Sebelius - should she resign?

[boomerang]

What would happen under similar circumstances in the corporate world? After years of planning, the implementation fails on one of the biggest endeavors, with huge national exposure, xyz company has ever taken on. Sebelius would be outright canned or if she's lucky, offered the opportunity to resign.

Should she be treated any differently because she's a government employee?

Roberts calls on Sebelius to resign from HHS

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts reacted to implementation of the federal health insurance reform law Friday by calling for the resignation of former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius from her post as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Roberts, a Kansas Republican and frequent critic of Obamacare, said Sebelius should step aside for "gross incompetence leading to the complete failure" of the online exchange system designed to enroll millions of Americans in health care plans in accordance with the 2010 legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama.

 

[michal1980]

She's a total failure. Not only has the website failed royally. How many things had to be delayed because they couldn't get their shit done on time?

She's a lib though, So failure is a resume booster.

http://triblive.com/business/headlines/4855077-74/website-sebelius-health#axzz2hVg9AR3O

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs...care-and-you-event-south-carolina_762419.html

 

[Bowfinger]

What would happen under similar circumstances in the corporate world? After years of planning, the implementation fails on one of the biggest endeavors, with huge national exposure, xyz company has ever taken on. Sebelius would be outright canned or if she's lucky, offered the opportunity to resign.

Should she be treated any differently because she's a government employee?

Roberts calls on Sebelius to resign from HHS

That's not how corporate America works. This is an IT failure. Sebelius is not an IT person, she's an executive leader akin to a division president. In corporate America, she would probably fire her CIO and get another 20% raise for "acting decisively." Of course if that CIO was smart, he covered his ass by contracting the whole project out to a consulting company. He would then fire the consulting company and both he and Sebelius would get big raises.

 

[boomerang]

That's not how corporate America works. This is an IT failure. Sebelius is not an IT person, she's an executive leader akin to a division president. In corporate America, she would probably fire her CIO and get another 20% raise for "acting decisively." Of course if that CIO was smart, he covered his ass by contracting the whole project out to a consulting company. He would then fire the consulting company and both he and Sebelius would get big raises.

I'll give you an 8/10 on that.

I'm going to assume you're not going to answer the question.

 

[manimal]

Do you realize that there are months to enroll and wait times on the phone lines average under 30 minutes for most?

You guys really need to check your hyperbole at the door.

 

[Incorruptible]

Yes she should but don't expect her followers to call her out. They will come up with BS to defend her.

 

[Bowfinger]

I'll give you an 8/10 on that.

I'm going to assume you're not going to answer the question.

Do you still beat your wife?

I understand you don't like my answer, but the only reasonable way to respond to a false premise is to point out it's a false premise. You asked two questions. You asked, "What would happen under similar circumstances in the corporate world?" You also asked "Should she be treated any differently because she's a government employee?", presupposing she would be fired if she worked in corporate America. That premise is false. A corporate business executive will rarely be fired because of an IT failure. IT would take the fall instead. That is the answer to your questions.

 

[monovillage]

She should have been fired when the US Office of Special Counsel found her guilty of violating the Hatch Act last year.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81122.html

Typical of Chicago politicians I doubt if Obama will now fire her.

 

[boomerang]

Do you still beat your wife?

I understand you don't like my answer, but the only reasonable way to respond to a false premise is to point out it's a false premise. You asked two questions. You asked, "What would happen under similar circumstances in the corporate world?" You also asked "Should she be treated any differently because she's a government employee?", presupposing she would be fired if she worked in corporate America. That premise is false. A corporate business executive will rarely be fired because of an IT failure. IT would take the fall instead. That is the answer to your questions.

Quack.

 

[Moonbeam]

The fires of conservative bitterness and hate are all consuming. It's sad to see folk full of shame and self loathing which they never deserved to have dumped on them as children grow up to pass it on to others. You can never heal by punishing others. It can only happen if you can forgive others because that's the first step in forgiving yourself and the path that leads to the realization you were never at fault except for the fact and absolute necessity of self capitulation assumption of guilt as a child.

 

[umbrella39]

The Obama derangement syndrome is SOOOOO much more powerful than BDS displayed here a few years back it's almost delicious... Obama should get a check from the OP for how much space he is renting in your defunct brain. Someone should resign alright but not who you think...

Circle jerk poster uses circular logic to come to his inane conclusion... color me shocked!

Obama will be waiting for his check from you slave...

 

[Bowfinger]

Quack.

In other words, you're still a useless troll who is disinterested in actual discussion. Dismissed.

 

[sactoking]

That's not how corporate America works. This is an IT failure. Sebelius is not an IT person, she's an executive leader akin to a division president. In corporate America, she would probably fire her CIO and get another 20% raise for "acting decisively." Of course if that CIO was smart, he covered his ass by contracting the whole project out to a consulting company. He would then fire the consulting company and both he and Sebelius would get big raises.

It looks like an IT failure but it's not. It's a leadership failure that is only manifesting itself in the IT, since that's the most visible part right now. IT was behind schedule, partly because leadership was so slow in issuing rules. It was behind schedule, partly because the rules issued by leadership made little or no sense.

