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Software design, not just demand behind health exchange problems.

Papa bull

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It was obvious immediately to anyone with even a small amount of experience in an IS/IT shop that there were design problems in the Insurance Exchange website issues. Design and poor/indadequate testing were the obvious culprits. The Ohio site is still not working although some of the silly initial problems of such basic things as getting dropdown menus populated with choices were corrected.

From NBC: ( Software design, not just demand, may be behind health exchange glitches, experts say - NBC News.com )

As it did on the first two days of the online enrollment under the health law, the Obama administration blamed the delays on overwhelming volume, but analysts suggested software design might also be a problem.

“This is not solely a traffic issue,” said Dan Mendelson, CEO of consultant Avalere Health. “There are more underlying issues that have to be resolved.”

Difficulty setting up security questions and other problems encountered by users “are technical issues, not volume,” Schuyler said. “What it comes down to is there wasn’t enough time to thoroughly test the systems.”

“This is not a glitch. A glitch is a minor problem,” said Robert Laszewski, a consultant and former insurance executive. “The real story is that the Obamacare computer systems simply are not working.”

And in other news, California (one of many) overstated their traffic by 87% with less than a million hits the first day instead of over 5 million claimed.
 
It was obvious immediately to anyone with even a small amount of experience in an IS/IT shop that there were design problems in the Insurance Exchange website issues. Design and poor/indadequate testing were the obvious culprits. The Ohio site is still not working although some of the silly initial problems of such basic things as getting dropdown menus populated with choices were corrected. From NBC: ( Software design, not just demand, may be behind health exchange glitches, experts say - NBC News.com ) And in other news, California (one of many) overstated their traffic by 87% with less than a million hits the first day instead of over 5 million claimed.

And in other news CON math is as flawed as CON politics.... since when is 'over 5 million' 87% more than 'less than 1 million'???? :shock:

If you have ANY design experience in an IT shop you know there are thousands of slips twixt the cup and the lip. Part of the problem usually centers around last minute add ons to the program, they are not modular. Did the politicians pass last minute changes like expanding medicare? Did the programmers work on a program to include expanded medicare only to have to pull it at the last minute when the bill didn't pass???

A HUGE problem is a server being swamped by requests. Even large online shopping corporations have this problem. Another is improper beta testing- Techno-wienies HATE beta testers and defend like grizzly bears their product and are very resistant to changes. Another poor Beta technique is not letting an independent third party shake the crap out of a program before it goes public.

If you think this snarl job is unique to this new roll out you are not in IT. Everything from the I-phone to 'improved' online shopping screens have big teething issues.

The 'never ending consultant project' is not a major corporation myth. You want job security in the IT field, get a consultant job to join the 'upgrade' team for a major corporation, even the task of changing from one computer to another can take years, and is as smooth as a shark's ass.... :doh
 
And in other news CON math is as flawed as CON politics.... since when is 'over 5 million' 87% more than 'less than 1 million'???? :shock:

If you have ANY design experience in an IT shop you know there are thousands of slips twixt the cup and the lip. Part of the problem usually centers around last minute add ons to the program, they are not modular. Did the politicians pass last minute changes like expanding medicare? Did the programmers work on a program to include expanded medicare only to have to pull it at the last minute when the bill didn't pass???

A HUGE problem is a server being swamped by requests. Even large online shopping corporations have this problem. Another is improper beta testing- Techno-wienies HATE beta testers and defend like grizzly bears their product and are very resistant to changes. Another poor Beta technique is not letting an independent third party shake the crap out of a program before it goes public.

If you think this snarl job is unique to this new roll out you are not in IT. Everything from the I-phone to 'improved' online shopping screens have big teething issues.

The 'never ending consultant project' is not a major corporation myth. You want job security in the IT field, get a consultant job to join the 'upgrade' team for a major corporation, even the task of changing from one computer to another can take years, and is as smooth as a shark's ass.... :doh

Hey, Einstein, before getting too snarky, maybe you should make sure you're not making stupid assumptions.

#1 It wasn't my math. The way it was figured is a little cocked by the numbers are right. Less than 1 million actually visited the site. Over 5 million were claimed.

