The problem isn't that America doesn't need a CTO--as a nation, as a government, it makes more sense to bring systems expertise in-house than to keep bleeding resources out to contractors. There really should be a .gov entity that handles IT and application development.
That said, the problem is that such a position is going to be beset on all sides by people that don't want their job disrupted and which won't be given enough authority to actually change workflows to match the new software.
Really? I think it would have been nice if someone would have told them that healthcare.gov was a giant mess. Of course the CTO has to be competent enough to give good advice.
I seem to recall reading an article about healthcare.gov (maybe the time article) specifically mentioning that the CTO was kept separate from the project until things started to go wrong.
edit: well, it sort of says that, but doesn't offer much explanation:
> Zients, who is not an engineer, was teamed with Park, the White House chief technology officer. "On Oct. 17, I went from White House CTO to full-time HealthCare.gov fixer," Park says. The two were charged, says Zients, with "finding fresh eyes who could decide whether the thing was salvageable."
> ...Early on, Lambrew, highly regarded as a health care policy expert and advocate for medical care for the poor, kept Park off the invitation list for the planning meetings, according to two people who worked on the White House staff prior to the launch. (The White House declined to make Lambrew available for an interview.) The only explanation Park offers for his exclusion is that "The CTO helps set government technology policy but does not get involved in specific programs. The agencies do that."
