Contractors’ Fingers Point To Govt. Lack Of Testing As Reason For Screwed Up Site

 The contractors faced tough questioning from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who voiced frustration with the weeks-long problems surrounding the federal hub. Lawmakers cast doubt on attempts by contractors, who were paid millions, to claim they were not responsible for many of the site’s problems. Top contractor CGI Federal revealed it was paid $290 million in taxpayer funds.

But CGI Federal and other contractors repeatedly claimed that overall “end-to-end” testing was the responsibility of an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, as was the decision to go live on Oct. 1.

They suggested more time was needed to work out the — major — kinks.

Representing contractor QSSI, Andrew Slavitt told the committee that ideally, end-to-end testing should have occurred well before the launch, with enough time to correct flaws.

“Months would be nice,” said Slavitt.

“We would have loved to have months,” concurred CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell, though she earlier claimed no amount of testing could have flagged all the problems.

Questioned whether there were concerns the site was not ready to go live, she also said: “It was not our position to tell our client whether they should go live or not go live.”