Will Obamacare get its act together in time?

[regexcellent]

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.

Yeah if you are Jesus you can bring new coders up to speed in a week and get the ball rolling right away. For us non-deities things are much harder.

[kentonio]

As I said, a lot depends on how you structure your projects and how good your project management is. For something as ****ed as the Obamacare tech rollout sounds, this obviously isn't going to be a viable option. The problem is that to not tech people they aren't going to understand that, and the natural cry is going to be 'throw more money/people at it'. :\

[DinoDoc]

Yeah if you are Jesus you can bring new coders up to speed in a week and get the ball rolling right away. For us non-deities things are much harder.

I'm not sure even the mighty rah could save this.

As I said, a lot depends on how you structure your projects and how good your project management is.

Regardless of the quality of management, wouldn't everyone already working on the site will have to slow down while the “best and brightest” (where were these people to begin with?) get up to speed on the software and the scope of the challenges they’re dealing with already? That's especially true on a project as ****ed as this one seems to be, yes?

[DinoDoc]

HealthCare.gov pricing feature can be off the mark

As President Obama promises to fix HealthCare.gov, his administration is touting what it calls “improvements” in design, specifically a feature that allows you to “See Plans Now.” White House press secretary Jay Carney has said, “Americans across the country can type in their zip code and shop and browse.”

Industry analysts, such as Jonathan Wu, point to how the website lumps people only into two broad categories: “49 or under” and “50 or older.”

Wu said it’s “incredibly misleading for people that are trying to get a sense of what they’re paying.”

Prices for everyone in the 49-or-under group are based on what a 27-year-old would pay. In the 50-or-older group, prices are based on what a 50-year-old would pay.

CBS News ran the numbers for a 48-year-old in Charlotte, N.C., ineligible for subsidies. According to HealthCare.gov, she would pay $231 a month, but the actual plan on BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina’s website costs $360, more than a 50 percent increase. The difference: BlueCross BlueShield requests your birthday before providing more accurate estimates.

The numbers for older Americans are even more striking. A 62-year-old in Charlotte looking for the same basic plan would get a price estimate on the government website of $394. The actual price is $634.

What part of “trust us to fix what we couldn’t deliver correctly in the first place” do industry analysts not understand?

[Imran Siddiqui]

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?

You realize that the later (a delay for more money) may actually be more of a win for the Administration (though I guess it'd allow Boehner to give some red meat to the base)?

[kentonio]

Regardless of the quality of management, wouldn't everyone already working on the site will have to slow down while the “best and brightest” (where were these people to begin with?) get up to speed on the software and the scope of the challenges they’re dealing with already? That's especially true on a project as ****ed as this one seems to be, yes?

If it's as horrible bloated and screwed as it sounds, the most efficient solution would probably be to put the whole thing on hold, ensure the technical design is fit for purpose and basically tear it apart and rebuild it from the ground up.

I think we all know that isn't going to happen though, even if the people running it (or probably more accurately the people paying for it) realized it needed done, the GOP would use it as an excuse to paint the whole law as a failure and renew their attempts to destroy it.

[kentonio]

HealthCare.gov pricing feature can be off the markWhat part of “trust us to fix what we couldn’t deliver correctly in the first place” do industry analysts not understand?

Who do you pretend that any of this matters to you? All you want is ammunition to attack the law, you don't give a **** about it being fixed. At least have the balls to be honest about that.

[DinoDoc]

You realize that the later (a delay for more money) may actually be more of a win for the Administration (though I guess it'd allow Boehner to give some red meat to the base)?

Yes. I'm also aware that a large portion of the GOP base would like a delay. I'm just curious what the political pay off for them is wrt the LIB option vs the give him more money to attempt a fix in exchange for a delay is. I'm personally for telling him to go to hell and enjoy dealing with his settled law.

[DinoDoc]

Who do you pretend that any of this matters to you? All you want is ammunition to attack the law,

Why do they keep giving it to me then?

[regexcellent]

The whole healthcare exchange thing suffers not just from bad coding and project management, but bad requirements. I doubt there is a way to get it to work at all. It's supposed to magically have information about people and businesses that it would have know way of knowing.

The ultimate consequence of obamacare, thanks to the bull**** requirement that you can't exclude pre-existing conditions, is that we just won't have individual health insurance anymore because nobody will provide it. So these exchanges would be empty even if they did work.

The sad thing is that's not even the worst part of the law. The worst part is the ****ing subsidy.

[Hauldren Collider]

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.

Obviously it's not impossible, but in a crisis situation like this it's just not going to work.

[Sava]

Reading reg and HC's posts... ugh... it's like a race to the bottom.

Two uninformed idiots with no life experience, talent, or expertise... yet they have all the answers.

And then there's poor DD... fapping over every made up talking point he's read on some blog.

At least it keeps him off the streets.

[giblets]

What would he do on the streets? Get mugged?

[DinoDoc]

What would he do on the streets? Get mugged?

I don't live in Chicago, gribbler.

[The Mad Monk]

Obamacare is not working! Please send money to help defend Obamacare in upcoming campaigns!