The Obama Administration Is Looking for the Next Obamacare Website Contractor

The White House has begun its search for the next stewards of HealthCare.gov.

A contract solicitation posted online Wednesday enumerates the qualifications and requirements of the next Obamacare website contractor, charged with keeping the online federal health insurance exchange portal up and running.

The 60-page job posting says the next caretaker of the Obamacare site will need to be able to work "under aggressive time constraints" to work with the Federally Facilitated Marketplace in testing and upgrading a variety of hardware, software, and security features. It also states that the contractor will need to be able to perform tests that can demonstrate that the site can function when a large number of users are online.

Accenture currently holds a one-year contract to run HealthCare.gov, which was awarded after a no-bid process back in January. That came after the White House chose to terminate CGI Federal's contract followingHealthCare.gov's failed launch in October of last year. The website's rollout was so plagued with problems that for a time it appeared the technical difficulties could severely undermine the implementation of President Obama's signature legislative achievement.

The intense scrutiny that followed led many to call on the government to fix the way it procures federal IT contracts, a problem that Obama himself said needed to be addressed. Legislation on the issue has stalled in Congress.

Nothing in the solicitation appears to preclude Accenture from competing for the new contract, but it's a safe bet that CGI won't be in the running. Applications are due by Aug. 18.