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Former Microsoft Exec To Lead HealthCare.gov
Antipater writes "NBCNews reports that Kurt DelBene, former head of Microsoft's Office division, will take over operations of Healthcare.gov on Wednesday. DelBene will replace Jeffrey Zients, who stepped in to lead the team fixing the health insurance website when it crashed and burned on its Oct. 1 launch. Zients is set to take over next month as senior White House economic adviser from Gene Sperling.'"
My healthcare BSOD...
Will the web site feature a seemingly-friendly, but obnoxious-as-hell talking paper clip that pops up whenever its unwanted?
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
Wait, so you mean this is the second guy to "step in and fix it" since October? That would seem to indicate this is truly an enormous disaster.
He is the spouse (husband, I assume) of Congressperson Karen DelBene (D-WA), also an ex-MS person.
Oh please oh please oh please
Bringing BSOD to Healthcare.gov in 2014
Always "pays for sure"
Surface Pro, HC edition
Healthcare.gov will soon require IE 6
Need to register for your mandated insurance? Start -> HHS Health Bob
Obvious Bill could see this coming.
Bill Gates says Microsoft Bob will make a comeback
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
And note this has NOTHING to do with capitalism or the free market.
Corrupt socialist politician lies and decieves to enable further tyranny upon the formerly free people of the US. Wake me when there is some news.
How about this:
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/12/17/washington-post-obama-administration-slowed-red-tape-avoid-2012-election-backlash/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Demint
"The production of new rules, which until then had been in overdrive, slipped into a lower gear. And the regulatory agenda, which the Administration was required by law to release every spring and fall, did not appear. Noting the odd silence, Heritage research fellow Diane Katz speculated that the rules were being deliberately delayed until after the election year."
More lies enhanced by the complicit media to enxure the boy king gets re-elected. And you lot support this tyranny nearly to a man. You people are pathetic.
And yes, the regulatory state, which its own rules, courts, and legal system, is the single most tyrannical aspect of the modern U.S. Government. One of the scariest aspects of Obamacare is that it left 90% of the law to the discretion of unaccountable, unelected, power-hungry cronies (not just Sebellius, but also IRS officials).
If only there was a mechanism by which information such as the state of modern regulations could be transmitted to the general public.
I don't want to ever hear another g_ddamned word from a g_ddamned liberal, ever, about how corrupt and power hungry Nixon/Reagan/Bush/insert Republican POTUS here was.
45 seconds
2 minutes
15 seconds
30 seconds
So a former MS exec is now in charge of USA 'health insurance' system. I wonder, how much time before MS is hired to write a secondary system that will replace the original one (at a hefty price tag, of-course)?
You can't handle the truth.
I'm trying to think how this could end well.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Many of them think the best upgrade for Office 2015 would be to make it look like Office 2010 instead of this forced Windows-8 style which looks clunky and a bit monochromatic.
If this is the executive responsible for this, I wonder who on earth picked him to be in charge of a site that needs to be used by a lot of computer-illiterate folks who don't like silly design changes!?!
I mean 10 seconds. Err, 3 months. No 5 days.
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
Quick fix: in glorious MS tradition rename the site My Healthcare.net Now since few people would be able to figure out how to deal with the space in the website name, the congestion issue will be taken care of.
The backed parts controlled by PHB's are what failed in the website.
The tech's did not have that much time after getting the specs and have very limited QA time.
Would you Like to:
[N/A] Keep your existing health plan?
[ ] Automatically get shunted into Medicaid?
[ ] Pay through the nose for a plan with a higher deductible, a higher co-pay, and higher monthly fees?
[ ] Appeal your death panel ruling?
screwed ov er the country enough already.
The blind leading the blind.
The sad thing about this is that it indicates the government thinks that MS is a shining example of how to do things right.
Wait, so you mean this is the second guy to "step in and fix it" since October? That would seem to indicate this is truly an enormous disaster.
