January 13, 2009
How to loose a billion. Or was that 20 Billion?
One thing you don't want to read about your computer system in the news: It failed so seriously that the Medicare won't even deal with you, and the federal government sanctions your entire company, like WellPoint.
Some info here, pointing to a problem with a "BlueCard" program, but there isn't mention of the technology being used, I wonder what they are using?
And how much did they invest in getting their system working? A 2005 article mentions a $720,000,000 IBM services contract, that certainly didn't help. Because they lost 5% of their market cap today, or roughly one billion dollars in one day. And the market cap has declined 20 billion since the start of 2007.