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Officials Say HealthCare.gov Site Now Performing Well
The much-discussed health care finance sign-up website HealthCare.gov has benefited from the flurry of improvements that have been thrown at it in the last several weeks. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid spokesman Aaron Albright told Fox News Saturday that "[w]ith the scheduled upgrades last night and tonight, we're on track to meet our stated goal for the site to work for the vast majority of users." CMM spokeswoman Julie Bataille. "said the installation of new servers Friday night helped improved the response times and error rates, even with heavier-than-usual weekend traffic." If you've used the site this weekend, what has your experience been like?
It's just too hard for me.
--AOL user
I'll let you know when the page loads.
To test it, they want you to put in all kinds of personal information. No thanks.
Working for the "vast majority" is not good enough. It needs to work for "everybody who doesn't fuck it up themselves."
If officials say it, that makes it official. No need to check.
Go forth and force men and 50-year old women to buy insurance for childbirth! Forward.
It would be a disaster if this thing actually worked. Don't anger those with the money.
Ha, good one. You almost had me.
Given government practices, I believe the term "Vast Majority" was defined in a rider clause to some obscure "Save the Children-Feed up Pork" bit of legislation as:
* A number which can be interpreted as positive based on the needs of the agency which is quoting it, so long as it meets at least the 2 of the following (642) requirements:
i. Must be a real number. ("Real" having been defined in line 18, paragraph ZB, page 382, section N, subsection(s) c.,d. of the "Feed Really EgrEgious Denominations Of Money to the Republican Or Conservative Klingon Species ("FreedomRocks) Act.)
ii. Must be able to obfuscated in no less than 40 (double spaced) pages of irrelevant statistics and methods hiding the method whereupon the number was derived.
iii.......
iv. PROFIT!
I hope it works well now and that millions sign up for healthcare insurance.
I'm unemployed and without insurance. If I go to the dentist's office to get a small no-anesthesia filling, as I did last week, they will accept $116 from an insurance company but will charge me $167 for exactly the same procedure because I'm a cash payer. When an insurance company pays them, they deduct the difference between $167 and $116 as a "loss" to reduce their taxes. Obviously, they've got quite an incentive to do that.
It's not just dentist's offices. Those are the shenanigans going on with tens of thousands of health care providers across the US, it's to the tune of tens of billions of dollars of "losses" pulled out of thin air, and it has to fixed before any of this is going to improve. Subsidizing private insurance companies with taxpayer money and mandating that people sign up with them while allowing insurance companies to keep skimming profits out of the system and penalizing cash-payers is the wrong thing to do.
"We instructed the IETF to change HTTP, 4xx now means the same as 2xx".
BOSS: Our mandate is to make this site work for the vast majority of users in two weeks. Otherwise we don't get a bonus. And by "we" I mean "I". ... well, I just thought you could hire a few competent engineers for a change. That might get the job done.
ENGINEER ERNIE: But there are millions of users! Right now the site can only handle 200 simultaneous users, and we just don't have the hardware for more. If we work our asses off and spend a bunch of money on servers, we might be able to get it up to ten thousand. That's nowhere near the vast majority.
BOSS: Damn it, I promised my son I'd buy him a Cessna for his birthday. I need that bonus! You guys had better think of something quickly.
ENGINEER DAVE: I think I have an idea...
BOSS: Spit it out, man!
ENGINEER DAVE:
BOSS: Look, I tried that. It was nixed by the big shots -- they don't want to develop a reputation for competence, okay? You've gotta figure something out that works with our current human capital.
ENGINEER ERNIE: Uh, I have an idea. Say again what the mandate was?
BOSS: We have to make the site work for the vast majority of users in two weeks.
ENGINEER ERNIE: That's what I thought. So if we just drive away all the users right now, then we will have no users in two weeks, right?
BOSS: Yeah... how does that help?
ENGINEER ERNIE: Well, what's the vast majority of zero?
[Silence]
ENGINEER DAVE: But... but...
BOSS: Shut up and start sabotaging the code, or you're fired.
ENGINEERS: Yes, sir!
Healthcare still sucks ass and is expensive and semi-useless. But at least the website works now!
Now it can deny useful coverage and overcharge people as intended.
great.
Zippy and responsive. Each page was uncluttered, and what little info I had to give to "see plans in my area" was reasonable. I got back a dozen quotes in under a minute just clicking through things.
Now, the actual registration process is probably more complex, but if the rest of the website responds as beautifully as it did for me during those dozen screens I saw, then they really did a good job fixing it.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I'm not sure I care about site performance if I can't get past the verification step. The first time I called they said try back in 24hrs. The second time I called they said "Try it on a weekend!", the third time, "Try back after the 1st of the month"...
