WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is ditching CGI Federal, the main contractor that oversaw development of the badly-botched ObamaCare website.
The feds are letting CGI’s contract lapse because the company hasn’t been effective in making repairs, a source familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.
The source said, for example, that the site still can’t automatically enroll people eligible for Medicaid in state programs. It also can’t compute the exact amount of federal subsidies to be sent to insurers, Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said he “can’t confirm anything regarding ongoing contract negotiations.”
He added: “We continually evaluate our needs and remain focused on ensuring consumers have access to affordable, quality coverage.”
The Canada-based CGI came under withering criticism for the bungled October 1 rollout of ObamaCare. The site crashed repeatedly as millions of frustrated users tried to sign up for health coverage.
At an angry congressional hearing, Cheryl Campbell, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, said the feds held “overall responsibility” for the problems.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) was one of many lawmakers to complain about contracting failures in a rollout he called “nothing short of a disaster.” He said contractors “looked us in the eye and assured us repeatedly that everything was on track, except that it wasn’t.”
The firm is working on a $94 million, two-year contract that expires next month.
It has more than $2 billion in other U.S. government deals.
Even after widespread complaints about the disastrous rollout, the feds kept CGI on the payroll to help fix the problems it helped create.
The administration eventually selected another smaller contractor, QSSI, to oversee repairs to the website.
Toward the end of last year, federal officials and contractors went through a series of fixes, and as a late December deadline came and went, more than 1 million people enrolled for coverage through the federal site.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius testified in December that the feds had made spending commitments totaling $677 million on the site.
The feds are preparing to sign a one-year, $90 million contract with Accenture, a major consulting firm that built California’s health exchange site to replace CGI.