[Robert Teesdale]

Agree... I was project manager on Y2K projects and the work was very necessary. One of those situations where it was handled so well that after the fact, people didn't believe the problem was really that bad.

That said, although I agree "never ascribe to malevolence, that which can be adequately explained by incompetence" - the Healthcare.gov rollout and the subsequent information that's coming out about the way it was handled are simply shocking. Incompetence does not adequately explain it, and therefore as a professional in the industry I have to ascribe a certain purposefulness to the disaster unfolding.

Cloward-Piven-flavored information technology, headed for single payer, does adequately explain the current situation. The incompetence here may not be accidental, but appreciated and accelerated.

You simply do not release a product of that scale and impact with that little testing ("six days" is being reported). As a PM I would refuse to do that; it would be unethical.

Perhaps I do not have accurate information on the rollout process; but "disaster" is not even approaching the correct description. Were I brought in as a recovery PM on effort I would be characterizing it as a "business disaster of existential proportions" and personally reviewing whether an accreditation standards violation took place at the hands of my predecessor.

Just my $.02.

[Safrguns]

>>> Incompetence does not adequately explain it, and therefore as a professional in the industry I have to ascribe a certain purposefulness to the disaster unfolding.

Especially when you couple the utter disaster of the rollout with Obama’s unwillingness to even delay. Successful implementation of “the system” was NOT part of their design.

I really do believe they are more interested in people establishing accounts than they are getting people insured.

[i_robot73]

Nor would I, nor my group, given the (6) days of testing have allowed it to be pushed into PRODUCTION.

Of course, being MILLIONS over-budget, using other peoples money, what’s the matter to gov’t? /s

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

That said, although I agree "never ascribe to malevolence, that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"

I'm sticking with that. Here are some reasons:

- Obama has no understanding of business. In his Marxist mind, anyone can run a car company or a solar panel company, so you might as well hand them over to your cronies.

- The owner of the Canadian company was a classmate of Chewbacca.

- The Canadian company was already canned, or is being sued, for similar negligence.

[Political Junkie Too]

Incompetence does not adequately explain it, and therefore as a professional in the industry I have to ascribe a certain purposefulness to the disaster unfolding.

I think I read elsewhere that Obama had a certain "Manhattan Project" attitude about this, compartmentalizing the requirements and delaying the sharing of it until after the 2012 elections, because he didn't want to give the GOP any campaign fodder.

It's the same reason that Harry Reid wouldn't pass a budget in the Senate - he didn't want to give the GOP any campaign issues.

So, I don't think the "malevolence" was an attempt to sabotage the project. I it think it was a fear of opponents finding out the details, and so they withheld the details from the programmers for as long as they could get away with.

And now we see the results.

-PJ