We have property taxes, income taxes, social security taxes, now medical taxes. The plan to force everyone to participate in the dollar economy instead of being able to subsist on their own takes another step. We can't have anyone think they're responsible for themselves. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The usurers and overlords are pleased.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Canada has more health care than Americans do, and they're not slaves.
Are you completely sure that health care is slavery?
with all of these anti-ObamaCare stories. By recognizing the problems, YOU are supporting the Republicans in their war against allowing minorities to have healthcare. The editors here should be ashamed of themselves.
You sir, are a fucking idiot.
...have said a lot of things about the ACA and Healthcare.gov, the vast majority of which turned out to be false. I would not expect anything different now.
So you're proposing to pay for the increases in health insurance I've had to pay for over the last 10 years? By my approximation you owe me an additional $50,000 plus interest. So were you going to pay with cash, gold, silver, cashier's check, or money order?
Uhh.. sorry to break it to you, but the guy who left Dick Cheney's rollback of habeas corpus in place, has been killing thousands of women and children with flying killer robots, and defends the violation of the constitutional rights of hundreds of millions of Americans is a full-on right wing Republican by any other name. If you don't see that the core premise of "Obamacare" is to subsidize the profits of a bunch of private insurance companies with taxpayer money and make it illegal to not buy their products, you should try taking off your party blinders.
C:\>ping www.healthcare.gov
Pinging bh.georedirector.akadns.net [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Basically all accounts created in the first week ten days must be abandoned and fresh account created. If you try to continue with the old account, it would retrieve an old incomplete corrupt data file and you are screwed. But start a new account, new email id, and it would be a breeze for most people. If you want to check your subsidy etc I heard there were trouble. Also heard that most troubled were older people unfamiliar with internet and web pages and were intimidated by all the new fangled terms and legalese.
Two days back got an email saying, "why don't you try again?". I logged in opened a chat window and asked "williams" to cancel that account. He said dont bother it will time out and die by itself.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
We've already had medical taxes, but they came in the form of income taxes for everyone to pay for the uninsured who were guaranteed benefits. About time they paid their fair share.
I still think we should have had a single payer system, with perhaps an optional Rolls Royce version available to cover extras.
Oh stop it. You can go off into the wilds and stay away from the IRS, UPS, AT&T and likely the NSA. Very, very few people stay completely off the grid. If you want to have the benefits of civilization, then you have to pay for it. That said, the ACA isn't going to help (or hurt much), the entire system is screwed up six ways from Sunday, but if you want to have any chance of reasonable rates you have to spread the costs as far and as wide a possible.
Perhaps there should be a way to opt out - you sign a form (and get branded, RFID'ed, tatooed or whatever) and you don't get to go to the ER. You don't get Police or Fire protection. You don't get mail. You can live your life in whatever rugged fantasy world you create for yourself. Goodluckwiththat.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Watching the home page load, this shows up:
[17:06:07.510] GET https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/dc.js [HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified 40ms]
[17:06:06.192] GET https://cdn.optimizely.com/js/166688199.js [HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified 40ms]
Hm.
So I'm in the process of trying to sign up for healthcare.gov. I'm already having problems, because it won't accept my e-mail address as my username, even though it would appear to fit the criteria.
"The username is case sensitive. Choose a username that is 6-74 characters long and must contain a lowercase or capital letter, a number, or one of these symbols _.@/-"
If they are having problems explaining the most basic things, I'm not hopeful.
The site is also less secure for me because none of my standard, extremely secure, never before had a problem with them passwords will work for it. That will force me to write it down, making the site inherently less secure.
5 Minutes later...
LOL. What an absolute piece of garbage of a web site. I tried to change my username to just the username of my email address and the site says it's invalid. It should be valid based on the instructions, but no joy. If they actually want the username to contain a number, then that's a joke; it's something I've never seen before on ANY website EVER.
WHO LAID OUT THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS SITE? JOE BIDEN? HAVE THEY NEVER EVEN USED THE INTERNET?
When sites come up with new, unusual standards for usernames and passwords (e.g. must contain a %, *, or ^), then they are making the site less secure because they are increasing the odds that people will have to write down their usernames and passwords.
Same here, strangely enough. Looks like a measure to avoid load caused by foreigners that got curious from all the bad reporting that this website got.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
Not only does every first world country other than the US have some sort of universal healthcare/single payer system, the US spends more than every other country for healthcare for a lower level of care/poor outcomes.
USA! USA!
If one plugs the First Family's income and ages into the web-based DC Health Link Calculator, the annual health care cost estimates for the Obama household come out to be $20,125 (Bronze), $19,537 (Silver), and $21,902 (Gold), not a good deal at all when compared to the starting-at-under-$200-a-month family health coverage available to the President and Congress through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. By the way, if the Obama family members were 10 years older and their combined household income was reduced to $95,000, the estimated cost would be a staggering $26,339 (Bronze), $25,728 (Silver), and $29,021 (Gold).
