Obamacare enrollment stymied by exchange glitches

[SamH]

No. The IRS has probably fed in the social security numbers and names of whoever it most suspects of being Tea Party leaders, and as soon as their name or number pops onto the site, it automatically goes to that $9,000 premium and no other.

Given how poorly the system operates it probably didn’t get that part right either.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Obama health target: 500,000 signups by Oct. 31

At least 185,000 people have applied for Obamacare

Also, applying for insurance and buying insurance are not the same thing. An individual could have completed an application but not yet paid a first month’s premium to his or her health plan – or that payment could still be being processed. That means we could see these numbers drop when we start talking about enrollments, if people don’t actually follow through with payment.

 

[PaulinVA]

Troubled Obamacare website wasn’t tested until a week before launch

                                               [global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/share/source/156-washington-examiner.png](http://washingtonexaminer.com/)                             
                                                        By Richard Pollock

Published October 18, 2013

                                                                      Federal officials did not permit testing of the Obamacare  healthcare.gov website or issue final system requirements until four to  six days before its Oct. 1 launch, according to an individual with  direct knowledge of the project.

The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the troubled Obamacare website project as suffering from top-level management disarray, changing systems requirements and recurring delays.
The root cause of the problems was a pivotal decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials to act as systems integrator, the central coordinator for the entire program. Usually this role is reserved for the prime information technology contractor.
As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said.​

PaulinVA - I am a software development professional. I have over 25 years experience, and I have to tell you, this is criminal. You cannot test quality into a product - it has to be designed in. Testing only verifies the quality.

BUT, it sounds to me that healthcare.gov never passed a system acceptance test. Wow. Whoever at CMS was responsible should be fired.

 

[zz912]

Obama health target: 500,000 signups by Oct. 31

At least 185,000 people have applied for Obamacare

And even those numbers are mostly smoke and mirrors, as most of the people are signing up for Medicaid.

Said it before and will say it again, Obamacare is a dumpster fire sitting on top of a trainwreck. And Obama doesn’t care (as you can see from the refusal to delay integration until the website could be functional). He only cares about power and control, which is what this is all about.

 

[zz912]

PaulinVA - I am a software development professional. I have over 25 years experience, and I have to tell you, this is criminal. You cannot test quality into a product - it has to be designed in. Testing only verifies the quality.

BUT, it sounds to me that healthcare.gov never passed a system acceptance test. Wow. Whoever at CMS was responsible should be fired.

Why should they be fired? They were carrying out exactly what their superiors wanted. The administration didn’t want this thing to be scrutinized until it was too late. That is also why the website is set up the way it is. You have to (name removed by moderator)ut all your info FIRST, and then you get to look at prices. They want all your information to better control and track you.

This website is the natural outcome when you have a community organizer (who has never held a real job) is in charge of controlling 1/6 of our economy. He’s never shown competence with anything of substance, so why should we expect different now?

 

[qui_est_ce]

Does this mean people will refuse pay increases or longer work hours? Interesting.

We had a guy take a pay decrease in exchange for insurance.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Why should they be fired? They were carrying out exactly what their superiors wanted. The administration didn’t want this thing to be scrutinized until it was too late. That is also why the website is set up the way it is. You have to (name removed by moderator)ut all your info FIRST, and then you get to look at prices. They want all your information to better control and track you.

This website is the natural outcome when you have a community organizer (who has never held a real job) is in charge of controlling 1/6 of our economy. He’s never shown competence with anything of substance, so why should we expect different now?

I was wondering about that. And that is the reason why I haven’t tried the site. I think that policy will keep a lot of people from checking it out.

 

[ProVobis]

Troubled Obamacare website wasn’t tested until a week before launch

                                               [global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/share/source/156-washington-examiner.png](http://washingtonexaminer.com/)                             
                                                        By Richard Pollock

Published October 18, 2013

                                                                      Federal officials did not permit testing of the Obamacare  healthcare.gov website or issue final system requirements until four to  six days before its Oct. 1 launch, according to an individual with  direct knowledge of the project.

The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the troubled Obamacare website project as suffering from top-level management disarray, changing systems requirements and recurring delays.
The root cause of the problems was a pivotal decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials to act as systems integrator, the central coordinator for the entire program. Usually this role is reserved for the prime information technology contractor.
As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said.​

PaulinVA - I am a software development professional. I have over 25 years experience, and I have to tell you, this is criminal. You cannot test quality into a product - it has to be designed in. Testing only verifies the quality.

BUT, it sounds to me that healthcare.gov never passed a system acceptance test. Wow. Whoever at CMS was responsible should be fired.

Our company had somewhat the same problems with Sarbanes-Oxley, as it was never fully explained. They hired 10 some programmers to implement it but only ended up with expensive audits at the end of each year.

 

[PaulinVA]

Why should they be fired? They were carrying out exactly what their superiors wanted. The administration didn’t want this thing to be scrutinized until it was too late. That is also why the website is set up the way it is. You have to (name removed by moderator)ut all your info FIRST, and then you get to look at prices. They want all your information to better control and track you.

