The FBI is making inquiries about the failed launch of Oregon’s Obamacare website, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
The exact nature and scope of the investigation is not yet clear. The Journal reported that the FBI had already interviewed several people. The Oregonian and KATU first broke the story.
Oregon had one of the worst websites launches among the 14 states that constructed their own Obamacare marketplace. Its first director has resigned, and the state plans to move to the federal HealthCare.gov in 2015.
Oracle, a California-based software company, was the lead contractor on the project, for which Oregon received more than $300 million in federal funding.
The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is also probing the site’s launch, according to The Oregonian.
It is about time we started asking some serious questions about the perpetual glitches that popped up, not just in Oregon but also in the national ACA site.
No doubt the administration was reticent to ask these questions at the time, because they would have been mercilessly attacked for “blaming shadows” for their own failures, but anyone who has been to the site and has programming experience will agree, there should not have been issues like we all faced, unless someone somewhere was throwing monkey wrenches into the works.
Even Ebay’s online presence would struggle, if hackers were attacking it incessantly.
The facts are there to search out, so let the games begin.
Set the geekhounds loose and let them find the culprits… it takes a hacker to find a hacker.
That explains that advertising agency exec’s over the top response to John Oliver. I guess it’s better to be fucking stupid than criminal.
Their first question was “What’s with the cutesy ad?” To which Mark Ray, the owner of the company that created the useless but cutesy ad pulled a Sgt, Schulz about the website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzsWxPLIOoSure the website failed…but I still got my insurance, and I had very little problem using the telephone and fax machine to send application paperwork and the Cover Oregon staff made courtesy calls and sent postcard updates. BTW, excellent coverage for an extremely reasonable premium.
But Oracle lead the project? Geesh. This is not exactly a company with a reputation for incompetence. What’s up with that?