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Project Rescue Expert Todd Williams Talks About Healthcare.gov (Video)
By now, most Americans have either heard or learned firsthand that the Healthcare.gov website doesn't work right. Slings, arrows, and brickbats are being slung all over Washington, and Congressional representatives are busily thundering imprecations at all and sundry who were involved in putting Healthcare.gov together. If there have been any Congressional hearing focusing on how to fix the problems, though, we have not seen them. You'd think that our representatives would bring in people like today's interviewee, Todd Williams, who has written a book titled Rescue the Problem Project and runs a company that specializes in rescuing failed projects. What's more, Todd is just one of many Americans who have helped rescue projects that have gone awry. Hopefully our government has at least one of them working on Healthcare.gov by now, although we haven't heard that they've selected a strong turnaround manager and set him or her to work on the project -- and you'd think they would have told us if they had.
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Of course they've told us. They told us they're doing a "tech surge," and bringing in the "best and brightest," and that the web site will be working smoothly for the "vast majority" of users nine days from now. That's all pretty cut and dry, and there's no way that anyone in the administration would be foolish enough to promise something like that if it weren't plainly true. If it weren't true, that would be due to either staggering incompetence, or a willingness to baldly lie about it, and of course neither of those can be the case with this much scrutiny. So, I don't know what the OP is implying.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Time to grow up now.
"Here, you're an expert, so fix our website. By the way, you can't make any decisions."
I think there are too many layers of dysfunctional bureaucracy. It doesn't really matter how good the designated website fixer is if they don't have the power to actually make stuff work.
Earlier this week at congressional testimony, it was said about 60% of that website was yet to be completed. The part where those who signed up beging paying for their selected palns and the money, along with subsidies is routed to the insurance company. They have no way for you to pay, for you to pay a partial payment, for you to miss a payment, or what to do in those cases.
In order to get coverage by Jan 1 you need to make your first payment by Dec 15.
With all the security issues with just signing up, I can't wait to see what happens when credit card numbers are entered for payments.
At first, I thought this was news about a project to rescue an expert named Ted Williams from something...
A smart comment here beneath a snarky exterior. Profiteering created this this mess and I now can't help see this gentleman as anything but a dollar-bill eyed charlatan.
I would watch the video but, you know, this is Slashdot.
* I actually live in the UK but for once I'll refrain from the we have free healthcare, you obligatory insensitive clod joke. This site seems like a step in the right direction, all fingers crossed for my US brethren.
You'd think they would have told us before October 1 that there were going to be some problems with healthcare.gov. They were either ignorant, incompetent or in denial.
The legislators don't know enough to ask the right questions nor do they have the training and experience needed to understand large system development.
In Congress its a case of the blind leading the deaf.
And when you say "The House", you mean "The Republican Party". Why people keep falling for this "Government doesn't work! Vote for me and I'll PROVE it!" bullshit is beyond me.
The intent has always been to eliminate every health insurance company and have the US Govt issue all "health insurance" in a single payer system, as recounted by Obama on video amongst others in Democrat circles.
If they don't make this Healthcare.gov work, I can see the cry that we need to move to a single payer system, but unfortunately can't see the Govt. doing anything right or efficient.
In what way did the Republicans have anything, whatsoever, to do with how the web site was built? What influence did they have over the technical decision making, the choice of contractors? In which way did the Republicans influence the decision by Sebelius to hide from the president the fact that the site couldn't possibly work in the manner he's been promising? How does the decision by some states to not take on the risk of an unfunded Medicare mandate expansion cause the site's architecture to fail? And ... "grandstanding?" You mean like telling people they'll have to vote the law in so they can see what's in it and how wonderful it is? Like saying over and over again during an election that what's happening right now to millions of people wasn't going to happen? That sort of grandstanding? Grandstanding like telling voters that the people who pointed out what a trainwreck the ACA is by its very design really just want to throw little old ladies off of cliffs? That sort of grandstanding?
Ooops, I get it. You're pathetically deflecting, just like the president. Pressed on exactly the same details (on how it is that the Republicans interfered with the development of the site's code and infrastructure) ... crickets chirping.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I can't watch the video. After the ad played for 63 seconds, I am done.
Ironically it's the Democrats that are wanting government to fail, so that they can add more government to prevent future failure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why are we pretending that this is news? Has there ever been a major government software installation that has gone smoothly?
FBI: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.html
IRS: http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/192502071/irs-gives-away-318-million-because-of-bungled-software-upgrade.htm
Air traffic control: http://www.tennessean.com/viewart/A5/20131031/NEWS02/310310078/Federal-air-traffic-control-system-dragged-by-delays-glitches
I'm sure the list goes on and on, but others surely happened without the overheated rhetoric attached to healthcare programs. Perhaps the bigger problem is that the best and brightest coders want to work in more lucrative markets.
You guys actually cannot admit defeat on ANYTHING Obama does, can you, no matter how ill-conceived? If he succeeds, it is in spite of the House. If he fails, it is because of the House. For a bunch of atheists, you sure treat the community organizer from Chicago as if he were some sort of deity.
Yup, them and the Kulaks. I hear they've got lots of grain.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Eliminating the profiteering, parasitic health insurance companies would be excellent.
Republican Sabotage? Surely you jest...
How on earth did *they* cause the website to fail? They are pretty much powerless, and have been since 2008. About all they can do is stop their feet and vote for bills Obama will never see, much less sign.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This project has failed because of poor leadership. They need to hire Office Space like efficiency experts and figure out who has to go, interviewing key people starting from the President on down. Surely if the Feds were a private corp and the President was the CEO, the Board would have ousted him years ago.
Would it be possible to divert some of the load from the servers. Kind of like a bouncer on a club door, so many gain admission they are able to be processed the rest get knocked back until there is a free spot on the actual servers processing the applications. At least that way some of the applications get processed instead of the servers being overwhelmed.
For bonus points bring more servers online if the design can cope with it.
I'm thinking of something like a load balancer but rooting some requests to dev/null, maybe setting a cookie with a counter so if you have been knocked back more times than most you get prioritised next time.
ok its a bad design which doesn't scale and should be rewritten but as a bandaid to the existing design wouldn't it at least get some of the applications processed.
what is a practical solution for dealing with the load ?
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
"sabotage and grandstanding by Republicans"
You fucking idiot. So the whole Obamacare failure is the fault of Republicans now is it?
How fucking stupid do you think we are? This is Democrat from top to bottom, all Democrat, all the time. This collosal monstrosity of a failure is Barky O Dog Eaters "signature" legislation, enfucking the American people for generations to come and it was passed by 100% Democrat support without a single Republican vote. Republicans have tried to repleal, delay and have met with unaminous Democrat resistance at every turn.
And you fuckwads turn up here and try and deflect blame from the Democrats by blaming the website failure on the Republicans. This would be comical if it wasn't a fact.
You statist tyrants are lower than dog shit for this crap and do not think for a second this is going to fly, the problems caused by Obamacare are going to affect all citizens right in their pocketbooks and their healthcare - and they will not be tricked into blaming Republicans by a long shot.
This is a shit sandwich you drone and you extremist Democrats force fed it to the people of this country and they will not be fooled, and will not forget.
Now go eat shit and die you pathetic statist whore.
No... poor management and a poorly thought out law is what caused this mess.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I have memory, and so does everyone else. Mr. AlphaCharacters is a liar and EVERYONE reading his comments know it, including himself. Their only hope is to make people afraid of saying anything in fear of being called a racist for opposing it.
This is what the DNC has stooped to. Lies and name calling. They have lost on the actual issues in every possible way. Liberalism is dead and tyranny is their only hope for keeping it alive. In a side note, filibusters were just outlawed in the Senate for presidental appointments by Harry Reid, which takes away representation in the Senate for nearly HALF the country. Tyranny is on its way and Reid just put in place one more step.
Scrum Master: OK, let's go around the room and do our stand-up for they day. We've got a week or two to straighten this thing out.
Mary: Ummm...I'm trying not to kill myself today, hopefully no one will notice if I spend the day in the rest room.
