There is no good excuse for it:
From the evidence, it’s clear that the Obamacare exchange servers saw errors of all different kinds. They weren’t prepared for the load, even though this was never very heavy. California reported about 600,000 unique visitors, and Colorado reported about 55,000 unique visitors.
There were screen captures of database errors, not because the data was bad, but because the structure that holds the data was misdesigned.
There were 404 errors, which are totally design errors, meaning that the web sever was trying to get to a page that didn’t exist. (This led to the best hashtag of the day, #404care.)
There were non-descript server errors like the one I got from the California server.
There were user-interface errors. At about 10:00 AM, Colorado suspended new accounts on its site (it’s one of the ones using its own site, not the main exchange site), and didn’t get around to allowing new accounts again until 3:00 PM. At that point, the “New Account” button sent you to the login page for existing accounts. If you chose to enter your childhood phone number for a secret question, it wouldn’t take it, no matter what format (certainly not the format it used when asking for your current phone number).
This is why I say it was clear that this wasn’t just one of those things. The volume of inquiries wasn’t high by large-system standards, and the rest of the errors were in the control of the programmers.
These were design and execution errors, pure and simple. They were all catchable, with proper beta and load testing.
Yup.
If only someone offered Obama a 1 year delay to fix the mess…
They didn’t (and still don’t) care about the implementation, just the big f’n signing ceremony.
Rand, I think you had indicated that you are not a Believer, and I respect that.
I just got back from church where in a congregational prayer, I expressed a belief in a Creation that includes things “visible and invisible.” I am not saying that I don’t believe in just one Lord, but do you suppose there are “lesser gods” or spirits or angels or “agents” at work in the Universe, the invisible side to Creation, and some of them might have a dry sense of humor?
Do you remember George W Bush’s First Inaugural address where he quoted Founding Father William Randolph wondering whether “an angel rides this whirlwind”? Mr. Bush was not the author of that speech — was it a man named Helprin who wrote it? — but Mr. Bush chose to give that speech as expressing his view of things. Part of that view is a kind of personal humility that Mr. Bush has, that he, President Bush, you, me, and everybody else are small players, not simply before the Higher Power for those of us who profess such belief, but before the invisible side of creation. Say what you want about President Bush, but I don’t think he had an outsized understanding regarding his own importance.
Just saying that I think that the invisible side of creation is having a field day with our political leaders right now, for the TEA Party Caucus for calling attention to themselves regarding the government shutdown when there were suggestions that Obamacare was going to call attention to itself, and then with Kathleen Sibelius, who seems to have a high regard of self and does not seem to believe in the invisible, with Harry Reid, who is a Believer, a Latter Day Saint, no less, where I thought my Mormon brothers believed pretty much as I do in the visible and invisible Creation, but go figure.
By far, the most incompetence person to sit behind the Oval Office desk. There should be another word to describe how pathetic these people are at running an enterprise successfully. It’s almost as if no one in the entire administration has any experience or talent at it.
Actually there is an explanation for the failures. It is called Hubris — this predates Christian belief and comes out out of the pre-Christian paganism of the general part of the world of my fore-fathers.
It comes from giving a speech in front of Styrofoam Dorian columns, you know, the part of the ocean beginning to recede and all of that.
Mr. Obama may not have spent much time reading Greek Tragedy as a literary genre, or maybe he has, but he did mention interest in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather? By the way, if he admires the novel The Godfather, why does the President . . . talk . . . so . . . much? Sonny’s bluster is what initiated the chain of events leading to the tragic outcome in the novel.
Don’t know what is considered “canon” in the Godfather Saga and what is the extrapolation of movie sequels and fan novels, but the original novel left Michael, the “good son”, the one the Godfather wanted to keep out of the rackets, at the head of the criminal empire after having ruthlessly murdered all those the Godfather had sworn to spare to end a gang war that had left him weakened and his number one son dead, but with Michael acting as the agent of his father’s posthumous revenge.
The sequels trace the Fall of Godfather Michael, where his effort to “take the Corleone Family (into) legitimate (business) activities” falter as he “wanted to get out (of the rackets)” but “they keep pulling me back in!”
So, umm, whatever medication you’ve been skimping on this week, please go back to your regular dosage.
Is there a medication yet to make you less of a jerk?
McGehee, you have to at least acknowledge that Paul has had a number of 300+ word ramblings over the last half dozen posts, and the relevance to the subject has been pretty tenuous. Trent has always been straight to the point.
The explanation for why the website is so bad is actually quite simple. The website is a mess because the requirements are driven by a law that’s a convoluted mess and it requires integration among too many bloated agencies. Over half of all software failures are caused by poor requirements. Plus, while commercial companies sometimes have their development failures, the really big ones (multiple hundred million dollar disasters) are government efforts. When things don’t pan out on commercial projects, companies cut their losses. Governments just keep dumping more money on failures until they can finally accept whatever crap is delivered or it becomes too embarrassing.
Obamacare is the Space Launch System of healthcare.
OCare can work, it just needs to take RomneyCare and multiply by 50.
a few teething problems, but, i hear no complaints from massachusetts on Obamacare day 10.
The EBT cards don’t work in Massacheusetts today. The government is out of other people’s money.
You are not listening closely enough.
Larry J:
I could go for your explanation of bad, convoluted requirements == bad software, and that ties into my Hubris explanation. The Health Care law is Social Justice hence is it will work, it shall work, it must work.
“So, umm, whatever medication you’ve been skimping on this week, please go back to your regular dosage.”
Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me!
It is widely reported that President Obama regards The Godfather as one of his favorite books. The book traces the rise to power of the fictional youngest son of a crime boss. The sequels to that book in the form of the movies and ancillary novels trace the fall of that same character.
This literary theme of a fictional character coming of age, rising to power, righting the wrongs against his ancestors, and eventually falling from power is certainly not unique. That is pretty much the plot of Dune followed by its first sequel. It is also a theme found in ancient literature.
The characters and happening in these writings are purely fictional, but they reflect the writer’s understanding of human nature and offer a cautionary message to non-fictional persons in real life. Also, mythological (ancient world) or fictional (modern world) stories provide a vocabulary for discussion of human nature and how it affects daily life. Our education system has dumped the literary canon whereas I have an Engineering degree where I either didn’t have to take “those courses” or tested out of the requirements so I haven’t read the classics either. Dune, The Godfather, and those Star Wars movies and hence other works of popular culture then have to substitute.
I consider my political thought more influenced by the Conservative rather than the Libertarian side of the Conservative-Libertarian fusion of the modern Conservative Movement. I believe that as humans we are highly influenced by our human nature and all the limitations that entails, hence my skepticism of the Affordable Care Act and the grand visions of the Obama Administration in general.
It is a bit interesting to note that the same actors were able to order tens of thousands of signs, get them manufactured, and emplaced within 8 hours of the government shutdown. Each 3’x4′ site specific sign telling the world that this facility was closed due to the government shutdown.
This must be a record for government procurement, even if anticipated months in advance.