Obamacare: Obama just straight up lied to you, in your face (3 Viewers)

[Slapdash]

In that time, the gov't wasted $630 million building a website that they didn't test and failed immediately under the weight of 50,000 users.

If this part is true, we have a huge, huge problem.

No website in the world should cost $630 million to build. Especially one that doesn't work.

It's called government contracting. And if they tried to cut out this waste, the unemployment rate in this country would skyrocket.

The massive waste in contracting is, sadly, not just found in government.

 

[Joe T]

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

I agree with you. But, I don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare at this point. We are saying at least in terms of the website that was created for Obamacare, it is not off to a very good start. It is hard to debate that.

The finger pointing around who is to blame is really all that's left to decide in the top of the first inning.

 

[NCCommish]

So you're saying that government screwed everything up, but when people get upset at government, you tell them that it was designed by a private company?

No. I'm saying that this isn't just a point at government thing. CGI apparently cut a lot of corners and used decade old programming. But there were mitigating factors. As I said:

BTW certainly some of the blame goes to project management.

But many of the critics, including Tommyboy, seem to want to act like there is some dept or government that writes websites. There isn't this was done by private contractors. And Tommy's usual allies had something to do with it being screwed up as well.

 

[tommyboy]

Oh and not sure where the 630 million figure is coming from. According to the reports I have read it was 292 million.

I'm gonna guess and say tommyboy's ###

originally came from http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/obamacare-healthcare-gov-website-cost/ they have since revised the number down to "more than $500 Million" so yeah, still quite a bit of money

 

[TobiasFunke]

If only we had some record of how private industry would do if asked to provide an affordable, high-quality health care. I guess we'll never know. Stupid government, stepping in before the private sector has a chance to really show what it can do.

You know perfectly well that health care wasn't left to private industry prior to Obamacare. Government was the single biggest player in the health care market, and was already regulating the crap out of it.

Yeah I know. I was just giving the post the response it merited.

The government HAS to be involved in health care. It simply doesn't work otherwise- the consumer can't possibly access the cost/benefit information needed for the free market to function. Even the doctors will tell you that- sure they'll ##### and moan about it all day and night until you ask them if all medication should just be available over the counter without necessitating a doctor's office visit and a physician-issued prescription. Then all of a sudden government regulation is their best friend.

 

[tommyboy]

So you're saying that government screwed everything up, but when people get upset at government, you tell them that it was designed by a private company?

No. I'm saying that this isn't just a point at government thing. CGI apparently cut a lot of corners and used decade old programming. But there were mitigating factors. As I said:

BTW certainly some of the blame goes to project management.

But many of the critics, including Tommyboy, seem to want to act like there is some dept or government that writes websites. There isn't this was done by private contractors. And Tommy's usual allies had something to do with it being screwed up as well.

i guess i'm missing the part in there were you point the finger at the people in power that passed this POS unilaterally and are in charge of implementing it. Instead, you blame "private industry" and conservatives.

the critics, many of which are liberals (see Robert Gibbs, NY Times, MSNBC et al) are right to be upset.

 

[NutterButter]

The massive waste in contracting is, sadly, not just found in government.

 

[roadkill1292]

No question there were major screw-ups involved in this. But Tommyboy's implication is that's what you get whenever government tries to do something instead of the private sector. While I happen to believe that, in most areas, the private sector is generally more efficient, it's not always true. For instance, both the Manhattan Project and the space program were two very successful government programs and neither would have been possible in the private sector.

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

There's no reason for anyone here to value any tommyboy postings after the disastrous election call of last November.

 

[17seconds]

Don't want to hear how costs are going up unless you can show me they are going up more than they were.

I've worked at 3 different companies the last 10 years and every one of them for each of the last 10 years likes to remind me how their cost to insure us has gone up.

 

[timschochet]

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

I agree with you. But, I don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare at this point. We are saying at least in terms of the website that was created for Obamacare, it is not off to a very good start. It is hard to debate that.

The finger pointing around who is to blame is really all that's left to decide in the top of the first inning.

Well I'm glad you agree with me (for once!) But as far as you're statement that you don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare based on this, you're wrong. In the first post of this thread, tommyboy wrote:

Then came Obamacare. And it was an abject failure,

That's pretty clear, isn't it? His proof of Obamacare's abject failure are the website problems. And he's not the only one making this argument. Conservatives are making it everywhere- that the website problems prove Obamacare is a disaster. I think this is a really dumb argument.