I'm interested in your theories. I have a deadly cancer treated successfully in the US, all paid for by private insurance with nearly no wait times on any treatments or anything ever denied.
Which of these other countries do you speak of that I would have gotten better treatment or a better outcome?
Reality doesn't seem to match your rhetoric.
FU in spades.
QED
Well, I just tried it out for the third and final time and well, if you consider "working well" the same
as calling a passed-out stoner as sober then it is working just fine dude.
Oh stop it. You can go off into the wilds and stay away from the IRS, UPS, AT&T and likely the NSA. Very, very few people stay completely off the grid. If you want to have the benefits of civilization, then you have to pay for it.
Or as Adam Smith said, those who benefit from society have an obligation to pay for the costs of running society.
Are you completely sure that health care is slavery?
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Which of these other countries do you speak of that I would have gotten better treatment or a better outcome?
In any modern developed country other than the US, you would have gotten similar treatment and since we know you responded well to treatment, you'd have the same outcome. Obviously you can't get a better outcome than successful treatment.
For people without insurance, of course, the outcomes are often vastly different because in the US that means they'll likely have to delay treatment.
My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. Prognosis without treatment was 5 years tops. Was taken in to hospital a week later, had an operation to remove the cancer, had further treatment, support afterwards to make sure everything was working, and regular checks until he was finally given the all clear.
Reality very much does match the rhetoric, it's just that you seemingly choose to ignore it.
So you're proposing to pay for the increases in health insurance I've had to pay for over the last 10 years? By my approximation you owe me an additional $50,000 plus interest. So were you going to pay with cash, gold, silver, cashier's check, or money order?
You were paying twice as much as the Canadians did because we don't have a government-run health care system like the Canadians do.
Send your bill to the insurance companies who overcharged you.
Send your bill to the politicians who got campaign contributions from the insurance companies.
It resolves to e8132.dscb.akamaiedge.net (23.7.74.194) in the U.S. if you care to take a gander. Not to say it won't reject you when you get there via IP too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
France, England, Japan, Norway....shit even Cuba....adds up just fine
They are Obama is dealing this health care cost is all wrong though, he even admitted that obamacare will not decrease costs because it dose nothing to do decrease it. I have not gone to the hospital for 20 years, but when I'm forced to pay the health insurance tax (courts said it was a tax), then I'm going to the hospital as much as I can and needed to get my value out of it, so my money will not be used by someone else.
Police and fire is paid by property taxes in most states, and you can avoid it by not owning a house. This is the first time you will be taxed for NOT doing something, and should not happen if the courts were not full of corrupt democrat judges.
At least not in my case. I was paying $165 for a better than platinum level plan.
Were you paying the entire bill for that plan? Did you have a large deductible? Most people that get health insurance have a major portion of the tab picked up by their employer. They think they pay $165 or whatever their price is because they never see the actual full cost of the plan. I've spent a LOT of time looking at health insurance plans in recent years. I have NEVER seen anyone get a plan with that much in the way of features for that kind of price unless they were paying a huge deductible. I had a catastrophic coverage plan a few years ago that had a $5000 deductible but had pretty good coverage after that and the price was around $150/month. But that first $5000 was entirely on me.
I run a manufacturing company. We provide health insurance for our employees and have picked up 50% of the cost. Our group rate for a pretty good 80/20 HMO with a zero deductible (roughly equivalent to a gold plan) cost about $525 per employee per month. Net cost to our employees is around $260/month since the company pays half. The plans we've found under the new regulations for the Affordable Care Act will give similar coverage for about $200-300/month (varies with age but always a lot less than current cost) or almost a 40% reduction in total premium over what we pay now. Furthermore a lot of our employees will qualify for subsidies so the coverage will cost even less.
While this whole roll out has been a fiasco, at the end of the day the people who work for me are mostly going to end up with similar or better coverage for less money. Furthermore their coverage will not be tied to their employment with us which is LONG overdue. No one should EVER lose health coverage just because they lost a job.
Not to mention the 20% or so that have no coverage at all.
Private healthcare FTW!!
Mussolini got the trains to run on time. That the mechanisms of tyranny are working is not a good thing.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
He said his treatments were fully covered and that he had no problem accessing treatments. We have the best doctors in the world, so I'm not sure how any of those countries could be *better*. He's statistically more likely to have a worse experience in those countries.
The brand is tainted, and the politicians who supported it suffered loss of confidence. The fact is the website itself was meaningless. The underlying statutes are the problem, and will continue to hound the democratic party for years.
Write a bad law, pay the consequences.
Link
Looks like in the UK I would not have gotten adjuvant treatment for my cancer, like I did in the US. The UK does not perform adjuvant treatment to melanoma surgery, period.