Other exchanges have had to pare down their initial statistics. Covered California, that state’s subsidized insurance exchange, initially claimed that its website had received 5 million hits on October 1. They later had to revise that number down 87 percent, to 645,000

#2. If you've worked in an IS/IT shop, you'd know that something like having security questions for the login aren't "last minute changes". They're basic design.

And last but not least.... If you don't think this was a very good example of the type of rollout that gets people fired, you haven't worked in a competent IS/IT organization. Glitches are not good but not uncommon. This went well beyond "glitches", though and was indicative of extreme incompetence in project management, change management and programming and design. People at all levels should be flogged for this.

It was excruciatingly bad. And for the 4th day, Ohio's exchange still isn't working.
 
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And in other news CON math is as flawed as CON politics.... since when is 'over 5 million' 87% more than 'less than 1 million'???? :shock:

If you have ANY design experience in an IT shop you know there are thousands of slips twixt the cup and the lip. Part of the problem usually centers around last minute add ons to the program, they are not modular. Did the politicians pass last minute changes like expanding medicare? Did the programmers work on a program to include expanded medicare only to have to pull it at the last minute when the bill didn't pass???

A HUGE problem is a server being swamped by requests. Even large online shopping corporations have this problem. Another is improper beta testing- Techno-wienies HATE beta testers and defend like grizzly bears their product and are very resistant to changes. Another poor Beta technique is not letting an independent third party shake the crap out of a program before it goes public.

If you think this snarl job is unique to this new roll out you are not in IT. Everything from the I-phone to 'improved' online shopping screens have big teething issues.

The 'never ending consultant project' is not a major corporation myth. You want job security in the IT field, get a consultant job to join the 'upgrade' team for a major corporation, even the task of changing from one computer to another can take years, and is as smooth as a shark's ass.... :doh

lets do a fair comparison the computer game word of warcraft that has over 9 million players release a new expansion on average one ever two years and a half a dozen or more patches in between those expansions. they have a million more lines of coding and wok off 1 10th the budget given to implement ACA and they can release a game that those 9 million will be logging on to play all at the same time with very little problems and if there is it gets fixed in a day

Ok we have the ACA that had less then 3 million hits to a simple consumer site to sell one product with two versions of that product that has spent billions and 3 years to set up and we are on day 4 and it still doesn't work for most
 
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lets do a fair comparison the computer game word of warcraft that has over 9 million players release a new expansion on average one ever two years and a half a dozen or more patches in between those expansions. they have a million more lines of coding and wok off 1 10th the budget given to implement ACA and they can release a game that those 9 million will be logging on to play all at the same time with very little problems and if there is it gets fixed in a day

Ok we have the ACA that had less then 3 million hits to a simple consumer site to sell one product with two versions of that product that has spent billions and 3 years to set up and we are on day 4 and it still doesn't work for most

This is actually a very good comparison...mmo's and the Obamacare websites. I've played a lot of online games and server pressure is expected. It's hard to predict the number of hits that will happen when the game goes live. Having to wait to log in is common.

But...

1. The game developers get new servers online quickly. Long waits to log in go away in a matter of days.

2. Despite the log in queues, once a subscriber connects, the game works. Oh, there might be little bugs, but inhouse testing and beta testing has eliminated the big problems.

Obamacare seems to have been designed by monkeys.
 
It was obvious immediately to anyone with even a small amount of experience in an IS/IT shop that there were design problems in the Insurance Exchange website issues. Design and poor/indadequate testing were the obvious culprits. The Ohio site is still not working although some of the silly initial problems of such basic things as getting dropdown menus populated with choices were corrected.

From NBC: ( Software design, not just demand, may be behind health exchange glitches, experts say - NBC News.com )

And in other news, California (one of many) overstated their traffic by 87% with less than a million hits the first day instead of over 5 million claimed.

And those hits from California and others? Hell, I "hit" on the site 15 times or more already trying to get on. It's completely inaccurate. As to there not being enough time? Please. If you can't get by freakin' SIGN-UP after a year of set-up time, that's just simply pathetic.
 
