The first thing Andy Slavitt did to fix the federal government's failing health insurance website was require representatives of every contractor on the project to work in the same location 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Then, he made them all share information with each other. "The good news about a tight deadline is that you only have time for the pragmatic and the practical," said Slavitt, a leader at Optum, theUnitedHealth Group Inc. subsidiary that oversaw repairs to HealthCare.gov, the federal health portal. The government rewarded Optum's success on the project with a contract extension over the weekend.
