Obamacare rollout status report: central place for updates

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Propose we use this thread as a centralized spot to review the status of the Obamacare implementation and the exchanges. Doesn't need to be a partisan bloodbath to be informative, and no - reporting the faults of the rollout isn't an exercise in Obama hate or racism. Likewise reporting positive stories isn't "OMG Socialism."

First up:

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/329313-obamacare-problems-mount


The problems for the main ObamaCare enrollment portal are going from bad to worse.

ObamaCare's online marketplace is reportedly creating a mess for insurance companies by approving error-ridden applications, the latest in a series of problems that threaten to dampen enrollment under the healthcare law.

Among the small number of people who have successfully purchased coverage, many have filed out duplicate enrollments, misreported family members or left data fields empty, insurers told The Wall Street Journal.

These errors were attributed to flaws in the design of the online enrollment system, which does not easily allow users to fix their mistakes.

The defective sign-ups are the latest breakdown for healthcare.gov, the online portal that uninsured people in 36 states can use to purchase insurance coverage.

Ever since its Oct. 1 rollout, the federal site has been dogged by software problems that have prevented nearly all users from shopping for health insurance.

While bottleneck issues had begun to ease, users are still struggling to navigate the system.

The flawed data received by insurance companies underscores the daunting challenge facing federal health officials as they seek to repair a site that even supporters of the healthcare law have declared a “disaster.”

"So far, the Affordable Care Act's launch has been a failure. Not 'troubled.' Not 'glitchy.' A failure," Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein wrote this week.

<snip>
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/...-if-website-meltdown-continues-into-november/

Today&#8217;s must-read comes from Yuval Levin, who spoke to five managers at the HHS department that&#8217;s running Healthcare.gov and three health-insurance industry managers. Their reactions to two weeks of total chaos on the site: &#8220;Restrained panic&#8221; from the former and more or less pants-wetting panic from the latter. I don&#8217;t think this qualifies as the news story we&#8217;re all waiting for because Levin has no sources up the chain in the decision-making parts of the executive branch, but if people in the industry are whispering about &#8220;unthinkable options&#8221; now, rest assured that people in the White House are too.

I can&#8217;t excerpt all the parts that are noteworthy, although if you&#8217;ve been following news about the Healthcare.gov apocalypse you already know some of what Levin reports &#8212; the login fiasco is a result of HHS demanding that people create an account before seeing what plans cost, the system still can&#8217;t calculate subsidies correctly (which means some people are getting the wrong price when they buy coverage), the &#8220;back end&#8221; communications between the federal data hub and private insurers are a shambles, and the chaos will only increase if HHS solves the login problems without solving the back end problems. (Imagine insurers having to sift through 5,000 garbled enrollments per day instead of 50.) What about the timeline, though? Per Levin&#8217;s sources, D-Day will come sometime in mid-November.

<snip>
 

SheHateMe

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2012
7,251
20
81
They should have humans screening these applications after the fact for errors. These applications should not be going through unchecked.
 
Oct 16, 1999
10,490
4
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the system still can&#8217;t calculate subsidies correctly (which means some people are getting the wrong price when they buy coverage)
My experience was that sometimes the subsidy wasn't showing up as applied to the shown marketplace prices. There are issues (speed and info retention) but the site isn't impossible to get through. I can't speak to any problems past the actual registration, but those are being largely overblown by doom & gloomers so I have no reason not to believe any other problems aren't as well. Buggy website is buggy, BFD.

And here's Ezra Klein today, since he was quoted in the OP:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/18/one-insurers-view-of-obamacare/
 
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glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
They should have humans screening these applications after the fact for errors. These applications should not be going through unchecked.

You want to manually check 10s if not 100s of millions of applications? What was the system for then, just the world's most expensive word processor and dead tree form completion engine?
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
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You want to manually check 10s if not 100s of millions of applications? What was the system for then, just the world's most expensive word processor and dead tree form completion engine?