 

[Joe T]

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

I agree with you. But, I don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare at this point. We are saying at least in terms of the website that was created for Obamacare, it is not off to a very good start. It is hard to debate that.

The finger pointing around who is to blame is really all that's left to decide in the top of the first inning.

Well I'm glad you agree with me (for once!) But as far as you're statement that you don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare based on this, you're wrong. In the first post of this thread, tommyboy wrote:

Then came Obamacare. And it was an abject failure,

That's pretty clear, isn't it? His proof of Obamacare's abject failure are the website problems. And he's not the only one making this argument. Conservatives are making it everywhere- that the website problems prove Obamacare is a disaster. I think this is a really dumb argument.

No doubt this is a really dumb argument. I haven't seen it "everywhere," but I'm not really looking for it either.

 

[JZilla]

Oh and not sure where the 630 million figure is coming from. According to the reports I have read it was 292 million.

I'm gonna guess and say tommyboy's ###

originally came from http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/obamacare-healthcare-gov-website-cost/ they have since revised the number down to "more than $500 Million" so yeah, still quite a bit of money

Sounds reliable. Anything on the cost of Obama's last trip to India?

 

[17seconds]

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

I agree with you. But, I don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare at this point. We are saying at least in terms of the website that was created for Obamacare, it is not off to a very good start. It is hard to debate that.

The finger pointing around who is to blame is really all that's left to decide in the top of the first inning.

Conservatives and Libertarians like to complain about the inefficiency and waste inherent in gov't. Libs tend to appreciate a larger gov't offering more services especially in social welfare programs.

for the most part, conservatives have lost the argument as more and more social programs have been added steadily over the course of the last 80 years, and the federal gov't has grown steadily as well.

Then came Obamacare. And it was an abject failure.

Somebody is

This is to be expected from anyone on the right who is against the ACA. You tried over 40 times to kill it, shut down the government to try to kill it... Now it is happening, so what is left? Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

 

[Rich Conway]

So you're saying that government screwed everything up, but when people get upset at government, you tell them that it was designed by a private company?

No. I'm saying that this isn't just a point at government thing. CGI apparently cut a lot of corners and used decade old programming. But there were mitigating factors. As I said:

BTW certainly some of the blame goes to project management.

But many of the critics, including Tommyboy, seem to want to act like there is some dept or government that writes websites. There isn't this was done by private contractors. And Tommy's usual allies had something to do with it being screwed up as well.

The point is, "the buck stops here" is in play. No matter who designed the website, the blame should fall almost entirely on those ultimately responsible for delivering the completed project. In this case, that's government, not private industry.

 

[timschochet]

Don't want to hear how costs are going up unless you can show me they are going up more than they were.

I've worked at 3 different companies the last 10 years and every one of them for each of the last 10 years likes to remind me how their cost to insure us has gone up.

You can't even measure it that way really.

Prior to Obamacare, our country spent 17% of our gross domestic product on health care services. That is an excessive amount, given the fact that every other western developed nation spends less than that and has a greater percentage of its population having access. Therefore, the ultimate measure of Obamacare's success or failure, IMO, is whether that percentage goes down or up.

 

[Joe T]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

 

[Rich Conway]

Don't want to hear how costs are going up unless you can show me they are going up more than they were.

I've worked at 3 different companies the last 10 years and every one of them for each of the last 10 years likes to remind me how their cost to insure us has gone up.

You can't even measure it that way really.

Prior to Obamacare, our country spent 17% of our gross domestic product on health care services. That is an excessive amount, given the fact that every other western developed nation spends less than that and has a greater percentage of its population having access. Therefore, the ultimate measure of Obamacare's success or failure, IMO, is whether that percentage goes down or up.

This isn't necessarily accurate. There are a variety of factors we should look at when evaluating whether N% of GDP is "excessive" with regards to health care. Percentage of population with access is certainly one factor, but it's not the only factor. Quality of health care is another significant factor, and you're ignoring it in your analysis above.

Also, % of GDP isn't really a good measure to begin with. By that measure, a significant change to GDP would reflect positively or negatively on % of GDP spent on health care, which would seem silly. For example, if GDP went up by 20% but total health care spending went up 10%, the measure you're proposing would suggest that our health care spending was on the right track, while we would know that 10% increase in one year isn't a good thing. $ per capita would be better.

