>>I don't agree with all the calls to fire Kathleen Sebelius. Especially when she provides the gift that keeps on giving.
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>>In interviews picked up by CNN and the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, she provided the following:
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>>- "The online insurance marketplace needed five years of construction and a year of testing. We had two years and almost no testing." (Though she later stated that a delay was not an option)
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>>- In the week prior to Oct 1, there were simulated tests with hundreds (not thousands, but hundreds) of hits that crashed the system
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>>- She has stated that prior to Oct. 1, she never communicated the problems to the White House, and she does not believe our president had any awareness prior to Oct 1
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>>- While not confirmed, there are reports that Obama has reached out to Verizon for consultation. Why Verizon? Why not Amazon??? Given Amazon's volume, they'd be high on my list of people to talk to.
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>>- She has confirmed a statement by Debbie-Wasserman Schultz from a few weeks ago, that they only designed this for maybe 50,000 users per day.
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>>- She has also stated, "We want new eyes and ears. We want to make sure that we get all the questions on the table that we get all the answers and accelerate the fix as quickly as possible." As just about everyone on here is an experienced developer, the odds of "new eyes and ears" recommending a significant re-design or re-architecture is high (c'mon, guys, you KNOW some will suggest this). She also said she assumed the current contractor "would bring their A-game" to the project.
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>>Folks, you can't make this stuff up. This is actually sad. There are new calls (even from some of Obama's allies) to push back the individual mandate. Of course, that puts the Democrats and Obama in a box - if they actually give in, they tacitly acknowledge they were wrong in opposing ANY delay during the negotations with the House.
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>>What a mess. It was announced tonight that a high level official from HHS will hold a private briefing with the House Democrats. Would love to be a fly on the wall for that one.
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>"Hi, we're from The Government and we're here to help" <bg>

"We're from the government, and we're high" ;)