Wow, Healthcare.gov has a complicated task...

[dkf]

The amount of subsidy depends on a consumer's income. To ensure each consumer receives the correct subsidy, the exchanges must request income data from the Internal Revenue Service.

The exchanges are only open to American citizens and documented immigrants. To verify an applicant's citizenship and immigration status, an exchange must first verify a customer's identity with the Social Security Administration, and then check her immigration status with the Department of Homeland Security.

The exchanges must also check to make sure applicants are not already enrolled in another government health insurance program, which would make them ineligible for Obamacare. That means retrieving data from the Veterans Health Administration, the Department of Defense, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Peace Corps. It also means checking with a state's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program agencies to see if an applicant is already enrolled in one of those programs.

Finally, once a customer purchases health insurance, the exchange must provide her information to the insurance company she has chosen. Insurance companies across the country have been scrambling to integrate their own computer systems with the exchanges.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/09/heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-obamacares-error-plagued-web-sites/

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. Thanks

[trublu992]

2. Thanks that explains alot. They still should have had an American company

build the site rather than exporting it to India . I think that's most of the problem.

[VanillaRhapsody]

3. They Did NOT do that...

I know this for a fact.

[dkf]

6. Doesn't it seem there are more non-US companies involved? It's so odd!

[VanillaRhapsody]

9. No it's not odd.....this is a very complex structure...

it involves a nightmare logistically. You are trying to get many many many pieces of pre built computer "sytems" meaning environment and languages and data types and database types...speaking to one another. This was not custom made to order....it is a multifaceted system.

[dkf]

11. Yes but when they run down the list of contractors, they seem to be UK or Canadian or some

Country other than our own.

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. there are lots of them...

they are not all non-American I also know that.

[dkf]

13. Obviously not all, but a bunch of the main ones.

[Zorra]

4. Yes, thanks, very true. But this is only the beginning of Dem Party magic...

[NoOneMan]

5. Oh boy, but its such a simple form of "universal health care"

Oh, whatever is a site to do

[grantcart]

7. They figured my subsidy with one click and about 5 seconds.

That is what is so revolutionary about the structure. People can apply and get the decision in an instant after their identity has been confirmed.

[BlueCheese]

8. Is there some reason people can't browse rates based on info they supply?

It sounds like a lot of frustration is coming because people have battled for many hours just to be able to see what policies they can get. Wouldn't it be great if they could just enter their age, location, and income, and see the rates? Actually signing up for a policy would require verification, of course, and then there might be some pain. But at least you get to see the reward up front.

You can get a mortgage quote from any bank by filling in a few numbers. They're not going to actually lend you $100,000 without checking your underwear drawer, but at least they don't make you hand over all your forms before even giving you a number.

[VanillaRhapsody]

10. Its not designed for window shopping right now. It's designed to get the people who definitely need

insurance and need it ASAP. Those who think they "might" get something out of it are not what needs to be hammering it right now.

And what policies you can get are based on so many properties that need to be entered. There are alot of kinks to be worked out because the calculations and the logistics of making all these pieces work together. But this is going to go more and more smoothly as more bugs are found and repaired....It was either hook all these entities up and then have a team run down the errors one by one OR hook these things up one piece at a time and then having the people in different states complaining that they are not getting theirs...which would have taken far longer. This is like programmer go-time....they are chasing down all those glitches...and they won't stop till they find them all.