Kurt DelBene of Microsoft to run healthcare.gov
The Obama administration has chosen a new head of the glitch-plagued healthcare.gov website. Kurt DelBene is a former Microsoft executive who used to run the company’s Microsoft Office division. So for some DelBene’s appointment represents the kind of recruitment from the private sector that should have happened a long time ago.
But others argue Microsoft isn’t the healthiest tech company at the moment.
“You can make an easy joke that Microsoft Office is an expensive and bloated product, which is kind of the problem with healthcare.gov,” says Adrianne Jeffries at The Verge.
But, Jeffries says DelBene will bring an important outside perspective. And as the replacement for Jeff Zients, who came most recently from the Office of Management and Budget, DelBene bring something very important — that wasn’t there before.
“There were 55 contractors involved,” Jeffries says. “There were a bunch of different government agencies, and a bunch of people at those government agencies that were sort of responsible for bits and pieces, but nobody was really standing up and taking responsibility for the whole thing.”
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