Slashdot Mirror
How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Doug Gross writes at CNN that spurred by the problems that have surrounded the rollout of the official HeathCare.gov website, three 20-year-old programmers in San Francisco have created an alternative website to help people get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act quickly and cheaply. The result is a bare-bones site called Health Sherpa, which lets users enter their zip code, plus details about their family and income, to find suggested plans in their area. 'We were surprised to see that it was actually fairly difficult to use HealthCare.gov to find and understand our options,' says George Kalogeropoulos, who created the site along with Ning Liang and Michael Wasser. 'Given that the data was publicly available, we thought that it made a lot of sense to take the data that was on there and just make it easy to search through and view available plans.' Of course, it's not fair to compare the creation of Health Sherpa to the rollout of the more complicated government ACA site, which even President Obama has acknowledged as a horribly botched affair. 'It isn't a fair apples-to-apples comparison,' says Kalogeropoulos. 'Unlike Healthcare.gov, our site doesn't connect to the IRS, DHS, and various state exchanges and authorities. Furthermore, we're using the government's data, so our site is only possible because of the hard work that the Healthcare.gov team has done.' But it does cast light on the difference between what can be done by a small group of experts, steeped in Silicon Valley's anything-is-possible mentality, and a massive government project in which politics and bureaucracy seem to have helped create an unwieldy mess. The three programmers have continued fine-tuning the site as its popularity has grown. In less than a week, the site has had almost 200,000 unique visitors and over half a million page views. '"The Health Sherpa makes it ridiculously easy for anyone to compare health care plans covered under Obamacare in 34 states," writes Connor Simpson at Atlantic Wire. "The result is a simple, beautiful, remarkably responsive website that anyone could use.'"
I'm looking at a zip code and it tells me the price for all the plans, but it doesn't even tell me the deductible or out-of-pocket?
Lipstick on a pig is still a pig.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why is it a good idea for Government to be getting involved in areas they have no Constitutional authority to get involved in again? This is just another example of why our Constitution limits Government.
This only shows why it's important that organisations, especially public ones publish open data - even if the software is broken, as long as the data is open and accessible and in a known format, someone else can pick up the slack and process it as necessary!
This proves the old adage that no more programmers should be involved on a project than you can fit into a VW Bug with pizza and beer.
This is a nicely done website, there is no doubt about that. And certainly the people who implemented healthcare.gov could learn a thing or too from it.
But I do have to ask, how would thehealthsherpa.com hold up when 100,000's of people try to use it at the same time? My guess is that the site is hosted on a single, relatively small server and wouldn't hold up very well. I could be wrong, but I think that scale is worth considering.
I recall when web pages began to become popular technology. Everyone would ask me how I could possible be paid so much money to develop software when anyone with GoLive could put up a website in an evening.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"so our site is only possible because of the hard work that the Healthcare.gov team has done"
Sorry, no. this information was already out there. How do you think people found insurance online before? Lipstick on a pig is right.
...if their site gets slashdotted....
Unlike Healthcare.gov, our site doesn't connect to the IRS, DHS, and various state exchanges and authorities. Furthermore, we're using the government's data, so our site is only possible because of the hard work that the Healthcare.gov team has done.
Translation: "We accomplished something in a few weeks that the wastes of flesh in charge of this boondoggle couldn't do in two years and with vastly better access to internal information".
Fire CGI Federal with prejudice (no more government contracts, ever, and no pay for their failures so far). Imprison their CEO for fraud against the American people. And give the 100+ million to these three guys. Give 'em the resources they need to finish their version of the project, and a year to repair this whole massive clusterfuck.
You want a good portal design, hire hungry young geeks, not old-guard defense contractors who still consider ADA an edgy new language.
No, it isn't better than Health.gov. It's a glorified frontend. Good work kids.
IMO and I will probably get downgraded because of this comment... WOOOPEEE DOOOO! So you did a nice job, like you said. However, a UI is only a detail. The backend and getting that work is often much more difficult. I get really annoyed by some Silicon Valley types that think I can rewrite an entire enterprise system over a weekend. It involves a bit more than just fancy UI and greenfield database storage.
My guess what went wrong of the the original healthcare website is that it was designed with enterprise in mind and became bogged down in enterprise details. Would not be the first time, and will not be the last time something like this happens.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Umm i don't consider 20 young. I was coding professionally by that age. By "young", i'm thinking high school age.
