$635 billion ??!!

[Papa bull]

Again I aint justifying anything. It is you that is putting a price tag on this and calling it failure because it does not work perfectly. the iPhone, iPad, Google, Facebook, Microsoft.. because they all did not work perfectly from the start and still dont work perfectly.

It doesn't feckin' WORK.... PERIOD. It's not a matter of an occasional error. It's so broken most people can't even use the damned thing. Not one of those technologies you mentioned got launched so broken that they were utterly unusable. This is the worst failure in a tech launch I've ever seen. EVER seen. And there's nothing even close. Hell, I can't think of any product launch that has been worse in history. Even the Titanic floated for awhile before sinking.

The cost is ridiculous. The federal government created a single site for 34 states. It's a single implementation that cost 634 dollars. It's not the "interfaces with other government sites" that make it so users can't register or log on. There may well be problems interfacing with other computers and, if there are interfaces with other computers, It's damned near a sure thing given the quality of the code. The problem so visible is upstream from any of that.

There's no excuse for this. Anyone with any IS/IT experience knows that in the private sector heads would roll over such a colossal failure.

The reason for this nationwide headache apparently stems from poorly written code, which buckled under the heavy influx of traffic that its engineers and administrators should have seen coming. But the fact that Healthcare.gov can’t do the one job it was built to do isn’t the most infuriating part of this debacle – it’s that we, the taxpayers, seem to have forked up more than $634 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.

The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal. The company originally won the contract back in 2011, but at that time, the cost was expected to run “up to” $93.7 million – still a chunk of change, but nothing near where it ended up.

Given the complicated nature of federal contracts, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between the cost to develop Healthcare.gov and the amount of money spent building private online businesses. But for the sake of putting the monstrous amount of money into perspective, here are a few figures to chew on: Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $600 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.


Read more: Obamacare's broken website cost more than LinkedIn, Spotify combined | Digital Trends

And, by the way.... those of you who want to try to compare it to an iphone or an Ipad.... Don't. It makes you look stupid. This wasn't even close to either one in terms of technical difficulty. It isn't an operating system. It's a fecking interactive web site and a simple one at that. For God's sake, we're typing messages into software HERE that's more complicated than the Insurance Exchange Website.

 

[Papa bull]

One website that connects to every state and various databases that the makers of the website did not create. Do you know how hard that is to do?

Bullcrap. It's ONE website for 34 states. It's not hard to do.

 

[polgara]

Indeed - how much did Ford sink into the Edsel before they gave up and trashed it?

Once again, great analogy! :thumbs: Of all the vehicles that have come and gone over the years, most have collectors who save and store one or two for nostalgic reasons. I haven't heard of anyone who collected Edsels! I'm not familiar with the car, but it must have really been a dog!

Greeti8ngs, CJ. :2wave:

 

[PeteEU]

Bullcrap. It's ONE website for 34 states. It's not hard to do.

I am guessing you are not a tech nerd.. or understand how websites and databases work. Because.. it is hard and takes time.

Any moron can make a basic website for 34 states.. but you try linking that website to multiple databases with personal information and all that.. And then you try to make it multi-functional, with many options and add to that a security layer that is actually secure.... oh and make it possible to input information as well, to be saved in a new or old database, which is dependent on what state you are in..

And then you make that webpage work with 10k hits per second..

Good luck!

 

[EdwinWillers]

It doesn't feckin' WORK.... PERIOD. It's not a matter of an occasional error. It's so broken most people can't even use the damned thing. Not one of those technologies you mentioned got launched so broken that they were utterly unusable. This is the worst failure in a tech launch I've ever seen. EVER seen. And there's nothing even close. Hell, I can't think of any product launch that has been worse in history. Even the Titanic floated for awhile before sinking.

The cost is ridiculous. The federal government created a single site for 34 states. It's a single implementation that cost 634 dollars. It's not the "interfaces with other government sites" that make it so users can't register or log on. There may well be problems interfacing with other computers and, if there are interfaces with other computers, It's damned near a sure thing given the quality of the code. The problem so visible is upstream from any of that.