And those hits from California and others? Hell, I "hit" on the site 15 times or more already trying to get on. It's completely inaccurate. As to there not being enough time? Please. If you can't get by freakin' SIGN-UP after a year of set-up time, that's just simply pathetic.

I can see your angst building...the good news is the last 5 times I tried to 'log on' I was able to get the security question pull downs that weren't blank. Bad news is the next screen continues to state 'account cannot be created...:2mad:
 
And those hits from California and others? Hell, I "hit" on the site 15 times or more already trying to get on. It's completely inaccurate. As to there not being enough time? Please. If you can't get by freakin' SIGN-UP after a year of set-up time, that's just simply pathetic.

I agree. This wasn't a great technical challenge and there were years to get this going. I'm sure these people were counting all the multiple "hits" from people trying unsuccessfully over and over again to try to get signed up just to see what the freakin' rates were going to be.... and you can't even get that far. I'd say it goes beyond incompetence to and into the realm of gross negligence by whoever it was getting paid to oversee this project.
 
I can see your angst building...the good news is the last 5 times I tried to 'log on' I was able to get the security question pull downs that weren't blank. Bad news is the next screen continues to state 'account cannot be created...:2mad:

Same here. Even as of today. I've probably wasted two hours total just trying to create an account to see what the hell is there.
 
I can see your angst building...the good news is the last 5 times I tried to 'log on' I was able to get the security question pull downs that weren't blank. Bad news is the next screen continues to state 'account cannot be created...:2mad:

I heard the security questions were loaded with personal stuff .. true?
 
Same here. Even as of today. I've probably wasted two hours total just trying to create an account to see what the hell is there.

I've been trying since the morning of the open SEVERAL times daily. Our carrier is cancelling our policy due to non-compliance (no maternity coverage - I'm a 61yo male...go figure why I need such) so there is some urgency to shop. I even tried to secure BCBS quotes outside the exchange but found out this AM that since they are IN the exchange in order to get a quote we MUST go through healthcare.gov...
 
I heard the security questions were loaded with personal stuff .. true?

yeah but not invasive. Stuff like 'first name of oldest niece', 'favorite cuisine', 'name of favorite pet', etc.
 
...
Obamacare found its poster boy for "success" in one Chad Henderson, who claims to have successfully enrolled where others have encountered nothing but frustration. As Chad wrote on his Facebook page:

I've now been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post,Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Huffington Post, Enroll America, and POLITICO!! Those stories will be published in the coming days. I have a press conference call with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later tonight. Also, local folks..... my interview with Kimberly Barbour WRCB-TV will be aired TONIGHT at 5:30pm on WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News so be sure to check it out thanks for all your support!

As Twtichy noted:

Wow, that's a lot more coverage than most people were able to score from a visit to the broken health insurance exchange website. Another amazing coincidence: Henderson lists himself on LinkedIn as an Organizing for America (i.e., @BarackObama) volunteer working to continue the president's agenda.

In fact, as it turns out, Chad has a long history as an Obama activist.
...


Read more: Blog: Poster boy for Obamacare website launch is a ringer
 
Hey, Einstein, before getting too snarky, maybe you should make sure you're not making stupid assumptions. #1 It wasn't my math. The way it was figured is a little cocked by the numbers are right. Less than 1 million actually visited the site. Over 5 million were claimed. #2. If you've worked in an IS/IT shop, you'd know that something like having security questions for the login aren't "last minute changes". They're basic design. And last but not least.... If you don't think this was a very good example of the type of rollout that gets people fired, you haven't worked in a competent IS/IT organization. Glitches are not good but not uncommon. This went well beyond "glitches", though and was indicative of extreme incompetence in project management, change management and programming and design. People at all levels should be flogged for this. It was excruciatingly bad. And for the 4th day, Ohio's exchange still isn't working.

Laughing, I can understand you confusing me with Einstein, but it doesn't take the Theory of Relativity to know less than 1 million and over 5 million doesn't have an 87% relationship! :lol:

So when a CON makes a bonehead math error it is 'a little cocked' but a massive roll out of a completely new website for millions of folks to access at the same time is 'excruciatingly bad'... :roll:

If YOU had anything to do with a major website roll-out you'd know a bit more about the security question side. They are not 'basic design' but a rather complex system of checks that FYI have to go through a secure port. Imagine a thousand gallons of water trying to squeeze through a garden hose. If YOU had ANY experience with the security question system you'd know that is a package bought from a different Tech source, the tie in is critical.

IF YOU had ANY IT experience you'd call the glitches defects and know how difficult beta testing is.

I would suspect the problem is a huge influx of people, most probably just CONs overloading the system.

If YOU had ANY IT experience on major programs you'd know it can take years to get one right, cost millions of dollars and most private sector roll outs don't have legislative deadlines.

Oh I have seen many, many 'incompetent' design teams continue on. If YOU ever worked for a design team you'd know it is 'by committee' and often a myriad of hands in the sauce. Not one team but several all doing a part and then a final assembly... remember when the Hubble telescope had trouble because it was never 'tested' here on earth before launch... (and they were rocket scientists!)

If YOU had ANY IT experience you'd call the glitches, defects.

But fret not my so worried CON, the insurance doesn't kick-in for a few months so there isn't any real need to sign up today, the first 1,000 enrollees don't get a free hernia check... :mrgreen:
 
Laughing, I can understand you confusing me with Einstein, but it doesn't take the Theory of Relativity to know less than 1 million and over 5 million doesn't have an 87% relationship! :lol:

Yeah? Reduce 5 million by 87% and what do you get? Here, I'll help you since you seem to be challenged at math.

5,000,000 * 0.87 = 4,350,000. Well, what the hell do you know.... reduce the 5 million by 87 percent (5,000,000 - 4,350,000) = 650,000. So if there's any math error here, it's yours.

If YOU had anything to do with a major website roll-out you'd know a bit more about the security question side. They are not 'basic design' but a rather complex system of checks that FYI have to go through a secure port.

The fact that the security questions weren't available in the dropdown had NOTHING to do with any complex series of checks through a secure port. Dropdown selections are basic functionality, so don't get all confused just because they were "security questions" and, therefore, had the word "security" in there to get your poor head all confused.

Imagine a thousand gallons of water trying to squeeze through a garden hose.

If YOU had ANY experience with the security question system you'd know that is a package bought from a different Tech source, the tie in is critical.[/quote]

I don't think so. This isn't complex technology that would have to be outsourced and even if it was, the black box should have been tested. This is basic alpha testing. Simply see if it works. Like at all. The first error was no dropdown options. After they got that fixed, the next error was one reporting that you had more than one security answer the same even when you didn't. Don't try to con me into believing that this was (a) so complex that they needed to buy a black box package for it or (b) that if they bought a black-box package that the error checking in this, apparently, pro-software was such crap.

You're barking at the moon on that.

And I'm not the one calling these things glitches. I've been arguing all along that these errors are much too large to call "glitches" but let's not get hung up on the terminology. I can't imagine a test case this could have passed and blaming it all on network issues is very convenient, especially since you can then even argue that it's just proof of success.

I would suspect the problem is a huge influx of people, most probably just CONs overloading the system.

I'm not surprised that you'd suspect this after seeing what sort of reasoning ability you have.

If YOU had ANY IT experience on major programs you'd know it can take years to get one right, cost millions of dollars and most private sector roll outs don't have legislative deadlines.

As to experience. I wrote business applications for almost 20 years with a multi-national corporation with about the same annual sales as Wal-Mart. I managed several of my own websites and have done consulting for various web apps including MS Sharepoint. I've attended countless design meetings, worked on untold project teams of all sorts with people of all levels of experience and have been a key player in some very large implementations worldwide. And I can tell you that this launch has been a fiasco and a comedy of errors that reeks of incompetence.
 
...
Obamacare found its poster boy for "success" in one Chad Henderson, who claims to have successfully enrolled where others have encountered nothing but frustration. As Chad wrote on his Facebook page:

I've now been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post,Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Huffington Post, Enroll America, and POLITICO!! Those stories will be published in the coming days. I have a press conference call with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later tonight. Also, local folks..... my interview with Kimberly Barbour WRCB-TV will be aired TONIGHT at 5:30pm on WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News so be sure to check it out thanks for all your support!

