It’s remarkable how inexperienced Washington is when it comes to developing complicated technology unrelated to national defense. by Zachary Karabell

“It’s safe to say that Congress has never before passed a federal law whose primary mode of delivery is a web portal that will be used by tens of millions of people. And not just one portal, but a portal that serves as a gateway to numerous state healthcare exchanges along with the federal exchanges; a portal that must link up newly designed web pages and interfaces with legacy systems stretching from the Internal Revenue Service to the Veterans Administration to the Medicare and Medicaid systems, none of which are easily compatible or speak the same language. Many in the tech community have tried to analyze what went wrong with the web launch. Some think the government shouldn’t have hired low-bid contractors, choosing agile development teams instead. There was also a lack of sufficient testing of the site before launch, but the site went live anyway because of political considerations. That the site’s code is not public has limited the ability of even savvy tech-heads to fully explain the many problems. What is evident, however, is how inexperienced the federal government is when it comes to developing complicated technology systems unrelated to the defense department. Testing is certainly a major issue. Whenever a large or small tech company releases a new version of software, it is after months of assiduous testing of bugs and glitches in a beta version. Even then, the more complex the programs, the more problems there are.”