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Montreal-based IT giant CGI scapegoated by American media for ’glitches’ in Obamacare’s new healthcare website
24 October 2013
(CRC)—Canada’s largest IT services provider CGI (Conseiller en Gestion et Informatique) is getting blamed for the malfunctioning of the Obamacare one-stop U.S. health insurance website. CGI is not your local bumbler operative. It is the 5th. largest integrated IT services provider in the world, after Accenture (formerly known as Arthur Andersen Consulting), CSC, and the two France-based IT giants Capgemini and ATOS. While a recent New York Times article wrote that ’CGI officials have publicly said that while their company created the system’s overall software framework, the Medicare and Medicaid agency was responsible for integrating and testing all the combined components’ The problems according to the ’NYT interviews with two dozen contractors, current and former government officials, insurance executives and consumer advocates, as well as an examination of confidential administration documents, point to a series of missteps — financial, technical and managerial — that led to the troubles. ...To avoid giving ammunition to Republicans opposed to the project, the administration put off issuing several major rules until after last November’s elections. The Republican-controlled House blocked funds. More than 30 states refused to set up their own exchanges, requiring the federal government to vastly expand its project in unexpected ways. ... Administration officials dug in their heels, repeatedly insisting that the project was on track despite evidence to the contrary’. But while most American media were either quick to blame CGI or else put most of the blame for the failure of Obamacare on the ’glitches’ on the Web site HealthCare.gov, or on some bureaucratic blundering, the truth of the matter is that the real culprit is the President himself. As LaRouchePac detailed on October 16 in the news brief ’Obamacare Debacle is Intentional—Not From ’Glitches’, Millions of Poor Excluded’ : ’As of two weeks into the operation of the new Obamacare online markets for obtaining insurance, the drastic malfunctioning of the system, and the rate of non-signups, reflect the intent of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) all along: an operation for perpetrating mass death.’ ’Two recent New York Times articles provide details of this. First: failures of the exchanges cannot be blamed on technical computer problems. Secondly: even if the IT on the insurance exchanges worked perfectly, some nine million poor Americans are disqualified for any coverage at all, because they earn too much to qualify for Federal or state aid to the poor through Medicaid, and yet too little to qualify for insurance subsidies under the ACA.’ ’...In other words, planned failure is the name of the game.’ EIR editor Nancy Spannaus in her recent article ’Obamacare in Action : Sacrificing Millions to Imperial Finance’ laid out the alternative : The Alternative The fact that the Supreme Court declared Obamacare constitutional is irrelevant; previous courts also upheld slavery. This law, from intent to execution, must be dumped. (Indeed, for expediency’s sake, Obama has already unilaterally made numerous exceptions and delays.) It is contrary to the very principles of the U.S. Constitution, and, if implemented, will lead to mass death among targeted sections of the U.S. Population. The Republicans, while willing to say “no” to some of the most egregious parts of the bill, have never put forward a moral or viable alternative. All too many of them agree with the premises of Obamacare—people who cost the government too much should just hurry up and die. They believe the “free market” will take care of that just fine. At the time Obamacare was being rammed through, a group of physicians and liberal Democrats put forward a viable alternative, called Medicare for All. This bill would in fact dramatically cut costs—the 30% or so administrative markup common to private insurance (Medicare’s overhead is only 3% of its budget). It would end the “free market” extortion by the drug companies, as well. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has revived that bill in the current session of Congress (H.R. 676), and it now has 50 co-sponsors. Economist Lyndon LaRouche endorsed that bill at the time. How could we afford it? By instituting a Glass-Steagall/credit-system-based economy, which would produce sufficient real wealth to provide for the population. Such a shift would not produce riches overnight, but it is the only sane alternative. The immediate alternative, enunciated by LaRouche repeatedly, is simply cancel Obamacare, and then begin to build up the system. The aim, as LaRouche has insisted, is to dump “health care for profit,” and return to the Hill-Burton standard, put into effect in the post-war years, which, first and foremost, mandated an adequate level of medical-care facilities, and guaranteed care through community hospitals for those who could not pay, through insurance or otherwise. In fact, the austerity drive by Obamacare and the Republican budget-cutters has already drastically reduced the existence of community hospitals. That’s ’Hitler Health’ and it must be stopped. |