Well yes it's true, Accenture is a Dublin based firm to whom the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded a 5 year $564M contract to continue running the Obamacare/Affordable Care Act's insurance enrollment marketplace web systems.
A while back I wrote a piece about CMS's 'partner' and what I though would happen with the relationship. 'Obamacare' Agency Picks A Replacement Contractor/Partner: Here We Go … AGAIN !!
I'm not claiming I got all of the details right (it's hard to tell without an inside source). But it looks like Accenture is "in there" for a good long engagement. That's not necessarily a bad thing but certainly the initial announced award amount is going to change... yeah, HIGHER over time. I'd bet their corporate goals are to use up the $564M 'ceiling' in a few years, and then seek modification to the 'ceiling'. They'll need to do this before the next Presidential election cycle. So I believe that CMS will be facing lots of contract modifications in the next 18 months.
I find it ironic (or whatever is worse than irony - - maybe Machiavellian?) that the Administration has made a major commitment to Accenture ... who saved it's bacon ... while making a major talking point of going after the concept of "corporate inversions" where, for tax purposes, companies change their headquarters to a lower-tax country... but still maintain business units and their operations and U.S. government contracts in the U.S. Accenture was formerly based in Chicago, then in Bermuda, now in Dublin. I guess Bermuda wasn't cheap enough for Accenture. Maybe Kazakhstan, Lesotho, or Inigushetia next?