You're a little slow. Nowhere near 100's of millions are uninsured in the first place, it's 50M max, and of course they're not all signing up at once, the target number over the 6 month enrollment process is 7M. That's 39,000 per day. And each and every one don't have to be manually checked. Just a certain percentage. That's how these things work, though hopefully the automation will work better soon.
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,716
47,396
136
You're a little slow. Nowhere near 100's of millions are uninsured in the first place, it's 50M max, and of course all of them are signing up at once as the target number over the 6 month enrollment process is 7M. That's 39,000 per day.

That's far too many to check per day regardless. Clearly the IT infrastructure is jacked up right now and its current state is simply unacceptable. They have plenty of time to fix it, but the fact that it needs to be fixed is undeniable.
 

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
That's far too many to check per day regardless. Clearly the IT infrastructure is jacked up right now and its current state is simply unacceptable. They have plenty of time to fix it, but the fact that it needs to be fixed is undeniable.

Definitely, I edited my post.
 

AyashiKaibutsu

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2004
9,306
3
81
Generally with something like that you have a number of data entry people working with the applications the system kicks back. It sounds like they're at a point where that isn't feasible though.
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
7,052
0
0
It bears mentioning that states with RESPONSIBLE governors that went ahead and implemented their own exchanges are not facing any major problems. Kentucky of all places is running smoothly thanks to the hard work of its governor.

It's only the redneck Southern states who have governors that refused to implement the exchanges that are facing these issues.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,591
5
0
It bears mentioning that states with RESPONSIBLE governors that went ahead and implemented their own exchanges are not facing any major problems. Kentucky of all places is running smoothly thanks to the hard work of its governor.

It's only the redneck Southern states who have governors that refused to implement the exchanges that are facing these issues.

Checked yesterday on CO. Could produce quotes but not subsidy data.

When did CO become a redneck Southern state
 

spacejamz

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
10,781
1,386
126
It is truly disgusting that after the 3 year time frame and $90M budget (which ballooned to $360M) that was given to develop and test this system, the resulting product was such a piece of shit.

Where were the project managers who should have created a project plan with milestone dates for significant phases of the project? The PM's who were responsible for ensuring that the resources were meeting their deadlines? making sure that test plans were adequate and that each piece was tested thoroughly? Reporting to their superiors that deadlines were not being met? Who was responsible for approving the technology that would be used? Did they have any clue on what they were approving? It sure as hell doesn't seem like it....

I remember reading that the requirements were not given to the coders until earlier this year? It took that long to identify the requirements? Really?? There is something seriously wrong with this entire process and the public will probably never find out what really happened...
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
7,052
0
0
It is truly disgusting that after the 3 year time frame and $90M budget (which ballooned to $360M) that was given to develop and test this system, the resulting product was such a piece of shit.

Where were the project managers who should have created a project plan with milestone dates for significant phases of the project? The PM's who were responsible for ensuring that the resources were meeting their deadlines? making sure that test plans were adequate and that each piece was tested thoroughly? Reporting to their superiors that deadlines were not being met? Who was responsible for approving the technology that would be used? Did they have any clue on what they were approving? It sure as hell doesn't seem like it....

I remember reading that the requirements were not given to the coders until earlier this year? It took that long to identify the requirements? Really?? There is something seriously wrong with this entire process and the public will probably never find out what really happened...

This is seriously the most disappointing thing with the entire process.

Any software shop worth its shit could have put together a fabulous website with the amount of money we dumped into this shitbag.

I wish Obama and co. had hired one of the top tech companies (e.g. Amazon, MSFT, etc.) to design the entire system soup to nuts. It's ridiculous how poorly executed the entire plan was.
 

sactoking

Diamond Member
Sep 24, 2007
7,506
2,702
136
It bears mentioning that states with RESPONSIBLE governors that went ahead and implemented their own exchanges are not facing any major problems. Kentucky of all places is running smoothly thanks to the hard work of its governor.

It's only the redneck Southern states who have governors that refused to implement the exchanges that are facing these issues.

Except that the three states most people were looking to, California, Colorado, and Oregon, all had some sort of delay or other "hiccup" in their rollout.
 

OneOfTheseDays

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2000
7,052
0
0
Except that the three states most people were looking to, California, Colorado, and Oregon, all had some sort of delay or other "hiccup" in their rollout.

