HealthCare.gov’s glitches prompt Obama to call in more computer experts

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post

By Amy Goldstein, Published: October 20

The Obama administration said Sunday that it has enlisted additional computer experts from across the government and from private companies to help rewrite computer code and make other improvements to the online health insurance marketplace, which has been plagued by technical defects that have stymied many consumers since it opened nearly three weeks ago.

This expanded team has come up with new ways of monitoring which parts of the federal Web site, HealthCare.gov, are having problems and has been taking the site offline for rigorous overnight tests, according to a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman.

“Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans,” HHS officials said in a blog post Sunday afternoon, acknowledging what has been obvious to millions of insurance seekers who live in the three dozen states relying on the federal exchange. For the first time, the administration appealed to people to report their interactions, good or bad, with the exchange, a core element of the 2010 health-care law.

President Obama is expected to address the site’s technical problems — “troubles that he and his team find unacceptable” — at a White House event Monday to highlight the law, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the event has not yet taken place.

:::snip:::


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/experts-working-to-fix-healthcaregov-insurance-marketplace-officials-say/2013/10/20/1e1a35ce-39b4-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

[htuttle]

1. President called about website problem?

That's got to be at least a Level 6 escalation of that support ticket...

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

29. When the ticket is called in by Cruz ...

... because he's heard that he might have difficulty using HealthCare.gov, to shop for insurance he doesn't want or need for himself, doesn't want anyone else to buy, doesn't want to be available to anyone ...

Wait ... the website meets Cruz's requirements perfectly.

But he'll still complain.

[JPK]

2. You don't suppose......

...the private company that designed the original software for the healthcare.gov site might have intentionally buggered up the code so there would be all these issues? Maybe that's being too paranoid.

[BlueStreak]

21. I don't assume that. Software is easy to mess up. It is hard to get it right.

And when you combine a bidding process that rewards companies who make the least possible effort to get it right, this is the expected outcome.

Has there ever been a major Pentagon contract project come in on time and within budget? Maybe there has, but that was certainly be the exception. Government bidders know the way to make money is to bid low, technically address each line item in the contract even if you know it will result in a clusterf%%%, and then get in line for the additional contract awards to clean up the mess.

That is the government procurement process, plain and simple.

[mucifer]

3. why did they wait so long?

[winter is coming]

4. Because throwing more people at the problem is a classic software blunder.

It's better to identify the problem and do some hard thinking about what/whom will actually help than to blindly toss in more/different coders.

[JoePhilly]

5. Or, they could just document it as a "feature".

Which is another "classic solution" to solving software blunders.

[seabeckind]

15. That was never put forth as a solution.

It was a joke.

[JoePhilly]

24. Documenting bugs as features, is also a joke ... one that also occurs far to frequently in SW.

[Demeter]

6. After 3 years of development, they should rethink the application entirely

not try patch it. Again.

[Mass]

12. They probably can do that for a future version, but it is urgent that they arrive to some stabilized

version that is usable..

[DocMac]

20. Make each section of the process

time sensitive, like 5 minutes. I think all the haters are logging in and staying logged in on purpose.

[JoePhilly]

25. Its not one application. Its many.

[seabeckind]

16. So very true

It is caused because the people who have the authority have little knowledge of the requirements. The ones who did were pushed aside long ago -- the "not a team player", didn't get on board, rock the boat people.

The one who questions the decision in a meeting usually doesn't get invited to any other meetings.

But the contractor does.

In a cost plus contract, failure is rewarded with more workers, which need more admin, which need more contracts, etc.

There comes a point of diminishing returns where the communications within the development project exceed the development effort.

The VA system is a good case in point. It uses a development system that requires a very heavy documentation workload. This documentation system has become the end goal of the system...not the system itself. In the end you have stacks and stacks of paper but nothing works because nobody has the time or expertise to assimilate all that paper.

