Healthcare.gov uses licensed code without license, and more!

[Civil War Man]

Why do you expect high quality work out of the lowest bidder?

Yes, and if you (both the company and the employees) can't do the job, then they (again the employees and the company) should be banned from bidding again. I think the entire system needs to be fixed.

There's a common programmer's saying: A product can be cheap, fast, or good. You can pick any two. If you want cheap, high quality work, don't expect it to be ready quickly.

[Flameblade]

I expect it because it should be expected. We as tax payers should expect to get the most out of what we pay for, and that those who spend the money and provide services (both contracted and otherwise) don't use it to enrich themselves.

An expectation that crosses ideological divides because it's so damned basic, yet it's completely missing from modern American politics.

[Knife]

Based off of MJ and Napolean's posts, should your ire then be at the private sector companies who botched it?

Some of the blame goes there, but I also lay blame at the feet people at HHS who should have seen this coming, and didn't. I expect a higher quality of work out of people who are civil servants and who have government contracts than I do out of regular business.

Why? Why is civil servants at a higher level than private sector? I thought private sector were the real deal and thusly shouldn't they be expected to do it better?

[Connor MacLeod]

This just goes to show we should have gone with UHC like many other civilised nations have. We probably could have avoided this problem.

[Beowulf]

Why do you expect high quality work out of the lowest bidder?

Yes, and if you (both the company and the employees) can't do the job, then they (again the employees and the company) should be banned from bidding again. I think the entire system needs to be fixed.

There's a common programmer's saying: A product can be cheap, fast, or good. You can pick any two. If you want cheap, high quality work, don't expect it to be ready quickly.

Doesn't necessarily need to be cheap. It's just the lowest bidder. The actual cost can be expensive, but the bidders have to bid semi-accurately to have a reasonable chance of getting the actual lowest bidder. If they fudge the numbers downward, then future bid selections should reflect their inability to correctly cost a piece of work. And that's not just a programmer's saying.

[TimothyC]

There's a common programmer's saying: A product can be cheap, fast, or good. You can pick any two. If you want cheap, high quality work, don't expect it to be ready quickly.

Beo covered this but, It's a common saying in most industries. The first contracts for the healthcare.gov site went out nearly two years ago. Is that long enough to get something done right and on budget? I ask because the final product doesn't seem to me like it was done fast (now, as I don't do professional web development, and I am open to correction with that experience), or low cost (500+% cost over-runs), or high quality (all of the bugs the system has had).

I expect it because it should be expected. We as tax payers should expect to get the most out of what we pay for, and that those who spend the money and provide services (both contracted and otherwise) don't use it to enrich themselves.

An expectation that crosses ideological divides because it's so damned basic, yet it's completely missing from modern American politics.

Yep, alas there are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle that don't meet this expectation.

Why? Why is civil servants at a higher level than private sector? I thought private sector were the real deal and thusly shouldn't they be expected to do it better?

Because I expect the private sector will try to screw me over on a regular basis, and while I have a choice (to a variable degree) of who I interact with in the private sector, that choice is much, much more limited in the public sector (impossible short of moving countries even). As a result, I consider legal, smart, honest, & responsive‡ government a priority. In the modern US federal public sector it is very hard to get fired, and as a result there is less of a check on bad behavior. We, as citizens, need to exercise our power of the soap box* and ballot box† as that check, because the market doesn't keep the public sector in check from growing and becoming more and more inefficient.
* Such as I am doing now, and people do during protests.
† By voting in reformers, and cycling out politicians who are more interested in their own skin than in fulfilling their oaths of office.
‡ Not that it does everything, but what it does (and I would likely have a massively different opinion on what it should do), it does well.

[Irbis]

There's a common programmer's saying: A product can be cheap, fast, or good. You can pick any two. If you want cheap, high quality work, don't expect it to be ready quickly.

Actually, for big projects, pick one and a half. Because someone will inevitably screw something up in one of the remaining two.

Beo covered this but, It's a common saying in most industries. The first contracts for the healthcare.gov site went out nearly two years ago. Is that long enough to get something done right and on budget? I ask because the final product doesn't seem to me like it was done fast (now, as I don't do professional web development, and I am open to correction with that experience), or low cost (500+% cost over-runs), or high quality (all of the bugs the system has had).

Do you know from where cost over-runs in IT come from? From changing requirements. As loony Tea Party right-wingers did their best to destroy universal healthcare the requirements changed with each compromise, and once these do change, you need to go through the whole project as seemingly little changes can have huge impacts in unrelated parts. Also, cheap contractors do have huge rotation of personnel, and once someone new is brought in he needs to spend a lot of time and money first deciphering what work exactly predecessors did lest he breaks something.

Because I expect the private sector will try to screw me over on a regular basis, and while I have a choice (to a variable degree) of who I interact with in the private sector, that choice is much, much more limited in the public sector (impossible short of moving countries even). As a result, I consider legal, smart, honest, & responsive‡ government a priority.