So I guess that makes you a liar, unless you are claiming the UK is not a modern developed country. I bet you didn't know the above fact because it wasn't part of the talking points you keep reading. Those of use DEALING with healthcare actually have to deal with those "details" about actual treatments that might save our lives.
Well, that's nice and I'm happy for you, but you would have probably been fine anywhere. We're trying to figure out how to get people who can't afford private insurace to have successful outcomes, too, like all the other first world countries seem to manage to do.
Works in Canada.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/health-care-costs-_n_3998425.html
http://kff.org/health-costs/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.html
I'm glad you base your outlook on your anecdotal evidence. You're part of the problem.
Hello,
There is a huge amount of ignorance exhibited here, and I really expected better from slash dot readers.
I am an expatriate Australian. Australia has had universal healthcare for 40 years. Everyone pays into Medicare, similar to the US Medicare tax, however it is not restricted by age. Why was it necessary to create the current behemoth of a website when the delivery system already existed?
As for the various Republican shills here, wanting everyone to "die in the street" if they can't afford healthcare, just remember that you could be dying in the street in the future. And I for one would prefer you to get care, even when you can't afford it.
Slavery. Good one.
If you don't want to participate in this society, don't. Sure, none of the civilized countries in Europe will take you, but maybe you can get into Rwanda. Then you can see firsthand what actual slavery looks like.
I had some routine blood tests from LabCorp. The official price was about $1000. I paid about 100$ because I had insurance, even though the insurance didn't actually pay for anything (high deductible) - I just got to make use of their negotiated rate that was 1/10 of the official one. That's seriously messed up.
Still not working for me.
Link
Looks like in the UK I would not have gotten adjuvant treatment for my cancer, like I did in the US. The UK does not perform adjuvant treatment to melanoma surgery, period.
So I guess that makes you a liar, unless you are claiming the UK is not a modern developed country. I bet you didn't know the above fact because it wasn't part of the talking points you keep reading. Those of use DEALING with healthcare actually have to deal with those "details" about actual treatments that might save our lives.
The jury is still out on adjuvant treatments for malignant melanoma. More treatment does not always mean better treatment.
A legitimate alternative to the ObamaCare insanity from Mr. Virtual President.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Just wanted to let you know that socialized healthcare has worked out great for the past several generations. Sincerely, the rest of the world. PS: We find your internal bickering over issues the rest of the world solved decades ago hilarious. Keep up the good work!
Or how about a way to opt in if you ever need to goto the ER and cannot pay. That is the most enraging portion of this law, it treats people as if they are guilty of a future crime and demands they make restitution before ever committing it. Just as you said, people without insurance will go to the ER and not be able to pay for it which most of the people without insurance have never done and probably will never do.
So perhaps this entire pit of bullshit would be easier to swallow if the mandates were removed and people who actually do need insurance after the fact pays a penalty of some sort, they become enrolled. Most insurance companies will require a years wait before covering someone with a preexisting condition so make the penalty two years coverage payments and an obligation to keep the insurance for 5 consecutive years after. Then you will only have people who are in positions like you describe who are impacted by the laws. It is like only charging and convicting people of robbing banks when they actually do rob banks.
Canada's government controlls the health care not some private company which is what Obamacare is. It would be different if you had to pay taxes and the government functioned, but for the first time since America was a colony of England, simply by being a citizen, you are forced by law to purchase something from a third party private company. Traditionally, this was only true if you participated in certain activities and had the options to not participate. Now the only way you can avoid participation is moving to another country and denouncing your citizenship or dieing.
I had a non-group plan that just got canx. It cost me $15 a month, covered every known and unknown med procedure with no deductible or co-pay. Now my premiums have gone up to $256 a month because of all the Obama dick sucking morons. Or maybe I'm lying just to make sure the Tea Party can continue partying for another few years. Hope this post helps.
That's because we're bombing every country for you. Whiny bitches. And where's the thank you card or a get well card? How rude.
....used Healthcare.gov from Illinois and he reported that his experience was quick and painless.
Finding God in a Dog
You are just fucking kidding, right? You get better care at our emergency rooms than in intensive care anywhere else.
Apparently you have missed the whole point of the ACA. Which was to make the best of the best health care we have here in the US available for a larger group of people.
Typically, you insure against disaster/catastrophies. Having a cough or a cold or a minor injury is not a disaster.
Home Insurance doesn't cover your day to day repair stuff.
That's how medical insurance should be. Medical costs increase because a doctor now has staff to deal with the insurance bureaucracy and billing. And the doctor has to figure out what's covered not covered etc.
In the USA we spend 8100 dollars per person in the USA for healthcare. Simple solution to save a lot of overhead money right off the top, one insurance for everyone that covers all needs paid on a sliding scale for anyone with under 100,000 income per family they pay one price. Everyone for 100,000 to 300,000 they pay another price, everyone with income over that gets screwed.
