Obamacare to single payer

Obama was looking for company with single-payer expertise

By Judi McLeod  Tuesday, October 15, 2013 Was President Barack Obama aiming for a tech company well-versed in designing websites for a single-payer health system when he awarded the now glitch-riddled healthcare.gov contract to Canadian CGI? Behind all the glitches, and at the heart of the utterly stalled healthcare.gov, that’s exactly what CGI is: the Canadian tech firm—Canada’s largest—that has provided to Canada’s single-payer health system. Is that the dirty little secret hidden behind the public embarrassment that even after spending $93.7 million—a figure expected to double to correct—the Obama administration can’t get healthcare.gov up and running? “CGI Federal Inc., a subsidiary based in Fairfax, Va., was awarded a US$93.7-million contract over two years ago to help design and develop the federal insurance exchange.” “The “CGI” in the parent company’s name stands for “Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique” in French, which roughly translates to “Information Systems and Management Consultants”.  However the firm offers another translation: “Consultants to Government and Industry”. (Washington Examiner, Oct. 4, 2013). “The company is deeply embedded in Canada’s single-payer system.  CGI has provided IT services to the Canadian Ministries of Health in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan, as well as the the national health provider, Health Canada.” And that information has been available on CGI’s Canadian website all along. Like ‘The Big Engine That Couldn’t’, healthcare.gov is wearing the ‘System Failure’ sign two weeks after its launch. Those blankety-blank glitches that keep healthcare.gov in goof mode are not the fault of George W. Bush.  Now it’s Canada’s fault.  That’s the Obama administration’s story and they’re sticking to it. If the administration went looking for a tech giant with experience in setting up IT for single-payer systems and then rushed it into launch without listening to expert warnings, whose fault really is it? “The health insurance exchange at healthcare.gov, for which a subsidiary of Montreal-based CGI Group Inc. was contacted to help build and provide information technology and technical support, has been plagued with delays since it launched on Oct. 1. (Financial Post, Oct. 10, 2013) “In its first few days after startup, of the millions of Americans who rushed to sign on under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, only a trickle successfully got through—in the “single digits”, as one insurance official told the Washington Post.” Trying to prove a news point, CNN couldn’t get through either. Meanwhile, the Obama administration needs massive computer data on all Americans for ObamaCare. With healthcare.gov in stall, is anyone besides Canada Free Press wondering who’s filling the gap? Is it NSA, which we now read is collecting half a million ‘buddy lists’ a day in spy duty,  to healthcare.gov’s rescue?