Freedom Line Blog

CGI Federal was the primary contractor responsible for building Healthcare.gov – the federal ObamaCare website that glitched its way into bureaucratic infamy.

In the aftermath, CGI was fired by the Department of Health and Human Services and a number of states holding similar contracts.

But like a vampire rising from the dead, CGI Federal is back in the ObamaCare game, and just in time for tax season!

That’s right, a Republican-led House subcommittee discovered that the IRS has hired CGI Federal to a $4.46 million contract. Recall that, under ObamaCare, the IRS must administer a complex income-reporting system to verify which taxpayers received too generous a subsidy.

This news was too much for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which opined that, “Perhaps CGI is still able to obtain federal business because no one has ever been punished for the worst government technology failures since the Challenger explosion. The political class would prefer to forget, but a new audit from HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson probes what he delicately calls ObamaCare’s ‘inadequacies in contract planning and procurement.’”

“According to the report,” the Journal continues, “HHS rarely obeyed the laws that govern outside hiring, such as competitive bidding and due diligence of past performance. The 33 contractors that contributed to the $800 million website reported to multiple managers and no one at HHS devised an ‘acquisition strategy’ – also required by statute – to integrate the various pieces.”

So if you are confused, frustrated or inappropriately fined by the IRS this tax season, rest assured that CGI Federal is somehow probably responsible – and making millions.

Generation Opportunity, a national organization of young people focused on promoting liberty, presented the main contractor behind HealthCare.gov – the Obamacare website – with the first ever Youth Defender Award.

In a deliciously tongue-in-cheek press announcement released on Monday, Generation Opportunity noted that CGI Federal, the American subsidiary of the Canadian multinational CGI Group, has done “more than anyone to date to save young people from the increased costs and privacy invasions of Obamacare.”

Generation Opportunity continues:

“Sure, CGI is billing the government over 300% of their original contract, and taxpayers could be on the hook for $292 million dollars for the healthcare equivalent of Project ORCA. But no cost is too much to bear to help young people avoid this expensive and creepy law.

Generation Opportunity congratulates all the worthy candidates, including the runner-up, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who reminded young people on The Daily Show that they can get the same exemption from Obamacare as businesses by opting out and paying the penalty. After all, Sebelius had the foresight to hire CGI knowing they had a track record of protecting patients from government-run health care. The Canadian government had previously fired CGI’s parent company for failing to create a functioning website for Ontario’s medical registry.

Generation Opportunity developed the awesomely sardonic award in order to promote its OptOut.org website, which encourages young Americans to choose health insurance plans outside of the Obamacare exchanges.

The young folks at Generation Opportunity deserve an award themselves – for providing those of us who despise Obamacare with a big laugh.