California working just fine for me. Was able to login, create an account, and look at various plans within minutes.
 

Uhtrinity

Platinum Member
Dec 21, 2003
2,248
196
106
It's only the redneck Southern states who have governors that refused to implement the exchanges that are facing these issues.

MY state (north western redneck state) also dropped the ball and gambled that the Supreme Court would overturn the mandate. Our "State Site" simply redirects to the national site. Fortunately the insurance companies here are on the ball and are providing lists of ACA compliant plans. There will be no major changes in my policy through my employer, however I need to update my 11 yer old sons personal plan to meet the ACA requirements. I'm hoping it doesn't go up (much).
For the record he has been on a $85/mo "bronze" plan for about three years, my employer was charging me $300/mo for his insurance three years ago. So even pre mandate the system was still screwed.
 
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yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
Any software shop worth its shit could have put together a fabulous website with the amount of money we dumped into this shitbag.

I wish Obama and co. had hired one of the top tech companies (e.g. Amazon, MSFT, etc.) to design the entire system soup to nuts. It's ridiculous how poorly executed the entire plan was.

Not really. A great software company's greatness only extends to their front door; the problem here is the hundreds of state and federal workers they have to deal with to get things right. That's not even to disparage civil workers - what I mean is the legislation and processes in place in those workplaces are usually so onerous that even the most forgiving software development schedule is usually threatened.

Amazon or Google can surely get good software made, but that's because they themselves are the client. And they're also absolutely not set up to take on large external clients like what would have occurred here - you're talking about them training up expertise in whole new areas than they currently have. You don't do that without changing major aspects of your organization.
 

nanette1985

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2005
4,209
2
0
My 24 yr old son is trying to get information. This is NJ. Most of his (also low income, & young) friends are also curious and aren't having any luck learning about stuff. They are leery about putting personal information in such a flaky website The only friend who's succeeded at making an account showed us what was there on his account. It had his job and family information wrong (had his listed with wife and children - which he isn't) And then had some graphics about insurance. Nothing against graphics but without details, graphics are a joke.

Who would buy health insurance without knowing what they are paying, what they are getting?

To get an account, you need a password.
Your password must contain 8-20 characters. There must be at least 1 upper case letter, 1 lower case letter, and 1 number. It must be different from your last 6 passwords. It can't contain your username or any of these characters = ?<> ( ) &#8216; " / \ &
Confirm password
Am I the only one who thinks this password crap is bizarre? Different from my last 6 passwords? How the hell would they know this??
 
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EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,591
5
0
My 24 yr old son is trying to get information. This is NJ. Most of his (also low income, & young) friends are also curious and aren't having any luck learning about stuff. They are leery about putting personal information in such a flaky website The only friend who's succeeded at making an account showed us what was there on his account. It had his job and family information wrong (had his listed with wife and children - which he isn't) And then had some graphics about insurance. Nothing against graphics but without details, graphics are a joke.

Who would buy health insurance without knowing what they are paying, what they are getting?

To get an account, you need a password.
Your password must contain 8-20 characters. There must be at least 1 upper case letter, 1 lower case letter, and 1 number. It must be different from your last 6 passwords. It can't contain your username or any of these characters = ?<> ( ) &#8216; " / \ &
Confirm password
Am I the only one who thinks this password crap is bizarre? Different from my last 6 passwords? How the hell would they know this??

Until the point of purchase, you should be able to enter dummy info in order to get info.

The issue with the passwords, it is for that site. If you enter and save data; you need to come back and login via username and password. If you forget the password; you can request a reset and have to enter a new password.
The "last 6" is them using a standard password entry template piece of code.

However, the Feds may be different that the States' so YMMV here on use of dummy info
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
Checked yesterday on CO. Could produce quotes but not subsidy data.

When did CO become a redneck Southern state


This jogged something in my memory. I seem to remember that one proposal for ending the shutdown was that there be proof of need for subsidies and that was rejected.

