This report provides answers to 20 frequently asked questions regarding contractors and HealthCare.gov, the federal online health insurance portal called for by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) ( P.L. 111-148 , as amended). Over 50 contractors, including CGI Federal and Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), helped in building the site, which was reportedly largely unusable when it first became available to the public on October 1, 2013, and has been the subject of ongoing work since then. Exactly what went wrong in terms of HealthCare.gov's rollout has been explored in several congressional hearings, and is under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general. Litigation between the contract parties over costs or damages is also possible. The questions and answers in the report are organized into three broad categories addressing (1) the processes whereby the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) selected vendors; (2) the terms of the vendors' contractual relationships with the government; and (3) potential amendments to federal procurement law that, some commentators suggest, could help prevent issues of the sort experienced with HealthCare.gov. The questions in this report are those that happen to have been frequently asked of the Congressional Research Service by congressional staffers. The inclusion of a particular question, or the exclusion of another question, should not be taken to indicate that particular factors didâor did notâcontribute to the problematic rollout of HealthCare.gov. In addition, answers to these questions must often be provided in general terms, in part, because specific language in the parties' contracts may be subject to multiple interpretations and has not been construed by any court. In addition, the parties' conduct in the course of performing the contractâthe details of which are still emergingâcan affect their rights. For example, the government could potentially be found to have waived certain rights that the contract's plain language would appear to grant to it by engaging in conduct that warrants an inference that it has relinquished the right. The authors of this report rely upon third-party investigations of the facts and circumstances surrounding HealthCare.gov, and additional information may emerge regarding topics discussed herein. There is also a video, CRS WVB00013, Contractors and HealthCare.gov: Background in Brief , by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed], that addresses certain of these questions. The Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) generally requires that executive agencies "obtain full and open competition through the use of competitive procedures" when awarding contracts. However, the award of a contract is not the only way in which agencies may assign work to specific vendors, and CICA's requirements as to "full and open competition" generally do not apply when agencies assign work to a vendor without awarding a contract. One way in which agencies can select vendors to perform work without awarding a contract is by issuing a task or delivery order under an existing contract. Some contracts are known as indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contracts , because they generally permit the government to issue orders for whatever quantities of supplies or services it needs, whenever during the contract's term it needs them. The order must be within the scope of the contract. However, contracts can be drafted to encompass broad categories of supplies and services. There is a "preference" for multiple-award ID/IQ contracts, meaning that the agency awards a contract to multiple vendors, each of whom is generally entitled to a "fair opportunity to be considered" for orders valued in excess of $3,000. Vendors that do not hold the underlying ID/IQ contract are ineligible to compete for orders issued under it, and some commentators have characterized this as "uncompetitive." CMS selected CGI Federal as the "lead" contractor for HealthCare.gov's rollout by issuing an order in 2011 under an ID/IQ contract for information technology (IT) services that had been awarded in 2007. CGI Federal was one of 16 vendors awarded this contract, and three of these vendors submitted proposals to perform the order that was issued to CGI Federal. Agencies currently have the legal authority to take the performance problems of predecessor firms and key employees into account when selecting vendors in certain procurements, and when determining whether prospective vendors are responsible. For example, when selecting vendors in negotiated procurements, agencies must generally consider past performance or some other "non-cost evaluation factor," such as compliance with solicitation requirements, technical excellence, management capability, personnel qualifications, or prior experience. The past performance of predecessor firms and key employees "should" also be "take[n] into account," when "relevant" to the acquisition. However, in order to consider this information, the agency generally must have indicated its intent to do so at the time when it issued the solicitation; it generally cannot do so on an ad hoc basis after issuing the solicitation. Moreover, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires agencies to take into account "[t]he currency and relevance of the information," as well as its source, context, and general trends in performance. Thus, any performance problems experienced by a vendor (or a vendor's predecessor firm, as in the case of CGI Federal ) would not necessarily cause the vendor to be downgraded on past performance or other non-cost evaluation factors. Nor would a vendor's being downgraded on these factors necessarily preclude it from winning the contract, depending upon the other factors evaluated, the weight assigned to various factors, and the proposals of competing vendors. Similarly, agencies must consider certain factors related to capacity to perform when determining whether prospective contractors are affirmatively responsible prior to the award of a contract. These factors include whether the prospective vendor has a "satisfactory performance record," and has the necessary organization, experience, accounting and operational controls, and technical skills to perform the contract. The performance and experience of predecessor firms and key employees may be taken into consideration when making such determinations. However, agencies are not required to consider this information; and, even if agencies do consider it, they generally cannot repeatedly find a vendor to be nonresponsible based on the same performance issues. Instead, they must formally exclude the vendor, as discussed below. In part because of the President's constitutional authority to appoint and remove certain federal officials, the President has some influence over the decisions made by employees of executive branch agencies. However, the FAR would appear to prohibit contracting officers or other officials involved in federal procurements from "favoring" contractors based on the contractors' political ties, as some have suggested happened with certain HealthCare.gov vendors. In particular, Subpart 3.1 of the FAR requires that "Government business ... be conducted in a manner above reproach and, except as authorized by statute or regulation, with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none." This provision specifically bars conflicts of interestâor the appearance of conflicts of interestâin relationships between the government and a contractor. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that "[f]or even an appearance of a conflict of interest to exist, a government official must at least appear to have some stake in the outcome of government action influenced by that individual." Thus, if a government official involved in the selection of a vendor hadâor appeared to haveâa stake in the choice of this vendor, then a conflict of interest that violated Subpart 3.1 could potentially exist. Moreover, because the FAR provision prohibits favorable treatment more generally, if there were indications that an official involved in vendor selection had granted preferential treatment to a vendor, a violation of this FAR provision could potentially have occurred. In addition, as previously noted, other provisions of federal procurement law effectively limit the degree to which "favored" contractors may be given preferential treatment by generally requiring that contracts be awarded via "full and open competition through the use of competitive procedures," and that all vendors holding a multiple-award ID/IQ contract be given a "fair opportunity to be considered" for orders valued in excess of $3,000. Federal law restricts "foreign" participation in federal procurement in several ways, none of which appears to have been implicated in the case of HealthCare.gov. The primary restrictions on foreign participation arguably pertain to the place where supplies or construction materials are manufactured. For example, in procurements subject to the Buy American Act (BAA) of 1933, as amended, federal agencies are generally required to purchase "domestic end products" for "public use." Acquisitions of servicesâwhich are generally what CMS procured in implementing HealthCare.govâare not subject to the BAA or similar domestic content restrictions. Nor does the BAA restrict purchases from foreign persons, per se , provided that these persons supply domestic end products and construction materials. Though other restrictions preclude agencies from contracting with certain vendors because they have foreign parents (as several HealthCare.gov contractors do), or because the vendors are otherwise seen as "foreign," these restrictions apply only in arguably narrow circumstances which do not appear to have been implicated in the case of HealthCare.gov. Such circumstances may exist when national security interests are involved, or when domestic capabilities to perform specific functions are at issue. However, CMS is not among the agencies subject to these national security-related restrictions, and domestic capabilities to provide IT supplies and services are not among those capabilities specifically protected. In yet other cases, government contractors are barred from employing persons who are not U.S. citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to perform certain work under federal contracts. At least one HealthCare.gov contractor was previously found ineligible for certain work because it proposed to use foreign nationals temporarily admitted to the United States pursuant to H1-B visas to perform certain work.