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HealthCare.gov: What Went Wrong?

Posted by timothy on from the other-people's-money dept.

New submitter codeusirae writes "An initial round of criticism focused on how many files the browser was being forced to download just to access the site, per an article at Reuters. A thread at Reddit appeared and was filled with analyses of the code. But closer looks by others have teased out deeper, more systematic issues."

2 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Re:On Further Examination by garyebickford · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recall a study from several years ago (10 years? possibly) that showed the probability of failure increased with the size (budget) of the project. Above about $5 million in then-dollars the probability was near 100%. As I recall failure was defined as either technical failure, or budget overruns going so high the project was cancelled. Of course, I have no citation. That would be too easy. :)

    However, I did search for "Probability of Software Project Failure", and got some fascinating results. This is one of them: Statistics over IT projects failure rate - a summary review of several of the most definitive studies over the last 20 years. And this one: Healthcare.gov website 'didn't have a chance in hell' notes that:

    The Standish Group, which has a database of some 50,000 development projects, looked at the outcomes of multimillion dollar development projects and ran the numbers for Computerworld.

    Of 3,555 projects from 2003 to 2012 that had labor costs of at least $10 million, only 6.4% were successful. The Standish data showed that 52% of the large projects were "challenged," meaning they were over budget, behind schedule or didn't meet user expectations. The remaining 41.4% were failures -- they were either abandoned or started anew from scratch.

    And I suppose this: £12bn NHS computer system is scrapped... and it's all YOUR money that Labour poured down the drain fits into this model pretty well. (Regardless of one's opinion about the Daily Mail.)

    --
    It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
  2. Re:Here is a thought.. by ClickOnThis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > You mean like Medicare (single-payer) or the VA (government-run?) Both have high satisfaction ratings.

    You must be joking? The VA with high satisfaction ratings? And Medicare is an insurer of LAST RESORT, of course people are going to at least appreciate that aspect of it. It's that or NOTHING.

    No, I am not joking:

    http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=14560
    http://www.commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2009/May/Elderly-Medicare-Beneficiaries-Give-Their-Coverage-Higher-Ratings.aspx

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.