View Full Version : 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
According to the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/2013/10/21/161a3500-3a85-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html?tid=auto_complete):
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.
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.
puglogic
10-22-13, 12:21pm
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.
Its a real shame when you need someone else's help, and they screw up. This just shouldn't have happened.
We are in Texas and my husband had no difficulty in getting into the site at 10 pm a couple of evenings ago. Since we have our healthcare through his employer, all he wanted to do was see what all the hoopla was all about.
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, ...
Certain induhviduals and groups would then be committing a Federal crime, a felony I believe, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. And the Feds do track down and prosecute people...
ApatheticNoMore
10-22-13, 1:41pm
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?
No it doesn't, because the link doesn't work!!! (at least in some browsers) When I tried the federal site to pass through to CA, the browser hung and died (and I tried it several times, same thing, and other links having nothing to do with healthcare that I was browsing at the time worked fine, so it wasn't me). Now that bug may be fixed by now (though it shows you they didn't test the passthrough to all states that have exchanges in common browsers), and there are other ways to find the CA site which don't involve the Federal website which seem to work fine. I haven't actually tested the CA site much itself but going to it through a search engine was not a problem when I tested this.
I heard that something like 35 states are having trouble.......so I wonder why the others aren't?
The one's that aren't are those that opted to have state exchanges rather than use the federal exchange.
try2bfrugal
10-22-13, 2:34pm
I think on this one I will go with a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte - "Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence."
As Lac noted earlier, pilot testing with a small group first really helps. They should have started this with one zip code, then worked up to an entire city, then added cities until they had a small state covered, then moved on from there to multiple states. It was crazy not to do that. It is pretty standard in IT to have a set of user trainers and support staff to move from location to location on gradual roll outs.
Government screw up by my accounting. I heard that something like half of the web traffic is coming from looky-lews who are just curious but are not going to register. That probably doesn't help matters. Any more, people have become so dependent on the internet for things that I wonder if anyone is even trying to do things by phone in the "old fashion" way of things.
No it doesn't, because the link doesn't work!!! (at least in some browsers) When I tried the federal site to pass through to CA, the browser hung and died (and I tried it several times, same thing, and other links having nothing to do with healthcare that I was browsing at the time worked fine, so it wasn't me). Now that bug may be fixed by now (though it shows you they didn't test the passthrough to all states that have exchanges in common browsers), and there are other ways to find the CA site which don't involve the Federal website which seem to work fine. I haven't actually tested the CA site much itself but going to it through a search engine was not a problem when I tested this.
The one's that aren't are those that opted to have state exchanges rather than use the federal exchange.
This was my experience also. Couldn't get thru using the fed site but able to using the CA site and download an application. Not that it will do me any good since I don't qualify for subsidies - too low income - but wanted to see what it would cost me to buy my own policy directly.
Government screw up by my accounting. I heard that something like half of the web traffic is coming from looky-lews who are just curious but are not going to register. That probably doesn't help matters. Any more, people have become so dependent on the internet for things that I wonder if anyone is even trying to do things by phone in the "old fashion" way of things.
Well I printed out an application and was going to use snail mail - a true Luddite to the core :-) The CA website said it will take 45 days to process my application. However, since I only qualify for medicaid rather than subsidies, l don't plan to apply.....at least not yet.
gimmethesimplelife
10-22-13, 10:32pm
By now I'm sure it's no surprise that access to health care for all is my big cause and since it is so vitally important to me, I will admit it, I have lost patience with the online exchange. I am no computer expert - so feel free to correct me if I am wrong - the whole site seems to have been poorly constructed and designed. That being said, I went around the exchanges by applying over the phone and am hoping that doing it the old school way will work.....Great idea as far as I am concerned (meaning ObamaCare) but no real education to the public as to what it does and why the public should support it coupled with a rinky-dink website.....not the most auspicious launch/start to new concepts in health care.
But then, it's not even November yet, I'm going to give it another month and see.....I applaud Obama for admitting that there were issues and then some with the website but (Im about to say something anti-Obama here) what is up with Obama giving us no estimate at all by when the Federal site will be either more operational, or even better, fully operational. I didn't care for the lack of an ETA on this..... Rob
PS Back to the OP's question, though, personally, I don't believe it's sabotage. Seems to me that would be too easy to figure out and perhaps trace these days? Then again I'm no computer expert.....but it just seems to me that it would have been uncovered as sabotage by now?
ApatheticNoMore
10-22-13, 11:51pm
the whole site seems to have been poorly constructed and designed.
probably but maybe partly because the requirements added unneeded complexity (hiding rates until login for instance).
but (Im about to say something anti-Obama here) what is up with Obama giving us no estimate at all by when the Federal site will be either more operational, or even better, fully operational. I didn't care for the lack of an ETA on this.....
