peter gosselin

HealthCare.gov’s Mounting Costs, Part 2: Don't Forget HHS's Internal Costs
By Tom Blumer | October 27, 2013 | 5:17 PM EDT

The left has been ridiculing supposedly wildly overstated estimates of the costs of building the calamitous HealthCare.gov website, the fact is that the costs involved are certainly far higher than the figures most commonly cited: "over 500 million" at Digital Trends, "over $400 million" at the New York Times. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is claiming that it's really only $170 milion to $300 million.

In Part 1 (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that Bloomberg Government's Peter Gosselin estimated that costs incurred and costs committed to outside firms alone are already north of $1 billion. Now let's look at how much additional taxpayer money the Department of Health and Human Services may have spent on the Obamacare exchange rollout.

HealthCare.gov's Mounting Costs, Part 1: Press Ignoring Former Admin Member's ID of $1 Billion-Plus in Contracts
By Tom Blumer | October 27, 2013 | 3:40 PM EDT

The left has been ridiculing supposedly wildly overstated estimates of the costs of building the calamitous HealthCare.gov website.

Based on a look at one contractor, CGI, which he must have assumed was the general contractor (i.e., the lead entity through which amounts paid to subcontracting firms would be funneled), Andrew Couts at Digital Trends originally estimated a total cost of $634 million. Couts later backed it down to "over $500 million" after identifying non-Affordable Care Act-related work with which CGI was associated. The New York Times has until recently been working with a figure of "over $400 million." All figures just noted are almost certainly miles too low, for two reasons.

Flashback: Journalists Marveled Over Healthcare.gov Before It Opened
By Matt Hadro | October 22, 2013 | 11:55 AM EDT

While the media are now calling the ObamaCare rollout a "mess" and the website a "bust," some journalists and pundits were a lot more optimistic right before the exchanges opened.

Despite warnings that the website and exchanges would not be ready to open on time, journalists marveled over how easy the website, Healthcare.gov, would be to navigate. That optimism crumbled as, in one notable case, it took CNN's Elizabeth Cohen two weeks to sign up for ObamaCare. Below are the five most embarrassing endorsements of Healthcare.gov:

CBS Lets Sebelius' Former Adviser at HHS Spin For ObamaCare
By Matthew Balan | September 30, 2013 | 6:25 PM EDT

CBS This Morning did its best over two days to put the most positive spin on the rollout of the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. On Saturday, the newscast turned to Bloomberg's Peter Gosselin, who likened the exchanges to "shopping for anything online on Amazon". However, the program failed to point out that Gosselin once worked in the Obama administration, and advised HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on health policy.

Two days later, the morning show turned to CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger, who followed Gosselin's lead in likening the exchanges to a popular website: "This is really like going to shop for a flight on Travelocity." Schlesinger also noted that ObamaCare "has to get young, healthy people in it, or else the math does not work". However, she insisted just moments later that the marketplaces will "work out all right", despite the initial glitches. [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]