 

[tommyboy]

Putting all that aside though, while I personally think Obamacare is not very good, I honestly don't see how anyone can decide at this point whether or not it will be a "success" or a "failure". We're still in the top of the 1st inning.

I agree with you. But, I don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare at this point. We are saying at least in terms of the website that was created for Obamacare, it is not off to a very good start. It is hard to debate that.

The finger pointing around who is to blame is really all that's left to decide in the top of the first inning.

Well I'm glad you agree with me (for once!) But as far as you're statement that you don't think anyone is assessing Obamacare based on this, you're wrong. In the first post of this thread, tommyboy wrote:

Then came Obamacare. And it was an abject failure,

That's pretty clear, isn't it? His proof of Obamacare's abject failure are the website problems. And he's not the only one making this argument. Conservatives are making it everywhere- that the website problems prove Obamacare is a disaster. I think this is a really dumb argument.

Will the right mix of people sign up? In particular, will healthy people buy health insurance?

"The danger if you don't get young, healthy people signing up ... is that this program will collapse," says Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates.

"We actually have a term for this in the industry," says Laszewski, who advises health insurance companies. "We call it a death spiral. And many insurance companies have had death spirals so this is not a theoretical exercise."

Here's how a death spiral happens: Most of the people who sign up for an insurance plan are sick. It costs a lot to take care of them. So the next year, to cover the high health costs, the insurance company raises its premiums. But then only really sick people sign up. So the insurance company has to raise prices again. Eventually, the insurance gets so expensive that no one buys it, and the whole system falls apart.

The designers of Obamacare were aware of the dangers of a death spiral. That's why the Affordable Care Act has both a carrot and a stick to encourage people to sign up. The stick is that penalty or fee for people who don't buy insurance. But the stick is pretty small in the first year. The carrot: insurance subsidies for people with low incomes.

"It's a great deal," says Zeke Emanuel, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act. "For an individual making between $15,000 and $20,000 this is, 'Get health insurance 80 percent off!' Where do you see sales like that?"

The first people to sign up when the exchanges go online tomorrow aren't likely to be young and healthy, says Sherry Glied, an economist at NYU's Wagner School.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/30/227468495/one-key-thing-no-one-knows-about-obamacare

 

[tommyboy]

When the Obamacare website debuted on Oct. 1, Barack Obama walked into the Rose Garden and compared it to Amazon.com, Kayak.com and the iPhone. Unlike those operated by the other three, the Affordable Care Act portals to buy insurance were not working that day — but the President explained that the “glitches” had to do with traffic that “exceeds anything that we had expected.” Five days later, when asked about the continued problems, he told the Associated Press, “It is true that what’s happened is the website got overwhelmed by the volume.”

Now, 21 days after the launch, the story has changed. The “glitches” have been upgraded to “technical problems,” according to a White House official, and those problems are “unacceptable,” a fact Obama plans to make clear in another Rose Garden appearance midday Monday. What’s more, the problems are no longer simply a function of volume. “Our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering,” reads an unsigned blog post that appeared Sunday on the Health and Human Services (HHS) website. “Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team.”

Political reality, unlike actual reality, is malleable stuff. A good politician can mold the former to fit his interests, even coast to electoral victory with the help of hobgoblins, money for ads and consultant pixie dust. The problems arise when political realities are inextricably linked to actual realities. While Obama could probably continue to tell Americans that the Obamacare rollout is little more than an iPhone app in need of an update, his health care law actually needs uninsured people to choose to sign up or it will fail. And so the spin can no longer stand.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/20/no-more-apologies-why-obama-has-to-get-mad-about-his-broken-obamacare-websites/#ixzz2iNP9rvZ2

 

[tommyboy]

http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/files/2013/10/16/Unknown_r_500.jpg

Federal officials have claimed that influx of millions of visitors overwhelmed the marketplace's servers, and led to the interminable waits that people experienced when visiting. But Pace pointed out that the 9.47 million visitors "is roughly equivalent to the daily traffic on Target.com."

Just a fraction of those visitors, 3.72 million, tried to register accounts on Healthcare.gov, according to Millward Brown, and just 1 million or so of those people completed registration.

(Read more: Overhauling Obamacare)

Nearly 200,000 began the enrollment process—moving to actually select and pay for an insurance plan—but just 36,000 completed enrollment, the analysis found. That's about 1 percent of the people who tried to register accounts.

 

[Sand]

Don't want to hear how costs are going up unless you can show me they are going up more than they were.

I've worked at 3 different companies the last 10 years and every one of them for each of the last 10 years likes to remind me how their cost to insure us has gone up.

You can't even measure it that way really.

Prior to Obamacare, our country spent 17% of our gross domestic product on health care services. That is an excessive amount, given the fact that every other western developed nation spends less than that and has a greater percentage of its population having access. Therefore, the ultimate measure of Obamacare's success or failure, IMO, is whether that percentage goes down or up.

I keep hearing the magic number is 7 million enrollees in this to make it a viable thing. Are we there yet?

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

The government didn't do the site. A company that specializes in large government sites, CGI, did it. Not sure where the 50k hits thing came from. US News reported 17 million unique hits between Oct 1st and Oct 18. That's more like a million a day. And CGI has done work for the DoD, Dept of State, and several states that has been well received.

I guess that excuses it being a total mess then?

No it doesn't. CGI is already in hot water in Canada for another screwed up site they did. But the idea that this is somehow a government failure, at least on the tech side, is incorrect. I do a lot of government work on surveillance. If users can't access the system properly because I didn't provide enough scalability and used old code, which is what happened here, is that the governments fault or my companies fault?

The government is at fault in several areas on this project:

• Project cost too much
• Project took too long to implement
• Design and Execution was flawed using old and poorly written code
• System was not load tested

I don't care how many other projects CGI did, whoever was in charge of this project from the government side screwed up and its not debatable. You don't sign a contract and remain hands off in every aspect of the project, particularly when there is this much money at stake. You do your due diligence, you understand the technology being implemented and hire 3rd parties to review the work being done to standards, and you sure as hell make sure the project can handle a decent sized load before going live.

 

[Phil Elliott]

$400 million is a drop in the bucket. I'll get concerned when its a trillion.

 

[TobiasFunke]

The government didn't do the site. A company that specializes in large government sites, CGI, did it. Not sure where the 50k hits thing came from. US News reported 17 million unique hits between Oct 1st and Oct 18. That's more like a million a day. And CGI has done work for the DoD, Dept of State, and several states that has been well received.

I guess that excuses it being a total mess then?

No it doesn't. CGI is already in hot water in Canada for another screwed up site they did. But the idea that this is somehow a government failure, at least on the tech side, is incorrect. I do a lot of government work on surveillance. If users can't access the system properly because I didn't provide enough scalability and used old code, which is what happened here, is that the governments fault or my companies fault?

The government is at fault in several areas on this project:

• Project cost too much
• Project took too long to implement
• Design and Execution was flawed using old and poorly written code
• System was not load tested

I don't care how many other projects CGI did, whoever was in charge of this project from the government side screwed up and its not debatable. You don't sign a contract and remain hands off in every aspect of the project, particularly when there is this much money at stake. You do your due diligence, you understand the technology being implemented and hire 3rd parties to review the work being done to standards, and you sure as hell make sure the project can handle a decent sized load before going live.

But didn't you just say it cost too much and took too long to implement? But you still have a problem with the quality of the product? What if the vendor was the cheapest and promised the quickest turnaround time?

You can fault the government for its role in failing to provide a quality product all you want, and I'll agree with you too. But you can't then turn around and say it should have been done faster and cheaper too. Those concepts are at odds with each other. It's like faulting the front office of your favorite sports team for not turning a loser into a winner in one season while slashing payroll. It just doesn't work that way.

 

[The Commish]

The government didn't do the site. A company that specializes in large government sites, CGI, did it. Not sure where the 50k hits thing came from. US News reported 17 million unique hits between Oct 1st and Oct 18. That's more like a million a day. And CGI has done work for the DoD, Dept of State, and several states that has been well received.

I guess that excuses it being a total mess then?

No it doesn't. CGI is already in hot water in Canada for another screwed up site they did. But the idea that this is somehow a government failure, at least on the tech side, is incorrect. I do a lot of government work on surveillance. If users can't access the system properly because I didn't provide enough scalability and used old code, which is what happened here, is that the governments fault or my companies fault?

The government is at fault in several areas on this project:

• Project cost too much
• Project took too long to implement
• Design and Execution was flawed using old and poorly written code
• System was not load tested

I don't care how many other projects CGI did, whoever was in charge of this project from the government side screwed up and its not debatable. You don't sign a contract and remain hands off in every aspect of the project, particularly when there is this much money at stake. You do your due diligence, you understand the technology being implemented and hire 3rd parties to review the work being done to standards, and you sure as hell make sure the project can handle a decent sized load before going live.

oh my

 

[Foosball God]

Conservatives and Libertarians like to complain about the inefficiency and waste inherent in gov't. Libs tend to appreciate a larger gov't offering more services especially in social welfare programs.

for the most part, conservatives have lost the argument as more and more social programs have been added steadily over the course of the last 80 years, and the federal gov't has grown steadily as well.

Then came Obamacare. And it was an abject failure.

The gov't had 3 1/2 years to prepare the infrastructure for an Oct 1, 2013 rollout of the exchanges. In that time, the gov't wasted $630 million building a website that they didn't test and failed immediately under the weight of 50,000 users. In todays internet, 50,000 users is a niche blog.

The website is so bad they may have to rebuild it completely. There's talk of 5 million lines of code having to be rewritten.

The problem now isn't just the horrible website, its the fact that the young and healthy that this system needs to pay for the old and sick with preexisting conditions, aren't going to try 25 times to log in and register. The old and sick will, they desperately need insurance. But the very group that this entire ponzi scheme needs to sustain itself, won't mess around with a website and process they can't identify with in their daily lives. What that means is the entire scheme will collapse in on itself. All because our gov't couldn't figure out in 3 1./2 years how to develop a well tested and stable website platform for which joe avg could log on and sign up.

And if you're conservative or libertarian and hate Obamacare, this is the real life example that affirms your disdain for Big Government. If you're a liberal, it might make you reconsider your faith in it.

Your numbers are wrong.

 

[The Commish]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

 

[Foosball God]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

As I mentioned in another thread this article is actually the most on point of anything I've seen out there to date.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

The government didn't do the site. A company that specializes in large government sites, CGI, did it. Not sure where the 50k hits thing came from. US News reported 17 million unique hits between Oct 1st and Oct 18. That's more like a million a day. And CGI has done work for the DoD, Dept of State, and several states that has been well received.

I guess that excuses it being a total mess then?

No it doesn't. CGI is already in hot water in Canada for another screwed up site they did. But the idea that this is somehow a government failure, at least on the tech side, is incorrect. I do a lot of government work on surveillance. If users can't access the system properly because I didn't provide enough scalability and used old code, which is what happened here, is that the governments fault or my companies fault?

The government is at fault in several areas on this project:

• Project cost too much
• Project took too long to implement
• Design and Execution was flawed using old and poorly written code
• System was not load tested

I don't care how many other projects CGI did, whoever was in charge of this project from the government side screwed up and its not debatable. You don't sign a contract and remain hands off in every aspect of the project, particularly when there is this much money at stake. You do your due diligence, you understand the technology being implemented and hire 3rd parties to review the work being done to standards, and you sure as hell make sure the project can handle a decent sized load before going live.

oh my

Or alternatively to all this you could just vote 5,786 time to repeal the legislation, despite the fact that it isn't going happen. Probably a more efficient use of gov't time and oversight.

 

[The Commish]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

As I mentioned in another thread this article is actually the most on point of anything I've seen out there to date.

Yeah...seemed about right. We had a little project we did with the government about 10 years ago...appears to be SSDD up there.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

But didn't you just say it cost too much and took too long to implement? But you still have a problem with the quality of the product? What if the vendor was the cheapest and promised the quickest turnaround time?

I find it cute that you think the more money your throw at a project the higher quality you expect in return. Likewise for somehow equating schedule to cost.

You can fault the government for its role in failing to provide a quality product all you want, and I'll agree with you too. But you can't then turn around and say it should have been done faster and cheaper too.

Of course I can. It is you that somehow assumes $500 million is not enough to deliver a quality product and that somehow throwing more money to more contractors will make it "more quality". You have a warped sense of how much a project like this should cost.

Those concepts are at odds with each other. It's like faulting the front office of your favorite sports team for not turning a loser into a winner in one season while slashing payroll. It just doesn't work that way.

