"Nowhere Close" -- Michelle's WebPage

The FiscalTimes is reporting:

It’s even more discouraging since less than 50,000 people have signed up for health insurance through the federal exchange, according to unofficial estimates reported by the Wall Street Journal.

And it doesn’t appear to be getting better.

According to tech experts, the sorry state of the current website does little to inspire confidence that it can be fixed and functional in less than three weeks.

“When I visited healthcare.gov on October first 1, that was the worst piece of software I’ve ever experienced in my life,” said Luke Chung, founder and CEO of the software company FMS. “It had nothing to do with too many users. It couldn’t serve one user.”

According to Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, a data security firm working with private insurers, even if the White House can fix the problems associated with the site, they're going to find new ones immediately. Nijhawan also warned that the systems that allow CMS and health insurance companies to exchange information are no where close to being ready, meaning tech problems could last years.

Much, much more at the link. Meanwhile, one million Californians are getting notices that their insurance has been canceled. These are not the homeless, unemployed, urban youth; these are hardworking, middle Americans, blue collar, white collar, soccer moms, etc., who never thought they would be caught up in something so horrendous. 

Later in the article:

“I have contended all along that this is not that difficult of a project,” he said. “[The website] doesn’t provide health care, it doesn’t even provide insurance. It’s just a form to apply for a subsidy to get health insurance. It’s automating a paper form. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Technically, this is not that difficult,” Chung added. “It shouldn’t cost more than $10 million. And it should be something that can be done in a couple of months.”

According to both Chung and Nijhawan, even if the White House can build a functional web site by the end of the month, new problems would appear almost immediately.

This begs the question: what information was the government collecting on folks who enrolled? Since everyone has to have insurance, the government was using this exchange as a way to develop a database of private information on ALL Americans.

Regarding costs: this is what I'm hearing

• original cost: $170 million
• additional cost: $50 million
• emergency surge: the tab is running
• roll-out promotion: $700  million

That's a billion-dollar marketing program.  [Disclaimer: these cost estimates are based on very tenuous data; they could be off by .... millions. Don't quote me on them. HHS would have exact figures which they will eagerly provide if you ask nicely. LOL.]

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~ Putting things in perspective ~

 

March 21st 2010 to 1 October 2013 is 3 years, 6 months, 10 days.

 

December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945 is 3 years, 5 months, 1 day. 

 

What this means is that in the time we were attacked at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered is not enough time for this federal government to build a working webpage!

 

Mobilization of millions, building tens of thousands of tanks, planes, jeeps, subs, cruisers, destroyers, torpedoes, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, ammo, etc. Turning the tide in North Africa, Invading Italy, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Race to Berlin - all the while we were also fighting the Japanese in the Pacific!!! 

 

But Obama and his misadministration CAN'T BUILD A WEB PAGE!  ???...

 

Three and a half years and a billion dollars to get this "rolled-out"

and they are just now finding out that there are shortcomings in their system?

 

Government  contracts are normally advertised and granted to the lowest bidder with performance requirements.  This contract was not bid but awarded to Michelle’s classmate. 

Why wasn't Microsoft, Apple, or any number of other reputable web companies chosen?

 

Get ready for the excuses and remember what Ben Franklin once said,

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good at anything else."