Oh, sure – I just suspect that project has been in death-march mode for the last few years. I'd be shocked if the initial launch & stability rush wasn't immediately followed by “now that that's done, we have this backlog of postponed requirements…”

I don't think it's accurate to say "they spent 1.7 billion on the site".

I think the $1.7 billion figure comes from this OIG report http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-14-00231.pdf

However, the OIG report has a number of important caveats:

* The list of 60 contracts in the report includes contracts to support state websites and for programs unrelated to the website (for instance, I found an $85 million contract related to accountable care organizations, which doesn't seem to have any connection to the website).

* The $1.7 billion is not the amount expended, it's the estimated value at the time the contract was awarded if all the options are exercised. When you look at the individual contracts, this estimated value turns out not to be very useful. Some contracts had double the estimated expenditure, some had $0 expended. Looking at the total amount expended, you get a figure of $500 million.

So I think it's more reasonable to say that they spent $500 million on various projects to implement the law, including both the user-facing website and all the behind-the-scenes stuff.