Is proof required and how does that work?
 

shady28

Platinum Member
Apr 11, 2004
2,520
397
126
Not really. A great software company's greatness only extends to their front door; the problem here is the hundreds of state and federal workers they have to deal with to get things right. That's not even to disparage civil workers - what I mean is the legislation and processes in place in those workplaces are usually so onerous that even the most forgiving software development schedule is usually threatened.

Amazon or Google can surely get good software made, but that's because they themselves are the client. And they're also absolutely not set up to take on large external clients like what would have occurred here - you're talking about them training up expertise in whole new areas than they currently have. You don't do that without changing major aspects of your organization.

This is true.

I've worked on many projects and rarely is technical ability the issue.

Projects that falter or fail almost always have these traits :

- Poorly defined business requirements
- Business requirements that change continuously during development
- Excessive number of requirements, without priority

I've been on projects where the requirements list was literally in the thousands. When asked to prioritize, the business made all the requirements 'critical'.

From what we know, the coding did not start until this spring. That means they only had about 6 months to actually build the web sites, setup the back-end communications to hundreds of insurance companies, not to mention setup the infrastructure to support the applications, and then test it.

In other words, they 'talked' for 2 1/2 years and then expected all the work to get done in 6 months.

Whatever horrible thing happened to this project, it happened on the front end between the HHS and the Project Managers on the front end.
 

shady28

Platinum Member
Apr 11, 2004
2,520
397
126
This jogged something in my memory. I seem to remember that one proposal for ending the shutdown was that there be proof of need for subsidies and that was rejected.

Is proof required and how does that work?


From what I have read no proof is required.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...or-system-without-verifying-your-eligibility/

"The government is going with what Kliff and Somashekhar call “the honor system.” “We have concluded that the…proposed rule is not feasible for implementation for the first year of operations,” say the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “The exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in an eligible employer-sponsored plan…without further verification, instead of following the procedure in §155.320(d)(3)(iii).”"


I wonder if this will work for taxes too, just say your employer covers you so you don't have to pay the fine (even if you aren't covered)?
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
My 24 yr old son is trying to get information. This is NJ. Most of his (also low income, & young) friends are also curious and aren't having any luck learning about stuff. They are leery about putting personal information in such a flaky website The only friend who's succeeded at making an account showed us what was there on his account. It had his job and family information wrong (had his listed with wife and children - which he isn't) And then had some graphics about insurance. Nothing against graphics but without details, graphics are a joke.

Who would buy health insurance without knowing what they are paying, what they are getting?

To get an account, you need a password.
Your password must contain 8-20 characters. There must be at least 1 upper case letter, 1 lower case letter, and 1 number. It must be different from your last 6 passwords. It can't contain your username or any of these characters = ?<> ( ) ‘ " / \ &
Confirm password
Am I the only one who thinks this password crap is bizarre? Different from my last 6 passwords? How the hell would they know this??

The special character requirements looks like a crude a attempt to protect against sql injection.
 

spacejamz

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
10,781
1,386
126
This is true.

Whatever horrible thing happened to this project, it happened on the front end between the HHS and the Project Managers on the front end.

Who was responsible for ensuring that the project managers were keeping the project on track during the 2 1/2 years of discussions? why weren't questions being asked on why the requirements gathering was taking so long???

The fault of this lies solely on the shoulders of the White House...Given the significance of this project, they should have been receiving updates on the status of the project...Why weren't questions being asked (or people being fired) during the past two years when coding had not started on time?

When the project was started, a project plan with dates attached to the milestones of the project is created. There should have been a date of when the requirements were to be delivered. I find it extremely hard to believe the plan only allowed 6 months of coding/testing. There should have been red flags raised all over the place during the last two years but we heard nothing...

A comprehensive test plan should have been developed that should have been approved by Kathleen Sebelius and her cronies...this plan should have tested each possible transaction that could be performed on the Exchange as well as simulated stress testing.
These test results should have been signed off on by the White House before the Exchange site went live...I wonder if some of the errors that were received by users were even tested by the developers or anyone else for that matter.

This was such an abysmal failure on so many levels that start at the White House and goes down from there...Anyone that tries to defend this waste of time and money is just pathetic...Only incompetence can explain why $300M was wasted in such shameful manner.