That's a poor analogy. A better analogy is scouting a player and then letting him take his first major league at bat right away without any oversight, and if you don't like his performance to pay him more and expect him to start hitting homeruns.

 

[joffer]

The government didn't do the site. A company that specializes in large government sites, CGI, did it. Not sure where the 50k hits thing came from. US News reported 17 million unique hits between Oct 1st and Oct 18. That's more like a million a day. And CGI has done work for the DoD, Dept of State, and several states that has been well received.

Interesting. This really puts a dent in the otherwise sterling credibility of tommyboy and the anti-Obamacare movement.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

That was pretty poorly written.

Translated

 

[avoiding injuries]

When I am tasked with a large project, I typically have multiple deadlines from my boss throughout the task to make sure I'm on schedule.

 

[17seconds]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

When I am tasked with a large project, I typically have multiple deadlines from my boss throughout the task to make sure I'm on schedule.

Yep, and at major milestones there is testing, and there's a load testing phase. The oversight on this project was pretty poor and based on what I am reading the design choices made were equally poor. I'd be interested in learning what background the players on the government side actually had with comparable projects because it seems like it was mismanaged by a bunch of amateurs.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

 

[The Commish]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

That was pretty poorly written.

Translated

Don't ever change your puppet ways JoJo!!

 

[Woogie Lee]

Great job Obama!

http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/23202640-474/red-line-right-on-time.html

Like trains with deteriorating tracks, government has plenty of slow spots, as in big public projects that fall far behind schedule.

Would you expect anything else?

Work on the CTA Red Line from the Cermak-Chinatown stop south to 95th Street, though, is wrapping up on time. The 10.2-mile segment will reopen Sunday, meaning no one has to worry about being stranded by construction delays in January.

And the project came in on budget at $425 million, which is a much better deal, for example, than the estimated $24 billion cost of the government shutdown that ended this week. For that money, we could have extended the Red Line all the way to Chattanooga, Tenn.

The CTA says it was the first transit agency in the country to replace such a large stretch of tracks in only five months. By comparison, rehabbing 20 miles of the Green Line back in the 1990s took a year and four months.

Here’s another comparison: The CTA started work just about when the U.S. government officially hit its debt limit in mid-May and had to resort to extraordinary accounting measures. In the time it took Congress to round up enough votes for a simple debt ceiling bill, Chicago fixed 10 miles of the Red Line. Seems like a wiser use of time and money to us.

 

[The Commish]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it. I think this rollout has been an absolute disaster, but you're saying some really stupid things. That is to say there is plenty to criticize here and in doing so you have a legitimate argument. Stuff like this post I just quoted isn't one of them and is just nonsense. Reality is they DID reuse some process from other projects. How'd that work out? I'm genuinely wondering if you have a clue what goes into a project this size...especially from a technology perspective.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it. I think this rollout has been an absolute disaster, but you're saying some really stupid things. That is to say there is plenty to criticize here and in doing so you have a legitimate argument. Stuff like this post I just quoted isn't one of them and is just nonsense. Reality is they DID reuse some process from other projects. How'd that work out? I'm genuinely wondering if you have a clue what goes into a project this size...especially from a technology perspective.

Yes I do. Tell me what do you see as the biggest challenge for this project and why did it fail?So the point I was referring to when I said "reinvent the wheel" which should have been pretty clear was the 8 years for 17 seconds to ramp up to handle the load, load balancers are really not that difficult to implement and is old technology. If you are trying to argue that the government or CGI had no clue what kind of load to expect, that is even worse. If you are arguing that CGI didn't know how to handle the load even though they knew what to expect that is not any better. So you can quit calling people stupid and explain yourself.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

The latest I've seen...probably pretty accurate

That was pretty poorly written.

Translated

Don't ever change your puppet ways JoJo!!

Wait a sec, let me "reboot" you. That was my favorite part of the article which you seem to think was well written.

 

[The Commish]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it. I think this rollout has been an absolute disaster, but you're saying some really stupid things. That is to say there is plenty to criticize here and in doing so you have a legitimate argument. Stuff like this post I just quoted isn't one of them and is just nonsense. Reality is they DID reuse some process from other projects. How'd that work out? I'm genuinely wondering if you have a clue what goes into a project this size...especially from a technology perspective.

