I have a funny story from Finland: http://www.tivi.fi/Arkisto/2012-08-14/Viron-terveydenhuollon-it-projekti-maksoi-11-miljoonaa-Suomessa-jopa-puoli-miljardia-3193723.html

I translate the juicy part:

"In Finland the national electronic eRecipe and patient record system (KanTa) has been under construction for the last 10 years with the costs running between 400 and 500 million euros. Meanwhile in Estonia eRecipe system did cost 1 million euros to build and patient record system 10 million euros. The price difference is excessive."

The best part is that the 400-500 million euro system is still not working correctly. Since 400+ million has already been spent there is no other option but to make the system work.

There are also other costs that are not apparent from the project budget, for example, when I get a prescription for 600 mg Burana (Ibuprofen) costing 5 euros for bottle of 100 pills the eRecipe overhead is added to the bill - the supplier gets a licensing fee for their system every time it is used to write a recipe. This is more than 10 euros per recipe. :) This is hidden so that the billing is done to the municipality, in my case Helsinki City and I only see the out-facing charge for 5 euros. Brilliant money milking machine.

Estonia did the same thing with 11 million and it's done. Finland is willing to pay 400+ million and of course the system is not finished (!) yet and as long as it is willing to keep paying the work will continue to unforeseen future. Reckless use of taxpayers money should be illegal but on the contrary it is legal. In fact, mandated by the law.. there are regulations in place that the supplier must be accredited with a track record of doing large projects. The regulation nowhere says that the projects have to be completed in time or within budget. Just that the supplier has done large projects before. There are about 2 large companies that can fulfil these criteria so the hustling is shared 50/50 between them year after year. Smaller suppliers don't have any chance to even get into the "market", so to speak.

Now the funny thing is when I been reading this thread the "apologists" telling us how the 86 million price for the system in question is well justified are almost verbatim, word-for-word exactly same that justify the spending spree like I described happening here in my own home country. The same reasoning can easily justify spending 86 million as it can justify spending 500 million (for something that can be proven to be doable for 11 million). Support contracts. Training staff. All that takes money. That is not the question. The question how much is reasonable. If taxpayers pay for it 40-80x is just fine isn't it? Private companies would never agree to pay fees like that but they have to make profit. Government institutions are free from limitations like that - the money doesn't need to be earned - it is earned by someone else - the tax payers!