Obamacare Blunders -- Political Decisions Led to this Disaster

As of the day of this writing, here's what we know about the blunders -- nearly all intentional -- that have led to the Obamacare fiasco:

• The Administration did not release critical regulations, as required by the law passed in March 2010, until after the November 2012 elections.  Why?  To ensure that political fall back did not impact the election outcome.
• The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, which is the federal agency responsible for the Obamacare web portal, decided that CMS itself, and not a software contractor, would assume the responsibility for software integration.  This is the same as if the Department of Defense (DOD) decided to be the integrating contractor for building the next generation fighter.  CMS made this decision for political reasons, out of fear that Obamacare details, or delays, would be released to the public.
• The Canadian software firm, CGI, will no doubt likely receive most of the blame for the failure of the web portal.  They were chosen without the benefit of a full and open competition using a current IDIQ contract in September 2011.  CGI is extremely well-connected at the Department of Health and Human Services.  
• The White House (and I mean the White House) was making decisions about the software function in the months prior to October 1st.  One of the key decisions they made was that curious citizens couldn't browse prices without registering.  This decision was made because they were trying to hide the sticker shock from casual browsing activity.   The fact that this was made in the months prior to the release is not a small detail.  Functional changes like this can have huge impacts on software performance.

That's four political decisions made during the runup to October 1st.  None of these were made with the interest of the citizen in mind.  All were made with the interest of the Government, particularly the Obama Administration, in mind.   That's 0-4, folks.