GAO: HHS underestimated risk of Healthcare.gov failure

The Department of Health & Human Services rated the launch of HealthCare.gov as having a low-risk of failure six months before it went live, according to the Washington Post and a recent report by the General Accounting Office. It wasn’t until closer to the launch that the department suddenly bumped up the risk from “moderately high risk” or “high risk,” the report found.

These revelations were among GAO’s more wide-ranging findings, which included that at least $10 billion in federal technology contracts currently are at risk of failure. Specifically, 183 of 759 major IT investments were at medium to high risk of failing before completion, according to the report.

“Information technology should enable government to better serve the American people. However, despite spending hundreds of billions on IT since 2000, the federal government has experienced failed IT projects and has achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry has realized from IT,” according to written testimony from David A. Powner, GAO’s IT management director, to the Senate subcommittee on efficiency and effectiveness of government programs.

The federal government has worked to improve the management of IT projects, including by eliminating duplicative programs—with a potential cost savings of $5.8 billion through fiscal year 2015.

Powner also said at the hearing that sites such as the IT Dashboard are a move toward greater government transparency.

Read the GAO report here.