Why the Obamacare website was doomed.

[dipsydoodle]

One of the most dispiriting spectacles of the last month has been the botched launch of HealthCare.gov, the website created to implement President Obama's landmark healthcare reforms. Obamacare had a desperately turbulent passage through Congress and survived various wrecking attempts by the Tea Party and their accomplices. Then the glorious day dawned and millions of US citizens hit the URL, hoping that, finally, they would be able to find a health insurance plan that they could afford.

Guess what happened. According to the New York Times, of the 20 million people who tried to access the site over its first three weeks only 500,000 managed to complete applications for health cover and an even smaller percentage of them actually succeeded in obtaining insurance. In an unprecedented move, the president had to make a public apology for the shambles.

At this point, British readers will mutter: "Well, at least he had the grace to apologise." Ministers in successive British governments of all stripes have, over the years, presided over some IT cock-ups that put the Obamacare one in the shade. My guess is that upwards of £10bn has been blown over the years in massive government IT projects that turned out to be death marches to cancellation. But usually the bad news was quietly buried and we heard about it only when the National Audit Office lifted the stone to see what lay beneath.

The Obamacare website fiasco has a quaintly antique ring to it. This is the kind of stuff that used to happen in the first internet boom, when any clown with an MBA and an idea for a dotcom could attract investors. In those days, new websites were often overwhelmed on launch. The founders hadn't bought enough servers to handle the surge. But this is 2013 and those kinds of capacity problems don't exist any more. You can rent as many servers as you need from Amazon's cloud, add another hundred in an instant and pay for them on your credit card.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/03/obamacare-website-barack-obama-healthcare-computer-meltdown?guni=Keyword:news-grid%20main-2%20%28Discover%29%20Pickable%20with%20editable%20override ickable%20with%20editable%20override osition2

Fuck knows what those smilies are in the link : I didn't put them there.

Fact is some of our IT cock-ups here in the UK , including those associated with our NHS , really do put the Obamacare one in the shade.

[beachbum bob]

1. there is a longtime proverb in IT consulting world

If you not part of the solution then there is really big money to be made in prolonging the problem....I have heard of huge software install flops with integrations of PeopleSoft HR systems that took 2 to 3x the amount of time and 5x the budget, huge SAP integrations that went even worse.

ACA website had no chance for success for Oct 1, 2013. With funding being cut purposely and the way these integrations happen, especially govt integrations. Upward flow of honest assessments rarely EVER happen, and in govt circles, almost never. No one wants to be the messenger because their heads are cut off first.......

in the end, it will be fixed and operating as planned



Its the way these things go.

[frazzled]

2. Question.

Why should we assume that, of the 20 million people who tried to access the site in the first three weeks, all of them wanted to fill out an application? Half a million actually wanted to sign up for the insurance, but I imagine a large proportion of the other 19 1/2 million were mere curiosity seekers, just wanting to see what it was all about. Or thinking they could just punch in to see what they'd have to pay if they, um, weren't part of the 80% of Americans who already have insurance through their employers or Medicare?

Beyond that, why should we assume that people would rush to sign up for a policy that doesn't go into effect for 3 months?

Not saying here that there weren't significant problems with the website, but inferences are being drawn that are not necessarily related at all to these issues. (Example: whenever I search for a product on the Internet, it shows up as an ad for me on Talking Points Memo. The other day I looked online at a pair of shoes that I knew I couldn't afford and was never going to buy. I just liked them and wanted to look. So why does the ad company keep thinking I want to buy them, just because I looked at them on the Nordstrom site?)

[quadrature]

4. don't forget 10 million or so Chinese hackers

everybody wins

[Gore1FL]

3. Working link

I removed the extraneous stuff that was breaking your link. Try this:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/03/obamacare-website-barack-obama-healthcare-computer-meltdown

[dipsydoodle]

5. Thanks

.

[Doctor_J]

6. still, it's hard to believe that with 3 YEARS to get it ready...

IMO it was either sabotaged deliberately, or someone is getting rich off of the problems.