Today has been a data dump of bad news on the Obamacare exchange website. The latest is word from an unnamed contractor with knowledge of the project who tells the Examiner that the site got 4-6 days of final testing:
Federal officials were “freezing requirements in time to permit full
testing at all levels of the site — integration testing, user testing,
performance testing and tuning,” the individual said.“Normally a system this size would need 4-6 months of testing and performance tuning, not 4-6 days,” the individual said.
The source said there were “ever-changing, conflicting and
exceedingly late project directions. The actual system requirements for
Oct. 1 were changing up until the week before,” the individual said.
Last week I wrote at length about the troubled state based exchange in Nevada. That site also had one week for final testing. I noted at the time “representatives from the federal government told Nevada officials in early September that their state of readiness was about average.” Apparently, Nevada was at almost exactly the same point as the federal exchange when it came to testing.
There is no way that any responsible IT professional thought the site was ready for launch. It was, according to the NY Times, only 70 percent complete. Who will be held accountable for this massive government failure?