Its not just fixing the front end user interface. There is the 40% of the project that is back end and has not even been implemented at all according to recent testimony to congress.
They can replace everything with Ribbons... allowing users to customize their experience! Not only will they never be able to sign up for health care now, but they won't even know where to click to exit the web site!
What large connected software system has MS built without purchasing a company that was already doing the thing and re-brand it?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
"Are you sure?" :-)
Also - the site will have impenetrable ribbon bars at the top with icons that you will have no idea about
The problems are largely resolved and in 3 months when the deadline hits and millions more are enrolled the old administrators will take the blame for past problems and this guy will get the credit.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Stack Ranking will make it worse:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the-terrible-management-technique-that-cost-microsoft-its-creativity/
Management idiots never seem to get it. And to make matters worse you have Marissa Meyer forcing employees into the office because they might be happy at home.
And the whole thing would have just exploded. Does Obama have a change of heart and wants this whole thing to just die?
"Will healthcare.gov always operate on open web standards, or slide toward proprietary (Microsoft) lock-in?"
Would you Like to:
Correct version of the above:
Would you like to:
There is no corresponding correction to "death panels" because those are imaginary.
Gotta love 'em
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They are going to set up the Blue Screen of Death Panel.
Please? How much more complicated do we have to make it before we do what the rest of the civilized world is doing?
I know Americans like to be different but it's gone too far.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
When Obama said: "If you like your plan you can keep it," — he meant to say: "If I like your plan, you can keep it." The millions, whose plans aren't, in Obama's omniscient and benevolent opinion, good enough — because they don't cover, say, obesity counseling, or contraception, or gender-changes — are out of luck...
No, they aren't. There always are patients, who could be kept alive at high costs but without much, if any, prospect of recovering. When and whether to "pull the plug" on them is currently up to the patients and/or their families. Once the government becomes the single payer — which is what Obama and you dream about — the decision will be the government's. It is unlikely, that it will be a single shirley sharrod deciding — more like a panel of them. "Death panel" is a perfectly apt term describing the outfit...
If the IRS is already used today to suppress opposition, why wouldn't the next charismatic demagogue in the White House use these panels to an even graver effect? No, not even against the opposition figures themselves — too obvious...
"Hey, if you'd like your mother to be approved for surgery, rather than referred to End of Life Counseling, do not talk about this and that in your next public appearance. Do we understand each other?"
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I laughed so hard I nearly coughed up my skull. They're getting some Microsoft flunky to fix the Healthcare.gov debacle? That's the final nail in the coffin for Obamacare.
In my company we got rid of our previous programming manager, who drank the Micorosoft koolaid, a few months ago. Productiviity is up about 400%.
"When and whether to "pull the plug" on them is currently up to the insurance companies."
fixed that for you
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
...give you some MiracleGrow, and shine your leaves once a week?
What with you being a plant and all...
Sometime earlier today I felt a disturbance in the force, as though millions of user accounts cried out terror and they were suddenly silenced... Have been wondering why. Now I know.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sure. Thanks for confirming, that death panels do, in fact, exist. However, the worst the insurance company can do today is notify the hospital, they'll stop paying — and they don't want to do that for fear of very bad publicity. The hospital — being a separate entity currently — will not pull the plug on their own.
Once we arrive at the "single payer" nirvana, hospitals will, effectively, be run by the same people, who pay the bills. And, unlike with today's competing insurance companies, the sole payer will have no fear of competition... Double whammy — and the death panels...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
We are already at that "single payer" nirvana for everybody over 65. It's called Medicare, and Medicare has a significantly higher satisfaction rate than private insurance.
Dear Shill,
Just because Obama issues a proclamation, it doesn't mean he can change dully passed law at will.
So what does the ObamaCare Shill's Handbook say about that, shill?
And while you're looking, shill, maybe you could tell us why so many of the 5 million people who have already had their policies cancelled thanks to ObamaCare said they were good policies, and that the new coverage is both worse and more expensive?
