DU: What is your opinion of healthcare.gov? (Poll)

[Peace Piper]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023883682

fitman (402 posts)
7. I am a health insurance broker and I sell for the exchange

3/4 of the time it is slow, or kicks me out and I have to relogin or I cannot log in at all due to too much traffic.

I broker for private insurance and the exchange both..have put 4 people so far with the exchange..

Frustrating when I have someone in my office and cannot get on the site..
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fitman (402 posts)
9. The looking part is ok

but try to actually register someone is near impossible. On 4 different occasions I typed in my password and it kicked me out and I had to go back in and re-register each time..

Frustrating to say the least.

The plans are not that great..the 4 people I put on it were lower income and in good health so the high out of pocket did not bother them and they paid either zero or low premium.

People who have decent income are going with private insurance
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fitman (402 posts)
14. They are in good health

wait until they have to use it..very high deductibles and coinsurance.. when they get hit with a $5000 or 6000 deductible + 80/20 for another 5000 that low premium won't look as attractive..and that is for one person..what if 2 people in the family use it..they won't be able to pay the deductible let alone the coinsurance

The plans on the exchanges could have been better designed.

My wife is losing her health insurance coverage affective Jan 1st her arrier is dropping their association plan-she has major pre ex.. not eligible for any subsidy..ran both private and exchange for her..private insurance was almost half the cost of the exchange with less deductible and coinsurance.

The exchange is great for people with low to moderate income due to being subsidized and in great health but otherwise..not so great.
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srican69 (1,058 posts)
13. Here is a sample of my experience...

1) the website mixes up my daughters and my wife's SSN each time
2) It wants to know how am I related - TO MYSELF .. not kidding ..
2) After I have complete and electronically signed the application - the website shows my application to be incomplete and ask me to fill out the forms again
3) However- if I check on a different page ( called application status) it shows my application is complete and provides a button to check eligibility results
4) when I click the button provided in 3) -- nothing happens-- ever .. I have tried it a million times
5) The chat option is a joke .. their standard answer is that there is too much traffic and that I should try later .. but DUH!! its functional issues with the website that is causing problems


If I was the project manager - I would be fired yesterday.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023883682

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So how many have actually signed up? Perhaps a major media org will ask one day...

 

[brandon]

12 people think it's bad and 8 people think it's good. Fascinating. The site from a tech point of view is a complete fucking disaster, at least on the back end. The front end looks nice enough, though some of the flashy html5 features make it harder to use than it should be. Given enough time I'm sure it will work smoothly. It's a pretty daunting task to go from development to production overnight with 100,000s of thousands of users. Most sites have the opportunity to slowly scale up and it's not so much instantly hitting a switch. That said the amount of money they spent is ungodly. I'd love to see a breakdown of how that 600 million was spent. How many developers and at what salary? Server costs? I'd bet most of it was just pocketed by the guys who brokered the deal. Anyone know if the estimate from bidding is public?

 

[Peace Piper]

12 people think it's bad and 8 people think it's good. Fascinating.

As of this writing it's 16/9

It's a pretty daunting task to go from development to production overnight with 100,000s of thousands of users.

They've had 3 years. Even ZeroCare's point man in the Senate - Max Baucus (D-Insurance) knew it would be a "train wreck" months ago when he grilled Sebilius. (Is that Latin for Screwjob?)

Most sites have the opportunity to slowly scale up and it's not so much instantly hitting a switch. That said the amount of money they spent is ungodly. I'd love to see a breakdown of how that 600 million was spent. How many developers and at what salary? Server costs? I'd bet most of it was just pocketed by the guys who brokered the deal. Anyone know if the estimate from bidding is public?

This doesn't break it down but lists the companies involved:

Healthcare.gov – Companies Behind Obamacare Health Exchange's Construction And Its Technical Failures

The federal government relied on a host of private companies for the information technology used in the Web portal. According to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office report, companies selected for the IT work included Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (NYSE:BAH), CGI Federal Inc (NYSE:GIB), the Mitre Corporation and Quality Software Service Inc.
http://www.ibtimes.com/healthcarego...exchanges-construction-its-technical-failures
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[angelatc]

It's a pretty daunting task to go from development to production overnight with 100,000s of thousands of users.

