What went wrong?
I imagine there was a dialogue last Monday afternoon that went something like this:
FRONT-END DEVELOPER: Why does the username have to have a number in it?
BACK-END DEVELOPER: It’s in the government username regulations. Didn’t you read them?
FRONT-END DEVELOPER: No, we don’t do accounts, we just hand the input to you.
BACK-END DEVELOPER: And we told you your front-end the input was no good! See the ErrEngineDown in the URL?
FRONT-END DEVELOPER: Fine, fine. Sigh. Nice to finally talk to you, by the way.
BACK-END DEVELOPER: Yeah, you too. Are you in D.C.?
FRONT-END DEVELOPER: San Francisco.
BACK-END DEVELOPER: Know any good jobs in D.C.? I hate this place and they’re furloughing me as soon as we fix this mess.
Each group got its piece “working” in isolation and prayed that when they hooked them together, things would be okay. When they didn’t, it was too late. It is entirely possible that back-end developer CGI is primarily at fault here, but no one will care because they just see that the whole thing doesn’t work. As you learn early on in software development, there is no partial credit in programming. A site that half-works is worse than one that doesn’t work at all, which is why the bad error handling is so egregious. You always handle errors.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
[Update a few minutes later]
The roll out was nothing short of disastrous:
The left likes to flatter itself as thinking in terms of reason, facts, expertise, openness to doubt, and scorn of dogma and magical thinking.
Is this anywhere close to true?
When experts told the Obama Administration it was a fact the website was not ready, did they take seriously this advisement?
Nope! They simply said there was no cause for alarm; the strange gods of the left would just sort everything out.
Oddly enough, they didn’t.
It’s almost like they’re not quite as brilliant and rational as they’re always telling us they are.
And then there’s this. That’s right, Sheila Jackson Lee, who thinks that the Apollo astronauts went to Mars, thinks that the solution to the government shutdown is martial law. Meanwhile, the good lefties over at The Atlantic are more measured. They just want to have the Speaker of the House arrested.
It’s almost like they have a will to power, or something. And of course, as always with the left, when they accuse the “right” of this sort of thing, it’s projection.
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, so just what are CGI Federal’s ties to the administration? You’d be a fool to think there are none.
Healthcare.gov is flakey, but it’s gotten a lot more stable since last week. And it’s much easier to navigate and more convenient than applying for health insurance was before. I applied for individual market insurance in 2011, and I had to fill out pages and pages of paper forms, and answer dozens of health questions — it took hours. And after all that I was turned down!
On Healthcare.gov there are only a handful of questions, no health history questions, and I can choose between 10 different plans, with prices that range from 42% to 70% of my current premium. Even with the glitches, it’s a huge improvement.
Of course it will show some very limited and marginal improvement over the coming weeks and months. Not sure it is anywhere near the point where one could credibly brag about it though
“Healthcare.gov is flakey, but it’s gotten a lot more stable since last week. ”
And then there’s this:
“Once you finally make it into HealthCare.gov, it’s not clear how you get out.
For those who’ve busted through glitches on the federal Obamacare insurance website to create an account, there’s no clear, obvious way for consumers to delete the accounts if they choose — at least not in the current incarnation.
A POLITICO reporter used HealthCare.gov’s customer support chat to request that an account be removed, but the support agent said the request would have to be referred to an “advanced” customer service system.”
That was posted yesterday.
And this:
Hawaii Relaunching Obamacare Exchange After Not Selling Any Health Insurance Due To Software Problems
posted today…..
And this from CBS:
“It wasn’t designed well, it wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it,” said Luke Chung, an online database programmer.
Chung supports the new health care law but said it was not the demand that is crashing the site. He thinks the entire website needs a complete overhaul.
“It’s not even close. It’s not even ready for beta testing for my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that,” he said.
Oh yeah MUCH better…….
sheesh……
Who cares whether you can delete an account? How often do you go back to delete your account at an online merchant? I’ve created dozens of online accounts, and can’t remember the last time I wanted to delete one.
Are you serious? LOTS of people care about deleting accounts.
For example I deleted my Facebook account when I began to be uncomfy with them. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting I should not be allowed to back out?
And are you seriously suggesting no one should be allowed to delete an account and erase personal info from a government web page?
Just because you can’t remember the last time you deleted one doesn’t mean the rest of the world thinks as you do (thank the gods).
Your response ignores reality.
And in fact, your reply exposes your Statist Thug attitude….you would not allow a person to decide for themselves what to do in their life If they create an account, YOU want to prevent them from exercising their rights and prerogatives thereafter.
