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Consumer Reports: ‘Don’t even bother trying’ Obamacare website yet...

j-mac

j-mac

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A magazine that tests and rates products and reports the results monthly had harsh words of advice for those trying to enroll in Obamacare via the official website, Healthcare.gov: Don’t even think about it yet.Consumer Reports started on the website’s launch day to test its ease of use. Its report then: “If you’re planning to use the marketplace to get health insurance for 2014, don’t worry if you can’t sign up today or even within the next couple of weeks,” The Daily Mail reported. And the next day, during another test, the magazine writers were still counseling patience, writing that “the best strategy is simply to wait a week or two for the initial traffic to die down. We tried it several times today and never succeeded in getting through.”

But a week later, and Consumer Reports was starting to lose patience.


On Oct. 8, the writers said: “One week in, Healthcare.gov is barely operational.” And on Oct. 10, the writers adopted a decidedly more critical tone: “Healthcare.gov is slightly less terrible today. The bad news, is that it’s still next to impossible to create a user name and password that you can actually use to sign in. I myself have tried five times without success. Our readers report similar frustrations.”


Read more: Consumer Reports:
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This is unacceptable, and no accountability from the administration, just more excuses, and misdirection using terms like a used car salesman trying to confuse you with terminology.

Obama's speech drew immediate criticism from both the left and right flanks. The Washington Post's Ezra Klein said the speech was almost identical to one he could have given if the launch's rollout had gone smoothly.

Read more: Obama's Obamacare Speech And Apology - Business Insider
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Taking shots from both sides of the isle, yet still he stands there and totally ignores what this trainwreck is doing to American's...He posed with 13 people that they say have actually signed up for Obamacare, one wonders if after three weeks that is all of them.....? :doh

This roll out beyond the "gliches" and slowdowns, has major security issues, and fraud problems associated with it, not to mention that there are increasing reports of people looking at premiums skyrocketing to in some cases three times what they are accustomed to paying, deductibles that are $15K, when they were used to $1K per person, and their workplaces once offering good plans, they are now receiving letters stating that their insurance will no longer be available to them, forcing them onto this exchange, that very few can even get through on to sign up if they wanted to.

This embarrassment surely Obama will hold someone accountable for right? Don't hold your breath, accountability is a great campaign catch phrase, just not so useful for the arrogant progressive practice.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is even refusing to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a hearing this coming Thursday. HHS claims she has scheduling conflicts, but we hope she isn't in the White House catacomb under interrogation by Valerie Jarrett about her department's incompetence.The department is also refusing to make available lower-level officials who might detail the source or sources of this debacle. Ducking an investigation with spin is one thing. Responding with a wall of silence to the invitation of a duly elected congressional body probing the use of more than half a billion taxpayer dollars is another. This Obama crowd is something else.
What bunker is Henry Chao hiding in, for instance? He's the HHS official in charge of technology for the Affordable Care Act, and in March he said at an insurance lobby conference that his team had given up trying to create "a world-class user experience." With the clock running, Mr. Chao added that his main goal was merely to "just make sure it's not a third-world experience."

snip

To take one example, this week the Associated Press obtained an internal HHS memo from September 5, 2013 specifying the Administration's monthly enrollment targets—a half-million sign-ups in October, 3.3 million by December 31, and so on. Asked about this by AP, HHS not only declined to say if it is meeting its projections. The department issued a statement claiming that "The Administration has not set monthly enrollment targets." The spokesman did not cite the classic Marx Brothers line, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Eventually Mrs. Sebelius will have to make a real accounting of this government failure to someone other than the TV comic Jon Stewart, and perhaps she can also explain why the people who can't build a working website also deserve the power to reorganize one-sixth of the U.S. economy. For now, the Administration that styles itself as the most transparent in history won't reveal the truth—perhaps because it is afraid of what the public will find.

Review & Outlook: Sebelius on the Run - WSJ.com
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And so begins the designed to fail Obamacare....How long before we start to hear, "we just can't do it, so we will need to institute Medicare for all...."?????
 
Dude, weren't you paying attention this morning. You can still apply over the phone...individuals ~30min/family ~45min call...or request a paper application and 'snail' mail it in...technology circa 20th century...does anyone under 30 still remember how to print manually?

VERY progressive...:lamo
 
Getting a consultant to advise about web traffic in the initial sign up phase might have been wise...perhaps a regional roll out (south first, then northeast, western states, mid west, etc.) each in their turn would have been advisable to reduce the pressure.

At the very least it makes Washington look flatfooted, and will certainly be a learning experience for future nationwide program roll outs.
 
Dickieboy said:
Dude, weren't you paying attention this morning. You can still apply over the phone...individuals ~30min/family ~45min call...or request a paper application and 'snail' mail it in...technology circa 20th century...does anyone under 30 still remember how to print manually?

VERY progressive...:lamo
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:lamo Yeah right....

President Obama emerged on Monday to assure Americans that the “kinks” surrounding the federal and state health-care exchanges are improving and urged consumers to call the exchange hotline if they continue to encounter problems online. Shortly after he made the suggestion, Twitter lit up with reporters and others who attempted to do so but failed to get through to a navigator as promised. After dialing the number, some callers got a busy signal, others received an automated message, and yet others were referred back to Healthcare.gov.

At President's Urging, People Call Exchange Hotline But Can't Get Through | National Review Online
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Oh my, phone call loop hell! This ought to be good....Watch people get good and outraged....
 
ChuckBerry said:
Getting a consultant to advise about web traffic in the initial sign up phase might have been wise...perhaps a regional roll out (south first, then northeast, western states, mid west, etc.) each in their turn would have been advisable to reduce the pressure.

At the very least it makes Washington look flatfooted, and will certainly be a learning experience for future nationwide program roll outs.
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It isn't even that. They didn't start working on the website until late spring, early summer, because there is so much red tape, created via the HHS Secretary, nobody even had a clue as to what the functional requirements were, let alone worrying about the non-functional(SLA, Traffic shaping, etc) requirements.

By that point, the message was clear: Don't care how ****ty it is, launch it on Oct 1.

Additionally, whoever decided that it was a good idea to "hide" the prices behind authentication should be fired immediately. I understand why they wanted to do it( avoid sticker shock), but making that choice eroded any chance at edge caching the most important, and most accessed information.
 
ChuckBerry said:
Getting a consultant to advise about web traffic in the initial sign up phase might have been wise...
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Yeah, maybe before it was just shat out there on the public....Like the three years they had to get this right....

...perhaps a regional roll out (south first, then northeast, western states, mid west, etc.) each in their turn would have been advisable to reduce the pressure.
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That's just it, I don't think that there is a lot of "pressure".... Just curious people that can't even get through to see, and compare....It is almost like an elaborate con job....

At the very least it makes Washington look flatfooted, and will certainly be a learning experience for future nationwide program roll outs.
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Yeah, like maybe not trying to ram through 2700 page turds of a law, then think that the federal government can even do something like this?
 
If eBay and Amazon can do it, why can't the government?

I shutter to think how much money they have wasted letting some politician's brother-in-law have the contract for building this useless website.
 
Captain America said:
If eBay and Amazon can do it, why can't the government?

I shutter to think how much money they have wasted letting some politician's brother-in-law have the contract for building this useless website.
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To be fair, eBay and Amazon didn't begin with millions of customers on day one.
 
Dickieboy said:
Dude, weren't you paying attention this morning. You can still apply over the phone...individuals ~30min/family ~45min call...or request a paper application and 'snail' mail it in...technology circa 20th century...does anyone under 30 still remember how to print manually?

VERY progressive...:lamo
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Yeah...I'm an old hand at using telephones, but I've given up the stone age. I can just see myself with my cell phone glued to my ear for hours trying to get through...and then forgetting what I called about.

LOL!!
 
I have to say I'm beginning to wonder if this wasn't a set up? It was outsourced to a private firm, and even those that are accustomed to getting all their income from government contracts still seem to hate Obama, ACA, and resolving the budget crises with higher taxes on the rich. What better way to be pissy, than to sabotage the opening weeks of ACA.
 
Captain America said:
If eBay and Amazon can do it, why can't the government?

I shutter to think how much money they have wasted letting some politician's brother-in-law have the contract for building this useless website.
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Because eBay and Amazon don't make you log in to view products. That way they can edge cache the most accessed information to create a proper traffic funnel.
 
ChuckBerry said:
To be fair, eBay and Amazon didn't begin with millions of customers on day one.
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As I've said in other threads, MMO computer games have millions trying to log in and play on release day. The worst I've seen is an hour waiting in a queue. Once I log in, the game works and the developers correct things quickly. A few days later the queues are gone.

Maybe Obama should have hired Bethesda.
 
This stuff happens to any website that gets too many hits. It will all be settled out eventually and it's really no big deal.

GTA 5's online component launched on the same day as the healthcare website and it's still having problems as well. This is a game that made a billion dollars in 3 days, and the online component launched 2 weeks after it initially launched. If Rockstar can't have a smooth roll out of their online component with such high traffic, then no one really can.
 
Captain America said:
If eBay and Amazon can do it, why can't the government?

I shutter to think how much money they have wasted letting some politician's brother-in-law have the contract for building this useless website.
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Reports were some $292 million....

A Reuters review of government documents shows that the contract to build the federal Healthcare.gov online insurance website - key to President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform - tripled in potential total value to nearly $292 million as new money was assigned to the work beginning in April this year.

Insight: As Obamacare tech woes mounted, contractor payments soared | Reuters
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Now there is a huge waste eh? Oh well, we can just borrow it now that the debt ceiling is raised right?
 
Your Star said:
This stuff happens to any website that gets too many hits. It will all be settled out eventually and it's really no big deal.

GTA 5's online component launched on the same day as the healthcare website and it's still having problems as well. This is a game that made a billion dollars in 3 days, and the online component launched 2 weeks after it initially launched. If Rockstar can't have a smooth roll out of their online component with such high traffic, then no one really can.
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Oh please, how does Amazon do it then? Why didn't the HHS reach out to e-surance? I mean it's the same damned thing right?
 
Is the Consumer Reports article a foreshadowing of the destruction that will be wrought by the content of Obamacare? Maybe a "You saw it here first, folks!" Kind of story?

If you're a young person hoping for a future or you have a job with a family to support, pay attention to that advice from Consumer Reports and don't call or go online and give your personal information to the Obama government.
 
Your Star said:
This stuff happens to any website that gets too many hits. It will all be settled out eventually and it's really no big deal.

GTA 5's online component launched on the same day as the healthcare website and it's still having problems as well. This is a game that made a billion dollars in 3 days, and the online component launched 2 weeks after it initially launched. If Rockstar can't have a smooth roll out of their online component with such high traffic, then no one really can.
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Its all about design. An MMO stack, like GTA 5, WoW, Old Republic, etc, can easily add capacity by adding more world servers, queues, and more logon servers to process the volume. They can do that because their architecture allows for it. ACA website does not allow for that.

The ACA website took all of the information and put it behind a logon prompt because they don't want sticker shock for casual browsers, nor do they want google caching health care prices.

Because of that simple decision, they created a bottleneck, and based on the architecture they built( based on reports ), they cannot add capacity via hardware to solve it. They need to tear the whole thing down and start over.
 
Samhain said:
Its all about design. An MMO stack, like GTA 5, WoW, Old Republic, etc, can easily add capacity by adding more world servers, queues, and more logon servers to process the volume. They can do that because their architecture allows for it. ACA website does not allow for that.

The ACA website took all of the information and put it behind a logon prompt because they don't want sticker shock for casual browsers, nor do they want google caching health care prices.

Because of that simple decision, they created a bottleneck, and based on the architecture they built( based on reports ), they cannot add capacity via hardware to solve it. They need to tear the whole thing down and start over.
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That actually sounds convincing, any links to prove it?
 
Your Star said:
This stuff happens to any website that gets too many hits. It will all be settled out eventually and it's really no big deal.

GTA 5's online component launched on the same day as the healthcare website and it's still having problems as well. This is a game that made a billion dollars in 3 days, and the online component launched 2 weeks after it initially launched. If Rockstar can't have a smooth roll out of their online component with such high traffic, then no one really can.
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Sorry, but Rockstar is new at the online gig. That's why they've had so many problems.

In fact, it seems that Rockstar's problems are very similar to Obama's problems. I wonder if they hired the same company?

'GTA Online' Is Live, But Not Functional - Forbes
 
Mycroft said:
Sorry, but Rockstar is new at the online gig. That's why they've had so many problems.

In fact, it seems that Rockstar's problems are very similar to Obama's problems. I wonder if they hired the same company?

'GTA Online' Is Live, But Not Functional - Forbes
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Excuse me but how do you figure ACA as not being as new as Rockstar? The gov't has never presented anything so massive before either.
 
Summerwind said:
That actually sounds convincing, any links to prove it?
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arstechnica has about a dozen articles on the topic. They are all great reads. start With this one and browse to the older ones get most of the details.

Can't find the one that details the decision to put the prices behind a login, but it doesn't take much to think about why you would want to "hide" the prices.
 
Summerwind said:
Excuse me but how do you figure ACA as not being as new as Rockstar? The gov't has never presented anything so massive before either.
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I didn't say that Obamacare is not as new as Rockstar. I only said that Rockstar is new to online gameplaying.

Sure...the government didn't design a good system either, but then, they are not dependent upon paying customers. All the government needs to do is pass a crappy law, design and build a crappy website and hey...if it doesn't work, that's just too damned bad.
 
j-mac said:
Reports were some $292 million....



Now there is a huge waste eh? Oh well, we can just borrow it now that the debt ceiling is raised right?
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Well, sounds to me like they only wasted 291 million dollars on a million dollar website. That's about par for the government course.

To think I built my business website for 30.00 (domain name,) and 14.95 a month server fee. LOL!
 
Samhain said:
arstechnica has about a dozen articles on the topic. They are all great reads. start With this one and browse to the older ones get most of the details.

Can't find the one that details the decision to put the prices behind a login, but it doesn't take much to think about why you would want to "hide" the prices.
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And yet, the claim that anyone wants to hide prices that are being publicized right and left is the very thing that caused me to ask you for links. Because in fact, that makes no sense at all.
 
Summerwind said:
And yet, the claim that anyone wants to hide prices that are being publicized right and left is the very thing that caused me to ask you for links. Because in fact, that makes no sense at all.
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Here's an article that indicates that non-logged-in price browsing was the initial intent, but it was scrapped, per an HHS spokeswoman.

Obamacare's Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn't Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are - Forbes

“Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. “But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said.” Why was it delayed? “An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.” (Emphasis added.)
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