, spending ramps up to a peak, then trails off during the final phase,” Gosselin wrote.

The price tag usually associated the Affordable Care Act rollout is $394 million, based on a Government Accountability Office report. Gosselin argued that study was too narrowly focused, so he expanded his search of a federal contractor databases to include all awards where the acronym “ACA” or other related words and phrases appeared.

“In looking at the full range of ACA-related contracts for just 10 firms, the BGOV analysis found more than $1 billion worth of contract awards,” he wrote.

Gosselin also concluded that the “tech surge” the administration has coordinated to fix the myriad problems that plague the ObamaCare website will result in subsequent rounds of spending.

“Given the seriousness of the IT problems and the fact that most of the contracts are on a cost-plus basis, the companies almost certainly are in line for another burst of spending aimed at quickly making repairs,” he said.

Some of the top contractors responsible for setting up the online exchanges are testifying Thursday on Capitol Hill about the problems with the rollout.

Representatives from CGI Federal, the company that was primarily responsible for developing the HealthCare.gov website, are among those giving testimony. The Gosselin analysis found that $149.9 million, or 35 percent, of the $421.8 million in federal contracts the company received came in the final six months of the project.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I heard an guest (apparently a well known tech guy) on Hannity last night who said his costs for a system like this would be $1M (a guestimate given he didn't have all the info on the site requirements but he listed basically what it was set up to do).

[lurk]

I can’t write a single character of code or even run Excel, but I could do a better job than them for half the price.

[Buckeye McFrog]

And a lot of those contractors contribute to the GOP.

Which is why Pubbies don’t want to defund it.