You forgot one check-box:
[_] Stick with GOPcare and die.
Table-ized A.I.
Just like MS-Office menus, they'll re-arrange your guts every 6 years for no reason whatsoever. You'll forgot which orifice does what, and brush 'em all just to be on the safe side.
Table-ized A.I.
That's kind of the point, some Democrat congress critters say. Let this fail horribly and a certain segment of the voting public will once again be clamoring for CHANGE. Any change will do. Those voters don't bother to ask "change to what?"
If they did think about what the new (single payer) system would be like, they'd realize they'll have the US government, who can't even manage to have a website built, would be running the whole show. Instead of taking six months to maybe buy medical insurance on healthcare.gov, it'll be six months to maybe schedule a doctor appointment on healthcareappt.gov .
Microsoft's culture is deficient when it comes to the idea that things should Just Work. They will get an arrogant notion in their heads that users need to do things differently to accommodate a design decision. They regularly opt to force the next iteration on users rather than fix problems in what exists and strive for stability. Microsoft Office is an example. Interoperability is way below forced obsolescence on Microsoft's list of design criteria.
Someone from Microsoft isn't necessarily the worst possible choice for the job - there are heroin addicts in the Ukraine who have little experience with problem analysis and system design and various deep-sea fish that would probably be worse choices - but it's certainly not a good choice, and most likely has more to do with cronyism, nepotism, or who helped who during the Obama campaign than with what would be good for healthcare.gov going forward.
and so this is how it is in other countries that do have single-payer?
huh? what? they don't have the problems you list? other countries _do_ make this work and the people _do_ like it?
so you must be saying that we can't do things even 2nd world countries can?
why do you hate america so much?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Actually, all non-exchange compliant health plans are doomed under the ACA. The "you can keep your plan" statement was known to be a lie by anyone who understood economics. All health insurance plans are designed to have younger healthier members to offset the older sicker members. Once the ACA goes into effect no one will be allowed to join these existing non-exchange compliant plans. Without new members a health plan is doomed. Its population just gets older and sicker and premiums will no longer cover costs. Whether it was 1 year or 5 years or 10 years anyone who looked into this would understand old insurance plans were to be canceled. Why would anyone be surprised that the insurance companies are canceling these doomed plans earlier rather than later to maximize profit?
If only the law were written with the concept of discretion and waivers in mind.
Heaven forbid, they actually thought of it.
But who knows why people say what they do, people say a lot of things, but the facts don't always back them up.
See for example, Megyn Kelly on Fox News, about St. Nicholas and Jesus.
nobody gives a shit about yor stupid fucked up analysis of health care. what the fuck do you know about healthcare?
this is an anti microsoft site.
now shut up about how fucked up obama is because of how fucked up bush is and get back to bashing balmer or elop or whoever else makes more money than you you fuckking trolls.
Somehow, other civilized societies avoided that, what is it about the USA that makes YOU feel like it wont?
A) The Canadians I know come to the US for medical care.
Do we want a system so awesome that people can't get the care they need and have to go to other countries? Canada DOES measure quality by the percentage of people who are able to see a doctor within 30 days. For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days. I called my doctor at 4PM today to make an appointment for tomorrow morning . So yes, that is a problem with government run healthcare.
B) Yes, I AM saying that the US government is different from other countries. It's supposed to be. I bet most governments can build a web site, or at least have one built. The US government spends millions and ends up with garbage. That's a fact. Even Obamacare poster girl that Obama presented as a representative success story wasn't actually able to buy insurance via healthcare.gov. All they needed was ONE person to present as a success story and they couldn't find ONE; they had to fake it.
The US government is SUPPOSED to be fair, transparent, and democratic. It's not DESIGNED to be efficient and capable. If we wanted efficient and capable we'd have Supreme Dictator Eric Schultz, not filibusters. Eric Schultz, as dictator, would get shit done. Congress doesn't get shit done, Congress isn't designed to get shit done Congress is designed to be fair, to be accountable to their constituents and to be deliberative (slow).
