Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Regulations to Blame for HeathCare.gov Failure?


      Ever since the HealthCare.gov website went live there has been a never-ending string of frustrations and complaints with the website’s inability to perform its job.  This article highlights this was not really a surprising outcome as “94 percent of large federal information technology projects over the past 10 years were unsuccessful.” The article credits the HealthCare.gov’s and other government technologies’ failures to the regulation surrounding the bid process for contracting out these jobs.
            Of the types of regulation discussed in class, the article blames entry restrictions on rivals as the cause of government technologies failures.  With over 1,800 pages of legal code the article points to the Federal Acquisition Regulation as the main regulatory barrier claiming it “all but ensure(s) that the companies that win government contracts… are those that can navigate the regulations best, but not necessarily do the best job.”
            Basically, this regulatory code prevents smaller firms from entering the contract award process because they cannot sift through all the regulation despite their ability to build better technologies. The regulation serves as a barrier to the government information-technology sector, ensuring the large firms who support the regulation continue to win contracts, collect profits, and create poor systems while new firms cannot break in to win contracts.

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