Obamacare: Obama just straight up lied to you, in your face (5 Viewers)

[timschochet]

It's going to be pretty entertaining in here when this thing is viewed as a colossal failure in 5-10 years with skyrocketing costs and huge breakdowns in service.

I'm sure the supporters will be blaming global warming or secondhand smoke or something.

If that were to happen then it will prove that the Healthcare industry can't work in a free market economy. Yes, if businesses can't figure out how to compete in a market place of 300,000,000 customers there is something wrong.

Yes... because the Government is TOTALLY hands off.... Free Market Economy indeed

Name one aspect of our economy that the government is totally hands off? Laws are rules to the game, and any successful business figures out how to make money and grab market share. The government isn't setting prices, that's up to the industry to figure out. If BCBS or Aetna can't compete, they'll lose customers.

Uh, that would be the point. The government has completely destroyed any semblance of a market in health care. They have not necessarily done this in other sectors (yet).

But this was done long before Obamacare. I agree with you: I would prefer a free market. But we don't have it, and we're not going to get it.

Maybe not, but we don't have to just give up and go all in. There are many smaller steps that would be market oriented that could be taken.

The statists are pretty good at the ratchet effect. Believers in freedom can take a lesson there.

And this was the whole idea behind Obamacare in the first place, when it was first conceived by the Heritage Foundation. It was meant to be a market alternative to the "all in" Hillary Clinton proposals.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Consumer Reports is telling people to stay away form the site but I think that is simply due to the amount of time=$$$ that folks are experiencing.

From the horse's mouth:

Obamacare opponents have misrepresented Consumer Reports' position

Hey Luther, definitely why I said time=$$$ and I think that is all Consumer Reports was trying to indicate. I would like to see their recommendations but like the $10 Million others, they can't create a simple account to go thru the process.

 

[Soonerman]

Case in point (re: the free market for health care): one of the first things Obamacare did is get rid of restrictions for pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies can't reject you for this, and they can't charge more for it. The public LOVES this. The public loves it so much that when Romney ran against Obama, the Republicans offered an alternative to Obamacare that would STILL remove restrictions for pre-existing conditions!! Not a single Republican campaigned on returning the restrictions. And even though libertarian or Tea Party types might argue in an opinion piece that it's very unwise to remove this restriction (and IMO they're correct), I would bet anything that if you polled that portion of the public who sympathizes with the Tea Party, they don't like the restrictions either.

So there you go: we will NEVER have a market system in healthcare, because the public wants this pre-existing stuff removed. And there's only two ways to do it: some form of program like Obamacare (the Republicans can call it something else, but in the end it will be the same thing), or single payer universal health care. That's it. For the rest of our lives, those are the alternatives remaining to us. Pick your poison.

Nothing is that cut and dried. It used to be said that we only had the option of detente with the USSR, then reality won out.

With our financial situation, we could very well see things come to a game-changing head in the next few decades. Everyone can only live at the expense of everyone else for only so long.

 

[Soonerman]

It's going to be pretty entertaining in here when this thing is viewed as a colossal failure in 5-10 years with skyrocketing costs and huge breakdowns in service.

I'm sure the supporters will be blaming global warming or secondhand smoke or something.

If that were to happen then it will prove that the Healthcare industry can't work in a free market economy. Yes, if businesses can't figure out how to compete in a market place of 300,000,000 customers there is something wrong.

Yes... because the Government is TOTALLY hands off.... Free Market Economy indeed

Name one aspect of our economy that the government is totally hands off? Laws are rules to the game, and any successful business figures out how to make money and grab market share. The government isn't setting prices, that's up to the industry to figure out. If BCBS or Aetna can't compete, they'll lose customers.

Uh, that would be the point. The government has completely destroyed any semblance of a market in health care. They have not necessarily done this in other sectors (yet).

But this was done long before Obamacare. I agree with you: I would prefer a free market. But we don't have it, and we're not going to get it.

Maybe not, but we don't have to just give up and go all in. There are many smaller steps that would be market oriented that could be taken.

The statists are pretty good at the ratchet effect. Believers in freedom can take a lesson there.

And this was the whole idea behind Obamacare in the first place, when it was first conceived by the Heritage Foundation. It was meant to be a market alternative to the "all in" Hillary Clinton proposals.

Obamacare was not conceived by Heritage.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Case in point (re: the free market for health care): one of the first things Obamacare did is get rid of restrictions for pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies can't reject you for this, and they can't charge more for it. The public LOVES this. The public loves it so much that when Romney ran against Obama, the Republicans offered an alternative to Obamacare that would STILL remove restrictions for pre-existing conditions!! Not a single Republican campaigned on returning the restrictions. And even though libertarian or Tea Party types might argue in an opinion piece that it's very unwise to remove this restriction (and IMO they're correct), I would bet anything that if you polled that portion of the public who sympathizes with the Tea Party, they don't like the restrictions either.