I'm sure North Korea could do government healthcare efficiently, because they'd just do whatever the dictator said, with noone whining about coverage for sex-change surgery or whatever. Here in the US, the government has to pander to the dude who wants a pussy, to the old guy who spent all his money on hookers and blow, and the young people working their ass off to pay for all this crap. That's not a recipe for an effective, efficient system. It's not supposed to be, not the US government.
to "Embrace, extend, extinguish" doesn't it? So you can take the exec out of MS but can you take the MS out of the exec?
My God. Your first post was bad enough. This is epic astroturfing.
Ezekiel is that you??
I'm glad you didn't have to wait long. According to the government office running that damn thing, about 30% of patients have to wait more than 30 days for a GP and 70% wait more than 30 days for a specialist.
Are you claiming that they are lying to make themselves look bad, or that it's okay for everyone ELSE to be unable to see the doctor for a month, because you personally got to see one this time?
will replace Jeffrey Zients, who stepped in to lead the team fixing the health insurance website when it crashed and burned on its Oct. 1 launch. Zients is set to take over next month as senior White House economic adviser
So, you either have an economist who was working in an IT position, which may explain why the website is having such problems, or you have an IT guy who is going to step into an economist position, which means that the economy is going to tank. Or you have a manager who doesn't understand either but acts like they do. Who thought this was a good idea?
Universal health care...take the money for it out of the NSA budget!
Meanwhile, even the NYT is profiling lefty professionals who are quite surprised to learn that Obamacare means they pay more and get less.
Some people always were going to end up paying more any time you make adjustments in the rules. This is no big surprise unless you weren't paying attention or are just plain dumb. When you shift coverage around the risk pools are going to change and some people are going to end up paying more than before, particularly if they had an unusually good deal. Some will get better pricing others will have to pay a bit more. Most will end up somewhere in the middle.
On the other hand, in my company virtually all of my employees (except for myself) are going to end up paying less than they were before for similar or better coverage. In rough numbers my company was paying around $500/month for each employee on our plan and the company picked up half that cost ($250 to the company, $250 to the employee) for an HMO plan roughly equivalent to a gold or silver plan. The plans our employees are signing up for get them similar coverage (sometimes better) and their out of pocket expense is usually about 2/3 of what they were paying before. Better still, our company no longer has to kick in anything so the company wins too. (We would kick in but due to some of the rules regarding company contributions we cannot this year - hope to next year) In my case I'm paying just slightly more than before but now I can use a Health Savings Account and have a PPO instead of an HMO.
No, they aren't. There always are patients, who could be kept alive at high costs but without much, if any, prospect of recovering.
True... though I'm lost as to how you think that is somehow ethical.
Once the government becomes the single payer — which is what Obama and you dream about — the decision will be the government's.
Really? Then explain to me how it is that everyone over the age of 65 isn't immediately put to death the first time they catch a cold by the government since people on medicare (everyone over 65 in the US) ARE on a single payer system. Or how it doesn't work like that in any country that has a single payer system (which is most of them). After all you apparently believe that "death panels" exist - astonish me. Oh that's right, back here on Earth things don't really work like that. [/sarcasm] Medical decisions are largely left to the doctors and health care professionals and while reimbursement rates might change, the option to treat will not. Doctors often have to fight with insurance companies to get reimbursed for treatment but they ALWAYS have the option to treat and they usually can get reimbursed if the treatment really is medically necessary. My wife is a doctor and I see her practice do it every day.
Apparently you've forgotten that people vote (especially older people) which is why politicians are absolutely loathe to make changes to medicare, even when it is a good idea to do so. Do you really think that anyone who actually, in real life, promoted the government deciding when people should die would remain in office for long? Seriously, you have an absurdly cynical view of how the world works.
Or did you miss the story about the NHS killing off 130,000 elderly patients a year?