Tan: Well, I started my review of the backround 3rd-party insurance-module interfaces. So far, mock objects are in place. I'm thinking we should implement something?
Bob: I'm working on name-tags, the holiday schedule, and the Submit button.
Assan: I'm new.
Scrum Master: OK, does anyone have any blocking issues for today?
Bob: Uh, I'm not (air-quotes) technically a programmer, but I can make some killer PowerPoints.
Tan: Right now, I just have these fan-fold printouts of the code. Also, I've never done COBOL before. Oh, and can I get a computer?
Some settling may occur during posting.
I don't understand why anyone would want to turn this thing around. The ACA is another incremental step toward socialism. Socialism has always resulted in a lower standard of living for the people it's purported to help. The ACA is doomed to failure,as the Democratic Party doesn't understand where money comes from: it comes from hard work, not redistribution of somebody else's hard work. It's going to fail eventually. I hope it's now and not later, when it might take our entire economy down the tubes as it fails.
They are pretty much powerless
They? You mean like Governor Perry that condemned the state of Texas to having to deal with this crap instead of running his own, just to show all of us what asshats the Republicans can be?
While funny. What they need is a *good* PM. I have met many.
One who can ask the 'hard' questions like 'why is it not done yet'.
One who knows to speak up and say 'you are not going to make this date'.
One who knows whatever someone tells timewise you take it times 3.
One who knows what to delegate and what to not delegate.
One who is willing to show what the current schedule is.
One who is willing to grind it out and track it properly.
Me personally I am horrid at all of the above. But that is because I am more worried about getting some random task done. I am not worried that 20 different things need to be done before something else can even start.
And that is just one small part. From where I sit they just completely did old school waterfall and forgot to do any integrated testing with good test fixtures until it was *way* too late.
Yes, because begging your congressman for treatment is a far better system.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
By now, most Americans have either heard or learned firsthand that the Healthcare.gov website doesn't work right.
The problems seem to go beyond that. It is now being reported that major subsystems are not even implemented. The "plan" seems to have been to implement the "sign up" subsystem by October. Now we have learned that other subsystems were not to be implemented until Jan 2014. Ex:
... Chao on Tuesday said other areas that need to be built include "the back-office systems, the accounting systems.""
"A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556
This "learning moment" for IT project management is going to be with us for a while.
Any consultant worth anything wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot.... user interface.
I will agree to a single-payer system as soon as I can smack cigarettes out of other people's hands, clear out everyone in a bar who has had more than one drink, and force everyone to stop eating unhealthy foods and begin jogging.
If I am going to be paying for your health, I should have the right to force you to be healthy.
You'd think that mentioning who is in charge of fixing it should be mentioned. That's just a quick google away and his name is Jeffrey Zientz. There's not a lot of information out there, but what is there seems reasonably positive. Here's npr's article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/23/240283860/white-house-turns-to-rock-star-manager-for-obamacare-fix
Here's Washington Posts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/24/who-is-jeffrey-zients-and-why-is-he-qualified-to-fix-healthcare-gov/
I score that as 25 for 25. Your dog should be happy on the next trip to the field. ;)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Yes, because begging your congressman for treatment is a far better system.
Worse than that. You might vote out your congressman, but when your life is in the hands of some 2-bit bureaucrat appointed by Obama or Sebilious (sic), you're really screwed!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I'll use little words so you can follow. The Federal website was speced to be a portal to the STATE websites where people could sign up to the you know, STATE insurance pools. Like it says in the law. Except 38 Republican-controlled state legislatures and governors decided not to bother, so the Federal site ended up getting overloaded with functionality and traffic it was never intended to have.
Moron. The law specifically permits states to decide if they want to set up an exchange or not. Many chose not to. Even those that do set up their own exchange must communicate with the federal system. There are no surprises here. The system should have been designed to handle it.
And It's not just a load issue. They just reported they haven't build major parts of the system yet.
Citation to specific bill which caused this please.
If it was a traffic load issue, why does the issue still persist nearly 2 months since launch when the traffic to the site dropped by 88% after the first couple of weeks? http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/visits-to-federal-health-care-web-site-off-88percent/2013/10/15/7a73f45c-35e2-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html
More so, you realize under Federalism... states do still have some rights... right?
Remind me... how many Republican's voted for this monstrosity of a law which is forcing people to lose their health insurance plans and pay even more out of pocket for the replacements? Right... ZERO.
Don't blame the Republicans when the liberals couldn't come up with enough votes to implement single payer.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If Obama was a private CEO, he'd be in court for both accounting fraud (accounting behind the US budget and its public presentation are notoriously fraudulent in the criminal sense) and the regular sort of fraud ("if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan").
Government - the cause and solution for every problem and social ill ... at least in some quarters.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
bullshit. You really think that the goal of this boondoggle was to put these bastards out of business? "Here, Aetna and BCBS, have a gazillion healthy premium payers that aren't going to cost you a nickel!" That's supposed to eliminate them? One of the reasons I'm against Obamacare is that I'm pro single payer. This system is definitely a step in the wrong direction. Why do you think the Republicans were all for this approach back in the nineties? It makes big businesses bigger, which means more campaign donations, and more lobbying opportunities when they go through the K street revolving door.
That's funny; did Sean Hannity tell you that?
No, Charles Murray. http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Ground-American-Social-1950-1980/dp/1455165859
The solution to any useless failing programs is to make it bigger.
I've a question. I'm Canadian so I don't know. Just curious.
Why can't you just go to a government office and sign up for Obamacare? Or can you? Personally, why people are surprised that a government website can't handle high traffic baffles my mind. What government website ever did? Anyho', really just interested in my first question. One factor I've been aware of is that the plan is administrated through the States, so I'm wondering of states hostile to Obama (Republicans) aren't offering it at their state or municipal offices?
Fixing a failed or behind software project in my experience was like stories I heard about battlefield medicine. You have to establish a system of triage where you realistically work under the assumption that not everything can be saved. At least not anytime in the near future. You're knee deep in digital blood stripping out one layer of feature after the other right down to the last thing that did work properly, and you have to start with what is the most simplest thing a user absolutely must be able to do that without that ability the project would be considered completely pointless and fix that before you write any other code. You have to act in a way towards users that might seem indifferent or cold, ignoring users' screams about your removing their daily reminder widget and you have to tell them in a tactful way that you won't put it back in anytime soon because your number one priority is making sure the accounting systems can actually add numbers correctly; you also have to make sure that if those users' are powerful stakeholders and order you to add back the fun happy reminded widget that they can be properly countermanded by higher authorities who have the authority to get them to shut up and sit on their hands.
In short, you have to piss a lot of people off and be committed to accomplishing your grim task.
Oh and by the way genius, the Obamacare shit sandwich was brought to us by the Democrats and a brief opportunity they had for one party rule.
In case you hadn't noticed Harry Reid seems to think that one party rule is a good idea for the Senate as well.
Brilliant!
Is it just me or do any of you seem to remember Obama the lightbringer talking all about transparency and working together and putting bills up for review by the American people and all of that shit before he was elected.
I'm starting to get the feeling that the chocolate jesus may not have been all that truthful with us all those years ago....
Who knew?
California exchange signed up 35,000 people the first month.
California sent out 5 million cancellations in the same time period.
150 people lost coverage for everyone added via the exchange. THIS IS SUCCESS for Obamacare supporters!
Note: In order to participate in the exchange the health insurance companies in California were REQUIRED BY LAW to cancel ALL individual policies. If they refuesed to cancel individual policies they would not be allowed to sell in the exchange there.
Like I said, this is one of their best examples of sucess. A reasonable person would call it failure, but I guess they are not reasonable.
You, good sir win the internets for today. Congratulations.
Only a barbarian chauvanist would write
"our government". And this consultant is a Collaborator. Shave 'em and hang 'em.
Many states? You offer 2 but fail to offer any citations?