Regardless of that, anyone with 1/2 a brain could do a better job in far less time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It is a vast difference between what they did, and what was required from healthcare.gov.
The principle I see in action here is that if you break every task down into easy-to-implement components that do one simple thing well, then you can have three young coders build each component for you and each will probably work well. If you try to build a system which is more complex than that, the effort grows something like exponentially with the complexity, and the likelihood of early success shrinks correspondingly. If only we could get by with simple things and not bother with complex integrated online services.
Korma: Good
so in my book; that's much better than good enough. The original site should be nuked from orbit and this one should be put up instead. Pure and simple.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
A search for insurance for a 65 year old single person with an annual income of $35,000 returned a "Market Young Adult Essentials" policy and a link to the insurance company's start page for finding available policies. This is not "A better portal to HealthCare.gov"
And then, there's the warning ... "The information provided here is for research purposes. Make sure to verify premiums and subsidies on your state exchange or healthcare.gov, or directly with the insurance company or an agent."
This is not good to go and less functional that even the real HealthCare.gov.
They left all the hard stuff out.
They will be. Slashdot's already had plenty of stories about people getting rung up for using and distributing data that's supposed to be public, and that's for things that Republicans haven't pledged to attack by any means necessary. I wouldn't be surprised to hear about criminal charges. And although it's unlikely, if they are convicted, they will go to and stay in prison. Obama's not going to want to save them, or he'll look even worse for all the awful shit his administration has pulled in the same fashion.
In less than a week, the site has had almost 200,000 unique visitors and over half a million page views.
And now that it's linked on slashdot, I'm sure that number will plateau and taper off.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Having worked for government, I can only say that I wouldn't be entirely surprised if a group of enthusiasts could do a much better job than a bunch of contracted government programmers. I often find contracted government work to be a complete mess, poorly documented and often using as many tools as they can charge for. While not everyone ends up like this it is more often than not the case.
Enthusiasts on the other hand are more interested in what works, not so much in what is politically the best tool to use or how much to charge the taxpayer.
in jocks or chaps EFNet, 4nd apply obtain a copy of
Seems to me that the government ought to be in the API business, making all their tools open to developers that can then take the information and the forms, fill them out get details, etc. Make life easy for developers and then let the public create the interfaces.
I could see a lot of great things coming out of such a model.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
The US shouldn't be in this business. It's a tried and true path, and they REALLY, REALLY, REALLY screwed the pooch on this one.
Those of us who wanted this should have our heads examined... The US government is not going to be more efficient or better at health insurance than what's been in place for generations...
Just wait until enough people die from having to wait for bureaucratic red tape (or any scenario the US can't do as well as private enterprise), and this blood will be on the hands of those who wanted this, and argued for it.
A website... they can't do it right. Health care? Insurance? OMG. The US is full of morons.
Big government is about the worst idea possible. There is so much evidence of this throughout the world, and it's staring you in the face at home.... yet people somehow think this is a good idea.
Get health care out of government hands... seriously. Stop the takeover of the US government before it's too late.
Is that related to the spherical cow?
Did they ever get those cylindrical cats (aka bonsai kittens) to breed?
Scientists are hunting for the tetrahedral camels as we speak.
The site does not appear to be working. Pages load, but there are no results for queries. Perhaps we should complain?
You don't like the website then?
They will be.
No, they won't.
Wow! Seeing the prices you pay for private medical insurance (And these are the subsidised ones? And they only cover 60-90% of your expenses?) I'm glad to pay less than that through taxes here in my so called socialist country.
Bullshit,
If it's not in the constitution, it's left to the states. If you had read the thing, you'd see that in the, oh, say 10th ammendment. By the way, it can be done that way. Notice this state called Massachusets or something like that, where Obama's failed republican policy has been tried. There's no need, at all, for this to be a federal mandate. It worked better as a state mandate than it can here.
There are two parts to the healthcare.gov website. The one where you can simply search for plans available in your zip code, and the one where you actually sign up. The one where you search for plans in your zipcode works just fine, and that's what they've duplicated here.
The far more complex part of the website (the one that requires talking to, and integrating data from, a very large pile of different databases) is the part not working well.
Translation: They created a pretty front-end to a database-driven site somebody else made. Hardly the labors of Hercules.