Oh, smart government is easy! First, you need to hire highly qualified experts, such as ones that would be capable of ordering good healthcare system, then capable of looking at it to catch any problems before it goes live. Sadly, such experts do not come cheap. Cue howls from right wingers about gold-plated wages and comparison with very worst paid, bad experts in private sector. Ooops. Second, that healthcare system getting flak above? Pay a good company to make it solid and right on time (as they retain employees, they surprisingly tend to be cheaper and faster than 'cheap' contractors). Sadly, this doesn't come rock-bottom price either, cue more howls about pork and governments throwing away money by not picking lowest offer

[Knife]

Because I expect the private sector will try to screw me over on a regular basis, and while I have a choice (to a variable degree) of who I interact with in the private sector, that choice is much, much more limited in the public sector (impossible short of moving countries even). As a result, I consider legal, smart, honest, & responsive‡ government a priority. In the modern US federal public sector it is very hard to get fired, and as a result there is less of a check on bad behavior. We, as citizens, need to exercise our power of the soap box* and ballot box† as that check, because the market doesn't keep the public sector in check from growing and becoming more and more inefficient.
* Such as I am doing now, and people do during protests.
† By voting in reformers, and cycling out politicians who are more interested in their own skin than in fulfilling their oaths of office.
‡ Not that it does everything, but what it does (and I would likely have a massively different opinion on what it should do), it does well.

What choice do you have in the private sector in health insurance? Seriously, you get what your work offers, want different? Pay substantially more. That's choice? Or should I shop around jobs to find the best health care? Some people with certain skill sets might be able to do that, but not most. That's choice?

I'd argue you have more choice with public sector due to the fact you can vote, since I can't do that with private insurance. You know, exercising that power on your soap box. Sure, if you're in the 49% you might feel you still get stuck, but it's a hell of a lot more CHOICE than private sector. I don't understand this nonsense of 'private sector is more choice', at least not in the case of healthcare.

[Simon_Jester]

I think in this case he's talking about the choice of which company to hire to do a project, not so much which company provides health care.

I.e. I think he's saying the federal people responsible for making sure a federal IT project is competently managed should be closely watched, because they're the ones who are hardest to replace if they do the job poorly.

Of course, watching them closely (and hiring people who don't screw up) costs money, as others have outlined.

[TimothyC]

What choice do you have in the private sector in health insurance? Seriously, you get what your work offers, want different? Pay substantially more. That's choice? Or should I shop around jobs to find the best health care? Some people with certain skill sets might be able to do that, but not most. That's choice?

As Simon notes, I was talking in generalities. However, I'm very much in favor of decoupling health insurance from employment - mostly by removing the tax credits for having insurance, and setting the rate equal to what we pay now.

I'd argue you have more choice with public sector due to the fact you can vote, since I can't do that with private insurance. You know, exercising that power on your soap box. Sure, if you're in the 49% you might feel you still get stuck, but it's a hell of a lot more CHOICE than private sector. I don't understand this nonsense of 'private sector is more choice', at least not in the case of healthcare.

Well, the ACA has removed some of the choices in favor of requiring that some items be covered no matter what. Some of the items in the bill (such as the removal of lifetime caps) were things that we knew were going to drive up the cost of insurance. I know that health insurance is a wildly imperfect market, but disagreeing with the implementation of the ACA

Do you know from where cost over-runs in IT come from? From changing requirements. As loony Tea Party right-wingers did their best to destroy universal healthcare the requirements changed with each compromise, and once these do change, you need to go through the whole project as seemingly little changes can have huge impacts in unrelated parts. Also, cheap contractors do have huge rotation of personnel, and once someone new is brought in he needs to spend a lot of time and money first deciphering what work exactly predecessors did lest he breaks something.

A swing and a miss. There has been exactly one compromise with Republicans on healthcare post the signing of the ACA, and that's the income verification scheme that was included in the bill that re-opened the government, which obviously hasn't been implemented yet. Any changes while the bill was being passed were to get the centrist and center-right members of the democratic party to sign on to the bill in the first place (the same factions of the democratic conference that got a their rears kicked out of the congress with the 2010 elections). Once it passed the house, the only change from that point until last week was the SCOTUS ruling that the feds can't attach new rules on the current medicare funds in order to get the states to go along with the medicare expansion. This means that any changes were caused by people in HHS, which makes them even more culpable than before!

Oh, smart government is easy! First, you need to hire highly qualified experts, such as ones that would be capable of ordering good healthcare system, then capable of looking at it to catch any problems before it goes live. Sadly, such experts do not come cheap. Cue howls from right wingers about gold-plated wages and comparison with very worst paid, bad experts in private sector. Ooops. Second, that healthcare system getting flak above? Pay a good company to make it solid and right on time (as they retain employees, they surprisingly tend to be cheaper and faster than 'cheap' contractors). Sadly, this doesn't come rock-bottom price either, cue more howls about pork and governments throwing away money by not picking lowest offer

Things cost money, and because there is a practical limit to the amount of money the government can take in relative to the size of the economy, we have to chose what does and what does not get funded well. I'd rather have a small number of things done very well than a lot of things done like crap. If the current batch of people can't do their job of overseeing the implementation of what the law required well, then they should be fired.