At last check, Nevada's site has only signed up 531 people: http://www.foxreno.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/nevada-health-exchange-signups-790.shtml
Zero for Oregon: http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/11/11/oregon-health-care-exchange-has-yet-to-enroll-a-single-person/
We've got the Washington (state) exchange crashing during it's promotional tour: http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Health-exchange-website-goes-down-during-road-tour-229571661.html
Never mind the issues of Washington's site with costing people their projected tax credit: http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/rude-awakening-for-federal-way-woman-who-got-shout-out-from-president-cant-afford-obamacare-policy-after-all/#.Uoq1uZH1JMg.twitter
Zero plans sold during the first two weeks in Hawaii (due to issues): http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/10/hawaii-relaunching-obamacare-exchange-after-not-selling-any-health-insurance-due-to-software-problems/
Ditto in New York: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/white-house-deems-health-glitches-unacceptable-gop-calls-obamacare-doa-article-1.1491281
And Vermont: http://rutlandherald.com/article/20131031/OPINION04/710319973/0/OPINION
And that a month in, state exchanges had only reached 3% of their target: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/11/usa-healthcare-enrollment-idUSL2N0IW0XX20131111?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssHealthcareNews&rpc=22
Yes, such a great success.
While you are free to lament about my 'personal politics' into it... I'm sorry that you don't like being confronted with facts... or would you prefer I jump up and down and scream "We told you so, we tried to stop you, you didn't listen... now reap what you've sown!" ?
Na, your dismissiveness of the facts at hand is the truly juvenile part of this.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
You're right! The minority should rule! Tyranny of the minority!
HHS has money they are spending on this. How can the house prevent HHS from doing this? It's not like they can pass a law all by themselves, the Senate AND the president would all have to agree.
Personally, I think you are all wet..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's a good thing that's not how medicare works already. I always find this argument funny, you hear don't touch medicare! Then when someone argues for medicare for all you get this complete tripe.
Really? I best go call the GOP and ask for my check! I mean, I'm clearly getting screwed by not getting paid... nor even asked to post this.
Odd that eh?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
A smart comment here beneath a snarky exterior. Profiteering created this this mess and I now can't help see this gentleman as anything but a dollar-bill eyed charlatan.
I would watch the video but, you know, this is Slashdot.
* I actually live in the UK but for once I'll refrain from the we have free healthcare, you obligatory insensitive clod joke. This site seems like a step in the right direction, all fingers crossed for my US brethren.
In the US there's a saying: if you want to make a lot of money, sell bad software to the public sector.
The primary disease symptom is a complete lack of understanding among the people who select the vendor, hand out specs and often do not know how to communicate technology needs. Also, when a project fails the vendor often can just walk away with their boat-load of cash, without so much as a backwards glance - where a private sector customer may be queuing up their lawyers to punish an incompetent vendor, the public sector often lets them completely off the hook and just looks for the next vendor promising the moon and stars on something else.
Now enter partisanship - there is a party who would like nothing better than for the healthcare system to fail miserably so they can make hay out of it. It's deplorable, but not nearly so much as a public willing to go along with this, rather than demand accountability upon the vendor(s) and their contacts. We the tax payer have already paid for this thing, love it or hate it, we should demand it work and work well.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Having this fail is the only way we'll ever get a single payer system it is very important we put it into place and have it fail. Sometimes you have to have short-term sacrifices for long-term gain. The CONservatives are greedy and short-sighted so they are incapable of understanding this. The more problems this has, the more government will be able to later improve healthcare.
Ugh... seriously? You already pay for others peoples healthcare treatment. If you are insured like I am your insurance company pays a hell of a lot more for services because of all the people getting free treatment in the ER. Let's just let the problem continue getting worse, clearly that'll be fine since I am insured!
"If he pulls the trigger on this, Reid would not only break his on-the-record, unambiguous promise to the Senate in 2011, he would also execute a ploy that he deemed "un-American" when the shoe was on the other foot. Here is a parade of Senate Democrats angrily denouncing a(n abandoned) Republican proposal to enact a similar rule change in 2005...The 'Gang of 14' compromise ultimately prevailed in '05, thus averting the "Constitutional crisis" Chuck Schumer warned about. It has held ever since." -- Guy Benson
"We remember when a "judicial emergency" was the Senate's way of calling attention to vacancies based on a court's caseload. Those were the good old days. Now Democrats are threatening to change Senate rules if Republicans don't acquiesce to their plan to confirm three new judges to the most underworked appellate circuit in the country. That's the story behind the fight over the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the White House trying to pack the court that reviews much of its regulatory agenda.
"On Monday Senate Republicans blocked the third nominee to the D.C. appellate court in recent weeks, and Democrats with short memories of their judicial filibusters in the Bush years are claiming this is unprecedented. Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats are threatening to resort to the so-called nuclear option, which would let the Senate confirm judicial nominees by a simple majority vote.
"This is nothing but a political power play because the D.C. Circuit doesn't need the new judges. It currently has 11 authorized judgeships and eight active judges—four appointed by Democratic Presidents and four by Republicans. The court also has six senior judges who hear cases varying from 25% to 75% of an active judge's caseload. Together they carry the equivalent caseload of 3.25 active judges, according to numbers from Chief Judge Merrick Garland. That means the circuit has the equivalent of 11.25 full-time judges. That's more than enough considering that the court's caseload is the lightest in the country." -- Wall Street Journal
"It seems to me perfectly plausible to think that such IT professionals sabotaged the construction of the site"
You idiots really believe this shit? You redefine stupid sir, it's jot just pathetic, this is weapons grade stupid.
Obamacare is a failure in nearly every respect, from top to bottom, from alpha to zed.
This is Democrat from top to bottom, all Democrat, all the time. This collosal monstrosity of a failure is Barky O Dog Eaters "signature" legislation, enfucking the American people for generations to come and it was passed by 100% Democrat support without a single Republican vote. Republicans have tried to repleal, delay and have met with unaminous Democrat resistance at every turn.
And you fuckwads turn up here and try and deflect blame from the Democrats by blaming the website failure on the Republicans. This would be comical if it wasn't a fact.
You statist tyrants are lower than dog shit for this crap and do not think for a second this is going to fly, the problems caused by Obamacare are going to affect all citizens right in their pocketbooks and their healthcare - and they will not be tricked into blaming Republicans by a long shot.
Obama and the Democrats lied repeatedly and deliberately that you would be allowed to keep your current plan, doctor and hospital under Obamacare. This was a lie and not just a little lie or a misstatement but a deliberate, intentional and purposeful lie. Obamacare would never have passed had they told the truth - that you will very likely be forced onto a more expensive plan that has fewer benefits.
You can distract and complain all you want, but you cannot deny this fact - and what's more you cannot hide this fact from the public who is opening their eyes more and more every day to this monstrosity.
And the website is just a minor part of this puzzle - and it also is a collosal, complete and total cock up.
Own it drone.
The power of the Kool Aid is strong with this one.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So because in your experience... some number of A exists within B, and B was responsible for C, C was a complete failure... then by the conspiratorial transitive property... A caused C?
Riiiiiight.
Lemme guess... 9/11 was an inside job, we didn't land on the moon, and GWB personally blew up the levy's outside of the lower 9th ward.
I think your tin foil hat requires updating.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
The Soviet union, Communist China, Socialist India, and so on all managed to demonstrate government failure without Republicans obstructing them.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
No-one told me that (I hate political shows of all stripes). Instead, I prefer to think for myself. You should try it.
I learned through simple observation over many years. There's not any government failure that doesn't lead for calls to grow the program that failed to fix it.
BTW, the same thing is true of failing efforts at companies too, so it's not like this should be some kind of big shock to anyone. It just points out why programs of any kind should not be allowed to grow to massive levels, because the efforts they make to continue growing become more cancerous than healthy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think my standard "rescue our failed project" proposal applies here.
"In situations like this, I usually recommend arson."
Nice DNC talking points you have there... but like so often your type forgets the free choice aspect.
By carrying insurance I choose to subsidize those who may not live as healthy as I... and I can choose another carrier which may use different methods to encourage good health... or even choose to pay my own way... shame you assume that if such a person gets ill that they WILL end up in the ER.