 

[Doppel]

That's not how corporate America works. This is an IT failure. Sebelius is not an IT person, she's an executive leader akin to a division president. In corporate America, she would probably fire her CIO and get another 20% raise for "acting decisively." Of course if that CIO was smart, he covered his ass by contracting the whole project out to a consulting company. He would then fire the consulting company and both he and Sebelius would get big raises.

There is truth to this.

However, the sense of the OP's post I find reasonable. Frankly, this has been a massive blunder and it is demonstrative of poor leadership. If she didn't know that this site was completely and hugely unready for production, she should have; in either case, it shouldn't have gone live.

If it's not running smoothly very soon, ACA should be delayed because of it.

This is a classic, textbook case of software developed before it was ready and the users being beta testers. It's terrible.

 

[boomerang]

Thank you fellas. I have no patience arguing with people that pick apart everything based on semantics. The title of the post asked if she should resign. That was the question and whether anything I said after that was "true" or not is subject to interpretation and not relevant to the core issue.

There seems to be no accountability these days. When you don't have to worry about negative consequences when you screw up badly, well, you don't worry about screwing up badly.

Just so everybody knows, I know she's not going to get the ax. She's safe and secure. If she had something resembling scruples, she'd resign on her own. She's not going to be asked to resign and she's not going to get canned. I've got that.

 

[manimal]

It looks like an IT failure but it's not. It's a leadership failure that is only manifesting itself in the IT, since that's the most visible part right now. IT was behind schedule, partly because leadership was so slow in issuing rules. It was behind schedule, partly because the rules issued by leadership made little or no sense.

I find this line of reasoning much more sound. Once again the beurocracy screwed the pooch in the details.

My question is that implementation because of confessional gridlock or unintended consequence?

 

[Bowfinger]

It looks like an IT failure but it's not. It's a leadership failure that is only manifesting itself in the IT, since that's the most visible part right now. IT was behind schedule, partly because leadership was so slow in issuing rules. It was behind schedule, partly because the rules issued by leadership made little or no sense.

There is truth to this.

However, the sense of the OP's post I find reasonable. Frankly, this has been a massive blunder and it is demonstrative of poor leadership. If she didn't know that this site was completely and hugely unready for production, she should have; in either case, it shouldn't have gone live.

If it's not running smoothly very soon, ACA should be delayed because of it.

This is a classic, textbook case of software developed before it was ready and the users being beta testers. It's terrible.

First, I agree the current implementation is a fiasco. I don't know all of the reasons why, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the project was plagued with late business requirements, ambiguous requirements, and ever-changing requirements. Indeed, I expect this was the case since they are constants that affect pretty much every large IT project, or at least every one I've ever seen. Much of the reason IT pays so well is because we're expected to anticipate and deal with such problems as much as we possibly can.

But based on the little I've read in the trade press, the public ACA system tanked so horribly due to architectural issues. It is, in essence, designed as its own DOS generator. Such issues are effectively independent of business requirements. Bad/late requirements would explain all sorts of other bugs, but not the fact that the performance is so bad that the system cannot handle load.

That's not something I would expect Sebelius to determine on her own. I assume she is not an IT expert. She would have to accept IT's statements on the system's capabilities and readiness. That said, I would love to have a behind-the-scenes look at what IT was telling her. Did they warn her their system was a train wreck, or did they blow sunshine right up until it imploded? For that matter, did IT try to tell her, but got filtered by some bureaucrat in the middle? I suspect we'll eventually see some interesting articles, maybe even a book, at how this project became such a spectacular failure.

 

[Bowfinger]

Thank you fellas. I have no patience arguing with people that pick apart everything based on semantics. The title of the post asked if she should resign. That was the question and whether anything I said after that was "true" or not is subject to interpretation and not relevant to the core issue.

There seems to be no accountability these days. When you don't have to worry about negative consequences when you screw up badly, well, you don't worry about screwing up badly. ...

Speaking of accountability, how about you accept accountability for your own poor communications and pissy attitude? You whined about me not answering your "question" -- singular. The issue is you didn't ask one question, you asked three. You asked one as your topic title, and two in your actual comments. I frankly didn't even notice the question in the title. It got me to read the thread, that's all.

I focused instead on your comments since that's where the content is supposed to go, and I very directly answered those questions. If you didn't care about the answers to those questions, perhaps you shouldn't have asked them. At a minimum, instead of being a whiny asshat, when I didn't answer all three of your "question" [sic], you could have simply asked again, "OK, but do you think she should resign?" That would require you actually care about productive discussion, however.

So, to answer your third question, no, based on what we know so far, I don't think she needs to resign. As I said in my previous post, however, we know very little about what went on behind the scenes. If this fiasco is significantly due to her actions, if she failed to support the project properly, for example, or in some other way showed great negligence or incompetence compared to similar, non-IT executives, yes, she should go. Otherwise, I would expect IT to bear primary responsibility, be it internal or a third party developer.

