Healthcare.gov

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Clarissa

November 13, 2013

Is this a form of sabotage on somebody’s part? Surely, there are folks who know how to create a website in this country.

Or is the US government really that inept? I mean, there were the useless wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the pathetic attempts to get rid of Castro, the grievous mishandling of the domestic and global economy, the horrifying fail of 9/11. But, OK, those were all big events, they can get mishandled. A website, though? Really?

And another thing that bugs me is that we all had to witness a complete unraveling of American politics in a standoff over Obamacare only to discover that the whole drama was moot because the website doesn’t work. A website? What is this, 1993? Even my Freshmen have stopped offering me excuses based on non-functioning websites. Ten years ago, such excuses still made sense. Today, though, we all know that websites work.

Or do they?

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13 responses to “Healthcare.gov”

David Bellamy

November 13, 2013

Not all websites work all the time. And, a new website is inevitably going to have bugs. It took a long time for Google to get gmail working well enough to let it go int ogeneral release.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  November 13, 2013
  
  I can’t even remember the last time I’ve had problems with a website. Not even home-made apps are this buggy.
  
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anon

November 13, 2013

Have you ever been to a medical insurance website? Those things are a maze of confusion and generally pretty buggy (though perhaps not as bad the ACA site, but it’s new). Though I am sure people would be happy to deal with a buggy website if it meant affordable healthcare.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  November 13, 2013
  
  This is not just any website. This is a website run by the government of the United States. If all of the resources of this country are not enough to run a functioning website, then really, how can such a country presume to be the world’s manager and enforcer?
  
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Evelina Anville

November 13, 2013

Did you see Dr. Crazy’s take on the heathcare website at Reassigned Time? I thought she made good points: http://reassignedtime.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/on-the-affordable-care-act-website-an-academics-perspective/

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  November 13, 2013
  
  Yeah. . . I’m still hung up on the fact that this is a website run not by a university or a private company but by the government of the United States. The same government of the same United States that believes it is entitled to invade any country anywhere in the world and place its own government there, that believes it is entitled to dictate to everybody in the world how they should live. And with all this presumption they can’t make their own website work?
  
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  1. Evelina Anville
    
    November 13, 2013
    
    Well I do agree with you there. If we are going to police the world, we should be above error. 🙂
    
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zeppomanx

November 13, 2013

I thought this site explained the situation with the website fairly well.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/12/1254621/-Meet-the-DeBuggers-An-attitude-adjustment-regarding-the-Fix-at-Healthcare-gov#

Some people may discount this info because of it coming from Daily Kos, but from my quick reading it seems to outline the issues/problems involved pretty evenhandedly.

It could be worse, imagine if the Windows 8 developers had designed it.

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1. David Gendron
  
  November 14, 2013
  
  Of, even worse, Windows 8.1!!!!
  
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FD

November 13, 2013

Reading from the outside looking in, it seems like the msin area of issues with the site are those where the local state/ government areas interact, and the worst of those problems are in those states which have been forced to comply with the act.
I think crummy procurement/kickbacks/pure stupidity might be an issue on at least some level though, because I can’t think of any other reasons why a website would only be designed to function with Internet Explorer in the present day. I’m almost tempted to ascribe it to sabotage.

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MM

November 13, 2013

My husband actually used to be a software contractor for the government and, while he agrees many things are inexcusable with it, he did bring up that some of the problems were unavoidable. For example, load testing on the scale that the government needed is incredibly complex and hard to do before the website goes live.

On a related note, my parents were able to sign up through the blue cross web page (as opposed to the government page) and said it went perfectly smoothly. They’re in Illinois as well.

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David Gendron

November 14, 2013

The Healthcare.gov are probably the same as Windows 8.1 ones…

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David Gendron

November 14, 2013

The Healthcare.gov developers are probably the same as Windows 8.1 ones…

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