Your system involves the strong arm of government demanding that I subsidize you and removes any choice I have from the matter.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Wow. Just. Wow. Now we're blaming the unknown political leanings of the people who wrote the code. This bears a striking resemblance to the political machinations of the former Soviet Union, where engineers and scientists didn't want to become too involved in politics for fear of being thrown in a gulag in Siberia.
So, let's just kill all the intellectuals who don't worship at the altar of liberalism, that'll fix everything.
And what happens when the system fails but it's impossible to put a single-payer system into place?
All you have managed to do is fuck over millions. Why are you any better than Stalin? Hell, at least Stalin was transparent in his evil *and* had a mustache.
I don't care because I'm well off financially and can ride out whatever disaster you unfold. I just feel really sorry for the poor you are crushing under your boots in the name of ideology.
Look, you can either go with your Big Government Red State thinking or you can do what we in the True West in the Blue States did - CA and WA already fixed it and rolled it out.
OR just needs to stop believing Red Staters.
We did it. You keep trying to do complicated plans.
Now, wouldn't single payer national healthcare have been CHEAPER and SIMPLER?
Yes.
There's your solution for inefficient Big Government Red States. You can't code your way out of a paper bag, so you might as well do that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So if you act in a criminal way, but for 'good reasons'... it's ok?
Try that next time you are in court and looking at a DUI and manslaughter charge... "But I did it for good reasons... the man I killed was going to be the next mass serial killer and though my criminal but well meaning actions... I saved thousands!"
Oh please - we already implemented it in the True West - CA and WA are way ahead of you.
Stop pushing your Big Government Red State solutions when Blue States have solutions that already work.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
> although we haven't heard that they've selected a strong turnaround manager and set him or her to work on the project -- and you'd think they would have told us if they had.
My guess is, there are some things not even a skilled turnaround manager can fix, and being associated with such a project might be a career-limiting move. A really skilled turnaround manager would recognize this, and decline the opportunity.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Well, it seems if the Dems were smarter than the Reps, they would have learned from this smaller experiment and not even tried to have the Feds take over the whole healthcare system, knowing what a clusterfuck was waiting in store for them...??
The following Lewis Black quote seems apropos:
"The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it shittier."
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You're an idiot if you think the Dems are any better.
However, they didn't manage to do so starting from being a technologically advanced, highly developed country. Given where Russia was comparatively starting from in 1917, it's pretty damn impressive that they ended up rivaling (and even in some instances, like the space race, generally beating) the Western world. Similarly for India and China --- when you're starting with barely sufficient resources to keep a billion people from outright starvation, a few mis-steps (and bad luck) here and there might result in multi-million-death famines. The Republicans are unique in their ability to drive a supposedly "world leading" country into a failed state hellhole for large portions of the population.
Cancel your internet account so you can spend the money on Insurance. We won't have to subsidize you and we also won't have to listen to your stupid rants. Win-win-win.
I thought I was alone here as the only sane voice of reason.
Please keep posting, the drone army of slashdot socialists are badly in need of educating, and I am just one man, I can only do so much!
Not snark, I just like to see that there are others around who see things as they are and aren't afraid of going against the hive mind.
Heh heh, captcha: freedom
Which part? I know they were trying to, but I don't recall them succeeding, even after shutting down the govt. they couldn't defund it or delay it (although I bet some Dems now upon reflection wish Reps has succeeded).
Well, it was a voluntary thing, it isn't like the Feds could ORDER the states to set it up, states rights and all you know.
Did it ever occur to you that they might just be representing their constituents that flat out do not want a single payer system? That many folks do not want the feds 100% in charge of their health care (and seeing the clusterfuck that ACA is so far, with good reason)?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That is the 'percent complete' the IT folks who made the Obamacare site estimate that it was when it launched.
Some people, including Obama, say the site had 'bugs'. It didn't have bugs. It was not complete and had never been tested.
So at $600 Million and change, we got 30% of a website that is central for people getting the healthcare that the government mandates that they get.
Furthermore, part of the 60%-70% that is unfinished are the parts that pay the insurance companies.
Let that one sink in. The companies that will be shelling out money to pay your doctor at this very moment have no way to get any money from the website.
Here's another one:
Site launched with NO SECURITY. Not 'flawed' or 'incomplete' security, NONE. During senate hearings a white hat hacker was texted by a friend that 30 more vulnerabilties were found THAT DAY. I've used companies that, for a fee, will do a full security audit and in about a week recommend all the ways to close the holes. Nobody thought of doing that?
Obama claims he had no idea. No idea. The site that carries the future of his only important work as president is completely non-functional and he had no idea? Never thought to try it? Ask "Does it work?"? The contractors who built it were very open in saying it was not done, they said everyone knew it was not done, but Obama is shocked, SHOCKED, that it 'has bugs'?
Seriously folks, this is the guy you want leading our military? Our economy?
You Democrats are ****ing idiots.
(note, not my comment, but I couldn't have said it better. Thanks Armand.)
-Styopa
+1 for passion if not anything else.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You left out Massachusetts, which has also managed to sign up 0 people.
Now you might think "wait, but Massachusetts has Romneycare, of course they had 0 signups, everyone's already signed up." And you'd be wrong. Turns out that a bunch of people who had plans they liked under Romneycare are going to lose them under Obamacare. (Why does that sound familiar?) Which means that they have to reapply to the state exchange.
The state exchange was redone due to Obamacare, and the new version flat-out doesn't work. So a whole bunch of people are going to lose their Romneycare plans thanks to Obamacare.
And I'm sure the new website not working has nothing to do with Massachusetts using the exact same contractors who built Healthcare.gov.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Well, even as much as the Federal govt keeps expanding its power beyond the constitution, we do still have some semblance of "States Rights"...and it was quite legal per the definition of the law for the states to not take part of the unfunded Medicare mandate which could (and likely will) bite them in the ass years down the line.
Did you ever thing these states might just be representing the wills of their constituents voting this way?
There's a good reason for states' rights...one size rarely fits all. That's why the Federal govt shouldn't be trying to take over medical care for the whole country.
As a middle age male, I'm wondering why I need prenatal coverage in the ACA mandated min levels of insurance coverage. One size does not fit all.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I hear a lot of people talking about the GOP cutting the funding and this being an issue re: hc.gov. well folks, I can only reply that we have spent $600 million + on this. Halve the budget, and some high school kids would have been ecstatic to build us a working site....
Nice trolling effort. Problem is, nobody can tell it's a troll. The democratic spin machine is so over the top that their talking points are indistinguishable from your parody. Kick it up a few more notches and blame Mitt Romney for breaking into the CGI offices and spiking the coffee with visine causing massive diarrhea. Or maybe Harry Reid is secretly the third Koch Brother and secretly replaced the real ObamaCare with a 10,000-page monstrosity designed to discredit liberalism. That one's actually pretty plausible.
"Hopefully our government has at least one of them working on Helathcare.gov by now"
Maybe that's part of the problem - they *are* working Helathcare.gov!
* I actually live in the UK but for once I'll refrain from the we have free healthcare, you obligatory insensitive clod joke.
I don't think you know what the words "free" or "refrain" mean.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Dude.... your donkey is showing. What biased BS misinformation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare.gov
It was designed to provide an exchange for the 36 states, not 38 states, that opted to not create their own exchange and instead default to the Federal exchange. Not to connect to State websites when there isn't one. It's not about "republican-controlled state legislatures and governors decided not to bother", they were given the option to use the federal system and they chose to do so. And New Jersey and Maine are both Democrat controlled state legislatures and they opted out too.
Healthcare.gov is a failure of government bureaucracy to manufacture anything on a large complex scale. Look, it took 6 times it's estimated budget and still didn't work. What does that possibly sound like? Maybe every single large complex procurement the government has ever attempted? Large, complex projects are not something the government is good at.
Not to mention the fact that when the problems came to light, Obama somehow "didn't know there were such problems". So major issues regarding the President's signature piece of legislation, the legacy he wants to leave behind, and he wasn't aware of the problems on the website exchange? And he didn't know, so someone was misleading him, and he lets Sebellus take the fall?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/14/5104280/obama-i-would-not-have-launched-healthcare-gov-if-i-had-known
Your blaming of Republicans is an attempt to make them sound evil, but the reality is it makes them seem effective at getting their agenda through whereas the Democrats just look like incompetent idiots. Hell, where are the FDR "the buck stops here!" Democrats? Face it man, this is not a party issue, this is your government at work.