In fact, UK doctors get a £50 bonus for putting patients on the "Liverpool care Pathway," i.e. pain medication, but no attempt to prolong the patient's life.
The same is true in many other EU countries,
These plans were (rightly) made illegal by the new regulations that require a base level of quality in insurance plans.
And here we have Obamacare distilled down to its essential element...we know what's best for you.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
> You are misrepresenting the "see a doctor within 30 days" metric, the 30 days stat is *specifically* to see a specialist.
Let's try reading an entire sentence or two. I said:
"For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days."
They publish BOTH statistics. For a GP, "only" 20%-30% had to wait more than a month. For a specialist, the AVERAGE is over a month.
DOH!
The executive branch has discretion on the enforcement of laws. This is part of the division of powers as laid down in the constitution. The president can decide to de-emphasize or simply not enforce a particular law or section of a law. In making this statement, Obama is essentially stating, "The executive branch isn't going to enforce this particular provision until next year."
Also, it's not really possible that the new insurance policies are worse, because before the ACA, insurance policies as the ones we all have available starting next year did not exist. They may be more expensive, but it's because they cover more.
So, you think being unable to get insurance because you have a pre-existing condition is better? Or getting thrown off of your existing insurance because you happened to get really sick?
I think that I had a good plan. I think it covered what I needed to be covered.
Then people who think like you came along and said..."no, you are wrong".
Now, I have a more expensive plan with a higher deductible.
So you can just fuck off and die.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
They don't what? Yes indeed, insurance companies do, every day, tell hospitals that they're going to stop paying for a patient's treatment. It's called a coverage limit. There is no bad publicity, there is no publicity at all, it is just the way medical care works in America. Or rather doesn't.
"The report also ranks Canada dead last among countries compared on this metric"
So you agree they are the worst wait times in the world, roughly speaking. I'd say that's enough to make it clear that the Canadian system is in no way perfect. Are we in agreement on that, there are some significant disadvantages known?
If so, I don't see a need to go back and try to find the exact document I read a year ago. The point has made and agreed to.
YGBSM! MS is the poster child for bad code. MS develops products, does v and v to the extent necessary to allow the product to be marketed, then waits on users to find the bugs. Very cost effective. Do you want someone with this background in charge of the computer program behind 0care? I don't. The issue is not the pretty GUI on Healthcare.gov, it is the coding that connects the government and industry databases together, the coding that securely protects private information, the coding that makes sure Americans are getting the health care we signed up for. This is a joke.
Really? So you're telling me that you don't qualify for the new subsidies? Given that the subsidies cover a family of four with income up to around $90k/year (varies a bit depeding upon the state), either you didn't get your healthcare through the exchange and are missing out, or you make enough that you can just suck it up and pay a little more.
So you agree they are the worst wait times in the world, roughly speaking. I'd say that's enough to make it clear that the Canadian system is in no way perfect. Are we in agreement on that, there are some significant disadvantages known?
If so, I don't see a need to go back and try to find the exact document I read a year ago. The point has made and agreed to.
Don't put words in my mouth. I said very clearly said the first time:
No, of course it's not perfect, I wouldn't even call it great, merely adequate
so of course there are significant disadvantages known, just as the US system has its own. And Canada was dead last on this one metric, compared against 11 developed countries, not the entire world.
The *only* real issue I had with your original post was that the title "30 day wait to see a doctor in Canada" is a clear lie of omission, barely improved when you clarified "For a GP, most wait less than 30 days." 2 days wait is a whole order of magnitude difference from 30 days. It's like me claiming "most broken arms cost less than $9,000 to take care of in the US" even though average out-of-pocket expense might be only $300-500.
Since I've cited sources for my key point about GP wait times, and you're using a flimsy excuse not to look for even a single credible source to back up your claim that 20-30% of Canadians wait 30+ days to see their GP, I accept your surrender.
So, we have a combo of Libya, Rev Wright, corrupt lawyers, Surface, Win8, and Office.... What could POSSIBLY go wrong?