Accenture Faces Mid-March Healthcare.gov Deadline Or 'Disaster' 215
PapayaSF writes "TheHill.com reports that Accenture has two months to fix HealthCare.gov by building a 'financial management platform that tracks eligibility and enrollment transactions, accounts for subsidy payments to insurance plans, "provides stable and predictable financial accounting and outlook for the entire program," and that integrates with existing CMS and IRS systems.' The procurement document, posted on a federal website, states that if this is not completed in time, there will be 'financial harm to the government' and 'the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized.' Risk mitigation (which pays insurers who enroll a higher-than-expected number of sick patients) must be accurately forecast, or it might put 'the entire health insurance industry at risk.' Accenture will also have to fix the enrollment transmissions, which have been sending inaccurate and garbled data to insurance companies. Because the back-end cannot currently handle the federal subsidies, insurers will be paid estimated amounts as a stopgap measure. The document also said that officials realized in December that there was no time for a 'full and open competition process' before awarding Accenture the $91 million contract. What are their odds of success?"
Who are Accenture? (Score:5, Informative)
For some, thinking is *impossible* (Score:5, Informative)
Two reasons:
1. People are (god help me, I feel a fedora sprouting from my head and hairs growing from my neck as I type this) sheep. Your average person would lose their goddamned shit if they didn't have someone telling them what to do and when to do it. This is the end result of an education system that teaches blind love of authority, followed by corporate structures that do the same with regard to their employees. Thinking is hard. Decisions are tough. Et cetera.
It's only partly because of education, but for the *most* part, it's the innate human instinct to "go with the flock", and yes, just like the sheep.
Idol worshiping is everywhere, from movie stars to athletes to religious figures to even people of the most untrustworthy occupation - politicians - flocks of sheep pay their homage to their idols.
Whatever their idol did, no matter how wrong it is, the sheep will find excuses to defend - even when it is utterly *un*defendable, they still try their best to defend.
Like the original contract for this website which went to a college buddy of the POTUS' wife, without open bidding.
If we are to criticize the award of that original contract to someone who has no clue in setting up a website, the sheep will be rubbed the wrong way and they will revolt. They will attack whoever dare to criticize their idols.
Re:America Cannot Compete (Score:3, Informative)
1. Under the tenth amendment, the Federal government has no constitutional authority to manage or otherwise regulate the health care market. The Supreme Court directly and unanimously rejected their Commerce Clause justification.
There is no such thing as an interstate health care market. In fact, practicing medicine across state lines is a felony in all 50 states, even if you have a medical license elsewhere.
2. The only way the Supreme Court could possibly ratify the Affordable Care Act was to declare it a tax, which justified it under the enumerated powers of Congress in Article I Section 8.
This despite the fact the U.S. Government repeatedly argued on the record that the ACA was not a tax.
The problems with calling the ACA a tax are:
A. If it is a tax, it is unconstitutional on its face under the origination clause in Article I Section 7. Only the House may originate a bill for raising revenue. The ACA originated in the Senate.
B. If it is a tax, it must be apportioned under Article I Section 2 and Article I Section 9. The apportionment requirement is the only mandate that is repeated twice in the Constitution. There can be no doubt the ACA is a direct tax (regardless of the Supreme Court's hand-waving) since all citizens of the United States are liable to pay it. Since the ACA is not apportioned, it is unconstitutional.
C. If it is not a tax, there is no power in Article I Section 8 that justifies it, therefore the tenth amendment governs. Health care is a state issue, and the Federal government may not interfere.
3. When the ACA was ratified by the Supreme Court, the case was being heard illegally. Under Article III Section 2 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over any case in which a state is a party. Original jurisdiction means the case must be first heard in that court.
However, the Supreme Court was hearing on appeal when they ruled the ACA constitutional. The Supreme Court does not have appellate jurisdiction over a case in which 26 states were plaintiffs. Further, the district courts that heard the case in the first place had no jurisdiction to rule for or against it either. District courts have no jurisdiction over such cases at all.
Therefore the Supreme Court ruling was and is illegal. The ACA has therefore never been ruled legally constitutional. That means the 26 states that sued to overturn it still have a case and under the 14th amendment, must have their day in court.
The Constitution is not a list of suggestions. The tenth amendment, Article I Sections 2 and 9, and Article III Section 2 are all the Supreme Law of the Land under Article VI. Neither Congress, nor the Supreme Court, nor any other authority in this nation other than a plurality of states may overrule it.
Therefore, the ACA is unconstitutional and must be struck down.
Re:Who are Accenture? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice paranoid conspiracy theory. The same Wikipedia article to which you link contains the facts: Accenture is not Arthur Anderson; it's the renamed Anderson Consulting, which split off from AA in 1989, 12 years before the Enron scandal. AC had nothing to do with the Enron contract; that was all AA. The renaming of AC to Accenture was due not to a PR decision by AC, but to a 2000 court order in AA's favor, awarding AA all rights to the "Andersen" name. AA subsequently renamed themselves "Andersen." all this took place the year before the scandal came out.
The Enron scandal took down AA; their involvement as the actual shredders destroyed their reputation. Accenture, having nothing to do with it, was largely unaffected and unharmed.
Re:Who are Accenture? (Score:3, Informative)
My wife used to work for Accenture. .. without ever contributing any real work to a project.
The culture is typically bounding "consultants" which jump into a project, and then within 1 month jump to another project, in order to pump up their list of successful projects & plump up their personal resume
This project is doomed.
Re:Who are Accenture? (Score:5, Informative)
Unless they are replicating an existing system, I wouldn't use them.
Re:0% (Score:5, Informative)
...And the worst is yet to come, when some 80 million additional employer-sponsored policies are cancelled [foxnews.com]
Is this a realistic prediction? I ask because your link is almost two months old, it's a Fox News story with the usual bias against the administration, and the underlying "facts" come from the American Enterprise Institute, of whom George W. Bush gushed, '"I admire AEI a lot--I'm sure you know that," Bush said. "After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people."' And we know how that administration turned out.
I'm not looking for Rachel Maddow's take, but how about something within the last month, from a source that's not rabidly anti-Obama?
Thanks.
Re:For some, thinking is *impossible* (Score:4, Informative)
Like the original contract for this website which went to a college buddy of the POTUS' wife, without open bidding.
The executive whose company won the no-bid contract is Toni-Townes Whitley and the only association she and Michelle Obama have had is that they were classmates at Princeton.
The right-wing media attempted to twist this fact of attending the same school at the same time as proof of cronyism. Fortunately for those of us who would be informed rather than manipulated, the biggest evidence of this failed smear campaign is the blasted Google landscape around the search terms "michelle obama yale classmate [google.com]".
The only people repeating this as proof of corruption are biased right-wing media organs and poorly informed /. readers.