Proof
Surely they could have come up with a different name than "National Speakers Association"? Did they think that the initialism for "National Association of Speakers" was far too apt?
coding is life
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Except 38 Republican-controlled state legislatures and governors decided not to bother
I guess passing a major piece of social legislation effecting 20% of the economy on a completely party line vote was a bad idea, eh?
The word you're looking for is "buy-in". The GOP didn't get any. Did you seriously expect cooperation from crimson red states? That was pretty naive....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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Usually because the vendor has actually delivered everything they were contracted to deliver and it works properly. The problem is the government didn't really know what it wanted when it made the purchase and has something completely unsuitable to it's actual needs. It's hard to sue a Lamborghini dealer when your car can't tow a trailer because you put out competetive bids for a sports car when what your really needed was a pickup truck. That doesn't mean the Lamborghini is defective.
As a middle age male, I'm wondering why I need prenatal coverage in the ACA mandated min levels of insurance coverage. One size does not fit all.
You should also be asking why insurers have to charge the same for men as women, in spite of women having higher healthcare costs. Then ask why the same principle hasn't been applied to auto insurance, where men invariably pay more than women.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I was unaware that you were required by law to purchase lottery tickets.
The Republicans are unique in their ability to drive a supposedly "world leading" country into a failed state hellhole for large portions of the population.
You need to visit Somalia to see what a "failed state hellhole" really looks like.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
My point is that the technology aspect of bringing such a system up and having it function is a separate issue from the politics of whether the law is a good idea for the country or not. Do you really disagree with that?
Considering part of the law is to bring the site up and have it function..... yes I would fucking disagree with you. Stop passing shitty fucking laws and then trying to draw a dichotomy between the law and its implementation. There is a reason people don't trust government and this shitty fucking law, it's shitty fucking rollout and it's shitty little kool aide drinking sycophants (like you). You are the very essence of what is wrong with this entire fucking thing.
Now enter partisanship - there is a party who would like nothing better than for the healthcare system to fail miserably so they can make hay out of it.
Not nearly as deplorable as the other party who is actually MAKING it fail. Deflect all you like, you and your little rat friends own this mother fucker. Screw you
I registered mid-October and had a slew of problems including a "fatal" hangup on ID verification that has not yet fixed itself. So, I just started over with a new email address and login a week ago and was able to go through the whole registration without problems. Whatever bugs there were in the system must have corrupted older account data.
There are still the intermittent down times in the evenings.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
.... not the NSA. Think of how much better off we'd all be. ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The Republicans refused to set up state exchanges in their stat[e]s, increasing the traffic load on the website.
More so, you realize under Federalism... states do still have some rights... right?
You know, one of the real bits of cognitive dissonance in this whole thing has been that those states which are most adamant about retaining their sovereignty, those which are most opposed to the Federal government meddling in state affairs, are the same ones who abdicated their power to implement a system that would meet their unique needs and instead suckle at the teat of the Federal implementation. The people most vocal about doing things their own way were the first to capitulate to whatever Big Government wanted.
Best explanation ever of how government contracting actually works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA
It's easy to blame the contractors, but the reality is that most of the problems stem from a customer that can't make up its mind about what it wants.
You just cherry-picked a bunch of failures. Great job.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Yes.
This isn’t a political discussion over the website or the law, nor is this isn’t a theoretical debate of "should there be a law passed to do X?" but instead a discussion over "A law was passed to do X, which also promises Y & Z... since it’s passages, X has not worked, Y & Z have turned out to be false, and we’ve also seen A through Q of negative side effects. Is this a bad or unworkable law?"
Again, we are not talking theory here, we are talking actual practice.
You'll note other than labeling the law as 'poorly thought out' and 'unworkable' I have purposely avoided going into many of it’s other negative consequences (with more still on the way) and just highlighting that the tech issues are just ONE side effect of the law, but keeping the focus on the site for now.
Aside from the fact that you are not legally required to purchase lotto tickets, and if you were... depending on the state, buying lotto tickets directly from the lotto company (vs through the state/national lotto exchange) could prevent you from getting tax subsidizes to help pay for your tickets (one actual side effect of the law)... one thing just about any lotto system, music/video streaming service, or any large scale internet site you encounter has in common... is insane amounts of testing and gradual ramp ups to full production scale.
Guess what they opted not to do in this case?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Or, you are unable to actually form a coherent reply and your deafening silence is all the proof he needs.
Now enter partisanship - there is a party who would like nothing better than for the healthcare system to fail miserably so they can make hay out of it.
Not nearly as deplorable as the other party who is actually MAKING it fail. Deflect all you like, you and your little rat friends own this mother fucker. Screw you
I'd rather the Healthcare Act fail, succeed or be improved on its own merits. As a developer I hate to see something like this fail because the web portal sucked on roll-out, as it's in the fore of the news it casts another shadow on web developers.
Sorry your heart is so full of hate that you can't see that.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
However, they didn't manage to do so starting from being a technologically advanced, highly developed country. Given where Russia was comparatively starting from in 1917, it's pretty damn impressive that they ended up rivaling (and even in some instances, like the space race, generally beating) the Western world. Similarly for India and China --- when you're starting with barely sufficient resources to keep a billion people from outright starvation, a few mis-steps (and bad luck) here and there might result in multi-million-death famines. The Republicans are unique in their ability to drive a supposedly "world leading" country into a failed state hellhole for large portions of the population.
when you're starting with barely sufficient resources to keep a billion people from outright starvation, a few mis-steps (and bad luck) here and there might result in multi-million-death famines.
A single 'mistep' can only result in multi-million-death famines if the misstep is by someone with centralized control (and in the case of China it was not a 'mistep', it was a really stupid idea of forcing people to use crop planting strategies based on Lysenkoism).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"They cut the budget so much that the web site had no chance of ever working."
Start backing up your incoherent ranting with some facts. What budget? How much was it cut? Which Republicans did this?
We are told that the website was built with over 600 million dollars,
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/10/The-Nightmare-Federal-ObamaCare-Exchange-Cost-Taxpayers-634-320-919
And you know Obama acts as though he can print any money he wants to spend. Yes that is snark.
Sorry genius, if you are trying to say that the Republicans sabotaged this project by denying funding, it won't wash. Put up or shut up. Proof is required, and we know you cannot provide it.
"CONservatives do not want minorities to have insurance"
OMFG, one of those huh? What's unfortunate is how little you understand about life, and conservatives in particular. We want everyone to have all that life is availaible to provide for - that is for anyone who cares to participate in life and work for themselved and to earn a living and to purchase any damn thing they want, health insurance, nice houses, food, cars, firearms, anything at all for anyone! As long as it's legal of course - that is the earning part and the spending part.
What the hell does minorities and health insurance even have to do with each other?
"they made damn well sure that this web site didn't work"
Good grief, you sound like a South Park character.
"As usual, racism is what drives all of the opposition to common sense reform"
Let me guess, you are a college student. Am I right?
Since when is "many" synonymous with two.
But they really do have free dental care. I mean, have you seen their teeth? It's obvious no one is paying for dental over there.
"over the top that their talking points are indistinguishable from your parody"
I thought that was serious.
Now I am not certain... I mean there are people who think this way.
Quite distressing in fact.
Don't give them ideas!
Yet under one system my insurance cost $165 a month, and under the other it costs $451 for inferior coverage. Funny how that works.
Looking at the history of this whole health care thing:
- the single payer version did not fly at all - why
- the "solution" was severely attacked from ground up - why
- at the start date the project fails...
Goal achieved - Americans continue to get severely milked at health care coverage filling coffers of others living on a different planet.
Good luck with it!
You know what? We did vote for it. Let's see how it turns out rather than making wild predictions. If it fails, we own it. If it doesn't fail, we own it. The people paying you seem to be willing to pay any price in blood or money to make sure the Democrats fail. Why are they trying so hard to get rid of the law before it has a chance to work? Why not let it do its thing, and then when fire and brimstone rain from the sky, they can blame the Democrats and re-elect George Bush.
