J. Emilio Flores/La Opinion/Newscom
It turns out notorious government contractor CGI is no stranger to glitch-filled rollouts. HealthCare.gov isn’t the first time the Canadian company has received millions of taxpayer funds to create a dysfunctional product.
According to The Washington Times’ Emily Miller, CGI has a record of failure dating back to the 1990s, when it was tasked with building a gun registry for the Canadian government.
More than 10 years later, the gun registry still wasn’t functioning properly, despite having received more than $80 million in funding. The contract was terminated in 2007, having cost the Canadian government more than $90 million.
Despite its rocky history, the Obama administration selected CGI to build HealthCare.gov. The White House has not commented on whether federal officials were aware of CGI’s past before awarding a contract worth as much as $292 million.
According to The Washington Times, the Canadian gun registry has been hacked more than 320 times since its implementation. These security breaches put the personal information of law-abiding citizens into the hands of criminals.
The Foundry has reported on similar security breaches with HealthCare.gov. Last month, a North Carolina man registered an account and was given access to eligibility letters that included personal information of two people from South Carolina.
Cheryl Campbell, CGI’s vice president, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month in an attempt to provide further details about the flawed implementation. Campbell effectively blamed the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services for the troubles.
But problems with CGI don’t stop with simply the website. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed concerns about the security of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare navigators, and the Federal Data Services Hub.
CGI’s tarnished past and rocky track record comes at a time when Americans’ trust of the federal government to manage health care reached an all-time low.