You utterly misunderstand what this website does. You punch in your zip code and age, it spits back plans and rack-rate premiums. That's it. That's the part of healthcare.gov that actually works, and has since they rolled out the feature a few days after launch.
The part of the government website that is having all the problems is the part where you actually sign up for the plans. That's what is requiring a large amount of integration, and has been doing horribly. Because of how the law was written (specifically the parts on subsidy eligibility) it's a little more complicated than processing a shopping cart on Amazon. (Business rules validation/integration is the most difficult part of most business applications.)
Translation: "In a few weeks we created a pretty front end to the part of the website that is really easy to write."
I'm not saying the healthcare.gov rollout was done well, or that the main contractor didn't botch the job. I'm just saying that this website doesn't provide any evidence of it.
I will bet their site didn't cost the taxpayers 50 Mil, just saying...
You should see someone about your paranoia. It's not healthy.
Once personal data gets to the government, I would fully expect scammers, identity thieves, etc. to get a hold of this.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Even with the Sherpa team's disclaimers, they've provided a really valuable service. How many people are going to go to the Sherpa site, quickly get information about what's available to them on the exchange, and decide that the exchange is not their best option? It has to be some double-digit percentage of people who would have wasted a lot of time being frustrated on healthcare.gov.
Basically, the Sherpa team has given us a great heuristic optimization, in which part of the load problem is handed off to where it can be handled easier, more effectively, and more cheaply. Nicely done!
They are messing with the Gov't plain to keep as many off of having some form of health care. So they can hit up as many as possible with taxes (fines) of not having health care Jan 1st.
I was a big supporter of the ACA for a long time till I saw the prices and what you get for it. Fortunately I don't need the government assistance since my employer pays for my plan. But if you have to pay out a deductible of between $3500 and $10,000 for a plan before you can reap benefits, and you have to pay between 100-300/month per individuals, it's like throwing money in the garbage can! You're not getting anything for your dollar.
The planners of this system were blind to the cost effectiveness and availabilty of healthcare. They should have capped plan costs at $500 deductible/year and put a max outlay of $200/month. But you can't buy health insurance with or without the government for that amount of money. Insurance isn't getting cheaper as long as we have politicians supporting the insurance company's greed. And all the politicians, regardless of what they say, don't listen to the little guy! They're all bought and paid for.
I thried both the Colorado and New York sites. Colorados let you "bypass" signing up to see the prices of the plans available. Required just age and zipcode. It worked fine during the first morning "sladhdotting" rush. The New York site (looking for a friend) made you create an account first with all sorts of personal information before you even see a list of plans. It was tedious and possible dangerous.
DHS knows who the suicide bombers are, and they get a discount for never surviving.
By ignoring all the hard problems.
Fucking political theatre.
Interesting. Punched in my stats and selected Gold, which is what I have now. My current provider doesn't appear. That said, there are seven plans less expensive than what I have now. I guess the real question is: what are the requirements to get one of these? Do they require a physical and if so, do those results factor into the rates?
Even though this site takes only the easiest task of healthcare.gov, which completely works from healthcare.gov BTW...the "how much are these plans" thing is not what's broken, but the results are wrong. From health sherpa, the cost of a humana bronze plan is 194.72, but from healthcare.gov it is 166.99.
Since the price is relatively close, I guess this site does *something*, but it looks like it is not accurate, in which case it's kinda useless.
Can an editor change the title to "How 3 Young Coders Built a Broken healthcare.gov Portal"?
The website looks nice, but it doesn't actually allow you to compare the different plans to each other. All it shows is the name of the plans that are available. To get any details regarding deductible/copay/out of pocket max you have to call the plan provider directly. I'm not sure how useful that really is.
But it doesn't send data to 57 agencies does it? I read somewhere that they have 57 different agencies that are sharing in all the data and information that people put in and search on the website and also the goverment has to follow the 503 rule (I think it's called that the one that calls for disability features and such) also all the diffrent languages is these guys website in? only english? what about Spanish? and so on that the goverment one has to have. I know the article says "bare bones" I'm sure the Healthcare.gov site worked when it was bare bones to. I'm not defending how the site is right now but I'm guessing when it was first frameworked without all the added layers of what the goverment has to have in it could be causing some of the issues. I'm not part of the site just my thoughts on it.
Oh and when I went though both sites the goverment one gave me diffrent cheapter plans than this one did. So the question is how up to date are the databases are or is it just the search Algorithms or maybe even the time of day since I did my Obama search last night and this one right now?