Congratulations, you've successfully argued that the Republicans might be able to make the US a slightly better place to live today than Maoist China in the 1940s-50s. Nice to see the Leaders of the Free World being held to such lofty standards. Now, if anyone asks why we can't have median quality of life indicators comparable to modern Social-Democratic nations (often with lower GDP per capita), you can inform them with the persuasive argument "shut up! we're better than Maoist China! USA USA USA!"
And how are the bean counters in the insurance companies any better exactly?
The problems seem to go beyond that. It is now being reported that major subsystems are not even implemented. The "plan" seems to have been to implement the "sign up" subsystem by October. Now we have learned that other subsystems were not to be implemented until Jan 2014. Ex:
... Chao on Tuesday said other areas that need to be built include "the back-office systems, the accounting systems.""
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556 [cnbc.com]
"A crucial system for making payments to insurers from people who enroll in that federal Obamacare marketplace has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning before a House subcommittee that a significant fraction of HealthCare.gov—30 to 40 percent of it—has yet to be constructed
This "learning moment" for IT project management is going to be with us for a while.
Oh please - we already implemented it in the True West - CA and WA are way ahead of you.
So you are pointing out that some things can be better done at the state level? Who is making big government red state arguments in this discussion? :-)
Stop pushing your Big Government Red State solutions when Blue States have solutions that already work.
So directly quoting "a senior government IT" official testifying before Congress and characterizing the situation as a teachable moment for IT project management is a political statement in your opinion? Well, that is a interesting perspective you have there. Are you sure you know who is viewing things through a political lense in this conversation?
If you think that, then you don't understand Russia. Russia has good resources, tough people and strategic depth. They go through cycles of massive outright strength and punishing poverty and chaos. But the 1940's-80's, when the USSR rivaled the West, was just one peak amongst numerous cycles. Russia under Catherine and Peter, Russia under Ivan, Russia under Alexander I and II, and now Russia under Putin were and are strong contenders for their contemporaries.
You just cherry-picked a bunch of failures. Great job.
That he did. However, I've yet to see the converse of this argument - that there are a number of states that have managed to enroll significant numbers of people into the new programs.
Pics, or it didn't happen.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yay, we're better than Somalia. That makes everything the Republicans are doing to push us in that direction all right. I'm so relieved that "Still Better Than Somalia" is the high standard to which our leading pro-government-failure government officials are held. I'm not going to worry or complain until the situation here is just like Somalia.
Now enter partisanship...
If you don't want to add additional animosity from your opposing political party, then don't ram legislation through via sneaky legal tactics. Go research HOW President Obama managed to get the ACA legislation passed; it will shock you, and you'll then understand a little better why the republicans fight it tooth and nail.
Just look at all the political posturing... For example, is it not a little unreasonable that the Healthcare.gov website was a no-bid contract? In a law and service you want represented flawlessly, why wouldn't you RFP multiple, large and competent businesses that have done it before and at ten times the scale? It's because its your signature law, and you bet the farm on it, so you'd like all the people in your own corner to back it, profit from it, and live in its limelight. That's exactly what President Obama did... and because it flopped hard, it will be his and potentially his party's downfall for the next x years.
Taxpayers have already purchased this system and It's failed. Now we spend more taxpayers money to fix it, and blame the opposing political party in whatever fashion we can.
The intellectual dishonesty among constituents is baffling, and I can't understand for the life of me why they let their representatives get away with murder just because of the future promise of something they don't currently have and want.
"Todd founded The Cameron Group i[n] August 2001 as a sole proprietorship. The company was incorporated in the State of Washington as eCameron, Inc. in July 2002, continuing to use the name The Cameron Group as a legal trade name."
"August 2001 sounded like just as good a time as any to start a business; however, as we all know[,] the following month [] most of the expansion dreams were dashed. eCameron took off to a very slow start, but by mid-2002 had gained critical mass and became profitable. The focus of the company was squarely centered [on] rescuing failing projects." link
Even if the website did work perfectly--which it does not--it would be like Amazon trying to only sell a very expensive version of a product to consumers who would rather buy something else.
Ah... when logic stops working just pull out the logical fallacies.
The law mandates that the Federal Government should implement the exchange marketplace for states that opt not to. As you might say, "it is the law of the land".
Try reading this, it will help you: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp
Now enter partisanship - there is a party who would like nothing better than for the healthcare system to fail miserably so they can make hay out of it.
The law passed without a single yes vote from the Republican Party, the same party whose primary complaint was that the law would not work, before, during, and after it was passed. This is who your rational mind blames for the failure of the law?
No, this piece of shit belongs to the legislators who unilaterally formulated and passed the bill, nobody else.
You sheeple aren't going to stop this until you're shivering in the dark hungry, are you?
They won't stop until everyone, including you, is shivering in the dark. If you generate your own electricity with a bicycle generator, they'll smash your bicycle. If you sleep indoors, they'll burn down your house. "Progressives" hate any progress they didn't force people to accept. They'd rather force people to regress than let them progress on their own.
I'd rather the Healthcare Act fail, succeed or be improved on its own merits. As a developer I hate to see something like this fail because the web portal sucked on roll-out, as it's in the fore of the news it casts another shadow on web developers. Sorry your heart is so full of hate that you can't see that.
Alright, then blame the people that unilaterally passed the law, hired the web developers, and oversaw the project. (Hint: they are not Republicans.) You are the one with a mind filled to the brim with lies, rationalized by an irrational hate that you keep in your heart.
I'll use little words so you can follow.
You might be better off asking someone to explain the situation using little words that you can understand.
Make that +2 for passion.
The power of the Kool Aid is strong with this one.
Too bad it doesn't have the special ingredient.
But maybe your wife does.... ... Oh wait, I forgot this is slashdot. dfw
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
I suppose that would be marginally better than begging your insurance company for treatment, only to have them cancel your policy.
I guess we are trying to prove that it can also be done with republicans.
And cancellations haven't even started yet. Obama's decision to delay employer mandate by a year has probably saved the law for now (and his own ass) as CBO projects up to 50 million cancellations of employer sponsored plans once the employer mandate kicks in.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
As a developer I hate to see something like this fail because the web portal sucked on roll-out
What news are you reading? Obacamare will not fail because of a bad website. It will fail because it is a bad law and people don't want it.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It's not a question of software engineering or identifying a failing project, it's the Federal Acquisition Rules or FAR. Basically, once a project starts to fail, processes start taking over, on top of the processes that were running the project, with processes to replan the milestones, with processes that define processes that augment processes to assist processes that eventually result in executing a process that produces software.
Sure, it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback on how to fix the healthcare.gov website. Then reality sets in when the savant garde in Silicon Valley actually have to work according to the FAR's framework and contracting processes.
You're already paying in ways that don't involve subsidizing the ER. Research has found that even the people who are well off enough to afford all the health care they need have poorer health in countries where the general populace has poorer health. IOW the general health within a population affects the specific health of others in that society even if they can afford the best in health care. dfw
Just as bad.
Thanks! Your check is in the mail, right-wing shill #3049185
Good job attacking a strongman?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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Yea, I heard that before, unfortunately. When you know what is right, you can't do anything wrong.
This is what is most apt in this situation is that Republicans will claim that government doesn't work, and they prove it by fucking it over for everybody.
It's not the Republicans' jobs to fix the shit that the Democrats break. Someone who wasn't a complete idiot would have been aware, years ago, that this was going to be a problem. The Democrats own this problem.
"...we learned that the Dear Leader and his administration are still horribly incompetent. They also lie badly."
Sounds just like the republicans to me. Both parties can eat shit, imo.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
This isn’t a political discussion over the website or the law, nor is this isn’t a theoretical debate of "should there be a law passed to do X?" but instead a discussion over "A law was passed to do X, which also promises Y & Z... since it’s passages, X has not worked, Y & Z have turned out to be false, and we’ve also seen A through Q of negative side effects. Is this a bad or unworkable law?"