That will dramatically right out of the gate reduce costs of healthcare since we spend nearly 30% on ADMINISTRATION. That is approximately 2733 of that 8200 dollars on overhead a large part of that is the INSURANCE COMPANIES!
"An update of that analysis more than a decade later, after the diffusion of managed care and the widespread adoption of computerization, found that administration constituted some 30 percent of U.S. health-care costs and that the share of the health-care labor force comprising administrative (as opposed to care delivery) workers had grown 50 percent to constitute more than one of every four health-sector employees." --business week
That's 1/3 less.
Next offer free school for doctors in exchange for set prices on healthcare services for doctors that have above a 3.5 out of 4 average in college. That will greatly reduce the costs of services.
Next put a cap on prices paid for hospital equipment. One buyer for all equipment buying in bulk and distributing it throughout the USA to hospitals and doctors offices. Equipment prices paid in the USA is crazy higher than other countries. That will save a ton of money.
Next setup flat tax rate on all US sales no exceptions if you sell it in the USA you pay taxes on it simple as that across the board for everyone, kill the rest and that will save a ton of money on taxmen.
Next stop fighting costly wars that we can't have a hope to win. That will save future 14 trillions paid and huge healthcare costs.
That is just a start.... b52
As of 11:30 Saturday, it was still not any faster and still doesn't complete for me. Took about 20 minutes to get all the way through for me and my wife. And at the very end after reviewing and signing, I get an error and it never verifies my ID. So, no change from last month ... yet.
We have the best doctors in the world, so I'm not sure how any of those countries could be *better*.
I would rather be seen by an average doctor early in my illness instead of a superstar doctor late into it.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
.. at www.healthcare.gov.
'nuff said.
...now that the site works, does that mean that the law isn't flawed? Or are the people who made that argument just going to backtrack now?
So to render the homepage, an average of a second seems reasonable? I did not post to a form to find out. What crap.
httping healthcare.gov ...
PING healthcare.gov:80 (healthcare.gov): ...
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=0 time=1155.39 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=1 time=676.95 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=2 time=703.38 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=3 time=1265.81 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=4 time=1353.09 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=5 time=780.69 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=6 time=811.66 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=7 time=841.58 ms
connected to 23.78.167.205:80 (230 bytes), seq=8 time=1117.90 ms
--- healthcare.gov ping statistics ---
9 connects, 9 ok, 0.00% failed, time 17277ms
round-trip min/avg/max = 677.0/967.4/1353.1 ms
You mean the same "officials" that said things like:
"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan PERIOD!"
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor PERIOD!"
"It will only cost $900B"
"etc..."
..could never have been tested and debugged thoroughly in that amount of time.
AND the government is running it.
This program will never work. Ever.
I highly suggest you google "cancer survival rates in the UK"
For YOU it does, but that's the whole point of the Akamai "georedirector", is to find the nearest server TO YOU.
I love all the comments about knowing what I need and that my needs are meaningless in comparison to those of the many.
In Soviet Slashdot, the website signs up you!
Not only that, other countries don't force you to purchase health insurance, force me to register on a website, then wonder what the hell I'm going to pay.
Oh stop it. You can go off into the wilds and stay away from the IRS, UPS, AT&T and likely the NSA. Very, very few people stay completely off the grid. If you want to have the benefits of civilization, then you have to pay for it.
Or as Adam Smith said, those who benefit from society have an obligation to pay for the costs of running society.
Tell that to the 1%. All they're interested in is buying politicians to make sure they keep getting federally mandated profits.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
If a private sector insurance salesman promised that, it would be called business as usual.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Um ... what does that even mean? "More" "health care"?
Measured in what? Nanoseconds? Furlongs?
Precisely.
In a way the bad web site put off the death of Obamacare for 2 months because people kept thinking the problem is/was the poorly conceived web site.
In fact, the problem is a poorly conceived plan.
... the Americans are still mired with a dumbfucked website !
Attaboy, America !
Is rejected:
Invalid URL
The requested URL "/", is invalid.
Reference #9.9d23bc3.1385902992.d15aa6
Though as an expat living in one of those dreaded socialist states, I just get my health insurance here.
For me (in the UK) it resovles to 23.74.87.205, but the connection gets reset if I try to load the web page. Tried proxying through my US server, and the page loads. Looks like they don't want non-US IP addresses!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
but I just got a letter from my insurance company that says that they will pay for only 4 of the 22 physical therapy visits my doctor requested. Thank GOD ALMIGHTY and PRAISE JESUS we don't have single payer healthcare in this country! I'd hate to have someone from the government standing between me and my doctor! I sleep much better at night (when my shoulder lets me) knowing that some accountant at the insurance company has MY best interest in mind and knows what is best for me.