So there you go: we will NEVER have a market system in healthcare, because the public wants this pre-existing stuff removed. And there's only two ways to do it: some form of program like Obamacare (the Republicans can call it something else, but in the end it will be the same thing), or single payer universal health care. That's it. For the rest of our lives, those are the alternatives remaining to us. Pick your poison.

Why can't people with legitimate pre-existing conditions get insurance subsidies from the government to off set costs? Simple example and then would love for you to chime back.

Joe Blow with diabetes denied denied denied...OK now he can get insurance but it costs $500 a month, person with no pre-existing is $250 a month...the difference is picked up by the government but Joe Blow is still going to be paying monthly just like everyone else to the tune of $250.

You follow my logic here? I'm for people that actually need healthcare to get it and use it. The vast majority of people who have health insurance barely use it. Paying $3,000 a year in premiums to get 1-2 check ups form the doctor and a couple of $3 antibiotic prescription pick ups is not worth it. Ask the guy 35 years old who lives in Nebraska how much a doctor visit costs for just a once a year physical. There is nothing in it for them to start shelling out thousands of dollars a year.

Help me Tim, show me the light here, what am I missing? Excellent editorial by Prager today if you ever read his stuff. I had not read him in a while but today was pretty good.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Obama got elected by promising not raise taxes. This thing is going to cost. The mandate is a tax but even the Democrats won't enforce it. They're really going to haul away people for failing to get health insurance?

Please, no matter what they (the government) do they will never pay for it.

Eventually this clunker will be an expensive white elephant.

 

[timschochet]

Case in point (re: the free market for health care): one of the first things Obamacare did is get rid of restrictions for pre-existing conditions. The insurance companies can't reject you for this, and they can't charge more for it. The public LOVES this. The public loves it so much that when Romney ran against Obama, the Republicans offered an alternative to Obamacare that would STILL remove restrictions for pre-existing conditions!! Not a single Republican campaigned on returning the restrictions. And even though libertarian or Tea Party types might argue in an opinion piece that it's very unwise to remove this restriction (and IMO they're correct), I would bet anything that if you polled that portion of the public who sympathizes with the Tea Party, they don't like the restrictions either.

So there you go: we will NEVER have a market system in healthcare, because the public wants this pre-existing stuff removed. And there's only two ways to do it: some form of program like Obamacare (the Republicans can call it something else, but in the end it will be the same thing), or single payer universal health care. That's it. For the rest of our lives, those are the alternatives remaining to us. Pick your poison.

Why can't people with legitimate pre-existing conditions get insurance subsidies from the government to off set costs? Simple example and then would love for you to chime back.

Joe Blow with diabetes denied denied denied...OK now he can get insurance but it costs $500 a month, person with no pre-existing is $250 a month...the difference is picked up by the government but Joe Blow is still going to be paying monthly just like everyone else to the tune of $250.

You follow my logic here? I'm for people that actually need healthcare to get it and use it. The vast majority of people who have health insurance barely use it. Paying $3,000 a year in premiums to get 1-2 check ups form the doctor and a couple of $3 antibiotic prescription pick ups is not worth it. Ask the guy 35 years old who lives in Nebraska how much a doctor visit costs for just a once a year physical. There is nothing in it for them to start shelling out thousands of dollars a year.

Help me Tim, show me the light here, what am I missing? Excellent editorial by Prager today if you ever read his stuff. I had not read him in a while but today was pretty good.

I have no problem with your logic here. But as I wrote, Obamacare already did away with pre-existing conditions. I don't believe there will ever be enough politicians innovative or courageous enough to bring them back based on your idea or any similar idea.

Those of you who are complaining the most about Obamacare- it's done. We'll never go back, IMO.

 

[Lutherman2112]

Consumer Reports is telling people to stay away form the site but I think that is simply due to the amount of time=$$$ that folks are experiencing.

From the horse's mouth:

Obamacare opponents have misrepresented Consumer Reports' position

Hey Luther, definitely why I said time=$$$ and I think that is all Consumer Reports was trying to indicate. I would like to see their recommendations but like the $10 Million others, they can't create a simple account to go thru the process.

CR has lots of decent information regarding healthcare.

Link

 

[Sand]

I think that getting people to know their subsidies first seems like a good idea, and I wouldn't describe it as "hiding" anything. You don't want people to go on the site, look at the unsubsidized prices for two seconds, decide it is too expensive, and give up. The objective should be to convey information to consumers about what their actual price would be.

