Obama 'rejected Amazon, Microsoft Help'

The Obama administration appears to have passed up offers from Amazon and Microsoft to help fix the federal government's troubled healthcare enrollment website, according to documents released on Tuesday by a Republican-led congressional investigating committee.  An Oct. 7 inquiry from Amazon's subsidiary Amazon Web Services Inc. was turned down by two senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing implementation of President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, according to copies of emails provided by the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Microsoft also contacted HHS and the White House with offers of "technical expertise and assistance," but the company has not provided any such services, a Microsoft representative said in an Oct. 25 letter to the committee. The letter did not say whether the administration had responded to Microsoft's offers.  More.