Will Obamacare get its act together in time?

[giblets]

You're as bad as ben trying to tell me how I feel. Especially after I already answered the question. Douche. "wants to be feel unique" what does that even mean?

I wasn't serious. If I offended you I'm sorry.

[rah]

Accepted. Touchy on the hipster reference. The slimy didn't bother me at all.

And I was surprised since I wasn't sure where it was coming from. Glad to hear it wasn't serious. Thx

[Sava]

fricken hipster rah

[DinoDoc]

Regarding the contractor discussion and the tech surge: The government can't accept free services from companies, so where is the Admin going to find the money to pay for the so-called best and brightest to fix the current disaster?

[Hauldren Collider]

The best and brightest *can't* fix the current disaster. It's not possible. Sending more people after a software project makes it take more time, not less, and it doesn't matter if they're all as smart as Einstein, von Neumann, and Feynman combined. This is the oldest, most common and most egregious managerial error when it comes to software development.

This in all likelihood is going to make the situation far worse than it was. That is, if it actually happens. I read an article saying that there is no tech surge. The administration sent a couple consultants to the CGI offices and that was it.

[Sava]

HC is there a subject that you are informed about?

Entry level programming perhaps...

[kentonio]

And not actually because you have to hire black people, before the screams of racist come wailing in from Kentonio.

When you still have Southern universities with segregated fraternities in 2013, don't lecture me about racism not being real you privileged ass.

[Ben Kenobi]

don't lecture me about racism not being real you privileged ass.

How are those honor killings going on the other side of the pond, Kentonio? Are the Bobbies prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.

[kentonio]

Yes, and please don't talk to me. I tried being reasonable with you, and now simply think you're a worthless ******.

[DinoDoc]

Steny Hoyer wants more money to fix Obamacare exchanges

Rep. Steny Hoyer wants to give President Obama more money to help fix the costly federal health care exchanges that have been roiled by problems since they launched at the beginning of the month.

Asked Tuesday how Congress could help improve the system by which millions of Americans must buy insurance by the end of the year, the House minority whip and Maryland Democrat said, "We can give them a little money."

"[Republicans have] been pretty much focused in the House of Representatives on undermining the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in every which way that we possibly could," he said.

Hoyer admitted that he does not know whether the project, which has already cost more than $400 million, has faced funding problems. "I don't think that's the reason," he said. "If I know that, I'll blame it."

The federal exchanges, the online marketplace for the uninsured to purchase insurance in 36 states, went live on Oct. 1. But the millions of Americans who have visited the site have been stonewalled by error messages, and most have been unable to buy coverage.

ome estimate it could take weeks or even months to eradicate all the problems. Obama acknowledged the problems in a press event Monday, but vowed improvements and stood by the law.

Republicans have called for Obama to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Hoyer said that's not necessary, but echoed the president's concerns.

"I certainly believe it's a bad performance," Hoyer said. "Obviously this was not done the way it should have been done, and I'm sure if I was a Republican I would yell and scream about it as well.

"I'm sure that everyone who was a proponent of the Affordable Care Act is not happy — me included," he added, "because it gives fodder to those who are opposed to the substance of the act."

What's the better political move here? Tell the President and his party to go to hell and deny money to repair the exchanges as the law burns down around them? Or force a delay in the individual mandate in exchange for the money to repair the boondoggle?

[Elok]

The best and brightest *can't* fix the current disaster. It's not possible. Sending more people after a software project makes it take more time, not less, and it doesn't matter if they're all as smart as Einstein, von Neumann, and Feynman combined. This is the oldest, most common and most egregious managerial error when it comes to software development.

This in all likelihood is going to make the situation far worse than it was. That is, if it actually happens. I read an article saying that there is no tech surge. The administration sent a couple consultants to the CGI offices and that was it.

That's the sort of thing that should be obvious, really. With group work in general, there's a certain amount of efficiency lost to coordination. My rule of thumb (just from watching students, not professionals, so take with a grain of salt) is that the efficiency decreases exponentially with every new group member, unless they're simply copying off each other. Even then, they frequently make the copying more effort than it's worth. Anyway, given the immense complexity of code projects, each new addition to the team is going to bring things crashing to a halt as they struggle to bring the new guy up to speed and find a place for him. If you're sacking the old guys and just letting the new guys dig through their code to try and figure out WTF happened...whoa, nelly. And trying to get the guys who ****ed it up to work together with the guys you sent to clean up their mess might be even worse.

At least, I assume that's the reason it takes longer. Is there another that I'm missing?

[Hauldren Collider]

That's the sort of thing that should be obvious, really. With group work in general, there's a certain amount of efficiency lost to coordination. My rule of thumb (just from watching students, not professionals, so take with a grain of salt) is that the efficiency decreases exponentially with every new group member, unless they're simply copying off each other. Even then, they frequently make the copying more effort than it's worth. Anyway, given the immense complexity of code projects, each new addition to the team is going to bring things crashing to a halt as they struggle to bring the new guy up to speed and find a place for him. If you're sacking the old guys and just letting the new guys dig through their code to try and figure out WTF happened...whoa, nelly. And trying to get the guys who ****ed it up to work together with the guys you sent to clean up their mess might be even worse.

At least, I assume that's the reason it takes longer. Is there another that I'm missing?

You've basically got it. This problem has been known for decades, and is the title of the seminal book on the common pitfalls of software development:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

The thing is, there are a lot of engineering problems that CAN be solved faster by throwing more warm bodies at it. But software is not one of them. You can't split software development into discrete tasks all that easily, pieces need to work together very intricately and precisely and this requires really good team coordination and communication. Even SMALL software projects can be really hard to coordinate between groups of just 3 or 4 people, as anyone who has worked on a group project in a CS class (raises hand) would know.

[kentonio]

That's slightly simplistic, if you have a good project management team you can introduce new programmers without completely borking a software project, but you're quite right that simply chucking bodies at it tends to be a pretty terrible idea. A lot depends on how you build your projects of course.

[MikeH]

How are those honor killings going on the other side of the pond, Kentonio? Are the Bobbies prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.

Of course they are you moron.

[MikeH]

That's slightly simplistic, if you have a good project management team you can introduce new programmers without completely borking a software project, but you're quite right that simply chucking bodies at it tends to be a pretty terrible idea. A lot depends on how you build your projects of course.

Yes.