The new year ushered in the same problems that plagued state health insurance exchanges since the October 2013 launch date, with issues beyond linking to the troubled federal website. Executives left and contractors were shuffled as leaders sought someone to take the fall, and fix the problems. Accenture, credited with the largely successful rollout of California’s HIX, replaced CGI as the lead contractor for the federal exchange in January. Deloitte had a hand in a number of state success stories, most notably Kentucky, which now boasts the highest percentage of insured residents per capita, and Connecticut, whose director was tapped in August to be CEO of the federal exchange.
Among the most notable state exchange failures was Oregon, which is now embroiled in legal battles with original contractor Oracle and paying Deloitte to help transition the state to the federal exchange. Maryland also abandoned its glitch-ridden website and adopted software used in Connecticut. Legal friction between Maryland and contractor IBM parallels troubles in Minnesota, where the governor and Big Blue sparred publicly over site outages and enrollment delays.
Media pundits wondered aloud why the feds failed to tap Silicon Valley expertise in planning and executing arguably the highest-profile government IT project in modern times. Movement in that direction started to surface with the formation of 18F in the General Services Administration, modeled after local incubators committed to open source software and lean, agile development focused on the user experience. In August, Obama tapped Google exec Mikey Dickerson to lead the U.S. Digital Service, a new internal consulting group charged with fixing troubled federal projects. The jury is out on whether these efforts will make a difference when the next major federal IT project comes along.
Back to the Year in Review: Making Sense of 2014
