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Healthcare.gov Official Resigns, Website Still a Disaster
Nerval's Lobster writes "A government official who helped oversee the bug-riddled Healthcare.gov Website has resigned his post. Tony Trenkle, Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Healthcare.gov, will reportedly join the private sector after he departs on November 15. A spokesperson for the Medicare agency refused to say whether he had been forced out, telling reporters: 'Tony made a decision that he was going to move to the private sector and that is what our COO announced yesterday.' Because of his supervisory role, Trenkle is considered a significant player in the Website's development; The New York Times indicated that he was one of two federal officials who signed an internal memo suggesting that security protocols for the Website weren't in place as recently as late September, a few days before Healthcare.gov's launch.Following Trenkle's resignation, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted to the Senate Finance Committee that Healthcare.gov would require hundreds of fixes. 'We're not where we need to be,' she said. 'It's a pretty aggressive schedule to get to the entire punch list by the end of November.' Sebelius added that she was ultimately accountable for what she termed the 'excruciatingly awful' rollout. Healthcare.gov has experienced massive problems since its Oct. 1 debut. In addition to repeated crashes and slow performance, the Website's software often prevents people from setting up accounts. President Obama has expressed intense frustration with the situation, but insists the Affordable Care Act (ACA) backing the Website remains strong. 'The essence of the law, the health insurance that's available to people is working just fine,' he told reporters in October. 'The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for insurance hasn't been working.' While the federal government won't release 'official' enrollment numbers until the end of November, it's clear that the Website's backers are losing the battle of public perception."
"will reportedly join the private sector"
Is that what unemployed people are called nowadays? No wonder reported unemployment is so low, contrary to all observable evidence. Certainly he won't be going into a "job" straight away - who in their right mind will hire him?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
When and estimated 93 Million people will lose their insurance so the law can cover 30 Million who didn't have it, that is a failure of the law.
These numbers are from White House documents.
"If you're not a US Citizen"
The whole world is aware. We all follow US politics. It's just so entertaining - like professional wrestling, but with slightly less violence. Our own politicians are mostly all very sensible and boring, nowhere near so much fun to watch.
lambert strether is doing the best post by post analysis of what went wrong. It is clear from the posts that he has experience with IT and web implementation projects, so it is written from a techie's point of view.
No, the original poster is correct. The law is broken because:
Plain and simple, the law is broken and only exists because the activist Republican Justice John Roberts doesn't grasp basic Constitutional issues such as limitations on governmental power over the people.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
News reports are now saying he refused to sign off on the websites security.
When he wouldn't sign off on the website they went over his head to get a temporary security authorization from his boss, who, despite several warnings about holes throughout the system, didn't seem to have an issue signing off.
So as it turns out he may have been the only competent person there.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!