I wish you could read this again in two years time when the political winds change.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
So you're saying that you are paying $286 more each month for worse coverage, eh? Sounds like you're letting the insurance company pull the wool over your eyes.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Remind me... how many Republican's voted for this monstrosity of a law which is forcing people to lose their health insurance plans and pay even more out of pocket for the replacements? Right... ZERO.
Don't blame the Republicans when the liberals couldn't come up with enough votes to implement single payer.
How rich.
The initial healthcare proposal was single payer and Republicans hated it so much that they effectively brought Congress business to a halt.
The mess we're all dealing with now is a result of the President's repeated compromises with Republicans, none of whom ended up voting for the law anyways.
You have to be deaf dumb and blind to not have noticed the pattern of Republicans crying that Obama isn't negotiating with them,
then, when he negotiates, they water down the ideas and refuse to vote on it anyways, with some filibusters thrown in for good measure.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That is false. I live in California and there are people here, including some close to me, who have individual plans and who are keeping their existing plans. A LOT of individual policies in California were cancelled but it is wrong to say that ALL of them are. Plans issued and unchanged prior to a particular date specified in the law are allowed to be grandfathered.
Democrats put together a way out of a war and saved the economy from financial collapse. I guess they've been too busy to be waving Mission Accomplished banners.
Right. Because the existing system was working so well and the republicans had options past 'Go to the ER'.
Sorry. ACA is working. It's more than a website. I finally have affordable insurance. I guess we have differing definitions of what's fair.
The Republicans are unique in their ability to drive a supposedly "world leading" country into a failed state hellhole for large portions of the population.
I see they aren't unique in getting blamed for other peoples' faults. Obamacare isn't the Republicans' baby. They don't own it.
I see this as another free lunch delusion. Where's the money going to come from?
It could simply be procrastination. How many people wait until April 15 to file their taxes? This is pretty much the same thing, scaled down to only those who got cancellation letters. And the website isn't the only way to get a new healthcare plan, the cancellation letters probably came with a menu of plans from the same company to sign up for.
That's what's available on the exchange, buddy. We don't have a plethora of choices any more.
Except single payer results in better prices for pretty much everything. There are only three reasons someone would not want a single payer system:
1. if they are filthy rich and like the financial filter keeping the poor from benefiting from the healthcare system
2. if they are at an executive-level somewhere in the healthcare industry
3. if they are idiots
No, this piece of shit belongs to the legislators who unilaterally formulated and passed the bill, nobody else.
Amen. The Democrats are responsible for this mess. It's entirely their doing and entirely their fault.
They just reported they haven't build major parts of the system yet.
Indeed, government employees who worked on the project admitted that fact publicly in sworn testimony before Congress. It's undeniable.
> What news are you reading? Obacamare will not fail because of a bad website. It will fail because it is a bad law and people don't want it.
This. Even if that Website is fixed in time for people to sign up en masse before the end of the year, there's another problem: sticker shock. It will eventually dawn on the Millennials(tm) who voted for Hope And Change(tm) that, in fact, the ACA is a way to "tax" the living CRAP out of them to pay for health insurance for the poor and elderly.
The reason why the government wants to run the whole shebang is so that they can get their hands on this money. It's simply a way to tax the young and the middle class without calling it a "tax."
Look at the comments after this New York Times editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/opinion/edsall-the-obamacare-crisis.html?_r=0
One of the commenters notes that he WAS able to sign up in California, and that everything worked beautifully -- but he is now paying $800 more and with a much, much higher deductible. He doesn't qualify for subsidies, either, even though he's the only breadwinner and ain't exactly rich.
You Obamacare supporters who are hoping that a fixed Website will suddenly make the law beloved are living in a delusional la-la land. Once people see how much more Utopian Universal Healthcare actually costs, then it's REALLY going to hit the fan.
Watch and see.
Sorry, DaHat, but as I've been to college
It seems that you've received poor value for your tuition. Perhaps you should demand a refund?
Where is something like ObamaCare at 10x the scale? Jupiter?
Often you can't put specific features into a contract when the features are still being defined. Thus, you often have to go with time and materials contracts; and since a set of T&M contractors were already vetted, they went with them to get started sooner.
Note that the team tried to hire the main tech manager from the RomneyCare project, but they had prior commitments.
Table-ized A.I.
> Let's see how it turns out rather than making wild predictions.
They're not wild predictions. The ACA, as written CANNOT work. Not, "may not," not, "will have problems," it CAN. NOT. WORK.
The fact that you even believe that it could work proves that you are living in a complete fantasy land. Even those who support government-controlled healthcare admit that it won't work, and that they've been hoping all along that it would lead to single payer (which the American people will never, ever, EVER accept).
When really it's the problem.
Democrats put together a way out of a war and saved the economy from financial collapse.
I see people are still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars are still ongoing.
And economically, the US hasn't done much to recover since the recession. It's worth noting here that doing nothing leads to a quicker recovery than what we're seeing in the US. Partly, it's Keynesian economics poorly applied and partly it's an administration more intent on ideology than economic recovery.
It's "free" in the very real sense that the cost difference between a person who gets ill and one who does not is 0 dollars/pounds/euros/roubles. That is a luxury Americans don't have, which means getting ill in the US can have terrible effects on one's ability to function in society, due to possible bankruptcy simply for being human. Plus they spend less in the UK on healthcare than the US does, and get comparable (or better) results. This terrible mess in the US is what you get when the healthcare industry is so powerful and mainly not involved in healthcare but insurance.
Because they were against universal healthcare, which means that this site is only needed because of the Republicans lovely attitude that people must pay for healthcare on an individual basis, rather than be covered by the country (which means people pay less, and the entire sector of paper-pushing insurance people goes away). Sane countries don't have websites like this, as they are not needed. Sick? Go to the doctor. No paperwork or money required.
Yea, already vetted or already made the right contributions to the right people/organizations.
I have had friends try to do business in Washington and after the lobist gets them access they are told were to contribute if they want the contract :-(
Maybe you should be the president of the world!
"UK ... we have free healthcare"
I thought it was paid for by taxes and deficits.
It is also interesting that given the amount already spent they still have 60% of the system to build. They don[t have any way to distribute the funds yet , they made the front end without building the parts that would actually pay for the services.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cms-official-60-to-70-of-obamacare-architecture-not-yet-built/
I see people are still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars are still ongoing.
Both you and the other AC misunderstand. America didn't "go to war" with Afghanistan and Iraq. There's no war to find a way out of. Congress have gotten around that little obstacle by not officially declaring war. They just declare unofficial wars (on abstract things like Terror and Drugs) and approve "military action" or The "Patriot" Act and other vague and broad things so the executive can pretty much do whatever it wants
The result is that they can say they're "at peace" or "out of war" if they feel like it, or say they're fighting the "war" as hard as ever to keep you safe. Whichever fits the situation at the time.
Now, that's not to say the executive has been slacking. What Obama did in getting America "out of war" is by increasing drone usage. See, if it's a drone out there instead of some fleshy soldier, he's "keeping the troops safe" so it counts as pulling America out of the unofficial "war". Doesn't matter that non-Americans* get caught in the drone attack. They don't count.
(*non-Americans doesn't have to mean somebody that doesn't have American citizenship. You could always be an enemy combatant or something.)
And economically, the US hasn't done much to recover since the recession.
Again comrade you misunderstand. "Saved the economy from financial collapse" is not the same as recovering. Consider that "saving you from dying" doesn't mean "curing you to full recovery".
It's worth noting here that doing nothing leads to a quicker recovery than what we're seeing in the US.
Perhaps, but doing nothing leads to less profits for those running the show. Think drug companies: they make more money keeping you sick and hooked on drugs than curing you.
Partly, it's Keynesian economics poorly applied and partly it's an administration more intent on ideology than economic recovery.
You give them too much credit. Ideology implies having some principles and integrity to follow your ideology. Most politicians are spineless are would abandon one ideology for another if it gives them the most votes/money/power.
