The Obamacare Website Could Stay Broken for a While

New York Magazine ^ | 10/13

[nickcarraway]

While the government shutdown distracted much of the media from the troubled September 30 launch of the Affordable Care Act's national insurance marketplace, heathcare.gov, the site's numerous and ongoing issues have become impossible to ignore. The New York Times took a comprehensive look at the nearly two-week-old system, and it's not pretty. "These are not glitches," said an insurance executive who has communicated with federal officials who are trying to implement the new healthcare plan. "The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our calls, people say, 'It's awful, just awful.'"

At least 14.6 million people have visited the site so far, but the government has declined to say how many have successfully used it to enroll in insurance programs. Insurance executives told the Times that they have received only "a trickle" of enrollment files. Some forms have been sent to the wrong insurers because of company name mix-ups, while others are unusable because they are missing "crucial information." Meanwhile, a Times researcher who managed to register with healthcare.gov on October 1 was never able to actually log in to the site, despite 4o attempts to do so over the course of eleven days.

Apparently, healthcare.gov's flaws aren't a surprise to many people who worked on it directly. Internal reports show that officials repeatedly worried that the $400 million system would not be ready in time for the scheduled launch date, which the Obama administration reportedly refused to move or scale back because they did not want to give ammunition to Obamacare's eager critics. Concerns included shortages of funds and other resources, slowness in providing contractors with specifications for the project, and the decision to make the Medicare and Medicaid agency responsible for integrating and testing the newly created databases and software.

Officials have said publicly that the site should be fixed in time for the December deadline to sign up for coverage that begins on New Year's Day. A Times source "familiar with the system's development" says it's "now roughly 70 percent of the way toward operating properly." As for that other 30 percent? "I’ve heard as little as two weeks or as much as a couple of months." Obviously, this situation is embarrassing for the White House. It also poses a threat to the success of the Obamacare. The program won't result in lower insurance prices unless large numbers of people participate in the new healthcare exchanges, and that won't happen if they can't even get the website to work.

[sasquatch]

Prato’s law. Pardon the spelling; I R N ‘gineer.
btw, it’s 80%, etc.
/smile...

[Lmo56]

isn't it's just a rehash of the failed canadian program? so it's failed twice now... garbage in, garbage out

Yup. Same Canadian IT firm that was FIRED by the Canadian Government for incompetence ...

[ully2]

Maybe we will all become believers of the ‘mythical man-month”

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

This is all by design. Obama purposefully wanted a crappy website so single-payer can be rushed in. If he wanted a good website, he could’ve contacted anyone in Silicon Valley to create one at a far cheaper price.

[Kansas58]

I am an Exchange Agent, fully certified to sell Obamacare for the Individual Market.
I am not even attempting to look for any business, and have not signed anyone up yet. However, I am I do health care oriented financial planning and I had to at least know what I was talking about.
1.) The training system forced me to claim that my previous home was at a relatives house, at which I never lived in my life. They would not clear me, when I answered the security question correctly!
2.) There is a HUGE “pent up demand” for “guaranteed issue health insurance” for those with “pre-existing conditions. However, OBAMACARE created this pent up demand. Obamacare eliminated all of the “high risk pools” that were in effect, in nearly every State. As an agent, I have had NO plan available, for those who were either irresponsible and did not buy insurance before an illness struck, or found themselves out of COBRA or other coverage and had health issues.
3.) The EASIEST way to “fix” this online “Exchange” or “Marketplace” problem is to allow OLD FASHIONED PAPER APPLICATIONS to qualify for the tax credit or subsidy under the current income thresholds. Those paper applications are already available, but agents will only use them for clients who CLEARLY will not qualify for any subsidy or tax credit due to high income status. Let people decide for themselves if they want to “forward fund” their credits or subsidies or discounts, whatever you want to call them. It would take a HUGE amount of pressure off the online system to allow paper applications to qualify for all government benefits, for those willing to claim said benefits on their Form 1040 at tax time!

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

Sebelius has been such a great overseer of the website that she deserves a promotion just like Susan Rice! /s

[MUDDOG]

the site's numerous and ongoing issues have become impossible to ignore.

Impossible *for even the New York Times* to ignore.

Officials have said publicly that the site should be fixed in time for the December deadline

The same officials who've been saying for over three years that the site would be ready at launch, and who continue to say that the problem is unexpected volume ("and that's a good thing") and a few iPhone-like glitches.

[Chode]

so it's a loser²

[Hoodat]

It’s an architectural flaw. Until the architecture is redesigned, it will always be broken.

[eyedigress]

A few gargoyles around the perimeter seems appropriate.

[Cruz_West_Paul2016]

and the left was trying to make it sound as if Apple also had it’s own health-care web sight. and why are they using Apple as an excuse? God, if this was happening in 2010, the glitches would of been blamed on Bush.

[Hoodat]

I prefer the 80/20 rule. 80% of the implementation can be achieved with 20% of the time. The final 20% of implementation requires the remaining 80% of the allotted time.

I had read somewhere that maneuvering one's way through the application process on the ObamaCare website involved the running of 90+ applications. Not only is that going to hamper efficient use of resources, it creates a problem that additional server space won't solve. The real question here should be why our government has the need for so many applications. I suspect it has to to with the same Big Brother intrusions on our personal data that the NSA currently engages in. As an IT person, I am sure you have better insight on this.

[dinodino]

You need to learn the difference between “libertarian” and the modern “liberal.” They could not be farther apart.

[LonePalm]

I am beginning to wonder if there is actually any functionality behind healthcare.gov. I have a MSCS and have worked on several very large government and telecom software development efforts.

I looks like a front end system designed to collect names and personal information without being able to actually sell anyone anything in a legally binding manner.

I know 0bamacare is not actually intended to work as promised. It is a backdoor method of getting single payer (government) healthcare.

The Democrats are facing a big problem if this 0bamanation fails TOO FAST. If they don't have something ready to go to replace this they will have destroyed American Healthcare with nothing to replace it. I do not think that will go over well at the polls.

The Republicans and the TEA Party need to make the the ONLY issue for the 2014 and 2016 elections. I think we have a chance to pummel the Democrats at all levels of government.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[steve86]

can you imagine the affirmative action hires working on obamacare.

I wasn't aware that Canada nationally or Ontario provincially utilize affirmative action.

The problem wasn't the coders anyway, it was the management and in particular micro-management from HHS.

[upchuck]

Your 80/20 rule is very similar to my 90/10 rule :)

Having to run 90+ applications to accomplish anything indicates a piss poor design.

[Safrguns]

It will stay broken because there are not any “providers” to speak of.

No one is “playin ball” on the supply side of the equation.

Guess they kind of forgot about that one... force people to buy, but fail to force suppliers to supply.

[libstripper]

AA hires being mainly proficient in Ebonics, it’s no surprise they can’t do IT coding, which is based on and a derivative of proper English and has very demanding, unforgiving syntax rules. IOW a programmer gets exactly what she asks for in proper computer language and syntax, not by any means what she wants and not necessarily anything that makes sense.

[Right Wing Assault]

At nearly 2 weeks, the obamacare software has broken the world record for glitches. The previous record was 0.478473812 seconds.

[DManA]

Obviously, this situation is embarrassing for the White House.

Dubious. I've not seen any evidence that that bunch is capable if being embarrassed.