Overnight? They had 3 freaking years.

 

[pacelli]

Opinion? They can go fuck themselves. Impeach the asshole now.

 

[Peace Piper]

A Bleak First Week: 99.6% of Healthcare.gov Visitors Did NOT Enroll in Obamacare
By Matt Pace | October 15, 2013

Since October 1st, Americans living in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. can purchase healthcare through exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare.) Little information has been made available by the administration on the level of interest these exchanges have received or more importantly the number of consumers who actually enrolled, although the rollout has been plagued with widespread reports of system outages and bugs.

We prepared the following analysis in order to provide visibility around consumer activity on the various healthcare exchanges since the launch of Obamacare.

Over the course of Obamacare’s first week, 9.5 million people visited healthcare.gov, the federal government’s official healthcare website and the de facto exchange for residents of two thirds of the states. In addition, the 16 operational state-run exchanges combined to attract over 3.1 million visitors during the same period. In total, 11.3 million consumers visited the federal and state exchanges during their first week of operation. Unfortunately, what started as a fire hose of interest, resulted in only a small trickle of actual healthcare enrollments.

Among the visitors to healthcare.gov, 5.7 million (or 60% of total visitors to the site) navigated to the individual marketplace landing page where, after selecting their state, they were either directed to continue using the federal site or were redirected to their state-run exchange. From here 1.3 million left for their state-run exchange, while another 3.7 million attempted to register on healthcare.gov. The latter didn’t get far. For two thirds of these consumers, the site either hung or failed altogether before it was finally taken offline over the first weekend.

Despite a myriad of issues with the site, just over a million consumers actually made it through the first gauntlet and successfully registered on healthcare.gov, after which they were sent verification emails. Problems persisted as consumers next encountered difficulty verifying their email addresses and logging into the accounts they had just created. Over 214,000 consumers sought help on the “I’m having trouble logging in to my marketplace account” page, making it one of the most popular pages on the site. Just 27% of those who registered on healthcare.gov successfully logged into accounts...
Snipped- MORE

Clarification: The reference to enrollments in this article requires clarification. During Week One, 36,000 consumers completed the eligibility application on Healthcare.gov, rather than fully enrolled in a plan as was originally suggested. Completion of this application is required before consumers are able to compare healthcare options and select a plan. An update on Healthcare.gov’s performance in Week 2 is available here.​

https://blog.compete.com/2013/10/15/obamacare-enrollment-stats/

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in 2011 there were 48.6 million people in the US (15.7% of the population) who were without health insurance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninsured_in_the_United_States

 

[osan]

It is a disaster. Is that not a GOOD thing? Anything that interferes with implementation of this crime against free men is a good thing in my eyes.

I have heard it cost $650MM. That is absurd. That is cost so much and still does not function requires ZERO analytic effort to immediately know that there have been multiple spectacular failures from management on down. Designing and implementing large, robust systems is now technical boilerplate. Going by what I read and hear, it seems Obama hired some of his closest friends to manage this one. Good.

I hope it ends up costing 100 times this. So many Americans are so maddeningly stupid that I have come to a point where I want to see whether there is any limit to the abuses they will tolerate. This healthcare issue is the most significant legislative attack on the throat of freedom since the Federal Reserve Act of 100 years ago and I believe that far fewer than 1 in 100 have any idea just what this means. It is so bad that all I can say is let this ship sink. At this point it needs to. OTOH, there is still China and Russia, so they may well be at the gates to pick us over when it comes crashing down, so I have no eyes for seeing how any of this can end well. Theye are not going to ever stop of their own accord in the war waged against us, of that much I am comfortably certain. Barring a miracle, we are in for some serious pain in the very near future.

Wife just told me that if I need anything medically to get it done this year because the insurance for next year SUCKS. How comforting.

The only other solution I see is a military coup. Grab up Obama and his immediate ministers, the Congress, and SCOTUS. Try them all and execute the guilty with leadership devolving upon the states. Now that I think on it, that actually could save this republic. OTOH, would that not be an act of career suicide for the military? Where would their money come from thereafter? Hooboy... what a mess.