
California’s $327 million web site in operation - tjr
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/10/02/californias-327-million-web-site-in-operation/
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steveplace
I think I found their budget plan. Very, very big numbers.

[http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/CHB...](http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/CHBE_Level2Grant_BudgetNarrative.pdf)

~~~
wpietri
To be fair to them, California's population is 38 million. Divide the budgets
by that number to get a per-capita cost and it doesn't seem crazy to me.

As an aside the way we citizens run our government, budget bloat is
guaranteed. We complain a little about bloat, but we complain a lot when
things don't go perfectly, and we also go looking for individuals to blame.
The strong incentive is to be very risk-averse. That's especially true in
organizations, like government, where stability is prized and careers are
long.

I really appreciate a lot of the work that government people do, but I would
never put up with half the bullshit they do.

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timr
Lots of snark here; very little thoughtful commentary.

If the document that steveplace posted [1] is accurate, the budget for this
program includes things like the 800+ person _call center_ to handle consumer
requests, and the staff to figure out what kinds of health plans to offer in
the first place. The line item for "technical" is $161M, which is only 23% of
the budget.

I'm not going to suggest that's a low number for this kind of project, but
then again, it's kind of hard to make it all about the horribleness of public
projects when _94% of the technical budget_ is going to "contractual
services". It looks like the software was mostly done by _private
contractors_.

In other words: let's not allow facts and thoughtful discourse to get in the
way of a good government bashing!

[1]
[http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/CHB...](http://www.healthexchange.ca.gov/BoardMeetings/Documents/CHBE_Level2Grant_BudgetNarrative.pdf)

~~~
bhauer
> _In other words, it looks like the software was mostly done by private
> contractors._

Wait a second. Government over-spending is beyond reproach when the money is
channeled to what are likely politically-connected private firms? To my mind,
that is equally egregious, perhaps even moreso because of the taint of
cronyism (or still worse than that, regulatory capture by entrenched large
firms).

But even if I give the firm-selection process the benefit of the doubt and
assume it was done without kick-backs or regulatory capture effects of any
sort (seems implausible, but we'll go with that), private firms simply know
that when you are bidding on government work, the budget is enormous. You're
probably likely to be kicked out of the running for being un-serious if your
bid is significantly less than the average bid. And the average bid is high
because ... government.

I can imagine feedback of the flavor: "You think you can do this type of
complex web application for a _mere fifty million_? Don't waste my time."

~~~
timr
_" And the average bid is high because ... government."_

I'll admit that I was skeptical when people said that _" everything is
different this time because ... internet!"_, but I think your application of
the theory is much more elegant.

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ck2
It's amazing how even technical minded folks don't forgive launch day bugs and
initial traffic overload.

That said, some of these bugs definitely should have been easily spotted
during beta testing.

But I too would like to see an itemization of $327 million.

~~~
timr
Initial reports were that insurance.gov got _1M uniques before 8AM_ on launch
day. One can imagine that California's exchange site was also slammed.

I'm not going to argue that this project's budget wasn't bloated, but it's
pretty naive to think that your average low-rent startup team could handle it
any better. Doing tens of millions of uniques on launch day is a challenge for
any team. Most commercial websites with that much traffic have technology
budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

~~~
ck2
Plus given the politics around it, we don't know what devious behavior might
have been going on against it either.

Hopefully none, but you never know. Their stats may have been javascript based
and not physical server hits.

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vehementi
Is there some balance sheet that explains how it cost $327M? Is this some
massive contract awarded to some goverment guy's buddy?

~~~
jbooth
It's actually the opposite. All of the regulations preventing it from going to
some guy's buddy mean that only bloated, f'd up bureaucracies can clear the
hurdles to land the gig. And in the end, it still helps to have some buddies,
of course.

~~~
wpietri
Yes. The risks of doing a government contract are enormous.

Once an old family friend with a lot of state government contracting
experience brought me in to help out with some technical stuff. One of the
clauses in the contract basically said that they could just decide not to pay
me.

After I got done spluttering, it was explained to me that they needed the
clause in case of certain weird emergencies that never happened. (I can't
remember now, but I imagine government shutdown is one of those cases.) So I
said, "Whatever," and signed, because I could afford to take the risk.

But there is no way I'd do that for a substantial project. The bigger the
client, the bigger the crazy. To be able to take $5m gambles, I'd want to be
doing $50-100m/year. Which means I'm running a bloated, f'd-up bureaucracy for
sure. No thanks; if I need more crazy in my life, I'll just go read some
comments on YouTube or newspaper sites.

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Yhippa
Storytime! Who wants to hear another story of going all-in on poor State IT
management?

[http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/virginia-
statewide-i...](http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/case/virginia-statewide-
information-technology-system)

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ogig
My small province wasted 1 million Euros in a bad looking, useless, magento
site that will be close after next elections. This is how I imagine it works
here in my local administration:

    
    
       -EU just sent 1 million euros for helping us out!
       -What's destined for? 
       -Technological development   
       -Ok, i'll call (my cousin) Jon, and ask him to make a website for 750.000, 
       you go and call (your brother) Mike and task him to make an iPhone app for 250.000.   
       -Good, what will be the site for?   
       -Mmmm, whatever Jon wants, does it matter?   
       -Guess not... Lets go have a drink a celebrate our good job?   
       -Deal.

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jameswyse
Is this the correct site?
[https://v.calheers.ca.gov/](https://v.calheers.ca.gov/)

    
    
      Come Back Soon
    
      Due to the success of the Covered California Marketplace we are experiencing higher than expected users. 
    
      To make sure everyone has a great experience while on the site, we need you to come back in a little bit 
    
      We're sorry for the inconvenience and we look forward to your return in a few hours.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _we are experiencing higher than expected users._

Dammit, Californians, stop smoking all that pot so we can get to the obamacare
website!

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wehadfun
How much health insurance could have simply been bought with $327 million?

~~~
Timothee
Probably not much actually. Google tells me that California's population is
about 38 million people. So, on average, you get less than $10 per person as a
one-time "credit" (or however you'd call this). Even if only 1% of people
needed coverage, they could get $1,000 worth of coverage which doesn't take
you very far.

I'm not saying that that budget is reasonable or unreasonable, but that puts
the amount in perspective a little bit.

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ams6110
State IT project. Unbelievably overstaffed, massive budget. Mediocre results,
if not outright failure. Par for the course. Nobody should be surprised.

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mikestew
At least CA's site is up and running. WA's site
([https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org](https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org)) has
been down since the first. My project for down moments today is to try and
determine how much it cost to develop. (Oops, I guess it's up now, just slow,
and has an invalid cert.)

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kylelibra
Apparently I need to find some government institutions for clients.

~~~
sybhn
That was my conclusion too ;-) Why do we try so hard right?

~~~
31reasons
Mine as well. Seems pretty lucrative.

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smalldaddy
Government business is great when you can get it. The problem is navigating
the purchasing process.

In this case I like to think of it as stimulus for the economy.

~~~
justinsteele
Everyone's tax money goes to a select few who screwed the state over (or..
went through their loopholes successfully, however you want to look at it).
None of that sounds like a good stimulus to me.

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timje1
Is there anything being done here that looks like it should cost more than
500k ? ... Look over here, I've got a bridge to sell that I think you're going
to love...

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bluecalm
Sounds unreal, anybody have any details justifying it ?

~~~
VMG
They don't need to. Their customers are unable to switch.

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robertwalsh0
I'd love to see a collection of how much these sites cost to build per state.

