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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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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.
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.
It's not fair to expect Congress to be an expert on all these things - that's impossible. Literally.
Which is why the framers limited the Congress's authority to thirty narrowly defined powers. That's a reasonable number for one organization to handle.
Healthcare advocates should recognize that if they want healthcare to work well, having Congress wield the power to control it is a bad solution.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
No... poor management and a poorly thought out law is what caused this mess.
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/
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
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.
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
You can. Not just local government offices, but local community centers. You can also call someone with the government over the phone to help you find insurance. Or, alternatively, you can get the information directly from the insurance companies (whom you have to sign up with anyway, even when using the website).
There's an intentional obfuscation of the situation here to try and equate the roll out of the website with the roll out of the law. They are not the same thing.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
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.........
Who then? Private industry has shown they can't do it. No country on the entire planet has a working private health care system.
On the other hand there are a number of countries that do pretty well with public systems.
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.
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.