YOU illustrate the Tyrannical Mind.
erase personal info from a government web page?
This isn’t a Facebook account — it isn’t anything that’s publicly visible. I agree that it should be possible to delete accounts, but the site developers should have other priorities at the moment.
I am not sure that it matters if an account can be deleted because the government will still keep all of your health records and other data.
the government will still keep all of your health records
Where did you get the idea that the government would get your health records?
I can’t take anything this guy says seriously anymore. My guess is that he’s a party operative of the Democrats, here for the sole purpose of utilizing lies and sophistry in an attempt to defend the indefensible. I don’t believe a word he says. And I doubt there are many here who do. Sorry for the ad hominem, but I’m so tired of this guy’s bravo sierra.
Would you be happier hearing nothing but comforting falsehoods? Wodun is posting that Obamacare involves the government getting your health records; it doesn’t. Gregg thinks it’ll be funny when Obamacare customers file their claims with the government, seemingly unaware that the policies sold on Healthcare.gov are issued by private companies, not the government.
These are simple matters of fact, and easy to check, but somehow these false ideas have become “common knowledge”. Isn’t that worth a comment?
“Healthcare.gov is flakey, but it’s gotten a lot more stable since last week. ”
Oh yeah right………
CNN) — If you contacted the federal Obamacare call center early Thursday morning, you may have been told that your password for Healthcare.gov needed to be reset. But that is not the case, officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services say.
Consumer passwords for the Obamacare website have not been reset, HHS officials say, but call center representatives were mistakenly given that incorrect information.
“A wrong script was provided to call center representatives,” one HHS official told CNN. “It’s been corrected. The wrong script was read for only a short time — just this morning.”
ArsTechnica, a technology new and information website, first reported that people were being told to reset their passwords on Tuesday, October 8.
A second HHS official said enrollees can continue to use their current passwords…………..
Yeah that sounds like a really smooth system…..one in which you are told to reset yrou password then told not to….
Is this the first time you’ve heard of a call center giving out incorrect instructions?
“Is this the first time you’ve heard of a call center giving out incorrect instructions?”
No. Nice strawman.
It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone claim that level of incompetence as a smooth stable operation.
When I applied for insurance on the individual market in 2007, it was very easy. I called an agent, he emailed me seven policies that met my requirements, I selected one, and emailed (faxed? I don’t recall) back a one page document. By the way, that one page document covered all seven members of my family.
I haven’t visited the healthcare.gov website yet, so I can’t speak to that, but I’m sure that as it does not conform to the requirements of the PPACA, the next time the policy would be up for renewal, I’ll need to do that. I can’t help but note that my premium has increased by 2/3 since 2007.
I just checked and since I declined the insurance offered by my employer I am not eligible for a subsidy (regardless of income). I don’t purchase my groceries or my mortgage through my employer, so I don’t wish to purchase my health insurance there either. This way the policy belongs to me and not to my employer.
Replying to myself, why does the government prefer the employer market over the individual market? Presumably there is a some benefit to the government since no subsidy is offered for the individual market if the employer market is available. What if I don’t like any of the plans my employer offers? What if I’m constantly changing employers (I am), and don’t want to be constantly changing policies (I don’t)?
Letting your employer subsidize your coverage instead of having the government do so reduces the cost to the taxpayers, and that was a big concern for the ACA’s framers. I’d rather get employers out of the health insurance business, for the reasons you cite and others, but there’s a lot of inertia to overcome. Obamacare does take some big steps in the right direction, by providing better individual coverage options and taxing high-end employer-provided plans.
that one page document covered all seven members of my family
I take it you didn’t have to provide health history for everyone in your family (which I did)? That’s amazing. I wonder if you were in a state that required community rating (i.e. not discriminating on health status), like New York. Obamacare takes community rating nationwide.
my premium has increased by 2/3 since 2007
That’s nothing — my premium increased 60% from 2012 to 2013.
I did. It consisted of the question “When was last doctor visit and what was the diagnosis?”
Wow, that’s amazing. I had to answer dozens of “have you ever had or been treated for…” sorts of questions.
I am in Missouri which does not appear to have community rating.
BTW, would you support community rating for automobile liability insurance? (Not discriminating based on driving history?)
No. Discriminating on driving history is a plausibly effective incentive for better driving. Discriminating on whether you’ve ever had cancer is not an effective incentive for not getting cancer.
