It’s the nerve center of ObamaCare — and on the eve of the biggest overhaul of health care in American history, these nerves were definitely fraying.
Scores of computer experts were working feverishly Monday to fix a slew of problems with the software that millions of Americans are supposed to use to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, sources told The Post.
Techies employed by the CGI Group in Herndon, Va., have been “putting in late hours” for days, trying to ensure that ObamaCare Web sites across the country will work properly when the controversial program’s online exchanges open Tuesday, one contractor said.
“There’s lots of bugs,” the contractor said.
The “biggest problem” is with a program that calculates the tax credits that will reduce the cost of ObamaCare to lower-income Americans and their families, the source said.
If the problem isn’t fixed, some people could get bad information about the cost of their government-mandated health insurance — and get socked with monthly premiums far higher than they expect.
“It might be nightmare,” said one programmer familiar with the problem.
“We’ll hope for the best.”
Dozens of pizzas, sandwiches and kabobs arrived Monday afternoon at CGI’s ObamaCare nerve center to keep the workers nourished as they attempted to iron out the wrinkles.
One source said people toiled at their terminals in the high-tech war room until 2 a.m. Monday, and they were expected to work to at least that hour Tuesday morning.
The company’s offices are located in a three-story, glass-and-concrete building in a corporate park about 25 miles west of Washington.
CGI, a huge information-technology company headquartered in Montreal, has a five-year contract worth an estimated $93million-plus to develop ObamaCare software for the American government.
The feds are handling the health-care exchanges for 36 states, including New Jersey, that opted not to operate their own.
New York, which is running its own ObamaCare program, New York State of Health, is not among the 36.
“We have no issues with software here in New York,” state Health Department spokesman Jeffrey Hammond said.
Last week, the Obama administration revealed that online enrollment for small businesses would be delayed until Nov. 1, but didn’t explain why.
A spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is in charge of implementing ObamaCare, would neither confirm nor deny any problems with the CGI software, but said the health-insurance exchanges “will open in every state” Tuesday, as planned.
“As we have said, we expect that adjustments will be needed along the way, and we will be ready to address them,” the spokesman added.
CGI declined to comment.