The first iteration of healthcare.gov cost $1B iirc and it was a broken mess. The task was herculean but no doubt a lot of that money filled bureaucrat pockets. The public sector, and contractors just don't attract top talent like the private does, nor are they spearheaded by people who earned their position.
Bureaucrats in the US rarely end up with full pockets. As with a great deal of government IT work, it's private companies that are raking in the money. Healthcare.gov in particular was outsourced.
I don't think the problem is "top talent". I think the problem is how people think about software, and therefore how they budget for and manage it. And I don't think the problem is unique to government. I've heard about plenty of private sector giant-project boondoggles where enormous sums were wasted in similar fashions. It's just that those don't make the newspapers, but instead get gossiped about by tech people over beers.
