[Pollster1]

"What should clearly be an enterprise quality, highly scalable software application felt like it wouldn't pass a basic code review. It appears the people who built the site don't know what they're doing, never used it and didn't test it." Chung went on to call it a "technological disaster."

$700M doesn't go as far as it used to.

[Liz]

Taxpayers were ripped off a staggering $634 million (that we know of) for setting-up the amateurish Obamacare sign-up web site----than that of LinkedIn and Spotify combined-----the site already has been shut down once for repairs....and problems persist.

INCONVENIENT FACTOID one story surfaced last week that the same crew that got the contract for the ObamaCare website were former data/media/social media people from the Obama campaign.

INCONVENIENT FACTOID Toni Townes-Whitley, Senior Vice President at CGI Federal for Civilian Agency programs, is Princeton Class of 1985---same dumbed-down class as Michelle Obama. Both are members of Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

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A GLIMPSE OF WHAT'S TO COME A November 30, 2012 Cato.com report indicated the Insurance Exchanges will cost Twice What it Costs to Administer Medicare (NOT what the WH twit told Americans).

ONE STATE'S LAUNCH--- In March 2013 CATO.COM reported "The Cost to Launch the California Health Insurance Exchange is $910 million".

So far (2012) California has received $910 million in federal grants to launch its new health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). The California exchange, "Covered California," has so far awarded a $183 million contract to Accenture to build the website, enrollment, and eligibility system and another $174 million to operate the exchange for four years.

The state will also spend $250 million on a two-year marketing campaign. By comparison California Senator Barbara Boxer spent $28 million on her 2010 statewide reelection campaign while her challenger spent another $22 million.

The most recent installment of the $910 million in federal money was a $674 million grant. The exchange's executive director noted that was less than the $706 million he had asked for. "The feds reduced the 2014 potential payment for outreach and enrollment by about $30 million," he said. "But we think we have enough resources on hand to do the biggest outreach that I have ever seen."

For additional perspective....private insurance marketing site, Esurance sells not only health insurance but also things like homeowners and auto insurance across the country......author put his zip code into their system along with his age, they offered him 87 different health plans from all the big players in my area.

Now granted, the new health insurance exchanges are more complex because they have to interface with Medicaid and the IRS as well as calculate subsidies. But the order of magnitude difference in what it cost to launch esurance compared to the California exchange is pretty big.

Privately funded Esurance began its multi-product national web business in 1998 with an initial $5.5 million round of venture fund investment in 1999 and a second round of $34 million a few months later.

The start-up experience of other major web companies is also instructive. Facebook received $13.7 million to launch in 2005. eBay was founded in 1995 and received its first venture money in 1997––$6.7 million.

Even doubling these private investments for inflation still leaves quite a gap.

SOURCE http://www.cato.org/blog/californias-obamacare-exchange-costs-56-times-more-launch-facebook