Obamacare Website Contractor: “It Didn’t Work When I Tested It”

Who would of thank! Our government at work! I knew this was going to bad , being in the business.

A contractor who worked on the Healthcare.gov website testified in Congressional hearings today that he had attempted to sign up for Obamacare to test the system, but that the website simply did not work.

He went on to blame the government for the errors, noting “it appears that one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at the registration system was a late decision requiring consumers to register for an account before they could browse for insurance products.”

I heard the Geek Squad was there!

www.infowars.com...

reply to post by nighthawk1954

And your thoughts are....?
My response....LOL

reply to post by nighthawk1954


Unfortunately you gotta understand how building some of these huge systems works.

And I'll use a cofee cup as an analogy to help you understand.

The customer wants a coffee cup.
So you make him a nice coffee cup.
However the customer gives you no guidance on how to make the cup.
You ask things like what color or size but no feedback.
Well you wanna get paid so you make a cup.

You present the cup and the customer likes it.
However he wants to make a few changes.
Like add a handle and make it white with a cat face on it.

And your like well it would of been nice to know you wanted a mug for coffee and the cat face thing as well.
But since it's not terribly unreasonable to do you make the changes.
You then present the customer with the now coffee mug with handle and grumpy cat on it.

Customer loves Grumpy cat.... I mean who doesn't.

However even though the customer now loves the Grumpy Mug.
He wants a cover so the coffee doesn't spill if he takes it on the road.

However things go downhill from this point on.

See after the cover is done the customer wants the mug to have the ability to plug the mug into electricity to keep the coffee hot or cold coffee cold if he gets iced coffee.

Further requests seem to be comming from a mad scientist because now the customer wants, in addition to the previous requests, the mug to have the ability to make cuban toast.

And then you're like.... this is a mug.
Why is it making toast?


Once you understand the process you'll see that there's alot of blame to go around.

Anyone who's ever done any systems analysis will know that the user generally has sweet FA knowledge of what they actually want but since they're paying for it we give them what they want...after all the cornerstone of customer service is "the customer is always right"

Management quite often sees stuff many levels above what's needed and cannot contemplate the detail needed, its a bit like a 5* general just asking for something to fire stuff at the enemy and we end up with a fully automatic 30lb cannon system which can spend 30k/sec on munitions to find out all he wanted was actually to stop birds fowling the radar and it could of been done with a speaker and a tape for about 1k

reply to post by grey580


To be more clear using imagery, this is really how it works (akin to Grey580's explanation).

They shouldn't be selling cups of coffee when their customer actually wants a fruit smoothie.

One size, no substitutions allowed.

Here you go, have a nice day.

reply to post by grey580

Unfortunately you gotta understand how building some of these huge systems works....

Oh My you really nailed it! That is exactly it ROTFLMAO.

Seems odd that GIANTS like Amazon and FaceBook etc can produce very complicated working systems, yet something like a simple database for obamacare has problems!

VoidHawk
Seems odd that GIANTS like Amazon and FaceBook etc can produce very complicated working systems, yet something like a simple database for obamacare has problems!

Amazon and Facebook don't grant the contracts to the lowest bidder either. They have shareholders that actually matter to the management....and they have to actually answer to, unlike the U.S. Government.

Krakatoa

VoidHawk
Seems odd that GIANTS like Amazon and FaceBook etc can produce very complicated working systems, yet something like a simple database for obamacare has problems!

Amazon and Facebook don't grant the contracts to the lowest bidder either. They have shareholders that actually matter to the management....and they have to actually answer to, unlike the U.S. Government.

Government gets what it wants. I expect we'll be seeing another build and more money spent, then another build and even more money spent...

reply to post by grey580


ATS brother I agree %100 with you but I feel the administration working on this for a few years should have anticipated these problems...but than agian it's our government going into the toilet .

What should we expect when the system was outsourced for 93M. Too bad all the experienced, out of work programmers in the US didn't get the work. Now the telco Verizon will fill its pockets.

If we're using Coffee comparisons, then the ACA Website was built by Folgers, Maxwell House and Starbucks put together, with a little Rump Roast thrown in to give it real character.

They spent over half a billion dollars to make ...a WEB SITE. Not to make a whole new Government Department. It's a ..web site. There are whole nations that produce less for GDP than they spent ...for a website. A BROKEN website.