I logged on in the early days of October to disastrous effect. After multiple attempts and cache clearings I was able to register but could not progress very far. Now I am able to pull up and edit my application with no "serious" glitches. The site still throws up poorly designed pages, imposes goofy requirements, and loads slower than would be optimal. It does, however, appear to get the job done which is what counts in a critcal government service. Unfortunately, I don't actually qualify for ACA coverage so I was not able to test the critical identity verification process.
I live near Cleveland, home of some of the very best and largest hospital systems in the United States. It is not uncommon to see Canadians down here, having driven down to Cleveland for medical care. These tend to be the wealthier Canadians, the ones who can afford for US-based medical insurance.
Why do they buy US-based medical insurance and go to the hospitals here instead of the ones in Canada if the Canadian system of care is so exceptional and superior?
I find the "OMGZ i have to get health insurance this is slavery!!!11!!" posts to be insane.
Canada's health care isn't perfect, but I have never had to pay a dime for going to the doctor, hospital, or any operation (and I've had a few). I've never even thought about it. When I was kid, I just always assumed doctor's were free. In addition, I make "normal" (slightly above the national average) money, and I can afford a reasonable house, a normal car, etc. without more debt than just a mortgage. I am not a slave, my quality of life is high, and I have no complaints.
So, what's the problem here? Why is there such an irrational fear to a health system that is obviously working in many other countries? Health care shouldn't be something you worry about because you can't afford it. That's a totally asinine approach to me.
and ask a few questions regarding healthcare.gov:
"Could it be that the problems with the site were made worse by hackers being paid to cause problems?"
"Could it be the RNC and health insurance industries that paid those hackers?"
I have no evidence- I'm just asking the questions...
I get your point, but actually, in most states, if you want to drive a car you are forced to buy insurance. It's been that way for a loooong time.
Of course, the insurance companies charge more for those most likely to use the insurance, and they routinely deny coverage to people, forcing high risk people to to buy from last-resort type insurers who charge an arm and a leg and provide little actual coverage, similar to what the health insurers have done.
The original principle of pooling money to pay for claims was tossed out years ago when the insurance companies figured out they could make more money by keeping more of the pool for themselves by only insuring those who are unlikely to be filing claims and by redefining coverage limits.
In theory obamacare addresses this, but in the end it will simply make the insurance companies richer and even more powerful (as in buying more congressmen and senators than they already own) because of tax payer funds being given to insurers to cover those who can't afford insurance at rates set by those same insurance companies. What a brilliant scam!
Well, measured by what they spend, they get a whole lot less healthcare. Measured by outcomes, they've got measurably better health
They've got slightly higher longevity figures (82 vs 79), expected years of healthy life (70 vs 67) and significantly lower infant mortality rates (4.27 per 1000 vs. 5.9), while at the same time spending LOTS less money (as of 2010, US: $8233 vs. Canada:$4,445). The per capita cost discrepancy is even more dramatic when you consider that at the time 17% of Americans had no insurance at all, and an unknown number more were under-insured with junk plans.
So what the figures show is that Americans get more health care, Canadians get better health outcomes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Perhaps you don't understand what a better than platinum plan is. I buy individual insurance, I am not member of a group plan like your manufacturing company has.
I understand perfectly well thanks but since you don't know me I'll overlook the condescending remark. Frankly, if you claim to be getting a "better than platinum" plan for $165/month without being a member of a group and with a deductible under $3000 I'm going to call bullshit unless you can provide some actual evidence. Even for a healthy 20 year old you simply cannot get a non-group plan for that kind of cash that will actually cover anything unless it has a huge deductible. Prove me wrong. What specific plan do you have with what insurance company? What specifically does it cover and what is the deductible?
Love that optimism.
No optimism needed. I pay our bill each month right now so I know to the penny what we currently pay and I have gotten quotes directly from Blue Cross and Priority Health for what coverage they will get next year. The full cost of the plan *will* be less than it is now (by about half for most) and their out of pocket will in most cases be equal or less as well. This is not supposition on my part. I'm merely reporting what our company has experienced.
Keep in mind that that insurance will also have to be purchased not just once, but for the rest of your employees' lives. Just because you might be right this year about a cost reduction, doesn't mean you'll be right in the years to come.
Just like it always has been. Do you have a point to make you can back up with some actual facts or are you just chicken little-ing?
The poor slobs now have to sell you health care EVEN IF YOU ALREADY HAVE AN EXPENSIVE CONDITION
Now why, why would any more or less healthy person who is not expecting a baby sign up for health care? Pay the small fine, it's cheaper. Pay out-of-pocket for the one or two times you need to see a doctor or get a flu shot this year. It's still cheaper.