[Mass]

7. They need to change the way the federal government chooses companies to write software.

The FAA new software has been on hold for years and is a total failure (started to be a failure way before Obama)

The Veteran's claims website is also a huge issue because it was not designed in a logical way, forcing people to refile documents that are already on the DoD system.

The same company that messed up so much on the federal system also messed up with the Hawai website.

Time to define new guidelines for hiring contractors. If the GOP wanted to do something useful, they would work on that, but I wont hold my breath.

[JoePhilly]

8. The GOP doesn't want the government

to do anything useful.

[riversedge]

9. My understanding is that the Federal computer

system is a patchwork of many different programs and computers--many of which are not able to 'talk' to each other and it would cost billions to fix it.

[Mass]

11. Yes, but it needs to be fixed.

Projects after projects are failing because of the poor management of IT projects at the federal level. It may not be sexy, but it is a real issue.

In addition, I have seen people argue that keeping the system as it is would cost more than fixing it. I have no way to be sure the numbers are correct, but it would not surprise me.

[RC]

13. The technical term is "Stove Piping"

The software was designed for that agency or even department alone. The problem is each agency and department head tries to protect their own turf. That is why people, i.e., you and me, other departments/agencies, have to reenter the same information several times.
To exchange information with another agency requires batch files and even hard copy printouts. And/or someone sitting at a terminal, inputting the up-dated information from their data base, into someone else's data base.
It takes a total rewrite of the software to get away from the stove piping bottlenecks. And quite often, replacing and upgrading the computers too. Lots of money spent and made. To say nothing of the ego's fighting and sabotaging the needed changes.

[groundloop]

10. I totally agree. Also, I wonder if choosing the lowest bidder is partly to blame as well

It seems that whoever did this work was in way over their head. Perhaps the govt. should be much more selective on who's allowed to bid on projects.

[seabeckind]

17. Doesn't matter.

Whoever bids has one goal in mind.

Profit.

Failure means more profit. In the case of this system, we'll never see that $600m again. Never.

It would be great if that profit were fed back into the economy, but it isn't. The contract worker is paid one number (usually pretty low) and the bidder charges a different number (much higher).

The difference goes to the 1%.

[TomClash]

14. I wonder . . .

. . . if this is merely incompetence or this program is being sabotaged from within. There are many Bush holderovers in GS and SES jobs and I wonder if a few are not exactly carrying out the mission faithfully.

[seabeckind]

18. The Reagan people are just reaching the peak of their careers.

And they have achieved the mandarin's wet dream...lots of authority and little accountability.

Obama can surround himself with the best and brightest but when the best leave his office they have to task the next level down.

[Igel]

33. Everybody was breathless in anticipation of the ACA regs.

They came down over summer '13.

Just look at the dates for the regs.

http://www.cms.gov/cciio/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/index.html#Health%20Insurance%20Marketplaces

Each one of those revisions that changed *anything* caused part of the code to rewritten. The regulations that were new required that the software writer *wait* until they could write the software.

It's big. It's complicated. The software requires that dozens of companies' software talk to a set of parallel websites with back-of-house speciality software. Meanwhile, the the regs dribbled out of regulators' offices over the course of 2 years, causing the insurance companies and the state/federal software writers to revise their software in accordance with new requirements. Then the final regs came out months after the final software should have been in beta testing. Instead, the final regs would have triggered a rewrite of part of the code by dozens of players in September '13, with release 1.0 on 10/1.

It's easy to blame a single company when the political managers have their heads so far up their butts that they can make sure they brush behind their wisdom teeth. You see this attitude in lots of places. "I'm the boss. I say that you can do X in this period of time. The only reason you say you can't is because you're a disruptor." "But, sir, really, you can't raise a cow from conception to yielding egg nog straight from the udder in just 23 hours." "Liar. My regulation required it days ago--and you haven't developed the technology?"