As Twtichy noted:

Wow, that's a lot more coverage than most people were able to score from a visit to the broken health insurance exchange website. Another amazing coincidence: Henderson lists himself on LinkedIn as an Organizing for America (i.e., @BarackObama) volunteer working to continue the president's agenda.

In fact, as it turns out, Chad has a long history as an Obama activist.
...


Read more: Blog: Poster boy for Obamacare website launch is a ringer

what takes the cake he lied about enrolling he just registered
‘Say hello to Julia’: Obamacare poster boy mocked after story takes on Milli Vanilli vibe | Twitchy
Father of Chad Henderson channels Bill Clinton; Claim that son ‘did not lie or mislead’ shredded | Twitchy

Now Chad says he didn't actually buy any health care, but says he wasn't lying when he says he "enrolled" in ObamaCare.
http://minx.cc/?post=343921
 
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Liberals appear to be in intensive damage control mode since the launch of this "successful" legislation.
 
Funny, but the article linked to in the OP doesn't actually identify one single design flaw, nor does it quote anyone besides private insurance employees claiming that there are design flaws

BTW, I've managed to set up an account and got an email to authenticate my account, which I clicked on. From there I was able to finish about half of the questions required in order to "go shopping"

If the acct setup and security question pages were indeed flawed, I would not have been able to get as far as I have. Obviously, the problem isn't the coding or the design; It's the traffic. Pages are timing out before they can be fully processed
 

Yup.
He's had training.
That kind of deceit doesn't come naturally.
 
Funny, but the article linked to in the OP doesn't actually identify one single design flaw, nor does it quote anyone besides private insurance employees claiming that there are design flaws

BTW, I've managed to set up an account and got an email to authenticate my account, which I clicked on. From there I was able to finish about half of the questions required in order to "go shopping"

If the acct setup and security question pages were indeed flawed, I would not have been able to get as far as I have. Obviously, the problem isn't the coding or the design; It's the traffic. Pages are timing out before they can be fully processed

Cool ... tell them you don't need coverage for something that's in the policy and then report back.
 
Funny, but the article linked to in the OP doesn't actually identify one single design flaw, nor does it quote anyone besides private insurance employees claiming that there are design flaws

BTW, I've managed to set up an account and got an email to authenticate my account, which I clicked on. From there I was able to finish about half of the questions required in order to "go shopping"

If the acct setup and security question pages were indeed flawed, I would not have been able to get as far as I have. Obviously, the problem isn't the coding or the design; It's the traffic. Pages are timing out before they can be fully processed
How many & what were all the security questions?
 
Funny, but the article linked to in the OP doesn't actually identify one single design flaw, nor does it quote anyone besides private insurance employees claiming that there are design flaws

BTW, I've managed to set up an account and got an email to authenticate my account, which I clicked on. From there I was able to finish about half of the questions required in order to "go shopping"

If the acct setup and security question pages were indeed flawed, I would not have been able to get as far as I have. Obviously, the problem isn't the coding or the design; It's the traffic. Pages are timing out before they can be fully processed

In all your brilliance, I suppose you missed the fact that your state's site could work while others could be completely buggered, huh? The Ohio site is still failing the last time I looked today.
 
Interesting to see that most of the complaints about the healthcare.gov site on this thread are from right-leaning people trying to get on. My questions would be: If you hate the law so much, why are you trying to be one of the first to get on? Also, do you really think the server capacities should accommodate "healthcare tourists?" Do all of you need insurance or what?
 
Interesting to see that most of the complaints about the healthcare.gov site on this thread are from right-leaning people trying to get on. My questions would be: If you hate the law so much, why are you trying to be one of the first to get on? Also, do you really think the server capacities should accommodate "healthcare tourists?" Do all of you need insurance or what?

I am self employed so it makes sense to see if the exchange is going to be a better deal or not. We're all paying for the feckin' thing so at this point everyone should be seeing if there's anything in this clusterf*ck that can be of benefit.
 
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