I agree. That's how I would design it too. The effective net price needs to be the main thing that people see -- the math of how you arrived at that price can be put in a footnote someplace.

How about two prices, one for what the consumer pays and one for what the taxpayer pays for?

 

[Schlzm]

Is the registration portion of this fiasco functioning yet? Nevermind any other aspect of healthcare.gov. I only want to know if people are capable of creating an account on the site from start to finish. Because I keep seeing all these statements that "this is unprecedented!" and "never ever even been contemplated before!", but if something like creating a user account isn't working then this is a failure that deserves all the criticizm it gets.

Schlzm

 

[The Commish]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.

They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

 

[Lutherman2112]

It's going to be pretty entertaining in here when this thing is viewed as a colossal failure in 5-10 years with skyrocketing costs and huge breakdowns in service.

I'm sure the supporters will be blaming global warming or secondhand smoke or something.

If that were to happen then it will prove that the Healthcare industry can't work in a free market economy. Yes, if businesses can't figure out how to compete in a market place of 300,000,000 customers there is something wrong.

Yes... because the Government is TOTALLY hands off.... Free Market Economy indeed

Name one aspect of our economy that the government is totally hands off? Laws are rules to the game, and any successful business figures out how to make money and grab market share. The government isn't setting prices, that's up to the industry to figure out. If BCBS or Aetna can't compete, they'll lose customers.

Uh, that would be the point. The government has completely destroyed any semblance of a market in health care. They have not necessarily done this in other sectors (yet).

But this was done long before Obamacare. I agree with you: I would prefer a free market. But we don't have it, and we're not going to get it.

Maybe not, but we don't have to just give up and go all in. There are many smaller steps that would be market oriented that could be taken.

The statists are pretty good at the ratchet effect. Believers in freedom can take a lesson there.

And this was the whole idea behind Obamacare in the first place, when it was first conceived by the Heritage Foundation. It was meant to be a market alternative to the "all in" Hillary Clinton proposals.

Obamacare was not conceived by Heritage.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1989/a-national-health-system-for-america

 

[Soonerman]

It's going to be pretty entertaining in here when this thing is viewed as a colossal failure in 5-10 years with skyrocketing costs and huge breakdowns in service.

I'm sure the supporters will be blaming global warming or secondhand smoke or something.

If that were to happen then it will prove that the Healthcare industry can't work in a free market economy. Yes, if businesses can't figure out how to compete in a market place of 300,000,000 customers there is something wrong.

Yes... because the Government is TOTALLY hands off.... Free Market Economy indeed

Name one aspect of our economy that the government is totally hands off? Laws are rules to the game, and any successful business figures out how to make money and grab market share. The government isn't setting prices, that's up to the industry to figure out. If BCBS or Aetna can't compete, they'll lose customers.

Uh, that would be the point. The government has completely destroyed any semblance of a market in health care. They have not necessarily done this in other sectors (yet).

But this was done long before Obamacare. I agree with you: I would prefer a free market. But we don't have it, and we're not going to get it.

Maybe not, but we don't have to just give up and go all in. There are many smaller steps that would be market oriented that could be taken.

The statists are pretty good at the ratchet effect. Believers in freedom can take a lesson there.

And this was the whole idea behind Obamacare in the first place, when it was first conceived by the Heritage Foundation. It was meant to be a market alternative to the "all in" Hillary Clinton proposals.

Obamacare was not conceived by Heritage.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1989/a-national-health-system-for-america

Thanks for confirming my point.

 

[Schlzm]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

They should have performed a staged rollout. Start with registration then go from there. It's pretty easy to get a user account database up and running and keep the complicated items out of site until any problems are addressed. In the event there wasn't a mad rush they could have more quickly enabled to access to the backend meat of the beast. Too many people want to claim this was some monstrous tasking that no one anywhere has ever seen before, but reality is this isn't all that different than existing massive userbases that interconnect complicated hubs across the country/planet. Schlzm

 

[Statorama]

I want this to be an even bigger failure, but outside of the boys (and girls) from Anonymous taking on Healthcare.gov I don't see how it could be.

 

[Schlzm]

I want this to be an even bigger failure, but outside of the boys (and girls) from Anonymous taking on Healthcare.gov I don't see how it could be.

You need not wait for the /b/tards to poke at this. There is plenty of syndicate chatter about how best to exploit the backend interfacing on this pos to skim personal info for resale.Schlzm

 

[The Commish]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

They should have performed a staged rollout. Start with registration then go from there. It's pretty easy to get a user account database up and running and keep the complicated items out of site until any problems are addressed. In the event there wasn't a mad rush they could have more quickly enabled to access to the backend meat of the beast. Too many people want to claim this was some monstrous tasking that no one anywhere has ever seen before, but reality is this isn't all that different than existing massive userbases that interconnect complicated hubs across the country/planet.Schlzm

Yeah...missing a date is no big deal. It's like you guys don't watch the political nonsense in this country. I get the ideal nature of some of these ideas, but this is the government we're talking about. There is NOTHING ideal about it. You have to look at solutions from the position that government is going to be your biggest obstacle and go from there. Give me another government project, who's dates were driven by law that was this large. I'll hang up and listen.

And just so I'm clear...I agree 100% that this has been a trainwreck. There's plenty to rip on them for about this, but most what's being brought up as "issues" demonstrates a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to working with the government. People are comparing this project to private sector projects and it reminds me of people comparing their personal budgets to the federal budget....just nonsensical.

 

[Schlzm]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

They should have performed a staged rollout. Start with registration then go from there. It's pretty easy to get a user account database up and running and keep the complicated items out of site until any problems are addressed. In the event there wasn't a mad rush they could have more quickly enabled to access to the backend meat of the beast. Too many people want to claim this was some monstrous tasking that no one anywhere has ever seen before, but reality is this isn't all that different than existing massive userbases that interconnect complicated hubs across the country/planet.Schlzm

Yeah...missing a date is no big deal. It's like you guys don't watch the political nonsense in this country. I get the ideal nature of some of these ideas, but this is the government we're talking about. There is NOTHING ideal about it. You have to look at solutions from the position that government is going to be your biggest obstacle and go from there. Give me another government project, who's dates were driven by law that was this large. I'll hang up and listen.And just so I'm clear...I agree 100% that this has been a trainwreck. There's plenty to rip on them for about this, but most what's being brought up as "issues" demonstrates a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to working with the government. People are comparing this project to private sector projects and it reminds me of people comparing their personal budgets to the federal budget....just nonsensical.

Other than yearly tax code changes being pushed to every accountant in the country who uses anything other than a sliderule and abacus I am going to have to agree with you that there hasn't been a *law* directly translated to software of this scale before. The closest thing I can think of recently would be the Air Force portal and order writing system updates erarlier this year, which also didn't go completely without issue. However, creating a user database has been around for a minute or two and could have been handled. Your pointing to "missing deadlines" is disingenous since this could have been a staged rollout which would have been much easier to justify than "uhhhh, it's broken? ". Also I have direct interaction with working within state and federal regulations and I manage much more data that healthcare.gov will. Schlzm

 

[Statorama]

I want this to be an even bigger failure, but outside of the boys (and girls) from Anonymous taking on Healthcare.gov I don't see how it could be.

You need not wait for the /b/tards to poke at this. There is plenty of syndicate chatter about how best to exploit the backend interfacing on this pos to skim personal info for resale.Schlzm

So my choices come down to rooting for Obama or the 4Chan crowd, which is a surprisingly easy choice.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Seriously, your solution is a staged roll-out?

I'm sure what everyone really wanted was to log-on to the website and register for a user account, and then to wait weeks or months to be told that they could shop the exchanges. If that had been the plan, we'd be reading the exact same articles about how the government is inherently inefficient. Staged roll-outs are great when you're offering some functionality with further functionality down the road. A user account isn't functionality.

For God's sake, they screwed up. Give them hell. I'm all for holding government accountable. But at least make your criticisms somewhat rational.

 

[Schlzm]

Seriously, your solution is a staged roll-out?

I'm sure what everyone really wanted was to log-on to the website and register for a user account, and then to wait weeks or months to be told that they could shop the exchanges. If that had been the plan, we'd be reading the exact same articles about how the government is inherently inefficient. Staged roll-outs are great when you're offering some functionality with further functionality down the road. A user account isn't functionality.

For God's sake, they screwed up. Give them hell. I'm all for holding government accountable. But at least make your criticisms somewhat rational.

I am giving them hell and I am holding them accountable for this epic fail. However others are trying to throw anything and everything they can think of in front of the snowball as an excuse and all I want to point out is that if your product can't even properly create a user database then don't start claiming that this is some mammoth undertaking never before attempted. Also two or three days of user registration followed by the other stages really wouldn't have been that hard to justify, especially when the pro crowd could have just pointed at the GTA V crash to provide cover for being cautious. Schlzm

 

[The Commish]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

They should have performed a staged rollout. Start with registration then go from there. It's pretty easy to get a user account database up and running and keep the complicated items out of site until any problems are addressed. In the event there wasn't a mad rush they could have more quickly enabled to access to the backend meat of the beast. Too many people want to claim this was some monstrous tasking that no one anywhere has ever seen before, but reality is this isn't all that different than existing massive userbases that interconnect complicated hubs across the country/planet.Schlzm

Yeah...missing a date is no big deal. It's like you guys don't watch the political nonsense in this country. I get the ideal nature of some of these ideas, but this is the government we're talking about. There is NOTHING ideal about it. You have to look at solutions from the position that government is going to be your biggest obstacle and go from there. Give me another government project, who's dates were driven by law that was this large. I'll hang up and listen.And just so I'm clear...I agree 100% that this has been a trainwreck. There's plenty to rip on them for about this, but most what's being brought up as "issues" demonstrates a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to working with the government. People are comparing this project to private sector projects and it reminds me of people comparing their personal budgets to the federal budget....just nonsensical.

Other than yearly tax code changes being pushed to every accountant in the country who uses anything other than a sliderule and abacus I am going to have to agree with you that there hasn't been a *law* directly translated to software of this scale before. The closest thing I can think of recently would be the Air Force portal and order writing system updates erarlier this year, which also didn't go completely without issue. However, creating a user database has been around for a minute or two and could have been handled. Your pointing to "missing deadlines" is disingenous since this could have been a staged rollout which would have been much easier to justify than "uhhhh, it's broken? ". Also I have direct interaction with working within state and federal regulations and I manage much more data that healthcare.gov will.Schlzm

I don't disagree with most of this (other than "staged rollout being the fix....it wouldn't have helped) and I guess the laws could have been revised, but for something this large, you'd agree that the timeline was pretty aggressive knowing how the gov't works, yes? I don't think the amount of data is an issue (unless of course they have tuning issues in the databases or normalization problems etc). What I'm saying is, this "failure" began way before the developers got involved. It was doomed from the start. People are bagging on the system and that phase of the project when they were destine for failure because of events well before they were involved. I'm not excusing the failure of the project, but attempting to point to the probable cause. Some of the "reasons" for failure here are laughable. It's like focusing on Obama being a US citizen as your primary issue with the man when there's a mountain of valid topics one can take issue with.

 

[ffldrew]

It's going to be pretty entertaining in here when this thing is viewed as a colossal failure in 5-10 years with skyrocketing costs and huge breakdowns in service.

I'm sure the supporters will be blaming global warming or secondhand smoke or something.

If that were to happen then it will prove that the Healthcare industry can't work in a free market economy. Yes, if businesses can't figure out how to compete in a market place of 300,000,000 customers there is something wrong.

Yes... because the Government is TOTALLY hands off.... Free Market Economy indeed

Name one aspect of our economy that the government is totally hands off? Laws are rules to the game, and any successful business figures out how to make money and grab market share. The government isn't setting prices, that's up to the industry to figure out. If BCBS or Aetna can't compete, they'll lose customers.

Uh, that would be the point. The government has completely destroyed any semblance of a market in health care. They have not necessarily done this in other sectors (yet).

One could say the AMA/Med School oligarchy did this long ago

 

[Schlzm]

I am opposed to ACA on both philosophical and practical grounds. I think it's a terrible plan in which the negative consequences far outweigh the positives. That being said, the bad rollout is only a reason to chuckle at the incompetence of the people in charge, not a reason in and of itself to oppose the bill. Opponents should not be focusing on the technical failures, which ultimately will be fixed. Instead they should be focusing on the increased costs, and failure to achieve nearly any of the stated and promised goals of the plan.

Dozens of free-market based reforms have been bandied about and while they will never have the appeal that subsidies and free care will have, they need to be a part of any argument against this enormous boondoggle.

Of all of the bad things in the ACA, the exchanges are probably the least objectionable. I have no problem in letting insurers and customers get together on a government-sponsored website. I do wonder if it is a good idea why hadn't it happened in the free market, but I don't have a problem with it if it helps.

I think it is also very strange that Obama, who unilaterally, and perhaps unconstitutionally, simply delayed the employer mandate without congrtessional approval would not do something similar with this, when he seems to have been given ample warning that a fiasco was coming. In fact, he probably could have used delaying this as some sort of bargaining chip in dealing with the house.

I will add though that even if you think the ACA is a good idea, that the website problems do illustrate what an enormous, complicated program this is, and the government, with how they handle most programs, may not be equipped to run such an enormous, complicated program in any sort of efficient manner.

This is where I am. Not too many government run programs that I have experience with has been run very well. This roll out was just the first measurable objective, and it would be hard to imagine it being a bigger failure than it is. I can't seem to gain the confidence that even though this part didn't go smooth, everything else from here on out will be successful.

At the same time that the ACA website was failing, Rockstar games tried to launch GTA Online. It was a total failure. Yet nobody tried to opine about what that means about the institutional competence of private companies. The federal government runs any number of absurdly complex information systems. The NSA's data mining program is the most extensive in the world.

This is an embarrassing failure the federal government. They deserve to take plenty of heat about it. But anyone who decides it's illustrative of any greater truth about the organizational competencies of the public and private sector is simply cherry picking an incident to confirm his or her previously established narrative. Major projects in the private and public sectors are often poorly run. Sometimes, they are well run.

Meh. This was a pretty big deal, and much more was riding on this than GTA Online, especially when considering the anticipation. It had to do with an issue that was the center of attention in the country for the past few years and all eyes were watching. They missed the mark big time, and when having the opportunity to delay it when they apparently knew there were "glitches", they fought pretty hard to keep the same timetable.They should have been hoping for an "out" to get things straightened out. Instead, when they got that "out", they pressed even harder for some reason.

What choice did they have? Can you imagine the meme if this thing didn't roll out on time?? Certainly a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but that's a bed they created themselves. They have to lie in it.

They should have performed a staged rollout. Start with registration then go from there. It's pretty easy to get a user account database up and running and keep the complicated items out of site until any problems are addressed. In the event there wasn't a mad rush they could have more quickly enabled to access to the backend meat of the beast. Too many people want to claim this was some monstrous tasking that no one anywhere has ever seen before, but reality is this isn't all that different than existing massive userbases that interconnect complicated hubs across the country/planet.Schlzm

Yeah...missing a date is no big deal. It's like you guys don't watch the political nonsense in this country. I get the ideal nature of some of these ideas, but this is the government we're talking about. There is NOTHING ideal about it. You have to look at solutions from the position that government is going to be your biggest obstacle and go from there. Give me another government project, who's dates were driven by law that was this large. I'll hang up and listen.And just so I'm clear...I agree 100% that this has been a trainwreck. There's plenty to rip on them for about this, but most what's being brought up as "issues" demonstrates a severe lack of knowledge when it comes to working with the government. People are comparing this project to private sector projects and it reminds me of people comparing their personal budgets to the federal budget....just nonsensical.

Other than yearly tax code changes being pushed to every accountant in the country who uses anything other than a sliderule and abacus I am going to have to agree with you that there hasn't been a *law* directly translated to software of this scale before. The closest thing I can think of recently would be the Air Force portal and order writing system updates erarlier this year, which also didn't go completely without issue. However, creating a user database has been around for a minute or two and could have been handled. Your pointing to "missing deadlines" is disingenous since this could have been a staged rollout which would have been much easier to justify than "uhhhh, it's broken? ". Also I have direct interaction with working within state and federal regulations and I manage much more data that healthcare.gov will.Schlzm

I don't disagree with most of this (other than "staged rollout being the fix....it wouldn't have helped) and I guess the laws could have been revised, but for something this large, you'd agree that the timeline was pretty aggressive knowing how the gov't works, yes? I don't think the amount of data is an issue (unless of course they have tuning issues in the databases or normalization problems etc). What I'm saying is, this "failure" began way before the developers got involved. It was doomed from the start. People are bagging on the system and that phase of the project when they were destine for failure because of events well before they were involved. I'm not excusing the failure of the project, but attempting to point to the probable cause. Some of the "reasons" for failure here are laughable. It's like focusing on Obama being a US citizen as your primary issue with the man when there's a mountain of valid topics one can take issue with.

I can absolutely get on board that this whole thing was destined to crash and burn before a single contract was bid to implement it. The only reason I am even talking about a staged rollout is that instead of completely ####ting the bed and then blaming the toilet, they could have at least made an attempt to get to the bathroom first. Schlzm

 

[DrJ]

I want this to be an even bigger failure, but outside of the boys (and girls) from Anonymous taking on Healthcare.gov I don't see how it could be.

You don't need Anonymous. A couple of kiddie hackers armed with publicly available scripts could probably handle it.

 

[tommyboy]

abject failure alert

Sun and Wilson also report that "When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step."

coming from the right wing nutjobs at the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/22/these-two-paragraphs-say-everything-about-healthcare-govs-problems/

 

[DrJ]

abject failure alert

Sun and Wilson also report that "When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step."

coming from the right wing nutjobs at the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/22/these-two-paragraphs-say-everything-about-healthcare-govs-problems/

It's a good thing the site doesn't handle anything important.

 

[Schlzm]

abject failure alert

Sun and Wilson also report that "When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step."

coming from the right wing nutjobs at the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/22/these-two-paragraphs-say-everything-about-healthcare-govs-problems/

It's a good thing the site doesn't handle anything important.

A user registration system of that size is unprecedented man, you just don't understand! Don't even mention the unpopulated dropdown menus. That #### is like science (#####!) or something.Schlzm

 

[otello]

Some key testing of the system did not take place until the week before launch, according to this person. As late as Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end: create an account, determine eligibility for federal subsidies and sign up for a health insurance plan, according to two sources familiar with the project.

CGI officials told Committee staff that CMS officials and employees constantly mentioned "The White House" when discussing matters with CGI. For example, CMS officials would routinely state: "this is what the White House wants." Moreover, CGI officials told Committee staff the ability to shop for health insurance without registering for an account - a central design feature of the health insurance exchange - was removed "in late August or early September."

 

[Mr. Cross]

abject failure alert

Sun and Wilson also report that "When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step."

coming from the right wing nutjobs at the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/22/these-two-paragraphs-say-everything-about-healthcare-govs-problems/

More criticism from a right wing nut job.

 

[JZilla]

This thread is unbearable of course, but trust me, the technical issues are entirely the company's fault. In this world the government is the paying customer, nothing more. Your job as the contractor is to deliver. If the customer is unreasonable, guess what, they're ALL unreasonable. Your job is to work with that and deliver.

But blame away, the gov't probably (clearly) did do a crummy job in the selection process but once that's done all they do is set requirements.

 

[DrJ]

This thread is unbearable of course, but trust me, the technical issues are entirely the company's fault. In this world the government is the paying customer, nothing more. Your job as the contractor is to deliver. If the customer is unreasonable, guess what, they're ALL unreasonable. Your job is to work with that and deliver.

But blame away, the gov't probably (clearly) did do a crummy job in the selection process but once that's done all they do is set requirements.

How do we know the requirements weren't met? It apparently does all of the things it's supposed to do - if you try hard enough and tolerate enough errors. We could actually call the website functional depending on how you want to define it.

 

[JZilla]

This thread is unbearable of course, but trust me, the technical issues are entirely the company's fault. In this world the government is the paying customer, nothing more. Your job as the contractor is to deliver. If the customer is unreasonable, guess what, they're ALL unreasonable. Your job is to work with that and deliver.

But blame away, the gov't probably (clearly) did do a crummy job in the selection process but once that's done all they do is set requirements.

How do we know the requirements weren't met? It apparently does all of the things it's supposed to do - if you try hard enough and tolerate enough errors. We could actually call the website functional depending on how you want to define it.

The contractor's job is to manage the customer's requirements. You can't get a bad requirement. If you do, it's your fault. If the customer asks you for something you can't produce, you have to go back to them with a no, and here's why, and here's what we can do instead.

That's what they pay for and cousin they pay a lot.

 

[DrJ]

This thread is unbearable of course, but trust me, the technical issues are entirely the company's fault. In this world the government is the paying customer, nothing more. Your job as the contractor is to deliver. If the customer is unreasonable, guess what, they're ALL unreasonable. Your job is to work with that and deliver.

But blame away, the gov't probably (clearly) did do a crummy job in the selection process but once that's done all they do is set requirements.

How do we know the requirements weren't met? It apparently does all of the things it's supposed to do - if you try hard enough and tolerate enough errors. We could actually call the website functional depending on how you want to define it.

The contractor's job is to manage the customer's requirements. You can't get a bad requirement. If you do, it's your fault. If the customer asks you for something you can't produce, you have to go back to them with a no, and here's why, and here's what we can do instead.

That's what they pay for and cousin they pay a lot.

Obviously you can get a bad requirement. Whose fault that is would depend on who made the error.

 

[JZilla]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong. If you ask for a ladder to the moon and they tell you no problem, they can do that, then I guess it's your fault for asking.

 

[DrJ]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong.

Yeah, there's some truth to that.

 

[Foosball God]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong. If you ask for a ladder to the moon and they tell you no problem, they can do that, then I guess it's your fault for asking.

Except that you tell the builder they must build the house by a certain date and you'll have an architect deliver the blueprints. But then the architect doesn't deliver the blueprints and you instead have the builder draw the plans while they are trying to build the house. And when the builder tells you that certain things aren't going to be possible and still allow for the building inspectors to come in and check the house before you live in it, you tell the builder to build it anyway.

So yeah, it's pretty much exactly like your example.

 

[Hang 10]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong. If you ask for a ladder to the moon and they tell you no problem, they can do that, then I guess it's your fault for asking.

We are the owner and the government is the general contractor. If the GC hires a ####ty plumber who ####s up the plumbing, whose fault is it?

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

Some key testing of the system did not take place until the week before launch, according to this person. As late as Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end: create an account, determine eligibility for federal subsidies and sign up for a health insurance plan, according to two sources familiar with the project.

CGI officials told Committee staff that CMS officials and employees constantly mentioned "The White House" when discussing matters with CGI. For example, CMS officials would routinely state: "this is what the White House wants." Moreover, CGI officials told Committee staff the ability to shop for health insurance without registering for an account - a central design feature of the health insurance exchange - was removed "in late August or early September."

1 week, eh? Someone didn't practice the 5P's

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

 

[Dr Oadi]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong. If you ask for a ladder to the moon and they tell you no problem, they can do that, then I guess it's your fault for asking.

We are the owner and the government is the general contractor. If the GC hires a ####ty plumber who ####s up the plumbing, whose fault is it?

Obama's.

 

[Jojo the circus boy]

It's really no different than paying somebody to build you a house. If you select a bad builder then I guess it's your fault when they build your house wrong. If you ask for a ladder to the moon and they tell you no problem, they can do that, then I guess it's your fault for asking.

Except that you tell the builder they must build the house by a certain date and you'll have an architect deliver the blueprints. But then the architect doesn't deliver the blueprints and you instead have the builder draw the plans while they are trying to build the house. And when the builder tells you that certain things aren't going to be possible and still allow for the building inspectors to come in and check the house before you live in it, you tell the builder to build it anyway.So yeah, it's pretty much exactly like your example.

Sounds like the govt. is a well oiled machine.

 

[Statorama]

I feel for ya Foos, I really do. I manage the large dollar projects for the bank division I work for, and I know all too well about sponsor's "moving the goal posts" mid-project or large scale "scope creep" after the requirements have been approved and signed off on. Combine that with the inevitable "yeah, I know the requirement says that, but what I really meant was this" and it had to have been an impossible situation for you guys.

 

[Lutherman2112]

 

[Dr Oadi]

300,000 lose health plans in Florida!

 

[tommyboy]

I bet Obama is happy he rammed this through now. When you lose Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart, that's like losing 2 of the 4 Beatles in a car accident

 

[Lutherman2112]

300,000 lose health plans in Florida!

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010. At least a few are cancelling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

 

[Dr Oadi]

300,000 lose health plans in Florida!

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010. At least a few are cancelling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.

 

[tommyboy]

I guess its ok to straight up lie to the American people just to pass a bill that nobody wanted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU

 

[Ballstein]

maybe Haliburton should have been in control of the network launch huh?

 

[ffldrew]

This thread is unbearable of course, but trust me, the technical issues are entirely the company's fault. In this world the government is the paying customer, nothing more. Your job as the contractor is to deliver. If the customer is unreasonable, guess what, they're ALL unreasonable. Your job is to work with that and deliver.

But blame away, the gov't probably (clearly) did do a crummy job in the selection process but once that's done all they do is set requirements.

How do we know the requirements weren't met? It apparently does all of the things it's supposed to do - if you try hard enough and tolerate enough errors. We could actually call the website functional depending on how you want to define it.

The contractor's job is to manage the customer's requirements. You can't get a bad requirement. If you do, it's your fault. If the customer asks you for something you can't produce, you have to go back to them with a no, and here's why, and here's what we can do instead.

That's what they pay for and cousin they pay a lot.

Obviously you can get a bad requirement. Whose fault that is would depend on who made the error.

That's why Agile is the key ingredient here. You get to these moments of truth much faster.

My company has built some pretty important member websites across the country and Agile is the only way to make it work. The sprints may become the Bataan Death Sprint - but you get done and everyone agrees to where you are at and you know things work before you move on to the next set of goals. You need a hell of a scrummaster and PM of course and a customer who is involved every single day - and the important ingredient are developers that can listen, work quickly, ask salient questions and hold each others work to the fire and not accept crap.

The killer on these large projects are the testing - especially the scalability tests, building effective test scripts takes a lot of work when you only see the "finished" work a few days before- it's very tough when you finally bring the individual parts together. And it is always done up against the gun. Heck the hardest part is just trying to get the customer to set the SLA's to begin with - and on a project like this it's uncharted territory.

I'm going to be quite interested to see the choices made here - the technology choices for me will be a key to understand where they dug themselves a hole. In the end there are plenty of member portal patterns out there to copy and it should have been a matter of scalability if you ask me. Depending on the SLA's that may have been the real scary part for the government in facing the actual amount of nodes needed to run this and just having their mind blown.