IS THIS ANOTHER CASE WHERE "BLACK POLITICS" TRUMPED "COMPETENCE" IN A NO-BID GOVERNMENT CONTRACT? (Updated)
UPDATE 01: 10-28-2013 ANOTHER VALERIE JARRETT CONNECTION?
Why pick a Canadian firm with a French name to help develop the official ObamaCare website? It certainly wasn't based on the track record in developing health care software of CGI Federal, the IT contractor that orchestrated most of the Healthcare.gov website. CGI Federal is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada's CGI Group (CGI stands for "Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique" in French, which roughly translates to "Information Systems and Management Consultants").
Its performance on Ontario, Canada's health care medical registry for diabetes sufferers was so poor that officials ditched the $46.2 million contract after three years of missed deadlines, the Washington Examiner has reported.
CGI is also the company behind the $2.7 billion failed, Liberal-launched Canadian Gun Registry that was so plagued with corruption and mismanagement it brought on an investigation by Canadian Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
The company is deeply embedded in Canada's single-payer system, which is the direction President Obama's health care policies are driving us. CGI has provided IT services to the Canadian Ministries of Health in Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Saskatchewan, as well as to the national health provider, Health Canada, according to CGI's website.
George Schindler, CGI Group president for U.S. and Canada, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company won the ObamaCare contract, a pattern we've seen in green-energy stimulus money going to companies like Solyndra.
As it happens, the Daily Caller reports that Michelle Obama's college roomie Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of '85, is a senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million ObamaCare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov.
There may be another Canadian connection as well.
Valerie Jarrett's daughter, Laura, is married to Tony Balkissoon. He is the son of Bas Balkissoon, a member of the Ontario legislature whose jobs have included, among other things, a stint as parliamentary assistant to the minister of Health and Long-Term Care from 2007-10. It's all in the family.
A major decision such as choosing Healthcare.gov's prime developer certainly would not be made without Jarrett's approval. Her influence is so great, as we have pointed out, she called off raids to get Osama bin Laden three times for political reasons. Source: Did Valerie Jarrett And Michelle Obama Pick ObamaCare Website Developer? - Investors.com
UPDATE 01: 10-26-2013 SAME COMPANY IN CHARGE OF DISTRIBUTING $1.7 BILLION IN SANDY HOOK RECOVERY EFFORT
CGI Federal Inc., the mastermind behind healthcare.gov, is assisting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the distribution of $1.7 billion in relief for Hurricane Sandy.
In a memo obtained by FreedomWorks titled, “Minutes of the 295th meeting of the members of the Housing Trust Fund Corporation held on May 9, 2013, at 8:30 a.m.,” CGI Federal is tasked with implementing the Disaster Housing Assistance Program. Additionally, they are asked to aid in the implementation of the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, an assistance program that had recently obtained $1.7 billion.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/26/company-behind-obamacare-website-in-charge-of-nearly-2-billion-in-sandy-relief/
Why is a Canadian company being used by the American government when American companies and American employees are hurting for work?
Once again, the answer looks more like politics than prudence.
Original Blog Post ...
I cannot help but think that Valerie Jarrett and the rest of the Chicago gang is all about crony socialism and a tendency to select progressive black political choices over competent choices …
Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare website
First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.
Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company. Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni. Read more at: Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate was Obamacare website builder | The Daily Caller
Where is the transparency, accountability, and honesty that is much-touted, but often ignored in the Obama Administration?
- Why was there a no-bid contract?
- Why was a Canadian company favored over an American company such as IBM, Computer Sciences, or any one of the large contractors.
- Who will be held accountable for the political debacle?
Was this the best company for the job?
Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal.
Instead, it appears they used what amounts to a federal procurement system loophole to award the work to the Canadian firm.
CGI was one of 16 companies that had been qualified by HHS during President George W. Bush's second term to deliver, without public competition, a variety of hardware, software and communication products and services. CGI was a much smaller vendor when it was approved by HHS in 2007. With the approval, CGI became eligible for multiple awards without public notice and in circumvention of the normal competitive bidding procurement process.
There is no evidence CMS issued any public solicitation for the Obamacare website contract. The Examiner asked both CMS and CGI for copies of any public solicitation notice for the Healthcare.gov task orders. Neither CMS nor CGI furnished any such public notice. <Source: Washington Examiner>
Did nobody check another large CGI project for their competency to deliver large-scale IT projects?
Canadian officials fired IT firm behind troubled Obamacare website
Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime contractor for the problem-plagued Obamacare health exchange websites, the Washington Examiner has learned.
CGI Federal’s parent company, Montreal-based CGI Group, was officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry. The online registry was supposed to be up and running by June 2011.
Officials at the U.S. government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded six technology contracts worth $87 million to CGI Federal for Obamacare website work, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The CMS officials refused to say if federal officials knew of its parent company’s IT failure in Canada when awarding the six contracts. <Source>
Bottom line …
Something stinks! I cannot help but wonder if the grotesquely misleading misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was designed to fail – to inflict so much pain on the American public that they would demand a socialist one-payer system which would complete the government’s nationalization of one-sixth of the American economy and provide a vehicle for the monitoring and control of every American citizen in the guise of delivering cost-effective, efficient, and effective healthcare. Even though the words cost-effective, efficient, and effective are very rarely applied to any government project where political and financial considerations trump competency and performance.
-- steve
“Nullius in verba”-- take nobody's word for it!
"Acta non verba" -- actions not words
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS