Anyway, this thread contains mostly second-hand commentary and unsupported speculation. For those who want to see some really informed opinions, check out this thread:
What should really scare supporters of the law is that if the techie Dopers are right, the administration doesn’t have any clue how to fix the problems with the site. They don’t even know what they did wrong. That bodes poorly for getting the site up and running anytime soon.
You seem to be like the climate change deniers that want to tell others to just look at the recent events and ignore the past ones like the space program during Apollo. (That had also very bad setbacks and technical problems).
You did read the update to the article you linked to that says:
[QUOTE=HHS Spokesman]
“Consumers can apply for and enroll in a health insurance plan over the phone from beginning to end," her statement says. "However, when call volume is high, or when the application is unable to be processed online, call center representatives will help to fill out an application and the consumer will be contacted at a later time to move forward with shopping and enrolling in a plan. We encourage Americans and their families to continue use all the resources available to apply for insurance – by phone, in person, by mail, or online.”
[/quote]
So it is possible. No it isn’t working perfectly, it needs fixed. But the entire program isn’t failing and needs to be stopped because the website needs to be repaired. When Google screwed up the start of sales for the Nexus 7 in their Play Store, they didn’t shut down their entire network. And they didn’t take the Nexus 7 off the market. And the tablet is a lot less important than health insurance.
With that said. WTF!!! $600 million to set this up and they had over 3 years to do it? Muthafucka, a housewife selling beanie babies out of her fucking garage got ebay up and running in less than half that time.
And even after $600 million, the fucking thing STILL doesn’t work? There ought to be a law that allows us to prosecute the bankers that triggered the financial crisis and contractors that are this fucking horrible.
They didn’t have 3 years to set it up. They didn’t start before the SCOTUS decision last summer because that would have been a waste if it was overturned. Then they waited for the elections last November, since a Romney win would have meant it was a waste of time, then they needed to find out which states were not doing their own systems so those could get put into the system. I’m sure that parts of it were done ahead of time, but most of it is within the last year.
As for what they spent the money on, Government procurement procedures. But no one in Congress wants to fix that mess.
The update is either a lie, or the operators aren’t trained, since only one of the three the Post called said they could complete the entire process over the phone. And then only when the system worked.
A few hundred did. And even there, the insurers got false information. Which they can fix manually, just so long as they don’t get thousands of such transmissions.
There is a law: it’s called the law of “if you’re company is a failure, it goes out of business.”
Unless of course said company has political connections. It might have been a good idea to undertake reform of the government contracting system before health care. That’s what someone with an ounce of management experience would have done, anyway.
Unless, the mainstream media can not go back to tell you they made a mistake on that number, and after more than a day of the explanation being available I have to conclude that the right wing media is once again preferring that you believe that lie than trying to explain where they got it wrong.
BTW didn’t you claimed once to be better than this and that you looked also at the leftist media sources, and not we can see that you where not aware about this?
Actually, I never said it cost $600 million. that was another poster.
And Gigo, one thing you’re forgetting with your handwaving away of the problems as normal and temporary is that in order for this law to succeed, time is of the essence. if young people just don’t bother to sign up, insurance rates skyrocket and the law fails. A lot of young people the administration needs to sign up have already tried to get through and have failed. How long will they keep trying?
And they’d better have good security, because it will only take one data theft story to warn people off.
CGI Federal has been paid $112 million for its work on the Web site so far, which is certainly higher than the $70 million mentioned above. Moreover, the federal government has obligated $196 million, so the tab could certainly run that high if CGI submits the bills.
And that’s just CGI.
Seems like the cost is $350M+. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end it will be revealed that it was, in fact, $600M. The “transparency” of the government is so awesome.
And that makes it worse, so you were aware of the mistake but you did not correct the other poster? I wonder why.
I have the impression that they will succeed because 2 weeks ago I did register. My impression is that there are bottlenecks that need to be fixed and looking at history it is more likely than not that they will be fixed.
And we already found out that your sources lied to you, just by memory I recall that they reported that the ACA was not having any security checks for the workers, it turns out that they did, now we found that the price tag they reported was also a lie, and you are the one that claims we should rely on those sources that continue to get it wrong?
"Independently, the Sunlight Foundation estimated it cost $70 million to build the much-maligned website, not $634 million. (Officially, CGI was awarded a $93 million contract for the healthcare.gov job.)
And today in his Fact Checker column in the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler looked at the question of the healthcare.gov cost and concluded, “A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million.” Kessler noted that the cost for the entire health care project beyond the website would be “at least $350 million.”"
There is a need to dispute that 600+ number as it has no reliable confirmation or support.
News to me that Medicare D was a failure.
Once again, what you demand here is for Obama to force the insurance companies to behave, Now what would one call that? Anyhow, as consumer groups point out, the companies are the ones that should be criticized for their dick moves.
I did and your cite does not have a firm answer. I do not need to correct things I don’t know need correcting.
There are many more examples of such large projects. nearly half end in complete failure, either abandoned or started over. This one is unlikely to be abandoned, but if the code is filled with too much garbage or the basic design is terrible, they will have to start again, which means the start of ACA will have to be pushed back a couple of years.
In many of these cases, the companies can’t offer the products anymore because they are now not ACA-compliant. A lot of people who were just dandy with their insurance now have to purchase a more expensive ACA-compliant version.
Sure they were. They paid the minimum and knew that we would backstop with care when their coverage ran out. Now we’re asking that they get usable coverage (and will even help with the bills if they qualify), so that we don’t have to backstop them.
Why do so many “conservatives” believe socialized risk, privatized profit is acceptable? I thought ya’ll were the “pay your own bills” people.
That’s only partly true for some consumers, and not true at all for others. Yes, some of the cost increase is the end of lifetime maximums. A plan with a lifetime max is hardly insurance at all. But ACA also adds other mandates, such as maternity care and free preventive services, something most consumers happily do without.
Preventative care and maternity care both reduce long-term costs. If you* had “insurance” with no preventative care and didn’t get any on your own, you tended to use emergency/emergent care services more than necessary. In the long run, this cost all of us more. I think some of these price increases we’re seeing are due to uncertainty and will adjust as the actuarial situation becomes better defined. There’s still the 80% rule for insurers to deal with after all.
