Since I previously voiced my skepticism of management’s competence in administering the www.healthcare.gov project, I am not be surprised that there was an assortment of uncompleted work. However the magnitude of Mr. Chao’s claim astounds me. Here is his quote:

Up to 40 percent of the technology needed to run the new Obamacare health insurance marketplace has not yet been built and will not be ready when insurance companies start sending in bills when coverage begins January 1, the project manager of HealthCare.gov told the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.

Uh, what was the management team doing over the last three years when the developers were falling behind and why is this management team suddenly so confident that they can build and test these missing business functions in sixty days? The missing business functions sound like management reports that would have been essential to managing a successful implementation and integration of the insurance marketplace and to answer all of those pesky questions from Congress and the media!