The technological issues involved in the recent roll-out of the online health care market point to a key area of deficiency within our federal bureaucracy: information technology. The unveiling of the government health insurance program began disastrously when technical issues rendered the main website, healthcare.gov, inoperative.
Some may choose to point to this failure as a sign of an ineffective bureaucracy, but I would urge some caution in this regard. It may be easy to fault the Obama administration for the problems, but accusing the most visible members of our government does not address the main issue. The implementation process occurs on various levels and while the Department of Health and Human Services bears ultimate responsibility for the program’s execution, the delegation of responsibility to various officials within the bureaucracy can create a hazardous scenario in which individual failures can have devastating effects.
Recently, evidence has emerged that the company Verizon Terremark, one of the private contractors charged with the responsibility of operating the online health care exchange system, experienced a failure in its networks that inhibited the website from functioning properly. That the breakdown of one company’s technological infrastructure served as the principal cause of severe delays points to a severe misallocation of responsibility. Awarding government contracts to lowest-bidding technology companies is not likely to encourage the level of painstaking commitment needed to implement a complex federal law. Though this is not always the case, the government has a strong incentive to contract such companies at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer.
The contractors charge that the government’s inadequate testing programs were the main contributor to the Affordable Care Act website’s technical difficulties. Whether or not that is the case, the government did choose to contract a private company to undertake this critical task, so part of the fault lies with the administration. However, the administration may have had no choice but to delegate important tasks like website management to private companies. After all, where else could it delegate responsibility for implementing a complex online program designed to organize a diverse healthcare marketplace? Private firms specializing in information technology, such as Terremark, may have been the only available solution, perhaps because of a relative lack of proficiency in information technology among government officials.
Our federal government’s increasing reliance upon the Internet and technology for the implementation of legislation, reflected in the Affordable Care Act, calls for a corresponding development in our nation’s bureaucracy. Such a development will be critical to how our laws will function in the future. Information technology is a field more than worthy of its own specialized federal department. It needs more than the Office of E-Government and Information Technology, currently housed in the Office of Management and Budget. For the moment, let’s christen this the Department of Information Technology. If the thought of yet another large federal bureaucratic department makes you nervous, perhaps the “U.S. IT Agency” or “IT Administration” will ruffle fewer feathers. If the government were to create a new specialized department, it would attract much-needed expertise and thus be more effective at administering laws, including programs such as the online healthcare marketplace.
It is reasonable to want to limit the red tape in bureaucratic systems, so another department within the federal government may not seem like the most attractive proposal. Still, I would caution those with such reservations to consider the historical development of our federal bureaucracy. Historically, the growth of our nation has been marked by a contingent expansion of the federal bureaucracy in response to new evolutions in the market and in society. In the 1960s, for example, the Department of Transportation grew out of the need for effective implementation of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs.
Today, many departments are struggling to meet their objectives. As the pace of technological advancement has quickened in the past decade, our federal government has neglected to develop a specialized division devoted to expertise in information technology. Such a department would exist in close connection with other departments and would work day-to-day with the administration to ensure consistent and efficient methods of organizing the complex technical functions required by laws such as the ACA.
Furthermore, such a development would encourage the federal government to be accountable to the American people for its technological responsibilities. Trading blame back and forth — between Terremark and the Department of Health and Human Services, for example — avoids a definitive placement of responsibility. A new technology department would eliminate this process and firmly provide the public with a clear source of accountability.
I contend that such a system would function much more efficiently than the decentralized system of contracting that we currently rely on. A federal level Department of Information Technology would require the government to devote the time and money required for effective technological implementation of various policies. Such a department would be a welcome addition to our federal bureaucracy.
Conor Kelly is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. His columns run Tuesdays.
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