"Three Guys In Their 20s Fixed Healthcare.gov In A Matter Of Days (VIDEO)"

[IdaBriggs]

I love a good geek story.

Three tech geeks in their 20's - George Kalogeropoulos, Ning Liang, and Michael Wasser – didn't like witnessing the abysmal rollout of the epic fail of the Affordable Care Act website that is Healthcare.gov, so they did what any self-respecting web gurus would do: Saw it as a challenge, and made their own version. On a few nights and weekends.

Said Liang:

“They’ve got it completely backwards in terms of what people want up front – they want prices… You come to our website, you put in your zip code… you hit ‘find plans,’ and you immediately see exchange plans that are available for that zip code.’
The result, which the trio built for free, is called HealthSherpa.com, and it’s working right now.

CBS News reports that:

“…using information buried in the government’s own website built by high-priced government contractors, they found a simpler way to present it to users.”

(more at link)

http://www.theeverlastinggopstoppers.com/2013/11/guys-20s-fixed-healthcare-gov-matter-days-video/

[Schema Thing]

1. except they didn't.

1st, yes, healthcare.gov should have provided the service this website provides - front and center.

However, the service they provide is nowhere near as complicated as what healthcare.gov is doing.

As well, these guys are all viral and shit, but are they doing anything that this (http://www.valuepenguin.com/ppaca/exchanges) site wasn't already doing a week or two before all these "3 guys decided to fix healthcare.gov" stories started popping up all over the place?

[Doctor_J]

2. True. However, healthcare.gov should not have had all of those problems, with 3 years to debug

[Schema Thing]

5. agree totally

Incompetence angers me. Especially when it is primarily management incompetence.

[TheDebbieDee]

4. Thanks for the link, Schema.....

Sometime before the end of the year I will be helping a couple of family members get signed up for ACA and this site will make things MUCH easier to find out which plans offer what benefits.....

[tridim]

3. They should have bid on the contract.

Instead of creating a mockup site after the fact that is about 1% of the totality of the ACA marketplace website.

[Fumesucker]

12. You think competence has anything to do with getting such a contract?

That's touchingly naive.

[jobendorfer]

6. most commercial websites are *terrible*

It never ceases to amaze me how long I have to dig around on a website ... just to simply find the spot where I can actually make a purchase.

Every commercial site needs a front page with a maximum of three, maybe four large buttons on it, labeled with slight
variations of the following:

1. I know all about your cool sh*t and I have bought some of it before. I need to buy some more of it.
Take me to where I can do that!

2. Haven't been here before. Tell me all about your cool sh*t!

3. Bought some of your stuff, and there's a problem I need help with. Take me to a human who can fix it!

4. (For-profit businesses only): Your sh*t is so cool I might be interested in investing in your company. Take
me to where I can talk to somebody about that!


That's it. That's all you need.
Everything else is just clutter that gets in the way of moving metal.

J.

[AceWheeler]

8. Well said

For some reason, they do very poorly on a lot of commercial sites

[Dawgs]

7. I thought that was debunked already. n/t

[jrandom421]

9. Why aren't these guys billionaires?

Because if they can integrate all information from the legacy systems of Social Security and the IRS, determine the right amounts for the subsidies, pull accurate pricing from the insurance providers, transmit all the user's information securely to the insurance provider and get confirmation on insurance, while meeting HIPPA regulations, they should be raking in billions if they can do this in three days!

Oh wait, they aren't doing that. They're only providing estimates. Guess they left money on the table.

[IdaBriggs]

10. They are answering the question folks want answers to --

"Is it worth my time to muck around with the healthcare.gov website?"

[jrandom421]

11. Not what the headline says

And it's misleading to say they fixed healthcare.gov, because they didn't. They only got an alternative to the Kaiser premium calculator. Now if they fixed the enrollment piece, then they deserve kudos, but they didn't.

[Fumesucker]

13. Maybe if they had three years and a boatload of cash they could have done a bit more?