There's no excuse for this. Anyone with any IS/IT experience knows that in the private sector heads would roll over such a colossal failure.

And, by the way.... those of you who want to try to compare it to an iphone or an Ipad.... Don't. It makes you look stupid. This wasn't even close to either one in terms of technical difficulty. It isn't an operating system. It's a fecking interactive web site and a simple one at that. For God's sake, we're typing messages into software HERE that's more complicated than the Insurance Exchange Website.

Yes, but it's the holy and righteous intentions that matter more than whether it actually works or not - and given the intentions are holy and righteous, no price tag is too high for such honorable and exalted motives.

Besides, they have to build and pay for the website before they can know whether it will work or not. It is, after all - Obama"care."

... don'tcha know.

 

[EdwinWillers]

I am guessing you are not a tech nerd.. or understand how websites and databases work. Because.. it is hard and takes time.

Any moron can make a basic website for 34 states.. but you try linking that website to multiple databases with personal information and all that.. And then you try to make it multi-functional, with many options and add to that a security layer that is actually secure.... oh and make it possible to input information as well, to be saved in a new or old database, which is dependent on what state you are in..

And then you make that webpage work with 10k hits per second..

Good luck!

Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have hired 'anymoron' to do their little website then.

 

[PeteEU]

Bullcrap. It's ONE website for 34 states. It's not hard to do.

Actually if you bothered going on to the site.. you would see it was 57 states and territories. Just check the pop down list

Also the website works fine for me.. but granted I did not actually register on it.. oh that adds another level of complexity!

 

[PeteEU]

Perhaps the Dems shouldn't have hired 'anymoron' to do their little website then.

Maybe, but then again the GOP does not have a stellar history in hiring private contractors either... how much was wasted on fraud in Iraq with private contractors?

 

[humbolt]

The ACA isn't going to work. It is completely consistent, then, that the website doesn't work either. So, an "A" for consistency and wasting money, and an "F" for everything else.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Maybe, but then again the GOP does not have a stellar history in hiring private contractors either... how much was wasted on fraud in Iraq with private contractors?

Perhaps, but that's a different topic entirely and regardless, it wouldn't be justification for the incompetence so prominently on display now.

 

[Papa bull]

I am guessing you are not a tech nerd.. or understand how websites and databases work. Because.. it is hard and takes time.

Bullcrap. I worked as an applications programmer for one of the largest multi-national corporations in the world with gross sales about the same as Wal-Mart's. I worked in that capacity with different technologies for over 16 years. I know plenty about databases, database queries, GUI interfaces, web interfaces, etc. etc. etc.

I'm not guessing that you don't know what you're talking about. I KNOW you don't know what you're talking about. So what do all these alleged various "databases" contain? As far as I can see, this application could have been programmed to a single database serving all 34 states. So what if it would have 300 million users records?

This wasn't the huge technological challenge you Obamaphiles are trying to make it out to be. And even if it was, with over 600 million dollars and three years, there's no excuse to feck it up the way it got fecked up.

 

[Dittohead not!]

Yeah, I don't see that happening.

I checked out Drudge, and the "article" said it was $634,320,919. That's a bit short of 635 Billion.

On a side note, Drudge could use a new web designer.

It's a bit short of 635 million. Your figures are off by a factor of 1,000. That's not even close enough for government work.

 

[Papa bull]

Actually if you bothered going on to the site.. you would see it was 57 states and territories. Just check the pop down list

Also the website works fine for me.. but granted I did not actually register on it.. oh that adds another level of complexity!

If you bothered to learn what was really going on, the fed site being maintained for 34 states is the one that's totally hosed. My state is one of them and I still can't use the site. You are on a roll with popping off at the mouth about things you don't know or understand.

 

[GottaGo]

LOL you need some perspective... Overspending is 40k for a toilet seat and 2 bucks for an asprin. Spending 13 million per state to implement a massive computer system is hardly overspending.. in fact I would almost say it is underspending. The problem with government computer systems is that they rely on the private sector in most cases and the private sector has a very bad reputation in screwing up big computer systems made for the government. Yes it is in part the fault of government not laying down the conditions correctly, but it is also the fault of the makers for exploiting the situation well knowing it wont work as intended. I have seen it many times, billions spent on big technology programs in government only to fall flat on its face. Government is generally a decade behind on technology in any country and are easily fooled because most elected politicians have zero computer skills so you can feed them any bull**** and get paid for it.

I've worked GSA contracts..... I know how much prices can get jacked for things.

An 'interactive' website doesn't cost $634m.......

 

[CanadaJohn]

Once again, great analogy! :thumbs: Of all the vehicles that have come and gone over the years, most have collectors who save and store one or two for nostalgic reasons. I haven't heard of anyone who collected Edsels! I'm not familiar with the car, but it must have really been a dog!

Greeti8ngs, CJ. :2wave:

Good morning Lady P - there were so few Edsels sold that they are, indeed, collector's items even though they were, as you say, "dogs". It will be like people collecting Obama "Yes We Can" buttons for those who survived the disaster and look back nostalgically - people collect Hindenburg memorabilia too!

 

[Cyrylek]

You people really stretch to mitigate what are obvious failures.

"We people" are not trying to "mitigate" anything. I cannot speak for others, but I am on record on this forum, more than once or twice, as an opponent (to put it mildly) of the ACA. In my very humble opinion, it is a horrible piece of legislation.

It doesn't mean that my understanding of the technical problems occurring at the website should be exactly the same as that of some other people who may oppose Obamacare for different reasons, or no reason whatsoever.

 

[Fenton]

Again I aint justifying anything. It is you that is putting a price tag on this and calling it failure because it does not work perfectly. That must mean that every piece of technology is a failure...
the iPhone, iPad, Google, Facebook, Microsoft.. because they all did not work perfectly from the start and still dont work perfectly.

I see no parralels to this ridiculous law and investments in " technology", which I happen to be a big fan of.

Technology can be quantified and qualified objectively.

And I'm telling you from experience, ( 30 years building and troubleshooting electronic controllers down to the component level here ) that there is little room for substandard designs and botched product releases in my industry as well as other industries that deal with technology in general.

Your trying to equate the Obama administrations websites cost and its failures to a industry that doesn't factor in the politics of a corrupted ideology when they design and release a product.

You're trying to make the case that the explanations from the Obama camp are sincere and truthful. There is very little coming out of the Obama camp that is truthful.

I've heard their excuses, listened to Jack Lew tell Chris Wallace that it's "expected" and we should wait for the 1.2 or 1.3 version of the Website....ridiculous.

What are they running now ? A 635 MILLION dollar Beta ?

Sorry, but I'm not a Obama supporter so I'm not suscepatable to obvious BS.

 

[Papa bull]

"We people" are not trying to "mitigate" anything. I cannot speak for others, but I am on record on this forum, more than once or twice, as an opponent (to put it mildly) of the ACA. In my very humble opinion, it is a horrible piece of legislation.

It doesn't mean that my understanding of the technical problems occurring at the website should be exactly the same as that of some other people who may oppose Obamacare for different reasons, or no reason whatsoever.

The absurd thing is that I would think supporters of ObamaCare should be among the most pissed off since they'd be the ones most eager to try to access it. It seems to me the that only those supporting the politics of it would be the hardcore partisan apologists for this level of failure.

 

[Papa bull]

I see no parralels to this ridiculous law and investments in " technology", which I happen to be a big fan of.

Technology can be quantified and qualified objectively.

And I'm telling you from experience, ( 30 years building and troubleshooting electronic controllers down to the component level here ) that there is little room for substandard designs and botched product releases in my industry as well as other industries that deal with technology in general.

