A bunch of outlets are linking to this Digital Trends piece that puts a price-tag on developing Obamacare’s healthcare.gov exchange at $634,000,000:

The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal. The company originally won the contract back in 2011, but at that time, the cost was expected to run “up to” $93.7 million – still a chunk of change, but nothing near where it ended up.

Um, no. If you follow the link above to the “U.S. government records,” you’ll see that the exact figure for CGI, Inc. is $634,320,919 and over 114 transactions dating back to 2008. Click on “List View” at the bottom of the page and you’ll see a breakdown by year. Keep in mind Obamacare was signed into law in 2010:

To find out how much was spent on healthcare.gov, somebody would have to go through transaction by transaction and find out how the money was spent. And even using the detailed view of each award, that’s not altogether clear.

But even though Healthcare.gov didn’t cost $634,000,000 to build, its failure at launch is enough reason to put CGI under a microscope and find out how much money we’re wasting (or not) with this particular vendor.