This website is the natural outcome when you have a community organizer (who has never held a real job) is in charge of controlling 1/6 of our economy. He’s never shown competence with anything of substance, so why should we expect different now?

That’s all rhetoric.

There was a person at HHS that decided CMS, and not CGI, would be the system integrator. Bad decision that cost the country millions. He/she should be gone. The actual person who was in charge at CMS of the effort should be fired, unless they can produce the paperwork showing that they made good decisions that were not implemented.

This was just a mess. Part of it was politics setting the Go Live date, but part of it was just plain ole bad development.

 

[_Abyssinia]

In S.D., just 23 sign up for health insurance exchange so far

A few Alaskans manage to sign up for health insurance on federal website

ObamaCare sign-up numbers begin to emerge, show slow start amid website problems

The review was released by Kantar US Insights, based on the findings of the Millward Brown Digital research firm. It showed 9.47 million unique visitors to the federal site during the first week, including 3.72 million who entered the registration area, 1 million successfully registering and 36,000 who completed enrollment.

 

[ProVobis]

That’s all rhetoric.

There was a person at HHS that decided CMS, and not CGI, would be the system integrator. Bad decision that cost the country millions. He/she should be gone. The actual person who was in charge at CMS of the effort should be fired, unless they can produce the paperwork showing that they made good decisions that were not implemented.

This was just a mess. Part of it was politics setting the Go Live date, but part of it was just plain ole bad development.

It’s worse than first reported. Data has been screwed up. Family members listed as spouses, etc. Wrong plan information, wrong amount of deductible, all are being reported now. They will need all this information corrected before they take in more applicants. I remember similar incidences when I was in IT, but that was only one company.

 

[PaulinVA]

It’s worse than first reported. Data has been screwed up. Family members listed as spouses, etc. Wrong plan information, wrong amount of deductible, all are being reported now. They will need all this information corrected before they take in more applicants. I remember similar incidences when I was in IT, but that was only one company.

BCBS Nebraska has hired temps to call the 50, count 'em, 50 people who have signed up to far with them through the exchange. The data is so hoked they can’t use it.

So, on the good side, there is a lot of work in future for “phone verifiers” who will be needed to unscreww this. The bad news is they will all only get 29 hours of work a week so they don’t have to be offered benefits.

 

[ProVobis]

BCBS Nebraska has hired temps to call the 50, count 'em, 50 people who have signed up to far with them through the exchange. The data is so hoked they can’t use it.

So, on the good side, there is a lot of work in future for “phone verifiers” who will be needed to unscreww this. The bad news is they will all only get 29 hours of work a week so they don’t have to be offered benefits.

There’s something to be said about doing things the old-fashioned way.

 

[_Abyssinia]

If the problems now plaguing the system are not resolved by mid-November and the flow of enrollments at that point looks like it does now, the prospects for the first year of the exchanges will be in very grave jeopardy. Some large advertising and outreach campaigns are also geared to that crucial six-week period around Thanksgiving and Christmas, so if the sites are not functional, all of that might not happen—or else might be wasted. If that’s what the late fall looks like, the administration might need to consider what one of the people I spoke with described as “unthinkable options” regarding the first year of the exchanges.

nationalreview.com/corner/361577/assessing-exchanges-yuval-levin

 

[ProVobis]

nationalreview.com/corner/361577/assessing-exchanges-yuval-levin

It probably will be extended well past that point. The administration is in the process of doing some heavy damage control here. BTW, it’s a very common thing in IT. The only almost-glitch-free successes that I know were the Y2k conversions, but there was no political adversity involved there, no way to delay it or throw obstacles at it. And no uncertainty either. Everything was pretty well defined and everyone knew their role. This is not the situation here.

 

[PaulinVA]

It probably will be extended well past that point. The administration is in the process of doing some heavy damage control here. BTW, it’s a very common thing in IT. The only almost-glitch-free successes that I know were the Y2k conversions, but there was no political adversity involved there, no way to delay it or throw obstacles at it. And no uncertainty either. Everything was pretty well defined and everyone knew their role. This is not the situation here.

It will be the ironies of ironies if the administration has to push back the individual mandate for a year, after refusing to do it during the budget negotiations.

I don’t see a short term fix to this. I suspect that there are fundamental flaws with the data hub that are causing the issues. Oh, yeah, and the largest ever installation of Oracle Access Manager.

 

[ProVobis]

It will be the ironies of ironies if the administration has to push back the individual mandate for a year, after refusing to do it during the budget negotiations.

I don’t see a short term fix to this. I suspect that there are fundamental flaws with the data hub that are causing the issues. Oh, yeah, and the largest ever installation of Oracle Access Manager.

Surprisingly Oracle stock price hasn’t come down much.

 

[_Abyssinia]

As of now, Blue Cross Blue Shield has only received a couple of enrollments from the marketplace, said J.D. Nichol, the manager of consumer sales.

Greg Bury, a spokesman for Medica, said his company hasn’t received any.

bismarcktribune.com/news/local/bismarck/two-weeks-into-health-insurance-marketplace-companies-in-holding-pattern/article_781cfa9e-35e9-11e3-9b65-0019bb2963f4.html