Your trying to equate the Obama administrations websites cost and its failures to a industry that doesn't factor in the politics of a corrupted ideology when they design and release a product.

You're trying to make the case that the explanations from the Obama camp are sincere and truthful. There is very little coming out of the Obama camp that is truthful.

I've heard their excuses, listened to Jack Lew tell Chris Wallace that it's "expected" and we should wait for the 1.2 or 1.3 version of the Website....ridiculous.

What are they running now ? A 635 MILLION dollar Beta ?

Sorry, but I'm not a Obama supporter so I'm not suscepatable to obvious BS.

It's not even qualified to be called a BETA release. Basic functionality has to work in BETA. Even the most basic functions of ObamaCare just plain don't work. In a professional environment you'd be called on the carpet for even submitting something this badly broken for testing.

 

[Fenton]

"We people" are not trying to "mitigate"
anything. I cannot speak for others,
but I am on record on this forum, more than once or twice, as an opponent (to put it mildly) of the ACA. In my very humble opinion, it is a horrible piece of legislation.

It doesn't mean that my understanding of the technical problems occurring at the website should be exactly the same as that of some other people who may oppose Obamacare for different reasons, or no reason whatsoever.

Ok, thats fair and I apologize for lumping you in.

But I simply don't buy the " technical difficulties " excuse.

Not after 634 million dolalrs and 3 years. I mean am I suppose to believe this is a beta version ?

I think its down for a couple of reasons.

1) If it were functional millions of middleclass Americans would have learned by now that the cost for all those new subsidies is coming out of their pockets.

2) When it WAS up and running the amount of people that actually signed up was so dismally low, the Obama administration didn't want to admit it.

Given the battle over funding it, NOW is not the time to tell people that their premiums have just been increased under a Democrat mandate.

Next years a big election year, and I think Democrats are full on aware that this law is going to hurt allot of people.

Personally, I don't think Obama is a honest man. I think he lacks integrity, character and humility and will say or do anything to get his way.

The ends justifies the means and the Democrat party are filled with people who subscribe to that idiom.

 

[Fenton]

It's not
even qualified to be called a BETA
release. Basic functionality has to work in BETA. Even the most basic functions of ObamaCare just plain don't work. In a professional environment you'd be called on the carpet for even submitting something this badly broken for testing.

Excellent post.

Equating this to a private products release is a bit desperate but it would appear, the Left will say anything to justify this disaster.

 

[Cyrylek]

It seems to me the that only those supporting the politics of it would be the hardcore partisan apologists for this level of failure.

Technical problems at a government-run mega-website is a predictable and trivial matter. If someone thinks that the damage these glitches cause is even worth discussing, comparing to the enormous harm Obamacare is going to inflict on our health care markets and economy at large, that someone probably does not understand what the real issues are.

 

[Papa bull]

Technical problems at a government-run mega-website is a predictable and trivial matter. If someone thinks that the damage these glitches cause is even worth discussing, comparing to the enormous harm Obamacare is going to inflict on our health care markets and economy at large, that someone probably does not understand what the real issues are.

Technical problems are to be expected. Complete failure to work to the point that it is virtually impossible to use is NOT to be expected. And the fact that ObamaCare itself is a disaster doesn't make the failure of this web launch any less spectacular or less worthy of discussion.

 

[Fenton]

Technical problems at a government-run
mega-website is a predictable and trivial matter. If someone thinks that the damage these glitches cause is even worth discussing, comparing to the enormous harm Obamacare is going to inflict on our health care markets and economy at large, that someone probably does not understand what the real issues are.

The discussion of technical issues is worthy of conversation if its an obvious excuse for something more sinister.

Like where did the better part of 635 million actually go ?

 

[Papa bull]

Excellent post.

Equating this to a private products release is a bit desperate but it would appear, the Left will say anything to justify this disaster.

There is no comparison to a private sector products release. The Edsel might have been a marketing failure but at least you could turn the key, start the engine and roll it off the lot.