And if you find out that you have cancer, a heart condition, or (like myself) a chronic condition like ulcerative colitis which is going to require tens of thousands of dollars' worth of health care every year to manage... well, THEN sign up, and get the Gold option, and laugh at the clueless corporate fucks in the insurance industry who thought that getting into bed with the government and forcing everyone to buy their product, would actually result in moar profit...
Part of the Second American Revolution!
I mean, I know we don't live in a particularly nice society. Heck, I just read an article about how much we distrust one another in the US. The fact is that society functions better if we try to take care of each other. Dog eat dog fails in the long term.
Yeah, I get it. Some of you are paying more now. But how is that any different than paying more in taxes for road construction or schools? You may never drive on those roads or send children to those schools. However, you are investing in the infrastructure of our society. Likewise, with the healthcare, you are investing in the people that make this society possible. Investing in people means less sick people, less defaulting on loans (by those sick people), and ultimately, lower costs for all goods because labor becomes a bit cheaper by virtue of fewer sick people.
For those of us that support the ACA, we're fighting against shortsightedness. This is better for society, period. Still, even if you are such a monster that can't see past your own wallet, this will benefit you directly. Albeit, in small ways that will never be the least bit obvious.
What are republicans going to complain about now?
Still broken for me...and the idiots on the live chat are not very helpful!!!!
...now that the site works, does that mean that the law isn't flawed? Or are the people who made that argument just going to backtrack now?
I don't know, but that's a great hypothetical question. If these were actual people rather than straw men then I guess we'd eventually find out.
I managed to set up an account. Halfway into entering my personal information it returned an error and suggested I try again in 30 minutes.
Oh stop it. You can go off into the wilds and stay away from the IRS, UPS, AT&T and likely the NSA. Very, very few people stay completely off the grid. If you want to have the benefits of civilization, then you have to pay for it.
Or as Adam Smith said, those who benefit from society have an obligation to pay for the costs of running society.
Tell that to the 1%. All they're interested in is buying politicians to make sure they keep getting federally mandated profits.
There's more of us than there are of them. All we have to do is vote for politicians who will follow the interests of the citizens who elected them.
Although we seem to have difficulty doing that. There appears to be something wrong with democracy.
You are just fucking kidding, right? You get better care at our emergency rooms than in intensive care anywhere else.
The available facts do not support your argument. The US is paying way more money per capita than anyone else for worse outcomes than a large number of other countries. While there are areas where the US does lead the pack (particularly research and medical technology), the US does not have the best results for life expectancy, immunizations, or average cost of a hospital stay among other important categories. The data on outcomes simply does not support the assertion that the US has the best healthcare system because the US does not get the best results overall nor does it get the best results per dollar spent.
"If y'all don't laaaik it yer cn geeeyit aaut," huh? Well, fuck you, sir. People like you ruin the Internet and most other public forums.
Gapminder's main site
Go ahead, check out the stats. By any measure, the US is NOT number one when it comes to health care and we spend a higher percentage of our GDP than everyone else for demonstrably poorer results.
CNN tries it and it still fails, but now it fails after they collect all your information... So at least the NSA and IRS are happy!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Insurance is a ponzi scheme, health care comes from apples, carrots, greens...you know, raw food that grows in the ground, not in a lab.
Or do all the pro-ACA posters here sounding siminar-callerly ? There is a small nugget of stories here that stink like paid posters. I have not met one person or business owner in my town that is happy with the new prices and plans. Those for whom the price was reduced were getting insurance on their own under subsidies for the first time. They were previously covered via parents or work.
And all the users who keep telling me that the uninsured are raising the prices for the rest of us, of the medically bankrupt, three-quarters of that group had insurance, at least when they first got sick.
Are they the same ones who said there never was a problem?
Or the ones responsible for the problem?
Or the ones who dont care if it works or not as the control is all they actually care about. ??
Which liars are saying this to us now?
"Performing Well" and "Performing Well under actual use" are two different things.
Not a problem. The taxpayers are still footing the bill no matter what a fiasco the whole thing is.
FO
Will Not Comply.
Will not sign up, will not pay for freeloaders.
And just to make it perfectly clear, if you are a freeloader with your hand out, go fuck yourself.
Google here has the power, should they decide to use it, to extract any data they want from any page or form in Healthcare.gov by downloading a suitable tracker. Whether you think this is evil depends on how much you trust Google.
It's even worse than that. Those little bits of "tracker" code being injected are written and controlled by each tracking service. So not just Google, but CrazyEgg or ChartBeat staff could upload spyware into HealthCare.gov's site.
Google does a little checking on the injected code, mostly to make sure it won't crash the page with bad Javascript syntax. Each snippet of tracking code is enclosed in a try-block, so one tracker won't abort the other trackers. But there's no indication that Google takes any steps to limit the intrusiveness of the tracking.
