Why would a website cost $300 million?

[nikster]

118 Million, and it could easily cost that much if it was a team under contract

it's not like putting up a simple site, you have multiple servers and contracts, multiple developers, developer managers, etc

you are basically creating a company from scratch, websites like that just don't pop from thin air

Throwing more people at a software project quickly produces negative returns. You don't need lots of code, you need the smallest amount of quality code.

And lots of servers... ugh. This project has special requirements with government regulations and also possibly integration with legacy systems but those things are manageable outside a core development team. Other than that its just a standard job. What I am saying is there should be some overhead visavis a standard project, but not a factor of magnitude difference.

My guess is it's just bad code.

[oakweb]

It's not $300Mil, it was just stated that it was $118Mil by Kathleen Sebelius.. I don't think she would falsify that under oath

As far as saying something is easy, or standard, or could be implemented this way or the other.. well I'd have to say this project is much larger than anyone can possibly realize from an armchair. I'm sure they will get it worked out, and also I'm sure it could have been done better.

Talent in IT is hard to come by, and costs money, and sometimes not available. You know the old adage about Fast Good and Cheap. Maybe time was an issue. I would not say it's bad code (I signed up in 5min, worked perfectly), it's just very hard to come up with a very mature, perfect, developed code without first getting it out there and then working the bugs out of it.

Could they have gotten a better team? Sure .. probably, who knows? they will have the bugs worked out at some point.. especially with the heat that is on

Is the GOP making this out to be a bigger mess than it is? Yes, of course.. and it's annoying to me. It's not helpful at all (IMO), and if they can't be helpful then <deleted>. It's done, they are now just wasting more taxpayers money by pushing their agenda.