Well, it seems if the Dems were smarter than the Reps, they would have learned from this smaller experiment and not even tried to have the Feds take over the whole healthcare system, knowing what a clusterfuck was waiting in store for them...??
And this level of hysterical exaggeration just shows why the discussion goes nowhere.
The federal government isn't taking over the healthcare system. Your local hospital, doctor, medical clinic? Still run by itself, regulated by the state.
Stop fucking being full of shit.
I'm sure Lewis Black said that at some point.
You're right. I would much rather put my life in the hands of some 2-bit bureaucrat in the private sector who would be fired for not denying my coverage and thereby costing the company too much money, thank you very much.
Just checked back. Looks like i was modded to zero and you were modded to 5. I just googled "aca enrollment success" and found plenty. Here's a link (or it didn't happen, right?): http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/19/politics/obamacare-enrollment-update/
It seems very silly to have to link to evidence in order to have a conversation here. I know you were just pointing out that i did not counter his argument and just made a snarky remark about it. But I was not intending to carry a flag for either side. Was just pointing out how he had to exclude any success links to make his point.
People are crazy about this ACA stuff.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
They ought to be separate but they're not. The law gives control of much of the law's details to HHS regs. Obama administration deliberately withheld announding the detailed regulations until after the Nov 2012 elections, making technical implementation a nightmare. There is a direct political, as well as competance, dimension to this mess
Moron. p>
Woiw, 4 posts to "Moron"? What happened to the quick-draw insult Slashdot of old? Why doesn't anyone come out of the gate swinging any more? HAVE WE LOST OUR EDGE? and, why am I an Anon Coward?
That's an awful lot of talk for something which happens to be totally irrelevant. Just because it happens to be the political fad to wage wars without an overt political declaration of war, doesn't change either of our arguments.
This is one case where partisan bickering is low hanging truit, and if one thinks that the audience on this forum is technical, maybe even dealt with load management of a web site, then most of you are not living up to your calling.
Were you to look at this problem as a team with an assigned task: "Get processes that do A, B, .... working. Serve the needs of Millions of users reliabilly", then you might take a different approach to the topic, and you might actually apply your expertise.
The video said that it was the culture of the interaction between the people involved that caused the failures, that the technology at the end-user wasn't that complicated. The local news made pains to point out that there had been a couple of teens in Silicon Valley who designed a better UI than the federal site. What they didn't tell you is that any design has to be served from sources that the end-user site can access and then communicate back to. It is at least a capacity problem for the web servers to talk to the data sources, and then after that there is a complexity problem of the processes being modeled. The problem could be either that the service doesn't scale up or what it models is too complex to manage economically. That is driven by management culture failures. There is either poor cooperation between the parties and there is no single point of responsibility.
This is quite separate from the political issues. People do processes to implement law they don't agree with because they have some respect for law. As technical and management people, that is where the expertise of many of the people that participate here should be focused, we should be concentrating on what the implementation failure teaches us, more.
Many of us have stories of failed projects we have been part of. Scientific American ran an article a decade ago which said that 60% of software projects fail, meaning that the stated objectives are not realized entirely. About 30 years ago I worked for a software project at a University to implement a Student Record database. The project eventually was abandoned. The reasons were pretty much similar to what is mentioned in the video. There were political factions in the Administration that were jockying for influence and the leadership was relatively weak. There were two main areas that had anyone really asked could have been identified as fatal flaws early on. One was that the software tools were poorly conceived and not known to scale to the size of the problem. A developer had oversold his expertese and had too much personal influence on decisions, the tools he developed were not efficient enough to implement the database both from the point of view of production performance or development.debugging. The second major failure, and this is very common and may be what plagues healthcare.gov and maybe what was built into ACA by the Congress and the political process, is that the thing being modeled is too complex to be able to be likely implemented correctly. In the case of the Student Record the Registarr's office burdened down the design with all the special exceptions they had implemented in their paper process over many years, and they were unaware or unwilling to give up all the dispensations for simplifying the process, or to reanalyze process to see if technology can streamline it.
I have been talking about historical purges of entrenched legal and beauracratic traditions as a way governments and economies get reformed. The idea is that some tyrant comes along, maybe some military leader, and cleans house, fires or kills off the entrenched interests, and like the Napoleonic Code, replaces an older weighted-down tradition of laws and traditions with a streamlined revamping of the system. From the point of view of implementation, the rewrite of a process is a chance to do just that, to revamp it. The only thing I would say about the politics of ACA is that both the Administration and Congress has an opportunity to make something simple, but that what the
Feel free to remind me, though the changes in 2 years won't be that great. The GOP will likely control both the house & senate and the President will still blame them for everything that has gone wrong in the history of the world.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
You are a partisan ideologue. An ideologue has the ability to look at a black wall and be certain it is white. As such, you should have about as much confidence in your assertions as a roulette wheel; however, ideologues are always certain.
Sure you have universal healthcare but do you have a big website to malfunction? Nooooo. Free market rules! !!
"And economically, the US hasn't done much to recover since the recession. It's worth noting here that doing nothing leads to a quicker recovery than what we're seeing in the US. Partly, it's Keynesian economics poorly applied and partly it's an administration more intent on ideology than economic recovery."
Can you read graphs?
http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//5-10-11bud-f1.jpg
http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/3/9/1/6/6/5/drf-48787079017.jpeg
http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/3/9/1/6/6/5/drf-48787134389.jpeg
http://www.politicalactionnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/economic-recovery-bush-to-obama1.jpg
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Yes if only the website would have worked ok on day one so that the republicans could have endorsed the ACA with full faith.
Don't care about getting insurance if the website sucks.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
All this yakking back and forth just obscures what everyone knows. Everyone. And that is that the success of something like Obamacare would bring a lot of votes to the Democrats. The name Obamacare, originally intended as a pejorative, would end up reminding voters who gave this to them, rather than harboring some sort of ideological grudge against creeping socialism. Ted Cruz said as much when he said that they needed to defund it now, because once Americans get it they won't want to give it up.
And therefore the Republicans need it to fail, the more spectacularly the better. All crocodile tears about those who don't get to keep their policies aside, if the train were going to go off the rails, the Republicans would be greasing the track, not leaning on the brakes.
This is just where politics in America is at today, and concerns about how to minimize injury to people don't enter it other than as window dressing.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Well, since there isn't any constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to filibuster by just saying you're filibustering unless you're overruled by a 2/3 majority rather than a simple majority, then clearly the defense of this bedrock foundation of freedom and democracy will have to be defended by use of the second amendment. This is what all the second amendment guys have been warning us about, right? Now is the time! Sew up some flags with "2/3 or Death!".
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Speaking of reading graphs, we have this one. It projects "percent job losses relative to peak employment month" for all of the US recessions since the end of the Second World War.
Without exception, all of the job recoveries before 1981 lasted less than two years till they met or exceeded the earlier peak employment and all the job recoveries after 1981 took longer than two years. Further, each subsequent recession from 1981 on, took longer to recover from than the previous one with the current one being the longest of all. The US still hasn't recovered to old employment levels from the beginning of the recession in late 2008 (glancing at job growth data, I think the threshold will be achieved shortly after March 2014).
That's why I continue to claim that the US hasn't recovered from the last recession and why it could have recovered, if it weren't for the current policies in place.
Now sure, we can continue to claim that this recession was "worse than expected" or we recognize that employers were punished by regulation for hiring more workers (and not just in the US!).
br. Obamacare for example forces employers of more than 50 full-time (here only 30 hours a week) workers to pay at least $2k per person over 30 full-time employees. For a 40 hour a week person, that's $1 per hour surcharge on top of everything else. That's pretty darn big for someone near the minimum wage level.
Health care plans traditionally expire at the end of a calendar year. Any plan that gets renewed is no longer grandfathered. Every plan is impacted by the law.
Some of the individual plans that are renewed or in the process of being cancelled may last through the end of next year but not much after that.
Because of this law you will be spared coverage denial, limitless billings, pre-existing condition denial etc...
I get migraines which suck but don't lead to any other adverse conditions, but it used to be a reason for denial of coverage.
Maybe the law would have been awesome if Republicans had thought it up......