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Umm i don't consider 20 young. I was coding professionally by that age. By "young", i'm thinking high school age.
Just because you were working doesn't mean you aren't young. Twenty years old IS young in the working world. The vast majority of working professionals are older than 20 so it's merely a statement of fact. Saying someone is young doesn't mean they are saying they are incompetent though they might be implying that they are inexperienced.
You haven't tried the healthcare.gove website, have you?
I just did a search a few days ago and did not need to register to perform a search in order to get premium estimates.
tried the Sherpa link...got nothing for my state. But then, NY doesn't need to be shown how to steer folks to health insurance options. Newyorkstateofhealth has been delivering the questionable ACA goods for a while now.
Why would a guy with no insurance call it "questionable"? It used to offer 170$/mo plans with 1200$ deductibles to guys in my category but now that any strung out hooker or dipsomaniac can be assured medical care, the cost is 300/month and the deductible is 3000$.
Where is the incentive to be personally responsible for your own health and its costs in a scheme like this?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
"You are posting: as Anonymous Coward "
- what a moronic thing to say to someone who just felt like commenting on your site - you data trail idiot.
2. I'd consider this news post SPAM. Btw, this Health Sherpa doesn't even work - zero results for me. Possibly, they're on a host where they've passed their bandwidth or it is buggy - either way I'd consider it poor development when you design a site for the masses and you don't make sure it can handle the brunt.
Most importantly, people should realize this is an attempt by 3 young spammers at getting some attention. /* via Hugh Pickens */
OK, technically Congress under the Reagan administration created universal healthcare by passing EMTALA requiring almost all hospitals to provide treatment regardless of the ability to pay: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act
The ACA or ObamaCare tries to shift the financial burden back to the individual rather than continuing an unfunded mandate. Don't like it? Pay the $95 or 1% tax.
In summary, Congress under Reagan created universal healthcare. Congress under Obama came up with an effective tax incentive to fund it.
This appearance of this website along with existing health insurance brokers seems to make make the individual healthcare insurance much more transparent. ACA or not, that is a good development.
article 1 section 2 states non free people count as 3/5 a person and indians don't count for its purpose of assigning representatives and taxes. It was put in place to stop the over representation of people not allowed to vote
It was put in place to prevent southern states from counting slaves and thus increasing their census count and thus their representation in congress based on that census count. It had nothing to do with whether they could vote or not. Women and children couldn't vote but you'll note that they were still counted.
Outside of indians not being taxed, it had nothing to do with race as whites were also slaves at the time too.
Really? You're seriously going to go with that? Virtually all slaves were black at the time the Constitution was written and you are seriously going to argue it had nothing to do with race? Wow... Just wow.
So you have an article title that says one thing, that 3 coders build a better portal, a body of a summary that says the exact opposite thing, in that it A) isn't the same thing at all, B) is actually based entirely on the real portal, its data, and the work done by others, and C) is only partially working, and then a conclusion at the end that inexplicably verifies the original article title.
This is writing at it's worst, misleading, and ridiculous. I know people make fun of the story submission rules and editing here at slashdot, but really. Is reputation worth sensational short term page views?
I have just two words: HIRE THEM!
And while you're at it - FIRE the useless 50+ contracting company cabal + 535 politicians + the Executive Branch + Justice Roberts for casting the deciding vote in the Supreme Court ACA case.
This is WAY off topic but what the heck...
Abortion is a balance of rights between the mother and the unborn child. Obviously, her opinion rests on the unborn child having full rights as a human being, so she is basically supporting murder being illegal. Do you support murder being illegal?
So you think a fetus is a person. Ok let's roll with that and say that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception. Following your logic answer the following:
1) Do you then think that if a mother smokes or drinks and the child becomes handicapped as a result that the mother should be put in jail for child abuse? Do you support child abuse being legal? (see how I framed that issue the same way you did?)
2) How about if the fetus develops in such a way that it is a life threatening danger to the mother. Is the mother committing murder if she aborts the fetus to save her own life? Or should the mother commit suicide to save the life of the fetus so that she does not commit "murder"?
3) Is the fetus guilty of murder/manslaughter if it kills the mother? (Remember the fetus is a person under your logic so a person just killed a person)
4) How about if the mother is raped and the implanted fetus eventually kills the mother. Is the rapist then guilty of murder too?
