My ONLY gripe about the ACA is that they did not use the 3 year lead time well.

[SoCalDem]

The SECOND it survived SCOTUS, there should have been an announcement about PRE-REGISTERING online:

It should have been done at the STATE level (for states that were "friendly), and nationally for those that were NOT..

The "NOT" state registrations should have been run through MULTIPLE websites by alphabet.. and later aggregated by region/age group/whatever criteria they needed..

By preregistering, all this sign-up nightmare could have been eliminated, because the people could have had accounts created well in advance of the actual roll-out, and the 6 month lead-in period would have been for the specifics of which plan they wanted.

A unique customer-ID-number could have been created, and people could easily log in and out of their account to check on their status.

The very fact the Experion is being used is a problem for me, because MANY of the people who NEED the coverage are also the very ones whose low income may have led them into financial difficulties with any of the credit checkers, and some may be afraid to "stir up trouble" for themselves.

I know that actual credit checks are NOT necessarily part of the registration, but just the names : Experion/TransUnion/etc is enough to conjure up bad feelings for many...especially the ones who were slammed from 2008 to the present.

When the rubber meets the road, and people actually start using their coverage, there will be more glitches, but the origination of accounts could have been handled smoothly, and would have yielded a real-time accounting of usable "numbers"...especially from the NOT compliant states

[VanillaRhapsody]

1. the Healthcare.gov site is not broken

it links to 100's of other sites...State Exchanges and private insurance company sites. Each has its own technology and business rules....There are lots of bugs making those individual connections work. THAT is the hold up.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Request: Allow the help desk to access the "Reference Number"....

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023815526

Better yet, add it to My Profile....or email it upon request.

[SoCalDem]

4. I know it's not broken.. I'm upset that they did not start the pre-registrations earlier

and over a three year period...not compressed into a 6 month period.

Imagine how different the press could have been if a steady stream of ever-increasing accounts had been created over that 3 year timeframe..and word of mouth would have spread it as people used the built-in calculator and many saw how much cheaper it was going to be for them

[russspeakeasy]

2. 100 %

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Here is the real problem

when the SS system started, it was done in house. When Medicare started, it was done In House.

This was farmed out to the lowest bidder, not necessarily the best bidder. Did the government have the capacity to do this? Well, not really. We have been outsourcing all, for the last forty years. So they did not get the best talent to create a scalable webwite that was properly tested. I am not in IT, but some of the things that were said yesterday in NPR could have been avoided with a fully scalable system that was tested and used real talent. But they were stuck with the cheapest bidder that knows how to bid, but not necessarily how to build a scalable website.

This is chickens coming home to roost. On the bright side, they need to fix it and they have time.

[SoCalDem]

7. Maybe they should have used Linked-In :)

They are the most persistent pests I have ever come across.. I get email from them every day, and cannot get rid of them.. Their unsubscribe link only gets me MORE email from them..

I only signed up as a good deed to my son's friend's business, and now I cannot get rid of them.. They somehow seem to know more about me than I know about me .. and they are not shy about posting it online either

My husband googled me one day and asked me about the $95K business I run (I have not worked in over a decade)

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Ah the professional facebook

I signed to them due to a friend. Now I cannot even sign on to my account. To put it bluntly, I am all but impressed.

[SoCalDem]

9. I just want them to stop bothering me

and to stop posting stuff about me ..especially when it's all wrong

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I understand

[ProSense]

11. A lot of people have no idea that

Medicare is contracted out. It's how Medicare has always operated:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/lbjhistory.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021854665#post10

[gopiscrap]

6. I agree, but on the other hand, weren't they

obstructed by the repukes (by them not funding the pre start up period)