Software design, not just demand, may be behind health exchange glitches, experts say

NBC News ^ | October 3, 2013 | Phil Galewitz and Jay Hancock, Kaiser Health News

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Three insurance companies confirmed Thursday that they have enrolled customers through the federal online marketplace created by the health law, but the numbers were meager and signup frustration continued for many people.

“This is not solely a traffic issue,” said Dan Mendelson, CEO of consultant Avalere Health. “There are more underlying issues that have to be resolved.”

“This is not a glitch. A glitch is a minor problem,” said Robert Laszewski, a consultant and former insurance executive. “The real story is that the Obamacare computer systems simply are not working.

[UpInArms]

I build sites. CNN video showed a page brought up by reporter that had a drop down list (select) that was empty. The select options (items to select ) are hard wired into the HTML or are dynamically created from a server database. I'll bet the database is not connected.

They have had millions and years to create a pile of scheisse-bytes. I would have at least the registration portion, where this was failing, up and running in weeks.

The system is a joke.

[MaskedMan]

Read this article....you will soon realize why ObamaWare is a complete disaster...

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/healthcaregov-code-developed-by-the-people-and-for-the-people-released-back-to-the-people/277295/#comments

[ClearCase_guy]

It's designed to fail.

But don't worry, Single Payer is waiting in the wings to rescue us ...

[TheRhinelander]

Quite possibly the biggest pile of feces ever developed (I’m a principal software engineer and I’ll stand by my statement).

[The Duke]

Did Barrycade hire foreigners to design the websites?

Nah ... just Democrats.

[slouper]

Relax everybody, it’s just a glitch, no worries, NBC said so. It’ll be worked out.

Sheesh!

[nonsporting]

How can they say anything definitive about the true cause of failure, and lay it at the doorstep of design?

One must do extensive testing to determine the cause or causes of failure.

The design may be fine. A rushed and poorly tested implementation is more likely.

[Cementjungle]

Anyone who has ever read "The Mythical Man-Month" knows that the more resources one throws at a big software project, the more complex it gets and the longer it takes to complete.

Instead of spending $330 million on this monstrosity they should have paid some kid geek $20,000 to write the thing. It would be working fine if they had.

[SMM48]

So like they didn’t bother to test out the software before going on-line with it? Huh?

Uh, no! The Gov'ment decided to save time by doing LIVE testing.

How much $$$ did they spend waste on this?