5) If a mother takes birth control pills and thus prevents the zygote from forming when it would have otherwise. Is the mother guilty of murder?
6) If a child is born prematurely because of some action of the mother and dies during the birth is the mother guilty of murder?
These questions are of course absurd just like yours is. The real question is when does a fetus attain legal standing as a person? I would argue that if the fetus is not viable outside of the mother then all legal rights should be retained by the mother up to and including abortion of the fetus. Until such time as a fetus can reasonably be expected to survive independently, any discussion of its rights as an individual is absurd because it is not an individual. It is effectively a parasite. If the mother wishes to go through with the pregnancy then that should be her right. If she doesn't then that should be her right as well.
I don't think 20 really counts as "young coders" in this industry.
We're not all the same. I oppose the ACA, not only because it gets the government, the IRS, and the DHS involved in my personal healthcare decisions
The government is already involved in your healthcare decisions. There is NO possible way they could not be. Healthcare is a finite resource with nearly infinite demand. Without the government being involved how do you think we could safely evaluate the efficacy of medicines? Who would insure the poor or the elderly? (Certainly not private insurance companies unless they are forced to) How do you prevent hospitals from turning away indigent patients because they cannot pay? Do you not realize that ALL insurance companies basically follow medicare when it comes to pricing?
The government is a necessary part of health care for EVERY country on earth because governments are the only party involved that has the potential to be a neutral arbiter. We can have a reasonable debate about what should be an appropriate extent of government involvement but pretending that somehow it is possible to separate the government from healthcare regulations is just patently absurd. You claim they are somehow infringing on your "freedoms" but if you have an alternative plan to provide insurance to everyone you have failed to provide it.
because also it takes away my freedom to make my own decisions regarding how I live my own life
What freedom are you being denied? The "freedom" to not get insurance and thus be a leach on society?
puts even more tax on the already-burdened middle class, and limits the charity care that the lower middle class/poor are already receiving.
We are ALREADY paying to support medical care for the uninsured through higher insurance premiums. Since everyone is going to use medical care it is absurd to not have everyone participate in the insurance pool. There is NOTHING preventing charities from continuing to provide care and the only reason many of them needed to was because we were excluding poor people from the right to receive health insurance.
Therein lies the problem, people wouldn't be happy with only being left alone by the government, oh no. They want their own lifestyles mandated onto everyone else.
And you think the right is somehow any different? They don't want the government to be uninvolved. They want the government to be involved in the way THEY want, according to their philosophies and ethics. I think the right is fundamentally conflicted because they claim to want government to go away except when something they don't like bothers them.
You do realize that the government is not in the health insurance business? Well, judging from your post, you don't. So please allow me to explain a few of the basics for you.
The exchange merely lets you browse through insurance from the for profit private insurance market. There isn't a government option to choose from. So if you have a problem with the options being offered, complain to the insurance companies, not the evil gub'mint. They're the ones that made and offered the plans.
And just a side note: what's been offered for generations isn't working. That's that whole reason we're trying to revamp the health care industry in the first place. Our health care costs twice as much as the rest of the world and gets worse results. What's so efficient about that? Woo hoo! I get to pay more money for worse care! USA! USA! USA!
The real morons in this equation are the idiots who think our previous system was somehow good as it siphons money out of their pockets and ignores the uninsured. How dumb is that?
What we really need is single payer universal health care coupled with compensation reform linked to outcome-based results rather than procedure-based. Unfortunately ACA is none of those, but then neither was the previous system.
simple is ALWAYS better.
Madison himself wrote extensively on exactly how that phrase was suppose to be interpreted, and he should know best, given that he wrote the fucking Constitution of the United States.
How the Constitution is to be interpreted is the function of the Supreme Court. The interpretation of the Constitution is not fixed in stone for all eternity and that is the strength of the document. But by all means, let's not look at it based on modern society. Let's worship some guy who has been dead for 200 years and blindly follow what he said even though he lived in a world which was almost unrecognizably different from the one you and I live in.
The whole reason why Obamacare is such a shambles is that the GOVERNMENT demanded that it be integrated with all the other systems so you never saws plan price without the attached government handout you would get to bring back down the cost of the plan. Otherwise you'd have happen what is happening now, people realizing that Obamacare is a plan to force every American to buy the most expensive insurance plans and then also make the middle class pay for the poor to have said expensive plans, all while charging even more for the expensive plans than they used to...
