Everything that I’ve read so far about the Oregon state health exchange web site has been bad news. Oregonlive.com has a lengthy article spelling out the mismanagement details.
Don’t worry though, the state of Oregon has done a good job taking care of Oracle:
Nevertheless, Oregon has been good for Oracle. Between the OHA and Cover Oregon, the state has paid Oracle more than $90 million over the last two years and could pay the company another $30 million or more. Overall, the project has cost more than $160 million so far.
For the $90 million that Oracle has received over the last two years it has provided an unusable web site.
What to do now that the deadlines have hit and there is no way to provide online enrollment? Go back to the old methods of course:
Cover Oregon leaders, meanwhile, have swung their attention away from the website to processing paper applications by hand, hiring more than 400 reinforcements.
Oracle is a huge company, in their last fiscal year ( ending 31 May 2013 ) it had a net income of $10.9 billion on $37.1 billion in revenue. Making the $90 million that Oregon has paid them a small drop in their very large bucket. That doesn’t excuse their failure to deliver though.
At this point Oracle should stop making this about money and Larry Ellison should step up and make it about pride and honor. Do what ever it takes to make things right for the state of Oregon, and do it without taking another dime.