Yes I do. Tell me what do you see as the biggest challenge for this project and why did it fail?So the point I was referring to when I said "reinvent the wheel" which should have been pretty clear was the 8 years for 17 seconds to ramp up to handle the load, load balancers are really not that difficult to implement and is old technology. If you are trying to argue that the government or CGI had no clue what kind of load to expect, that is even worse. If you are arguing that CGI didn't know how to handle the load even though they knew what to expect that is not any better. So you can quit calling people stupid and explain yourself.

So you've worked on government projects where sites have been created? In the other thread you can read my initial thoughts about the project, but reality is it's all a guess since we have no idea what political issues the contractor had to deal with. If you are thinking of relating a project like this with a private sector project you've done, that's your first mistake.

The biggest challenges in all these government projects are getting the tangible requirements. They are so wrapped up in red tape it's ridiculous. I am confident that Washington dragged their feet at every turn and placed unrealistic timeframes around every single decision. We learned from our experience that reapplying code rarely works when dealing with the government. I also learned that healthcare rules are probably the most complicated set of rules we have to code for in today's world, with IRS rules being a close second. It takes incredible amounts of logic...the more logic, the more chance for incorrectness. In the other thread I gave a pass for most things, but the thing I was not willing to give a pass on was the lack of stress testing. There's no excuse for that, but I also know that kind of testing is the first to go when deadlines are priority #1. That's probably what happened here.....I'm confident that's what happened here. Washington dragged their feet on some key decisions causing everything else to get pushed back (except for the go live date) and here we are.

 

[17seconds]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it. I think this rollout has been an absolute disaster, but you're saying some really stupid things. That is to say there is plenty to criticize here and in doing so you have a legitimate argument. Stuff like this post I just quoted isn't one of them and is just nonsense. Reality is they DID reuse some process from other projects. How'd that work out? I'm genuinely wondering if you have a clue what goes into a project this size...especially from a technology perspective.

Yes I do. Tell me what do you see as the biggest challenge for this project and why did it fail?So the point I was referring to when I said "reinvent the wheel" which should have been pretty clear was the 8 years for 17 seconds to ramp up to handle the load, load balancers are really not that difficult to implement and is old technology. If you are trying to argue that the government or CGI had no clue what kind of load to expect, that is even worse. If you are arguing that CGI didn't know how to handle the load even though they knew what to expect that is not any better. So you can quit calling people stupid and explain yourself.

I'm not saying the 8 years was necessary, I'm just glad it wasn't instant like this situation. When we bring in a new feature for example, we do it at 20,000 users a day. It's crazy to expose the entire 16mil at the same time.

It's an impossible task to create a piece of software that instantly gets millions of users and not have major issues. Example of performance issues over the web are myriad in these cases, so we know that happens, but separate from that I'd expect thousands of customer issues with the interface the first day no matter how much testing is done.

Again, I don't know if the govt was technically inept here or not.. But I'm not going to assume they are with such a daunting task.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

Well, let's start calling the whole thing a failure right away because the website sucks.

Abject failure is a bit of a stretch. But you would think with so much riding on the roll-out of the ACA website, the government could have done a better job than this.

Of course.

But what percentage of websites have problems when traffic immediately jumps to millions of hits, even when it is planned? Seems to happen all the time. I don't know all the details of the website issues, but I manage a software system supporting 16mil users and there's no friggin way we could go from nothing to that many users instantly without massive problems. You can't do that much testing. It took 8 years for us to ramp to that level thank god.

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it. I think this rollout has been an absolute disaster, but you're saying some really stupid things. That is to say there is plenty to criticize here and in doing so you have a legitimate argument. Stuff like this post I just quoted isn't one of them and is just nonsense. Reality is they DID reuse some process from other projects. How'd that work out? I'm genuinely wondering if you have a clue what goes into a project this size...especially from a technology perspective.

Yes I do. Tell me what do you see as the biggest challenge for this project and why did it fail?So the point I was referring to when I said "reinvent the wheel" which should have been pretty clear was the 8 years for 17 seconds to ramp up to handle the load, load balancers are really not that difficult to implement and is old technology. If you are trying to argue that the government or CGI had no clue what kind of load to expect, that is even worse. If you are arguing that CGI didn't know how to handle the load even though they knew what to expect that is not any better. So you can quit calling people stupid and explain yourself.