It's a giant wet kiss to the insurance industry.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The official one did better than this and it gets lambasted.
You do this and even though it's still a "work in progress", it gets plaudits and fingers pointing at the official site for being pants.
Well done on doing it, but the entire fucking point is that you're doing a worse job than the original, when the title says "built a better portal".
YOU DID NOT.
That's what Young Coders means to me as most Devs I've met are in their 20-30 years unless working on Cobol/Fortran and legacy systems.
Guess I'm getting Old
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Some people refuse to let facts get in the way of a comforting ideology. That seems to be especially true of those with a libertarian bent.
> it does cast light on the difference between what
> can be done by a small group of experts, steeped
> in Silicon Valley's anything-is-possible mentality,
> and a massive government project in which politics
> and bureaucracy seem to have helped create an
> unwieldy mess
It also casts light on the 90/10 rule. As if we needed more examples.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
200000 unique visitors vs. 200000 visitors per minute but you couldn't resist to make a comparison? Come on...
This one works.
http://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/healthcare/
It has tons of plans. Run by US Office of Personnel Management. For my state it had far more options than ACA. And you can look for dental and vision too.
During the ACA debate it was proposed that other people get access to these plans & system. Republicans vehemently opposed it.
Most people don't understand that since the 1940's companies could assist employees with Health Insurance or with reimbursements for healt insurance using pre-tax dollars. This year the government made it illegal to pay for ACA health plans using pre tax dollars. Some quick math will prove this to be using 60 cents on the dollar, after tax dollars. Stated differently if you multiply the cost of ACA health plans by 1.4 you get a compatible comparison, since normal health insurance can be used pre-tax to pay for health insurance. This is the dirty little secret of ACA health plans. Spread the word, it's scummy.
More info:
"Beginning January 1, 2014 the Affordable Care Act (ACA) adds a new section 125(f)(3) to the Code that excludes (only) individual insurance premium offered through a State Exchange. All other types of individual health insurance premium outside the State Exchange program can still be deducted using a Section 125 Premium Only Plan."
From:
http://www.coredocuments.com/how-health-care-reform-affects-section-125-premium-only-cafeteria-plans-january-1-2014/
Big government is about the worst idea possible. There is so much evidence of this throughout the world, and it's staring you in the face at home.... yet people somehow think this is a good idea. Get health care out of government hands
Tell me why our health care system is nowhere near first place in any metric except cost? We pay more for health care than anyone else. The government can't possibly fuck it up any worse than it already is.
For my zip code and household--Shrepa worked like a champ. Confirmed what I already knew in less than a minute. i.e. the information is accurate and came quick. Took the better part of three weeks to get the "official" word.
Don't talk about facts right in front of my face!
How dare you?
If I wanted that I'd watch Fox News!
Obviously the solution to this bad legislation is to put everyone into the pool the bad legislation already dumps 47% of the people into.
That's right: Medicare.
That's telling 'em happy ol' boy...
Seems to me that maybe this is complicated because it is? Maybe it will never be smooth and simply and maybe people need to realize its just another part of the lie about the affordable care act. After all their have been millions that have accessed the site. But have never chose to register or go any further. I think affordable is a oxymoron when it comes to health care. The people obviously who could get it the cheapest won't buy it because they generally believe its cheaper still to do the pay as you go plan. Most have only minor health issues and pay the walk in clinic or emergency room visit which might actually be less then a deductible. What Obama and the Democrat's should have done was offer plans that fit the age and gender of the groups they cover. For example don't have elderly paying for birth control and pregnancy coverage. They obviously thought having everyone pay this would reduce its costs. But that's only if you get the right age groups in the right quantity. The unfortunate thing government is learning about health care is that a minimal group of choices will not make people happy. Plus, it looks like it will not save everyone money on health care insurance. I am not surprised the Affordable care act is failing. It was designed to fail and believe me the solutions will be even more government control.
I just tried the healthsherpa.com site and put in the applicant at 46 years old and the second at 42 smoker area code 23454 Income at $28000.No plans found. I tried multiple incomes all with the same result. Obviously as broken as the gov site. I have tried numerous different applicant ages and incomes and area codes in Virginia all with the same result.
Wonder if they'll open source this? If it takes off, they're going to spend a lot of time to maintain it. If they open sourced it, otoh...