Health Exchange Tech Problems Point To A Thornier Issue

One week after , the federal site to help you sign up for health insurance exchanges went down again overnight for additional software fixes. The Obama administration says the technology powering the marketplaces buckled under unexpectedly high traffic. But the ongoing software hiccups for point to a much thornier problem: procurement processes.

Procurement, the process by which governments decide which contractors to hire for various products and services — like software — is not a sexy topic. But it's linked to the software problems that continue to plague the behemoth system built to help millions of Americans enroll in a health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act.

The shorter-term tech problem is taxing a complex software system that was rushed to launch. President Obama's that contractors built a system that could handle 50,000 people using the site at once. But when coverage signup opened Oct. 1, the traffic was five times larger than what officials planned for.