Not considered in the 2011 selection process was the history of numerous executives at CGI Federal, who had come from another company that had mishandled at least 20 other government ­information technology projects more than a decade ago. The story of how the Obama administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agencies tasked with implementing the Affordable Care Act got it so wrong is still unfolding. (All figures in this story are in Canadian dollars; one U.S. dollar is worth about 1.07 Canadian dollars at the present time.) It’s a new company, but, oh, my God, it looks a lot like the AMS from yesterday’?” asked one former CMS official familiar with the contracting process who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures. Former AMS executives have defended that company’s performance, and CGI officials have rejected any comparison with AMS’s earlier failures. In the U.S., CGI built its business with the 2004 purchase of American Management Systems, based in Arlington, Virginia, and the $1.1 billion 2010 purchase of Stanley Inc., another Arlington, Virginia–based company. Slate said that that’s because healthcare.gov is such a small part of its business. “The feeling was we had a lot of big IT powerhouses and they knew our work.’’ 
 
 Four firms applied: IBM, Computer Sciences Corp., Quality Software Services and CGI Federal. Back in 2007, CGI was one of 16 companies given an umbrella contract to do unspecified systems work for CMS. CGI says its overall work is high-quality and nearly always on time and on budget, and the company has also had many successes. According to the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, CGI’s stock has risen an average of 25 percent annually for the last 25 years.
– It turns out there were even more reasons the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shouldn't have picked the free-wheeling and allegedly shady CGI Federal to build HealthCare.gov. When CGI was vetted back in 2007, it didn't have any obvious black marks on its record, the Washington Post explains. But CGI is a "roll-up" company formed by acquiring other companies—one of which, American Management Systems, was one giant black mark. AMS projects have hit trouble in at least 12 states as well as at the federal level, including a much-publicized 2001 failure to automate federal retirement benefits. The company went $60 million over budget on that one, yet produced nothing useful. More than 100 AMS alumni are now CGI executives or consultants. "Should CMS have recognized that ‘OK, here’s CGI Federal. It’s a new company, but, oh, my God, it looks a lot like the AMS from yesterday’?" asked one ex-CMS official. "Yes. I would consider that dropping the ball." But it didn't come up in 2007, and CMS never re-vetted the company, the Post's review of internal documents reveals. On the bright side, the review also reveals that the decision was politics-free, made purely because officials considered CMS' bid "technically superior." Vanity Fair, meanwhile, has an in-depth piece today on what many suspect is an accounting scandal brewing at CGI. It looks a lot like the company is using its acquisitions to mask financial problems, a quasi-legal practice known as creating a "cookie jar."