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ObamaCare Site Creator: 'People Fainting In Conference Calls'
Breitbart's Big Government ^ | October 16, 2013 | John Nolte

Posted on 10/16/2013 4:23:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

CGI Federal is the Canadian IT contractor responsible for creating most of the ObamaCare website. Tuesday, after describing the site as a "complete train wreck," the Washington Post took an in-depth look at the company -- its origins, track record, and how it landed the ObamaCare contract. It is all worth a read, but one staffer told the Post that the working environment at CGI is so awful today that "People are getting sick, fainting in conference calls."

The healthcare.gov debacle has taken its toll on the working environment at CGI Federal's 10-story complex in Fairfax, Va., according to a staffer working on a related project who asked not to be named. "There's been a lot of agitation and anger, because CGI really prides itself on having family flexibility," he said, noting the firm's liberal telework policy. Instead, the Obamacare contract has sucked more and more staff off other projects, and people have been working around the clock to first get the site ready for Oct. 1, and then fix it when things started to go wrong. "There's a lot of frustration," the staffer said. "People are getting sick, fainting in conference calls."

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: canada; cgifederal; cgigroup; economy; h1b; healthcaredotgov; india; internet; medicine; obamacare; obamacarerollout; obamacaresoftware; outsourcing
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To: research99

Good catch. Cronyism always wins out in DC.


21 posted on 10/16/2013 4:50:58 PM PDT by nascarnation (Frequently wrong but rarely in doubt....)
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To: ChildOfThe60s

Ditto, absolutely.


22 posted on 10/16/2013 4:51:46 PM PDT by Chaguito
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

‘People Fainting In Conference Calls’

Quick, convene a panel to see if they should be resuscitated!


23 posted on 10/16/2013 4:54:04 PM PDT by Chaguito
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To: Frank_2001

“You know, Harry, it’s getting to be really expensive to pay people to vote Democrat. What with the private sector unions declining, it’s hard for the Democrat party to come up with the money to buy enough votes to win. And I can’t lose! I don’t know how to work!”

“Don’t worry, Nancy. We’ll get the working people to pay to buy our votes.”

“Oh Harry, you always say the sweetest things!”


24 posted on 10/16/2013 4:54:13 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

25 posted on 10/16/2013 4:55:43 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’ve been around large software projects in my former career. When they go bad and it becomes an all hands on deck for months on end. They called them “Death Marches”.

This one has them ALL of those combined. Needs a complete redesign, not a bunch of bandaids. People will start quitting there soon, guaranteed.


26 posted on 10/16/2013 4:56:32 PM PDT by SueRae (It isn't over. In God We Trust.)
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To: 11th_VA

I think it will end up like Maine’s former “Dirigo”.

Although proponents of the legislation that set up Dirigo Health projected that it could cover 31,000 previously uninsured Maine residents in its first year, the actual figure through the program’s first twelve months was 8,600.[8] After fifteen months, enrollment had grown to 9,800; an additional 4,900 people had enrolled in the Medicaid expansion. Anthem, the initial carrier for DirigoChoice[9], says that enrollment rates for the program are significantly higher than other new insurance programs.


27 posted on 10/16/2013 5:04:43 PM PDT by tsowellfan (www.cafenetamerica.com)
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To: SueRae
People will start quitting there soon, guaranteed.

Yup. The best will be the first.

28 posted on 10/16/2013 5:06:22 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (It's hard to accept the truth when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.)
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To: Moonman62

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out a lot of the peoblems came from Obama’s people changing their minds and adding new “ideas” along the way. I’m not ready to lay all the blame at CGIs door.


29 posted on 10/16/2013 5:06:42 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (If global warming exists I hope it is strong enough to reverse the Big Government snowball)
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ObamaWare!


30 posted on 10/16/2013 5:08:15 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Moonman62

My guess is that this is an impossible project. You can be competent but if your client isn’t..


31 posted on 10/16/2013 5:11:08 PM PDT by Patriotic1 (Dic mihi solum facta, domina - Just the facts, ma'am)
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To: SueRae
Needs a complete redesign, not a bunch of bandaids.

I was an IT professional, asked to be a liaison to the police department to check on the progress of contractors putting together an incident reporting system for patrol cars, near the end of the implementation. Of course, the contractors held everything close to their chest siting confidentiality clauses. They held classes for cops at the police academy for instruction on it's use. I sat in on a class at a computer. Within ten minutes I had gotten around all their security and took control of the system including the servers, all from within their own software screens. They weren't pleased to see all their flaws exposed before they could cut and run. Happened often with contractors, pretending to know what they were doing when they delivered crap.

32 posted on 10/16/2013 5:13:28 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yet another software project failure for the textbooks. Stupid, stupid management AND techies.


33 posted on 10/16/2013 5:22:09 PM PDT by old-ager
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To: Chaguito

> Quick, convene a panel to see if they should be resuscitated!

Yeah, schedule a meeting about the difficult meetings.

Our culture is so hosed.


34 posted on 10/16/2013 5:24:15 PM PDT by old-ager
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The “under the table payments” to political cronies should be Cruz’ talking points. Someone made a lot of money off this.


35 posted on 10/16/2013 5:39:30 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (".....Barrack, and the horse Mohammed rode in on.")
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To: RushIsMyTeddyBear
I dunno, but they were associated with the failed Canadian long gun registry.

CC

36 posted on 10/16/2013 5:47:03 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (tease not the dragon for thou art crunchy when roasted and taste good with ketchup)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The article says that CGI got “$88 million of the hundreds of millions spent to create the ObamaCare website”. Who got the rest?


37 posted on 10/16/2013 5:53:21 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
They forgot to read The Mythical Man-Month:
Adding people to a late project will always make the project later.
38 posted on 10/16/2013 6:20:00 PM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA
Actually it was many companies involved. Here's a link to the Government Accounting Office report (dated June 2013) and the list of companies involved in the debacle. The contractors begin on page 35 I believe.
healthcare.gov website contractors
39 posted on 10/16/2013 7:08:40 PM PDT by tenger (It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. -Will Rogers)
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To: SueRae
I’ve been around large software projects in my former career. When they go bad and it becomes an all hands on deck for months on end. They called them “Death Marches”.

This one has them ALL of those combined. Needs a complete redesign, not a bunch of bandaids. People will start quitting there soon, guaranteed.


I'm a former EDSer. SED Program. Am VERY familiar with death marches, on the last one (several months long) I was one of the early ones to join a team that ballooned up to about 50. When I left the company (having figured out a way to carve out time to interview) there were less than 10 left.

So yeah, the good people are going to quit. They won't be replaced by good people - if replaced at all (working on government contracts, especially ones that may require clearances, takes considerable time from offer/acceptance to EOD/Entry on Duty).

In the meantime, we're now heading into the holidays. Which is usually black-out time for releases of big Federal projects. Sure, ObamaCare will get waivers, but rescinding vacations is going to drive even more attrition of contractor staff. Government staff has shifted to being project managers and contracting/acquisitions officials. Not code-slingers. There's not going to be a way to easily (let alone quickly) backfill the staff losses.

There's no way that this thing is getting fixed within the next 18 months.
40 posted on 10/16/2013 7:19:52 PM PDT by tanknetter
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