In a return volley of litigation Friday, the state of Oregon sued the software company that developed its failed health insurance exchange under Obamacare, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The suit, filed in Oregon state court, accused software giant Oracle of “fraud, racketeering, false claims, and broken contracts.” Oregon’s website performed so poorly during Obamacare’s first enrollment period that customers were forced to use paper applications. Less than 50 people signed up in the first two months.
The state will transition to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, next year as a result.
Oracle has already filed its own lawsuit against Oregon, apparently in anticipation of the lawsuit filed by the state, which had been promised since May. The company, which received $130 million for its work, accused the state and Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) specifically of “constant public slander” in the ongoing public dispute over the website’s performance.
Oregon attorney general Ellen Rosenblum didn’t mince words in her lawsuit’s assessment of Oracle’s performance:
Oracle lied to the State about the “Oracle Solution.” Oracle lied when it said the “Oracle Solution” could meet both of the State’s needs with Oracle products that worked “out-of-the-box.” Oracle lied when it said its products were “flexible,” “integrated,” worked “easily” with other programs, required little customization and could be set up quickly. Oracle lied when it claimed it had “the most comprehensive and secure solution with regards to the total functionality necessary for Oregon.”
The full lawsuit, via the Medford Mail Tribune, is below.
Settled out of court, Oregon doesn’t see a dime and refrains from bad mouthing Oracle going forward. Oracle admits no wrong doing, but agrees to pay the legal fees and whole thing is put under an agreed to gag order.
Slander? If the website worked so poorly that people were forced to file paper applications, that’s not slander, it’s called the truth.
It appears that Oregon’s big mistake was actually believing the ad copy. Oracle’s big mistake was thinking that it was possible that someone would take their sales drivel at face value.
Wow, I’m sure there is plenty of incompetence to go around but as a person who does software projects if you take the money especially 130 million you have to figure out a way to get the customer what they want even if they don’t know what they want. So I can’t see how Oracle isn’t responsible for this. It’s not like they didn’t have the time or resources. A talented software development company could have done it for 10 million and made good money.
I’m sure that Oracle will say that Oregon micromanaged the project but that’s simply not an excuse when you talking about a failure of this magnitude.
Pretty sure the truth is a defense to “slander”.