This is an excellent analysis. Particularly the point about setting the go-live date long before the scope of the project was understood, not to mention the fact that there's no way they could have had an open bidding process AND meet the deadline. In some ways it's a miracle this went live on-time, flaws and all.

However, I suspect the true extent of the flaws with Healthcare.gov and the exchanges is not understood yet.

If anything good comes out of this, I hope it's that the government finally starts paying attention to the woeful state of government IT projects.