So you've worked on government projects where sites have been created? In the other thread you can read my initial thoughts about the project, but reality is it's all a guess since we have no idea what political issues the contractor had to deal with. If you are thinking of relating a project like this with a private sector project you've done, that's your first mistake.The biggest challenges in all these government projects are getting the tangible requirements. They are so wrapped up in red tape it's ridiculous. I am confident that Washington dragged their feet at every turn and placed unrealistic timeframes around every single decision. We learned from our experience that reapplying code rarely works when dealing with the government. I also learned that healthcare rules are probably the most complicated set of rules we have to code for in today's world, with IRS rules being a close second. It takes incredible amounts of logic...the more logic, the more chance for incorrectness. In the other thread I gave a pass for most things, but the thing I was not willing to give a pass on was the lack of stress testing. There's no excuse for that, but I also know that kind of testing is the first to go when deadlines are priority #1. That's probably what happened here.....I'm confident that's what happened here. Washington dragged their feet on some key decisions causing everything else to get pushed back (except for the go live date) and here we are.

The requirements definitions went through 7 major revisions, I have no idea on the dates of those changes. On top of that from what I read each of these 55 contractors were running their own data models, I severely doubt there was any automated integration tests and if there was I bet the coverage was weak.

That person that wrote the article you posted is still a joke, 500 million lines of code

The process flow of the site is really bad, no idea what kind of architecture they are running behind the scenes but it looks like it was not planned properly. If they really spent 3.5 years and over 500 million dollars (a dollar a line!) this is one of the worst managed projects I have seen.

 

[DrJ]

Well, at least we've finally got the liberals to admit that the site completely blows. That's progress.

 

[17seconds]

Also probably 80% of software companies are "inept" if you measure it by the quality of the 1.0 version of the product. A good chunk of them stay inept until they go out of business or stay alive milking the revenue of a single good idea.

Point is, the website says nothing about the government being worse than the private sector.

The measure of Obamacare will be the law itself. We'll know within a couple of years if it's a disaster.

 

[DrJ]

Also probably 80% of software companies are "inept" if you measure it by the quality of the 1.0 version of the product. A good chunk of them stay inept until they go out of business or stay alive milking the revenue of a single good idea.

Point is, the website says nothing about the government being worse than the private sector.

The measure of Obamacare will be the law itself. We'll know within a couple of years if it's a disaster.

The product doesn't matter if you have no means to actually deliver it.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

Also probably 80% of software companies are "inept" if you measure it by the quality of the 1.0 version of the product. A good chunk of them stay inept until they go out of business or stay alive milking the revenue of a single good idea.

Point is, the website says nothing about the government being worse than the private sector.

The measure of Obamacare will be the law itself. We'll know within a couple of years if it's a disaster.

The biggest mistake they made was to qualify people for subsidies before allowing them to view what the plans were. I know why they did it, they didn't want anyone to get sticker shock at the amped up premiums, but it was a bad technological decision to satisfy a political motivation.

They should have focused on just getting people registered and served up the plans available for their county. Who knows for sure though, it could have bombed just as easily after people were ready to sign up based on how poorly it was executed.

Since they decided to put this expensive bottleneck in their site flow it killed their launch.

 

[Sarnoff]

They shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, people are acting like this is a new thing.

There's not another site like it.

Well, this is the whole problem with ObamaCare™. An entire sector of the national economy was taken over by the government, without anyone looking at models which have worked in other countries, which ones failed, small rollouts and tests in small states, etc. Instead, the personal health care of all citizens was determined by whatever got a 1-vote-margin in Congress on one particular day. Without any thought to the whole process. Without most of anyone actually reading it to see what was in it. Without a realistic map to accomplish the goals, or any real idea of what those goals actually are. A whole system that no one understands was not decided on by proposals and experts reviewing and perfecting a process and model, instead, by whatever handout got some Congressman from Nebraska to vote for a bill.

There are other places on the planet where a similar system works, but for whatever reason they've been ignored. A realistic plan was never developed. No real thought has gone into any of this. All we've got is "If you like your plan, you can keep it" and that someone somewhere decided the answer to "How will we organize this new behemoth?" was "Um, the internet, I guess?" It really feels like this was the sum total of all the preparation done here.