
HealthCare.gov’s head tech guy is out - coloneltcb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/06/healthcare-govs-head-tech-guy-is-out/
======
chintan
Whatever happened to the "CTO" of US -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Technology_Officer_of_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Technology_Officer_of_the_United_States)

Park has been running his part of the massive government agency "like a
Silicon Valley company," according to the Atlantic. That approach was
particularly relevant in the development of HealthCare.gov, the first
government website that provides consumers with a searchable database of
public and private health insurance plans available across the U.S. by zip
code -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Park](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Park)

~~~
thetylerhayes
He's still going strong.

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djKianoosh
Purely cosmetic move. At that level, that "tech guy" is probably 3-5 levels
above any real key decision makers and managers involved in the actual
implementation. Blaming this on him is like blaming Sepp Blatter for
Barcelona's under-13 team's shortcomings. Having worked on federal software
projects not even half this large there's a lot of layers. A lot of buffers.

and btw, "head tech guy"? Really? Is the Washington Post a serious news
organization?

~~~
anigbrowl
It's a blog, and this is a prime example of why I don't consider blogging on
the same level as real journalism.

~~~
Cowen
I'm not going to comment on the blogs vs. real journalism debate, but I'd say
Wonkblog is probably one of the best American political blogs running today.

Politics is such a polarizing and passionate issue that these blogs easily
gain readership among people who already agree with their political agenda.
It's incredibly easy to start a political blog that is purely speculation,
vitriol, or outright lies. A lot of political blogs even devote themselves to
minutiae like dissecting every single word out of Senator John Doe's mouth to
advance some ridiculous pre-formulated conclusion -- "Senator Doe ate French
Fries! Clearly he hates America!"

Wonkblog does none of those things, often posting only about actual reports or
expert's interviews. It's both rare and relieving to see a political blog that
at least _attempts_ to stick to non-partisanship.

Even here you can see that they aren't declaring this event to be any bigger
than it is. The guy who oversaw healthcare.gov resigned, here's his resume,
here's what he's doing, here's what the CMS said about it. The end.

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dh
What this should read is he awarded huge bloated crazy contracts to the
private sector and he now has a job at one of those companies.

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pmorici
Here is an interview with the guy, uninspiring stuff...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wghDZagJ_nM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wghDZagJ_nM)

~~~
jorgem
Now I know why I don't work for the government. Who would ever create or watch
that crap?

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computerslol
He probably didn't leave by choice.

Jumping off what is perceived to be a sinking ship like that (by choice)
before it was fixed would be career suicide. It is however very understandable
that he would be found a job to get him out of the way for someone else to do
damage control.

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omegote
Do you guys have any link where the whole HealthCare.gov disaster is
explained? When I first heard of it, I visited the website and saw no problem
- actually found it quite nice.

~~~
garg
Here's one source: [http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-
se...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-seven-deadly-
sins-of-healthcare-gov/)

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mattkrea
Anyone else look at that title and think that it's pretty hilariously
unprofessional? Haha

EDIT: To print an article with that title, not job title.

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leeoniya
"Our chief operating officer announced yesterday Tony has accepted a position
in private sector,"

so long and thanks for all the rotting fish?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I suspect that the 'private sector' is one of the contracting companies that
did the site to begin with. The guy is lobbiest gold since he knows who is and
who isn't able to be influenced in the department.

~~~
leeoniya
yeah, he likely went into some private consultancy firm that'll be contracted
to fix the issues with the abomination (Obamanation?) he knows best, because
he built it! But all at private sector rates, still paid for by the taxpayers.

nothing pays like ongoing maintenance contracts :)

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ne0codex
At least the private-contractors are finally facing the consequences, in the
beginning the outrage would have let you to believe that it was the President
himself who was the one programming away the exchanges!

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robomartin
Sacrificial lamb. Executing this SNAFU required layers upon layers of
incompetent and unmotivated people completely detatched from the consequences
of their lack of performance. Since this describes a vast majority of the
people who work for government it is easy to imagine a one million dollar
website turning into a six hundred million dollar website that does not work.
In any other universe people would have been fired by the hundreds and some
even brought up on charges. Not in government.

Until we have a system that makes them all fully accountable for their actions
this will not change. Many of you are just waking up to the horrible reality
that this is how nearly everything is done in government. Just. Like . This.

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ye
It's easy to blame one guy, but I'm sure his task was next to impossible.

It's not just some independent website where you have full control of your
creation. It had to interact with a dozen of other systems, and I'm sure a
bunch of APIs were created just for that, and I'm sure bugs in just some of
them could render the whole system nonfunctioning.

And yes, maybe it is this guy's fault. We don't really know.

~~~
waps
It's even easier when you read the guy's biography :

[http://www.cms.gov/About-
CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html](http://www.cms.gov/About-
CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html)

This guy is a typical management idiot. He has no qualifications except
"leading" (not specified any further, of course), and making decisions about
other people's money. While it's hard finding disastrous decisions in his CV,
I'm not seeing anything that suggests he did more than show up.

As for leading, he has zero qualifications in either healthcare or IT.

I see this at a lot of companies, and someone really should explain it here,
where I can ask the question anonymously : how the fuck do these guys get
their positions ? Suppose I came in for a job interview about programming
cars. First thing I say is that I have zero knowledge about either programming
or cars. But I've got "executive awards" and I managed a few people in a
completely unremarkable company in a project no-one's ever heard of, or ever
will hear off, they were that important.

Would you hire me ? I hope not. Why the fuck did this guy get hired ?

I can't even fault the guy himself. Of course he's not the right person to
lead anything, but he's responding to incentives put in place by the US
government, and by companies more generally. Given what he gets paid, of
course he's doing whatever his superiors want him to do, without question, and
without taking reality into account. Of course he's extremely motivated to lie
to everybody to keep that job for just a few more months. The guy who hired
him to make responsible decisions about IT, or healthcare, that's the guy that
needs firing.

Really, I'd love to understand. What, assuming it isn't flat-out corruption or
nepotism, motivates someone to hire people like this into important positions
they flat-out know nothing about ?

~~~
jrochkind1
Here's my theory.

There's domain skills, the actual skills and knowledge about programming or
cars or whatever your business does.

Then there's skills at _getting ahead_ itself. Politics. Skills at making the
right people happy so you get a promotion.

You _need_ the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large
organization, right? We know that domain skills _alone_ aren't going to cut
it, if you're not good at the office politics, you are never going to be a
department head or CIO -- in a large corporation or government or a university
or large nonprofit: in any large organization.

Well, there's only so much room for so many skills. To actually get to the top
levels of a large organization you need to be _so_ good at the political part,
that there's no time or room left in your psyche for any actual domain skills
at all. Or, really, any skills at all except for skills at making people
higher up than you think you are good.

~~~
fein
> You need the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large
> organization, right?

The problem isn't attaining these skills; it's using them. Sure, I can use
people as a means to an end in all sorts of colorful fashions to climb the
ladder, but could I go home and sleep at night? I've made that decision, and
it's a firm "No."

Climbing the corporate ladder doesn't seem to be so difficult, as long as you
can rationalize the soul selling required to do so. Perhaps my point of view
will change later in life, but right now one of the most important ideologies
I maintain is that I should only be evaluated based on work I can directly
represent, not credit derived from others.

