There’s nothing worse than missing a major deadline — and that’s doubly true when everyone is watching, especially your political opponents, who are so hoping you blow it.
Vermont Health Connect, the state’s health insurance exchange created to comply with the federal Affordable Care Act, is scheduled to launch tomorrow. But officials have already announced that the exchange will not be able to accept payments until Nov. 1. That’s because, as VT Digger’s Andrew Stein reported on Friday, CGI Systems and Technologies, the vendor hired to build critical components of the state’s new health insurance exchange, fell badly behind in getting the job done.
Now it appears the Shumlin administration doubled down on its bet on CGI, signing an amended $84 million contract with the IT company — twice the value of the original contract — despite the fact that the company missed some key deadlines for implementing the new web-based exchange. As Stein writes:
The administration said CGI has failed to meet more than half of Vermont’s 21 performance deadlines, called “critical milestones.” Although the state has the contractual power to penalize CGI for falling behind schedule, it has not exercised this authority.
The state could charge CGI as much as $125,000 a day in penalties, depending on the length of the delay and the importance of the milestone.
Shumlin’s critics were quick to jump on the bad news about Obamacare. In a long but cogent Sunday editorial on VT Digger, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock likened the story of Vermont Health Connect to the Wizard of Oz, where, despite the illusion of an all-powerful wizard, there’s nothing behind the curtain “but a little old con artist, who has no magical powers at all.”
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Dorothy: How do you talk if you don’t have a brain?
Scarecrow: Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don’t they?
well now… I am in favor of the exchange but this is pathetic and
shows terrible management. I heard through the grapevine (professional
headhunters and others0 that the IT contractor was doing a poor job —
including an unbelievably unprofessional and confused (on the company’s
end) interview process for filling some of key development positions.
The fact that they were looking to hire folks this spring to develop
processes that should have already been completed AND tested by then
shows total ineptness. I am speechless that a contractor that was doing
such a lousy job was in effect given a raise, but no doubt Shumlin felt
backed into a corner. My question is: why didn’t the commissioner know
where things stood and take action before it came to this??
well now… I am in favor of the exchange but this is pathetic and
shows terrible management. I heard through the grapevine (professional
headhunters and others) that the IT contractor was doing a poor job —
including an unbelievably unprofessional and confused (on the company’s
end) interview process for filling some of key development positions.
The fact that they were looking to hire folks this spring to develop
processes that should have already been completed AND tested by then
shows total ineptness. I am speechless that a contractor that was doing
such a lousy job was in effect given a raise, but no doubt Shumlin felt
backed into a corner. My question is: why didn’t the commissioner know
where things stood and take action before it came to this??
Lovely,
The Shumlin administration has the authority to penalize CGI $125,000 / day and instead they give them an extra $42 million…
Hoffer, you want to go ahead and have a look see into that?
Paul Heintz, I don’t suppose anyone from CGI was in attendance at these secret meetings that Shummy has been attending lately…
I tried looking at the Vermont exchange site. MAN! My jaw dropped when I
saw how insanely expensive this crap is! (Unless you are subsidized by
the state / taxpayers) The insurance companies must be drooling. What an
expensive waste forced upon us. It’s shameful, shameful, shameful
I support the idea of a universal insurance mandate.
But $84 million to build an online “exchange” for, at most, 100,000 customers in Vermont is shocking, insane, and simply disgusting. And you can’t defend this by saying, well, don’t worry, most of that is coming from the feds. It’s still my — our — tax money being wasted.