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 The move comes as Republicans seek to drum up opposition to
President Obama's signature healthcare reform law as a campaign
talking point for the upcoming congressional elections, partly by
emphasizing HealthCare.gov’s nightmarish initial launch on Oct. 1.
The team of about seven to 10 private-sector technology experts
branded the “U.S. Digital Service” will include Mikey Dickerson, a
former Google website manager and member of the White
House-assembled team assigned last year to repairing the federal
healthcare site before its December relaunch.
Dickerson also worked on election monitoring services and on
targeting television ads to party preferences for President Obama’s
2012 re-election campaign.
The new team, which has requested $20 million in next fiscal year’s
appropriations and hopes to expand eventually to about 25 members,
seeks to apply the same kind of private-sector technological
expertise that helped save the healthcare website to help fix
problems and improve the accessibility of other federal websites,
such as recreation.gov and irs.gov.
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The team also plans to include federal workers on a rotating basis,
who have knowledge of the government’s unique “myriad of regulations
and laws” that make technology difficult to navigate, said Steven
VanRoekel, the U.S. federal chief information officer.
(Reporting by Annika McGinnis; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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