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Thread: Problems with Affordable Care Act registration........could it be sabotage?

  1. #1
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    Problems with Affordable Care Act registration........could it be sabotage?

    Just wondering......... Yes, they didn't seem to prepare well, but is it possible that it had a little outside help in being dysfunctional?
    Some people are so dead-set on repealing it, you just wonder how far they would go. If it had been sabotaged, would it have been obvious by now?

  2. #2
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    I believe that a whole host of IT professionals have surmised that the site/process is FUBAR by design. If there were any possibility of the administration salvaging the sites credibility through pointing fingers at outside actors, it would have been done by now.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

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    Helper Gregg's Avatar
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    There is no shortage of examples of sites that crash because the owners didn't anticipate the demand or simply didn't do a good job of designing the site to handle heavy traffic. I don't see this as being any different. As Alan mentioned, the President, in his speeches over the weekend and again on Monday, didn't say anything about hackers or any other outside players. The whole process is being so closely scrutinized that someone would have stumbled upon any such attempts. By all indication it is simply a bad design that just doesn't work.
    "Back when I was a young boy all my aunts and uncles would poke me in the ribs at weddings saying your next! Your next! They stopped doing all that crap when I started doing it to them... at funerals!"

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    There are so many cases of government handing out huge contracts and getting stuff back that just doesn't work. The military being a huge one in that arena.

    One thing I find interesting, though. For states that set up their own health connector, doesn't the federal site just pass them through to the state sites? I haven't heard a peep from the media regarding individual state sites, even though that's where many people would be signing up. And these sites should be accessible directly bypassing the federal site entirely.

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    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    I heard that something like 35 states are having trouble.......so I wonder why the others aren't?
    With so many technical savvy people out there, you'd think they would have done a better job. Sounds like they just didn't test it long enough. Also heard that when big software companies do their "beta" test, they sometimes do it for several months to a year.

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    Senior Member reader99's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by creaker View Post
    There are so many cases of government handing out huge contracts and getting stuff back that just doesn't work. The military being a huge one in that arena.

    One thing I find interesting, though. For states that set up their own health connector, doesn't the federal site just pass them through to the state sites? I haven't heard a peep from the media regarding individual state sites, even though that's where many people would be signing up. And these sites should be accessible directly bypassing the federal site entirely.
    Because my income is very low the site quickly passed me over to Florida. Because Florida requires assets below $2,000 to qualify for Medicaid that was a dead end.

  7. #7
    Simpleton Alan's Avatar
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    According to the Washington Post:
    Days before the launch of President Obama’s online health ­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously. Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead.
    "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein

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    It was poor software management to roll-out a new product to millions of people at once. We always implemented with a pilot group first so we could work out unanticipated bugs before expanding the user pool.

    I also heard there were major design changes too late in the development cycle which is a disaster if you are managing the project. All new design changes have to be re-estimated and worked into an updated timeline of work to be completed.

    Now that I actually made it through the site, I believe the US got ripped off royally by the software developer. The site wasn't very complicated, it's just confusing to use.

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    Our state's site worked great for me, though there are problems here and there. Of course, we're not a huge-population state, but I was delighted at how smooth the process was, and how helpful people have been in figuring out how it all works. I even got a follow-up email letting me know where to call/write if I had more questions.

    I'd not be a bit surprised if there was a concerted effort on the part of certain individuals and groups to make the site traffic even (artificially) worse so as to be inaccessible, BUT like Alan I'd more bet on general incompetence, and I would be surprised if hacking was involved. Seems like some things are designed so well, and some just land in the wrong hands and come out crummy.

  10. #10
    Senior Member CathyA's Avatar
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    Its a real shame when you need someone else's help, and they screw up. This just shouldn't have happened.

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