 

[Doppel]

Thank you fellas. I have no patience arguing with people that pick apart everything based on semantics. The title of the post asked if she should resign. That was the question and whether anything I said after that was "true" or not is subject to interpretation and not relevant to the core issue.

There seems to be no accountability these days. When you don't have to worry about negative consequences when you screw up badly, well, you don't worry about screwing up badly.

Just so everybody knows, I know she's not going to get the ax. She's safe and secure. If she had something resembling scruples, she'd resign on her own. She's not going to be asked to resign and she's not going to get canned. I've got that.

With behavior from Holder and outright lies from head of NSA and yet still pats on their backs--"heck of a job Brownie"--I am afraid you are quite right.

 

[Doppel]

That's not something I would expect Sebelius to determine on her own. I assume she is not an IT expert. She would have to accept IT's statements on the system's capabilities and readiness. That said, I would love to have a behind-the-scenes look at what IT was telling her. Did they warn her their system was a train wreck, or did they blow sunshine right up until it imploded? For that matter, did IT try to tell her, but got filtered by some bureaucrat in the middle? I suspect we'll eventually see some interesting articles, maybe even a book, at how this project became such a spectacular failure.

Agree, we'll see articles in the future about it. All I've seen so far is that it went almost 7X over budget, and still had latin "lorem" type stuff in some of the production code. It is possible she was told it's perfect and in great shape. If so, she should put some heads on platters.

I have to assume a project of this size must have had some people warning that it wasn't ready. There is no way in hell everybody at CGI Federal is surprised at this. Apparently they anticipated up to 50,000 people/day. That is 20 days for a million people. Since we have 45 (?) M people without healthcare, let's just say we only expected 10 M people to use the web to sign up. So, 200 days (assuming they all enter it orderly), instead of the 90 days people actually have. Whoever came up with that 50,000 project was a simple imbecile. It's incredibly simple to see that was a wildly tiny user load. It obviously was not load tested sufficiently, and with the budget it had that is unacceptable.

 

[rudder]

So, to answer your third question, no, based on what we know so far, I don't think she needs to resign. As I said in my previous post, however, we know very little about what went on behind the scenes. If this fiasco is significantly due to her actions, if she failed to support the project properly, for example, or in some other way showed great negligence or incompetence compared to similar, non-IT executives, yes, she should go. Otherwise, I would expect IT to bear primary responsibility, be it internal or a third party developer.

This was a $500,000,000 project. If this were the private industry and the project was mangled this bad for that amount of money thrown at it.... She would be gone.

 

[boomerang]

Speaking of accountability, how about you accept accountability for your own poor communications and pissy attitude?

My pissy attitude is the result of you taking issue with 99.999% of my participation here. Posts, replies, doesn't matter, you don't like it. My "attitude" was developed as a reaction to your attitude. But that's OK - truly. Whatever your thoughts are regarding my participation are your thoughts and I'm OK with that. In other words, if you don't like me that's fine.

So, having said that, my reactions to your post in this instance were not warranted. I should have replied exactly as you stated. I should just have asked your thoughts on her resigning.

But if you're unhappy with my "poor communications" you're going to have to find a way to deal with that. We don't think alike and I know I'm not going to make any changes. As far as "productive discussion" that's something you've taken issue with regarding me since - forever. I've stated many times that I post here for my amusement. I foresee nothing being changed by any discussions on an internet forum that will affect policy in this nation or anywhere in the world. This is a virtual world, not a real one and we are not "players". We cant change anything. I post when I feel a desire to express my thoughts. I don't post in an attempt to sway opinions.

As a wrap up, I have been trying to not respond to or engage in conversation with the few individuals with which I butt heads here. I recognize that I need to do a better job on that and I vow to try harder.

 

[Zaap]

This was a $500,000,000 project. If this were the private industry and the project was mangled this bad for that amount of money thrown at it.... She would be gone.

Sad but true. Pissing away $500,000,000 of the serfs' money is just business as usual in the public sector. It simply means next time they can budget for the amount of the screwup that will happen again plus the amount of the fix, plus more for additional screwups and fixes ad infinitum.

And no, of course everyone knows Sebelius or anyone else in charge will never be held accountable for anything. No matter what gargantuan piles of money are wasted, no matter how much waste and fraud and debt are eventually wracked up. The ruling class gets pedestal elevation merely for the titles put to their schemes. (In this case they labeled one 'affordable' and that's all that will ever matter.) The only ones to sufer the consequences of govt screwups is Joe and Jane taxpayer. Just raise their taxes, demonize them if they complain and keep them under surveillance in case they get too uppity.

 

[Zaap]

Obama should get a check from the OP for how much space he is renting in your defunct brain.

Obama will be waiting for his check from you slave...

What's funny here is the Freudian slip revealing the subservient liberal mindset. Talk about enslavement.

So enamored are we of Dear Leader, that renting FROM someone morphs into "YOU OWE" if that someone is Dear Leader.

Funny, but sad.

 

[First]

Nothing would happen in the corporate world. A gym owner doesn't qualify as relevant experience, btw.