The Government has hundreds upon hundreds of them public facing and many are infinitely more complex than this junk. They work too. They work beautifully and if others have recently been out across the United States Government online, you know what I mean. It's been improving by orders of magnitude.

So what's with what must be the most expensive website ever created to date (All KINDS of firsts with this President) not working?? There IS no excuse for this. None. Zippo. The Government, of all people on Earth, have the ability to spoof and ghost traffic from nothing. They could have worked this site in test runs as high in numbers, from as many points on a map as anyone could have wanted. EASILY done this, IMO.

They didn't.....and now I'm sure an emergency effort will cost more than the first one did. Naturally... I expect it. At least as much + $1

VoidHawk
Seems odd that GIANTS like Amazon and FaceBook etc can produce very complicated working systems, yet something like a simple database for obamacare has problems!

in addition to grey's explanation, it's important to use the proper programming language[s]

no doubt the O-care site was written in SNAFU

reply to post by Metaphysique


I'm pretty sure they have some scripting in FUBAR as well.

I'm not entirely sure, but if this keeps up, there might even be some BOHICA going on around here.

About that time? I'll say FIJFI. Won't you?

The issue also enhanced by changing the way the system suppose to work at the last minute.

“it appears that one of the reasons for the high concurrent volume at the registration system was a late decision requiring consumers to register for an account before they could browse for insurance products.”

The sticker shock alone should have made everyone not to sign up for deadcare. I looked over some of the plans offered in 2013 vs 2014 in some online sites, that alone scared me away.

reply to post by Maxatoria

after all the cornerstone of customer service is "the customer is always right"

i have to disagree with you on that.

i use to have a industrial repair shop, i had a sign up that said the customer is not always right. customers would ask me why. i would have to tell them.

if you come in wanting me to make something do what it was not designed to do i cant do that.
now if you want me to modify, and change it that might be possible. i can't guarantee that it will work long or at all, and if i work on it your still gonna have to pay me for it. i will not warranty it, and if you want me to try and repair it it will cost you again.

and you know what, i had a great many return customers. they appreciated me telling them that.

VoidHawk
Seems odd that GIANTS like Amazon and FaceBook etc can produce very complicated working systems, yet something like a simple database for obamacare has problems!

No sir that is incorrect.

It's not just a simple database.

It's a massive website with some supposed 500 million lines of code.

Remember that the ACA website has to interface with many legacy systems.

It's not a simple website with a db. It's a complex beast.

Ok, people spare me the you know how much is takes to build a big database and web site

THAT is a lame excuse when in reality the contractors have ample time and billions at their disposition to hire the "best of the best" to get the site ready and working in time.

The fault? I blame the government for waste and abuse of tax dollars awarded to piece of crap contractors

I blame the corrupted contractors that took billions of dollars and again used it for waste and abuse rather than doing the job they were hired to do

I am so done with all the blame back an forward, were are the billions of dollars that were awarded to all the 40+ contractors the government gave away to have the Obamacrap implemented.

Again [b]"spare me none sense blame"

Somebody needs to take responsibility, plain and simple.

marg6043
Ok, people spare me the you know how much is takes to build a big database and web site

THAT is a lame excuse when in reality the contractors have ample time and billions at their disposition to hire the "best of the best" to get the site ready and working in time.

The fault? I blame the government for waste and abuse of tax dollars awarded to piece of crap contractors

I blame the corrupted contractors that took billions of dollars and again used it for waste and abuse rather than doing the job they were hired to do

I am so done with all the blame back an forward, were are the billions of dollars that were awarded to all the 40+ contractors the government gave away to have the Obamacrap implemented.

Again [b]"spare me none sense blame"

Somebody needs to take responsibility, plain and simple.

I agree that it's the government and contractors fault, but I am a little confused by your numbers. The cost of the website albeit outrageous was a little under half a billion, so not billions. Am I misunderstanding you in this or are you bringing in other numbers?

It cost the federal government more than $300 million for outside contractors to set up the Obamacare website that has had so much trouble in its first three weeks of operation. Most of that money has gone to six contractors that together have received more than $200 million in taxpayer funds, with the biggest single contractor receiving $88 million.

Overall, the government has spent $394 million setting up the website and the exchanges through which the public can buy health insurance, according to a report earlier this year from the General Accountability Office, a government watchdog. While not all the money went into the troubled websites, most of it did.

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