Proprietary vs. Open Source VA and DoD Health IT – Again

See Henry Heffernan’s oral history video for the full low-down.  Vendors want proprietary solutions to lock in the government to their systems. They are happy to low-ball the bid, knowing that they can make it all back in change orders later when the government is helpless (or sometimes, unwilling) to resist paying exorbitant prices for the simplest of tasks.

Epic Systems says that they don’t hire lobbyists.  This may be true, but they aren’t shy about shoveling money to congressmen.  Epic Systems contributed $761,932 and Epic CEO Judith Faulkner contributed $349,156.  I’m sure it was just a coincidence that one of the top recipientsTammy Baldwin happened to write the letter meddling with the internal architectural decisions of the VA.