HealthCare.gov has decided to stick with cloud solutions provider
Verizon Terremark - but only as a "short-term bridge" to another solution. The US federal government had planned to move HealthCare.gov - the US health insurance website which provides access to what is commonly known as "Obamacare" - in a bid to address problems the site experienced, including a series of outages. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had previously signed a contract with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to take over hosting the website.
The HealthCare.gov website rolled-out October 1, 2013 and immediately experienced problems, with many visitors unable to access its content. A year later, the site is still experiencing problems including security and privacy issues which put sensitive data at risk. A report by the US Government Accountability Office suggests security tests on the site have not been completed and the site was slow to patch bugs. The site was hacked and infected with malware earlier this year.
Verizon will continue to host the site for the next enrollment season starting November 15, 2014 until February 15, 2015. Lack of time for testing the site on the HP platform was cited as the reason for the decision. State officials and the website's insurers had expected the migration to go ahead. Verizon has upgraded its servers and added additional staff to manage the site when enrollment begins. Around 13 million people are intended to choose cover using the site over the coming 3 months.
What do you think about the decision not to migrate HealthCare.gov? Add your comments below.
