The Secret Startup That Saved the Worst Website in America

The spectacular failure of Healthcare.gov at launch led to the creation of what came to be known as the Tech Surge, a group of Silicon Valley developers who rescued the website from disorganized contractors and bureaucratic mismanagement. That group gave rise to the US Digital Service and, to a lesser extent, 18F, two government agencies now working to improve the state of federal technology. But the story of a group called the Marketplace Lite team has yet to be told. These are the designers and developers, mostly younger than those in the Tech Surge, who stuck around after others had left. Their experience hints at just how little the Obama Administration knew about the business of building a website as complex as Healthcare.gov -- but, also, how much the Administration has improved since then.

Here is the short version of their story: Marketplace Lite, or “MPL” as they came to be known, devoted months to rewriting Healthcare.gov functions in full, working as a startup within the government and replacing contractor-made apps with ones costing one-fiftieth of the price.