Use it as an opportunity to shame the government into action.

I don't want my work gmail and my personal gmail to have different interfaces. I do insist that the content be different.

From an interaction design point of view, people don't maintain different masks.

We have a working title of this documentary.

Talk about missed opportunity for the Administration to rally citizens around their landmark legislation. "Built By America's Best for America's Best" sort of thing. Instead, it was built by a no-bid process outsourced to a Canadian firm. The rest is history.

The main thing healthcare.gov does, which esurance and others don't, is to tell the user which government programs they're eligible for and what their subsidy will be. The law makes that calculation is actually surprisingly complex, for example:

  * there are at least eight different state- and federal-level healthcare programs (advanced premium tax credit, medicare, medicaid, children's health program, children's rehabilitative service, Tricare, VHA, IHS)
  * which programs you're qualified for depend on your state
  * the subsidy is based on which plans are available in your specific area and their cost, your household size, the ages of each person in your household, whether each person smokes, and whether you want a dental plan
  * for calculating subsidies, different sources of income are treated differently. E.g., tribal income for Native Americans is subject to different tax treatment, earned income is treated differently than capital gains in some cases, etc.
  * insurance is usually bought for a household, and there are precedence rules among different state/federal programs, so if any member of a household qualifies for a non-APTC assistance program, it affects the subsidy received for the whole household
  * to get the tax credit, your immigration status needs to be verified with the Department of Homeland Security and your income needs to be verified with the IRS. This is the work done by the "Data Services Hub."
  * by law, open enrollment starts in November but taxes are due the following April, so you can't compute the subsidy as part of the tax filing.

(You could also argue that this complicated eligibility calculation should be exposed as an API, which would unlock innovation in the private sector. We want to do that, but need more help. :) )

If they pay a big federal contractor at twice that rate, who then pockets half and pays its people market rate, then that's private sector efficiency at work.

The essential problem of the US government is there is no accountability. Poor performing employees are never fired and poor performing contractors are never penalized. If a project is a massive failure there are never any consequences for the people or companies involved. Over time anyone with any sort of skill whatsoever tends to leave and what's left are the poor and mediocre employees.

I'd like to say creating the US digital service is a positive step but unless the basic problem of accountability is solved it too will be just as bad at IT as every existing organization in a few years time.

In the real world this problem of organizational calcification would be solved when the incompetent company goes out of business because they are over taken by competitors. In the government since there is no competition there is no natural accountability mechanism.

That said, I think there are enough people that a) find $155k enough to meet their needs and b) believe in the mission that we'll be able to make a big impact.

(One thing that's important to remember—"the government" doesn't really act like a unified, coordinated entity. Different branches and agencies have different incentives and behave in different ways. It's often better to think of the government as a marketplace rather than an organization.)

I would say yes.

Getting paid is not the big challenge in Government work.

It's the lack of urgency, political infighting and general stigma.

The rotations described here and the leadership position / division described in the article both skirt those issues.

* Urgency: Healthcare.gov had it. It was a firestorm visible from a continent away. Most Government IT failures don't work that way, they're smoldering trash fires that generate a meeting to figure out who's going to fill a bucket with a follow-up meeting to decide who's actually going to carry it.

* Infighting: As described, the Digital Service 'will be focused on providing consultation' not 'a group that we parachute in to write code'. They're coming in from a position of authority - above the level of typical jockeying.

* Stigma: None. Finish your rotation and go back to Google. Finish your stint as a head of an elite Federal service and name your title.