[yurbud]

19. another success of policy by highest donor

[bigworld]

22. Did you try turning it off and back on again?

[DallasNE]

23. There Is No Question But What The Project Manager

Was not up to the task. Any good project design will have benchmarks meaning that on this date a certain level of completion must be done if the target date is to be maintained. But those estimates given to the project manager have to be honest and not a telling of what the project manager wants to hear. And this applies to the definition phase too. When the specs are late that moves everything else back as well. It also affects staffing decisions because now the project is in catch-up mode and that is an early red flag. There is also a need to break down implementation into phases where some of the less critical features are set aside for a later phase and this decision fall in the lap of the project manager. And perhaps the key decision is data base design and the impact that design has on system performance. And system performance should be one of the benchmark items. It looks as though the project manager was not hard nosed enough and allowed dates to slip without acquiring the resources to get it back on track, did not insist on a shut-off on changes, failed to perform beta testing at the level that was necessary and so on. Lastly, was the project manage the project manager in name only with others imposing impossible requirements on the project manager. I'm sure an audit of this whole process will be conducted and plenty of blame will be spread around but it looks inescapable that the project manager will face the brunt of criticism.

[B2G]

30. And if TPTB don't listen to the recommendations of the PM?

Happens all the time.

[kestrel91316]

26. Make damned sure those experts aren't just more RW saboteurs.

[StrayKat]

27. Completely self-indulgent rant follows. . .

I wish that all the attention and money that's been thrown at how to pay for health care and how to sign-up for and administer it actually went into giving people better health CARE. I keep reading about and listening to people discuss methods of getting more people to buy into a broken system and fork over more of their money to insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and our overbloated medical system, none of which have even shown themselves to be receptive to their new clients. Please just fix the health CARE.

Other countries have demonstrated that there's no need for it to cost as much as it does in the US. There's no need for level of inequity of care that exists for people of different economic levels, genders, races, etc. It's not a given that the elderly need to rack up astronomical bills at the end of life. A few days stay at the hospital shouldn't mean financial ruin. Iatrogenesis shouldn't be a leading cause of death.

I just wish they'd make a system worth buying into before we all are required to buy into it.

[RussBLib]

28. isn't there a non-website method of signing up? there sure should be....

...maybe with the "navigators"? Is it all dependent upon the internet?

But I guess that would mean that people would have to be on the ground in every state, even those hostile-to-Obamacare red states.

Some red states have been passing laws even restricting what the navigators could do or say.

[quadrature]

31. so why are prices a secret?

seems like a lot of the problem
is the effort to keep everything a secret.

would you by something online
if you could not browse?

[seabeckind]

32. A general observation

and pet peeve.

I think that many web sites and corporate entities overreach for private information that is unneeded for the task at hand.

A while back I was looking for alternatives for my insurance needs...home owners and auto. When I went to the different web sites for the insurance companies they all wanted to know my social security number. As soon as that happened, I decided not to continue. I know that there might be some rationalization for that request, like credit rating...but why ask for the ID? Why not just ask for a rating range. If I choose to purchase, then my SS could be requested.

My second incident happened with Walgreens. They offer discounts if you become a member and the initial info requested is the phone number. Then you are supposed to go to their site, review the privacy policy and if you choose to decline, you can do so.

I decided to decline. But there is no place on their site where you can decline without providing additional private info...which I was choosing not to do because of their policy. When I called the 800 number to opt-out...once again I was asked for that private info.

I know the tpers are afraid of the gov't collecting and tracking their private info but I have never been screwed by an accountable civil servant...

a private company? Many times.

But back to the topic at hand...why can't the system provide a browse function without entering all the info? Perhaps the problems that are occurring are a result of an attempt at persistence.

Which is another of my pet peeves with the way the www was set up. And now we are trying to make it bend in ways that it wasn't designed to bend. Oh well, just getting curmudgendry.

[Pterodactyl]

34. Hope they can get that fixed up by the end of November.