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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.
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.
Funny because from the title I thought this might have something to do with Project Rescue: http://projectrescue.com/
"Project Rescue provides physical, emotional and spiritual rescue and holistic restoration to women and children in sexual slavery."
Little bit of namespace collision going on there.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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
No... poor management and a poorly thought out law is what caused this mess.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Yes, because begging your congressman for treatment is a far better system.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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/
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
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Socialism has always resulted in a lower standard of living for the people it's purported to help
citation needed
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.
"Socialism has always resulted in a lower standard of living for the people it's purported to help." You don't do credit to your position when you state outright falsehoods. For a clear counterexample, check out Norway. By a number of indicators, they have the highest standard of living in the world, and are also one of the more socialist nations on Earth, and their prosperity has come in parallel with their switch from a monarchy to a socialist democracy. All of Scandinavia and Western Europe in general have followed this pattern. Extreme, tyrannical socialism certainly fails, just like extreme, tyrannical capitalism does, but nations that respect civil liberties tend to do well economically, regardless of whether they have a more cooperative or independent economic governance. There may be facts to bolster your cause, but baseless talking points are not facts.
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.
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
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
"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
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.
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.
I would touch it with a 10 foot stack of $20 bills. (Thats $559,200)
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
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! --
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.........
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.........
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.
My post was pointing out the absurdity of the statement that socialism always causes economic decline. You make no counterargument, but suggest that Norway can have the prosperity of socialism because of US military protection? I'm don't follow the connection. I do agree that Norway is a small country with a small military, but what does that have to do with socialism? If you are suggesting that a strong military in the US protects Norway, then you contradict your point: the military is among the most socialized American institutions. We are forced to pay for it for the common protection, and it is controlled by bureaucracy rather than private industry. I have mixed feelings about the Affordable Healthcare Act. My goal was to try to focus on facts instead of tangential falsehoods.
* 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.
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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.
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
Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when the website is working as intended. Then 48 million people can see how expensive the insurance they are forced to buy actually is. Or maybe like me, they will be denied access to healthcare.gov, and be forced to enroll in medicaid if they want health insurance. Strange considering that 2 months ago I had a better than Platinum level plan that cost me $165 a month.
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?
Venezuela, where life expectancy at birth has risen from 60.2 to 77.4 years between 1960 and 2011, compared to a change from 70.0 to 78.6 over the same period for the United States? Also, rising literacy rates, declining poverty, etc. For a country not starting from the top of the economic ladder, Venezuela seems to be doing pretty well under socialism --- just about every indicator I can find shows improving standard of living under Socialist rule. Where's your basis for Venezuelan Socialism being a net negative to "the people it's purported to help," rather than the positive improvement indicated by available facts?
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
So, they have a bunch of oil and use it to raise the standard of living of their population. What a horrible crime against humanity. Clearly, they should have let foreign multinationals collect all the profits from their country's oil, like God intended, instead of wasting that money on improving quality of life for the common citizenry.
If you've got oil, what's wrong with *using it* to fund government expenditures, given Venezuela's general track record of *success* in consistently raising quality-of-life indicators across the board for their population? And, as for "taking the assets of other countries," I take it you're ignorant of the entirety of US historical involvement in South America (hint: it involves installing lots of murderous dictators, and stripping every asset in sight for Wall Street investors' gain).
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.
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.