Howard Dean: The WH will not make the ACA fix date on November 30th

[bigdarryl]

I agree with him it was DUMB!!! for the WH to set a artificial date that everything will be fixed. Obama needs a new Communications team because they have been horrible http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/howard-dean-obamacare-website-99575.html?hp=r7

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. Nah. It took the heat off while the worst got worked out

My understanding is a lot of the access issues are resolved. What are the major hurdles being encountered TODAY?

[Jesus Malverde]

6. There was a fairly comprehensive article by the NYT describing what the problems were.

One misleading aspect is people think they have signed up for insurance but they actually have not gotten the confirmation from the private company that they signed up with. The article implied some of these applications were being lost and never actually making it to the insurers.

In think until you have a card from the company you signed up with I would keep an eye on it, to make sure your application wasn't one of those lost on the back end.

When buying something online, the transaction can only be considered complete when the product has been delivered.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

8. True. One would hope a person can print out confirmation

And/or get confirmation email specifying which insurance company was chosen. Then, both insurance and individual will have matching records to cross reference when individual follows up with the company.

[Jesus Malverde]

9. I hope it's easy to resolve...nt

[BlueStreak]

11. Seems to me the worst issues have been fixed

at least those dealing with shopping.

They really should take down or rework the "Learn" section because that is EXTREMELY misleading. Does far more harm than good.

I think most of the difficult problems that remain are in the back end, after the customer has done research.

Sibelius quoted some statistics at the Senate hearing this week.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181763508216406

At this point, I think the administration is hiding behind the website problems because they are embarrassed about the number of sign-ups. They aren't doing themselves any favors by throwing the website under the bus. They should just be up front about it with a message such as

"Healthcare.gov is working. xxx thousand people are shopping successfully every day. We are aware af numerous issues that need to be addressed to make the process smoother, but the system is working and allowing people to enroll every day. We know that this can be a complicated decision, and we know from the Massachusetts experience that many customers want to take a few weeks to weigh their options, so it is not surprising that the actual enrollments are starting slowly. Although we are making improvements every day, there is no need for people to avoid getting on the system to begin the process of looking at their choices. We are open for business."

[spanone]

2. that sure helps howie.

[gcomeau]

3. It *would* have been dumb...

...to say "everything will be fixed" by then.

But they didn't say that. they said it would be working for the majority of users. Don't put words in their mouths, we get enough of that from the other side.

[Cigar11]

4. It's Software, there's no such thing as The Last Bug

trust me, without milestones, De-bugging goes on forever.

[uponit7771]

5. Stop taking what the M$M and the right says about anything regarding Obamacare seriously

... regards

[Puzzledtraveller]

7. Say it aint so!!

[vinny9698]

10. My Chase online account is constantly being shut down for maintenance

This happens about once or twice a month. No big deal, it is just normal for any online business.