Accenture Named Lead Contractor for Obamacare Website After Initial Roll-out a Dismal Failure

After the dismal failure of the Obama-care website and just a few million dollars, actually closer to a billion of them…the U.S. government in it’s infinite wisdom has decided to spend 90 million to fix the mess with a new contractor.

Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and tingly?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Accenture has been chosen to replace CGI Federal as the lead contractor for the Obamacare enrollment website, which failed to work when it launched in October for millions of Americans shopping for health insurance, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Saturday.

“As CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) moves forward in our efforts to help consumers access quality, affordable health coverage, we have selected Accenture to become the lead contractor for the HealthCare.gov portal and to prepare for next year’s open enrollment period,” the agency said in a statement.

CGI Federal said on Friday that its contract, which was originally awarded in 2011 and is scheduled to end February 28, would not be renewed.

Accenture said the contract was worth $45 million for the initial phase of the project, and the Washington Post reported that the final value of the one-year contract would be about $90 million.

“Accenture will bring deep healthcare industry insight as well as proven experience building large-scale, public-facing websites to continue improving HealthCare.gov,” David Moskovitz, chief executive of Accenture Federal Services, said in a statement.

Obama has said the fiasco with the website has made him want to overhaul the way the federal government buys technology services. Critics say the system favors large, established contractors such as CGI.

Although the site is vastly improved, technical glitches continue to bedevil enrollment. The improvements allowed more than 1.1 million people to shop for and enroll in insurance on HealthCare.gov by the end of 2013, far short of original hopes.

The deadline for signing up for 2014 health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is March 31, meaning Accenture will take over at a time when the government needs the site to handle what it hopes will be a surge of last-minute sign-ups.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Dan Grebler and Steve Orlofsky)

SOURCE: Yahoo News