Behavior can affect the probability of getting cancer, having a stroke, heart attack, liver disease or kidney disease though, not to zero, of course, but the risks can be reduced. The only behavior permitted in the community rating mechanism is smoking. Overeating, excessive alcohol consumption, recreational drug use are not allowed to be factored into the pricing scheme. E.g. no one can necessarily get lower rate by changing their behavior, with the exception of quitting smoking. Otherwise have another slice of pizza, one for the road, and one toke over the line, it’s covered, and won’t affect your premium.
I just remembered the remaining questions: Age, height, weight were needed in addition to the last doctor’s visit (reason/diagnosis).
You can imagine a modified community rating system that asks about health-influencing behavior other than tobacco use (diet, exercise, alcohol use, gun ownership, motorcycle ownership, etc.) and discriminates on that basis. But that isn’t what we had pre-Obamacare. What we had (and still have until January) is a system where you could be denied insurance altogether, or forced to pay exorbitant premiums, simply because you were born with a particular set of genes. Good riddance to that.
I am avoiding the exchanges. It is easy enough to get information on policies from insurers.
Remember, the laws says you have to have insurance not that you have to go through an exchange.
On Healthcare.gov there are only a handful of questions,
One of which, according to you, is whether or not you approve of their privacy policy, which, again according to you, begins with this little gem:
We’ll keep your information private as required by law.
In light of the recent IRS revelations, how would you recommend someone who doesn’t posesses a mothership card answer that? Or would you first simply recommend they obtain one?
They don’t ask for much in the way of information: name, DOB, SSN, address, and whether you use tobacco. Except for the tobacco question, that information is on my tax returns.
Compare it to Medicare, which involves sending the government information about your every doctor visit and prescription drug. Nobody seems to regard Medicare as a privacy fiasco.
“They don’t ask for much in the way of information: name, DOB, SSN, address,”
And they use that information to gather all of,
“information about your every doctor visit and prescription drug.”
And they use that information to gather all of
No, they don’t. Where did you get the idea that they did?
How else will they access your health records?
Why do you think the government will be accessing your health records? Is this some rumor that’s going around?
What do you expect for a lousy $$634,320,919? And who is CGI Federal and how did they get this contract?
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 apparently ended up.
Given the complicated nature of federal contracts, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between the cost to develop Healthcare.gov and the amount of money spent building private online businesses. But for the sake of putting the monstrous amount of money into perspective, here are a few figures to chew on: Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $600 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.
Or compare it to the Air Force’s ECSS system, which they spent $1B on before scrapping it as unusable. Or the multibillion dollar failed project to use handheld devices for the 2010 census. Healthcare.gov could be better, but it could also be much worse.
See?! I knew if we put our noggins to it, we could come up with something good to say!
I don’t think those examples are helping your case any.
Hey look! Obamacare is going to be just as bad as all the other parts of government so its cool bro!
So, you are telling me Obamacare is just like two other completely failed and scrapped programs?
Sounds like we should follow the lead of the other two programs and scrap Obamacare, too.
The fear of “socialized medicine” is long wait times for “elective procedures” such as for crippling pain in a knee or even for an MRI to diagnose your pain — remember, Mr. Obama was asking us to take the “pain pill” rather than have the expensive surgery.
I was going to say, forget about wait times for a doctor’s appointment — it looks like long wait times to even pay for a policy on the exchanges so you don’t get dinged with the Roberts Tax. But it looks like the government has straightened out the system and people are sailing right through the exchanges and saving lots of money over what they had before, so, never mind!
Jim, we all know you work for one of Soros’ groups. Fess up!
Nope, I work for myself (I write and sell software).
Jim,
“Discriminating on driving history is a plausibly effective incentive for better driving.”
That’s not why they do it, though. They do it because it speaks to the probability that they will pay a claim. Yes, it incentivizes people to drive better, because immediate rewards change behavior better than rare, catastrophic ones, but it’s also well-known that people without insurance live safer lives than those with. Drivers without insurance drive better than those with, people with health insurance live healthier lifestyles, etc. it’s built into the actuarial tables and everything.
Jonathan,
You bring up the other shoe. Just wait until the witless dweebs who adore Obamacare attempt to make a claim on their policy and have to deal with the government.
Oh that’s going to be rich……
wait until the witless dweebs who adore Obamacare attempt to make a claim on their policy and have to deal with the government
Why would they? The policies sold on the Healthcare.gov exchanges are all issued by private companies. [The House health care reform bill included a public option — a government-operated insurance option — but that wasn’t in the Senate bill that became the ACA].
Getting a private insurer to pay a claim can sometimes be a pain, but that was true before Obamacare as well. At least now they’re prohibited from dropping you if you get sick.
” At least now they’re prohibited from dropping you if you get sick.”
You’re not real clear on the whole concept of “insurance”, are you?