Who is really at fault?

[SoutherDem]

Correct me if I am wrong, but when you put out bids for a job you state what you need and when it is needed by. Correct?
So when the company won the contract to create the ACA website, they knew what they were bidding on and when it needed to go live right?
So how is it any ones fault but the company's that it went live and it didn't work?

[leveymg]

1. Ultimately, it's the service provider not its contractors that is responsible to customers.

Failure to produce an acceptable product on time shows lack of competence by the contracting authority in selecting and managing bids.

[Demeter]

2. They didn't put it out to bid...the general contract was handled in house

by incompetents who had no knowledge of their own limitations.

If they had put it out to bid, they could have gotten the best.

As it was, only little pieces went out, they never got the pieces working together, and it seems likely that even the little pieces separately don't work.


http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/361577/assessing-exchanges-yuval-levin

[Cha]

3. So you're linking a sleazy rw site..

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. There's probably plenty of blame to be spread all around.

Fuzzy specifications, undefined deliverables, the typical coding errors that ripple through the system, insufficient bench testing, insufficient plans for integration testing, late specifications to the contractor, etc., etc., etc.

Some preliminary finger-pointing has already begin, and I'm sure there'll be a lot more of it to come -- but on a project this size, the blame (or success) can seldom be laid at any one specific door.

If all sides will act professional about it, their priority now is to get everything running as promised, and save the finger-pointing until later. Alas, I've seldom seen that happen too often, either.