He'd just be setting himself up. I mean they could try for an estimate (they probably have one internally). But I wouldn't believe a hard ETA because there is absolutely noone on the project at any level who probably doesn't have an incentive to lie and say they can meet an ETA they can't because: "it's what the people paying us want to hear" and also "if we give a real ETA of how long this will take to fix it might give away how badly we've messed up". I think beliefs that problems like that can be fixed easily if only there is enough determination are entirely unrealistic. But I''ll see how it goes.
PS Back to the OP's question, though, personally, I don't believe it's sabotage. Seems to me that would be too easy to figure out and perhaps trace these days? Then again I'm no computer expert.....but it just seems to me that it would have been uncovered as sabotage by now?
If it's just denial of service as some suggest, I've never worked anywhere that didn't know their website was under DOS attack when it was. So if it's sabotage it's very subtle: maybe slightly (but not dramatically) increasing the hits as sabotage, well yea but then that says a lot about your website. Having inside information on the bugs and how to exploit them. Haha. Now that would be a sabotage. However people are incredibly good at finding weaknesses in software and exploiting them regardless. But if it was all due to one exploit we would have likely heard. Programmers deliberately screwing up the code, deliberately breaking it, but realistically for every person who might be interested in such (very rare) there's 1000 people that are just writing bad code (and anyway good QA would find this). Maybe sabotage at the level of whoever in the government apparatus decided to go with that company? Probably just corruption though.
sweetana3
10-23-13, 5:24am
I worked for the government for 31 years in the IRS and, if you had ever seen the issues just in that one agency with data and IT, you would never expect any government system to get up whole, on time, and on budget. EVER.
Even in the 70s, when a government does not have complete and concrete project plans before starting a project, the rate of change can exceed the rate of completion. No one seems to learn from experience.
Indiana fired IBM and their system for our welfare modernization effort due to a poorly working system. Had to be really bad to get fired.
I worked for the government for 31 years in the IRS and, if you had ever seen the issues just in that one agency with data and IT, you would never expect any government system to get up whole, on time, and on budget. EVER.
Even in the 70s, when a government does not have complete and concrete project plans before starting a project, the rate of change can exceed the rate of completion. No one seems to learn from experience.
Indiana fired IBM and their system for our welfare modernization effort due to a poorly working system. Had to be really bad to get fired.
Such problems aren't limited to government. When I was in IT we had our share of projects that were late and/or over budget and some were cancelled before we even got to the testing phase.
The problems can all be tracked back to major problems with our nation's procurement system. The primary culprit here was CGI. They got the federal contract through a system whereby they were qualified as a vendor to bid on such contracts in 2007, rather than being qualified in 2010 when this bid went out. On the surface that's smart: Rather than repeatedly incurring the cost of qualifying vendors over and over again, you incur that cost once every so often. The problem is that being qualified sets the vendor up for a gravy train, that spurs on their own growth, and often when a for-profit company grows, its quality and reliability declines.
The alternative has its own problems: The alternative means that everything will cost a significant amount more, because you have to have a much bigger government agency responsible for continually assessing the same vendors' capabilities.
What we're seeing, really, is the cost of privatization - having the work of government done by private companies, for profit, instead of by the government itself, in the public interest. This penchant for privatization stemmed from what may have been a politically-motivated effort to disparage government workers. We will probably never know how much of that push was because of the complacency of government agencies doing the work versus because pro-business lobbying promoted pro-business legislators, governors and presidential administrations.
There is no denying, though, that we've traded one problem for another, and in the process given up a lot of the leverage we once had to do something to change the situation. Many of these bid are written by the industry that is to do the work, and the terms and conditions are grossly biased in favor of the vendor getting paid, no matter what. Businesses defend these terms and conditions on the basis that they shouldn't incur additional cost due to the inadequacies of internal disagreements of its customer (the state or the nation): In other words, they shouldn't bear the costs of a political environment. It's rational, but the whole system essentially insulates those doing the work from other expectations. Just watch: CGI will pay a penalty for their failure in this regard, but it will be a small percentage of what they earned from the project and no where near a fair amount given the harm their failure has caused.
Relying on business to do the "right thing" is increasingly foolish: Business doggedly professes, today, a rightful stance of focusing on EBIT without regard to the impact thereof. These bids go out and are accepted, and then businesses probably resource the projects based on a budget related more to how much revenue the bid offers them (i.e., building in a specific level of profit), rather than resourcing the projects based on how much the work necessary to do a good jobs will actually cost. And especially when the customer is the government, there simply isn't enough "consumer protection" in our laws to ensure that contractors do the right thing.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.