CrazyEgg collects every click on every page. This is used to generate a "heat map" of web page usage, and can be misused to find out which check boxes and buttons someone used when signing up for health insurance.
Of course, all these parties claim they won't do bad stuff.
No matter how anyone pitches it, the Obamacare website still does not work. I was able to create a profile, but it will not take me to the next step to determine eligibility. It appears that the software module connecting to the IRS does not work.
Let's cut to the chase and admit that the ACA is a moral argument. If there was a benefit to me, somehow, I'd have a check in the mailbox. There isn't one. The only reason that we put up with this federal slavery is to make a few people feel good about themselves, that, we're all pitching in for their causes because the people doing the most preaching don't really want to pay for their causes themselves.
The rest of us are just slaves to their dreams. No matter how good they are, they are still tyrants, and that must never be forgotten, and no man that preaches, should ever be trusted. Always remember that to make someone else's life better, government ruined yours.
This is my sig.
In the sense that, if your country was so voluntarily willing to pitch in for health care, then you wouldn't need taxes to make it compulsory, would you? Just saying. As it is, there is at least a credible minority of people in Canada who are essentially slaves - they are working for something they don't want, and, you don't speak for them....
This is my sig.
First off, let's establish that these 20% don't want the coverage. Otherwise, there would not be a law that forces them to buy it. So, why don't you rephrase your tragedy as "not everyone is paying for what I want.", which is more accurate.
This is my sig.
...now that the site works, does that mean that the law isn't flawed? Or are the people who made that argument just going to backtrack now?
Wait. WTF? You mean the same assholes who voted >40 times to repeal it even though they knew they did not have the votes to prevail?
No, we have a democracy and we can change the rules of society. We can completely shut down the federal government and if you want to have single payer in your state, go ahead and have it, just don't foist it off on everyone else's so you can feel good about for yourself for wrecking the lives of those people that are managing their health risks in ways that makes more sense to them.
This is my sig.
Cuba has higher 5 year survival rates for all types of cancer, than the USA. Yay, we're behind Cuba.
I invite the analysis using any well-intentioned metric.
I don't think the driving a car example is close to relevant. You can always opt out of driving by taking public trasnportation, relying on friends and family, walking or riding a bike and so on. You cannot opt out if the health insurance mandate unless you leave the country and renounce citizenship or die. I suppose being incarcerated could give you a way also but that illistrates just how different this is.
It doesn't really matter what the intent is or how the justification is presented, you simply cannot get around the fact that once born, or a lawful citizen in the US, you are obligated to pay a third party private company else face penalty under the law with absolutely no due process at all. For many, no sugar coating or slick talk will make that acceptable.
Oh stop it. You can go off into the wilds and stay away from the IRS, UPS, AT&T and likely the NSA. Very, very few people stay completely off the grid. If you want to have the benefits of civilization, then you have to pay for it.
Or as Adam Smith said, those who benefit from society have an obligation to pay for the costs of running society.
Tell that to the 1%. All they're interested in is buying politicians to make sure they keep getting federally mandated profits.
There's more of us than there are of them. All we have to do is vote for politicians who will follow the interests of the citizens who elected them.
Although we seem to have difficulty doing that. There appears to be something wrong with democracy.
Get rid of the Citizens United decision, and fund presidential campaigns strictly through income tax, and we'll do just fine, thank you. The problem is lobby money, particularly when it's dark money like a lot of the Republican 'nonprofits' that are around strictly to fund 'friendly' pols.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
lol.. I guess reality is a troll.
Nothing said was not true. the argument, or one of the main arguments for the mandate is exactly that people with insurance are paying for those without when not everyone without gets treatment they cannot or do not pay for. Therefore, people who have never done so are now obligated to pay a third party in order to try and make the greedy people's insurance cheaper or face a penalty under law with no due process rights involved at all.
Marking something a troll cannot ever get around that simple fact.
They would know.... :)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
???? How much did the DNC just pay you to put that comment on here??? was it as much as the other poster boys are getting at reddit... I wonder ;)
FragHARD or don't frag at all
I got a better idea. How about you die, hopefully in the most miserable and painful way possible, and then this finally becomes a free country again? With a lot cheaper oil to boot.
You don't have a fucking clue, of course. That's why you make such a good slave.
I saw people making this exact argument over and over right here on slashdot. They aren't strawmen.
I won't be mandated and I won't sign up for this socialist trash.
The site mot working is simply a symptom of the real problem. The government is generally incompetent. Even in warfare the government is generally incompetent, they are only saved by the fact that the people (governments they are fighting are even more incompetent.)
The site was broken because the premise of government intrusion into health care at this level is flawed. The law is flawed to the same extent.
Does the site really work? If it does that means the back end has been fixed too doesn't it? We know that's not happened.