[Knife]

A swing and a miss. There has been exactly one compromise with Republicans on healthcare post the signing of the ACA, and that's the income verification scheme that was included in the bill that re-opened the government, which obviously hasn't been implemented yet. Any changes while the bill was being passed were to get the centrist and center-right members of the democratic party to sign on to the bill in the first place (the same factions of the democratic conference that got a their rears kicked out of the congress with the 2010 elections). Once it passed the house, the only change from that point until last week was the SCOTUS ruling that the feds can't attach new rules on the current medicare funds in order to get the states to go along with the medicare expansion. This means that any changes were caused by people in HHS, which makes them even more culpable than before!

I take issue with that mainly because the Affordable Care Act WAS a compromise with the GOP that they decided not to endorse for political gain. A very sizable chunk of the bill were GOP ideas over the last 20-30 years, championed by prominent Republicans. Hell, Sen Hatch trumpeted the 'mandatory coverage', I know, I remember it, I was there in the 90's. During the primaries, the far right tried to hang Obama/Romney care around Mitt's head, fairly enough, because they were mostly the same ideas, originally from the Heritage Foundations recommendations in the 90's. This fucking thing is a compromise to the GOP, all their ideas rolled up into one to get them on board and the pussies dropped their own ideas because the evil Democrat put them together.

It's a compromise because most lefties wanted single payer and we got jack and shit, the GOPers got their ideas in a law that they won't support. The whole fucking joke is a compromise nobody will admit to. Enough with the 'Obama won't compromise on ACA'. It's ridiculous, if anything, time for the lefties to get something in there.

Edit to fix quote tag.

[General Zod]

Beo covered this but, It's a common saying in most industries. The first contracts for the healthcare.gov site went out nearly two years ago. Is that long enough to get something done right and on budget? I ask because the final product doesn't seem to me like it was done fast (now, as I don't do professional web development, and I am open to correction with that experience), or low cost (500+% cost over-runs), or high quality (all of the bugs the system has had).

Without knowing the precise scope of the portal, you can't rightly say two years is enough time. It's one thing to get all the technical bits right, but you have to make sure all the technical bits comply with the legal bits and the policies of all the agencies putting their data up on this thing. The first team to work on the site didn't really have the legal department to do anything on the backend, and the other teams aren't commenting.

[phongn]

Note: I am a professional software developer with reasonable experience in web development, some scientific computing and implementing various algorithms. I am presently one of those jerks who attempt to optimize ad delivery and that people try to block (we know this). Take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Beo covered this but, It's a common saying in most industries. The first contracts for the healthcare.gov site went out nearly two years ago. Is that long enough to get something done right and on budget? I ask because the final product doesn't seem to me like it was done fast (now, as I don't do professional web development, and I am open to correction with that experience), or low cost (500+% cost over-runs), or high quality (all of the bugs the system has had).

I am entirely unsurprised about what happened; government IT practice almost inevitably lends itself to worst-practice (for a variety of reasons). In particular, healthcare.gov's development started in spring 2013 and requirements continued to shift. In addition, I suspect there was immense pressure to produce a fully-operational website as soon as possible; the ideal development would let them incrementally build and release early. Quartz has an article on how a competent team would've built it. It's unfortunate that the Obama 2012 software team couldn't have made healthcare.gov; they did excellent work with a limited schedule and budget.

[PainRack]

Hmm...........

On one hand, if this had happened in my country, I definitely would have joined on the bash government faction. But there're lots of things that's different between my country and yours.

We have a government with strong executive powers with centralised decision-making processes.
We live in a nanny state.

Last but not least, I kinda think that my government political process, despite its constant hijacks by various party supporters still works, leading me to have somewhat higher expectations than I do from the US government.

[GuppyShark]

$700 / month ? Is that right? I would check the website but I don't want to add any more overload...

[LapsedPacifist]

GuppyShark,

Which plan are you talking about at $700/mo?

[UnderAGreySky]

A lot of people on the right - not on this board, necessarily - are using the website to laugh at liberalism / UHC. There are a variety of responses to this silliness but my favourite has been, "My flight to Paris is delayed. Therefore, Paris sucks."

[GuppyShark]

LapsedPacifist - that is the number quoted on the Daily Show but I may have misheard.

[Kitsune]

I posted this on a military board (Lots of conservatives)

I support the F-35 program
However, were we not suppose to have the aircraft full operational and in squadron service by 2010 or so?
Has not the program cost for the F-35 vastly increased?

Virtually no major US government program is not going to have problems.
If there is major road work, there will be delays. The other option is that we would still be driving on dirt tracks.

Give it a break guys, treat it like you would problems with other programs that you do not dislike.

[Kitsune]

Thought I should post this as well
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_ ... obamacare/

[TimothyC]

"My flight to Paris is delayed. Therefore, Paris sucks."

It's more like "The people in charge of scheduling my flight don't have their site together, and even if I do they tell me the wrong airline; therefore I don't trust them to be able to schedule the rest of my trip."

Dems join call to delay ObamaCare mandate amid website failures

Published October 24, 2013

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to delay enforcement of the health care law's individual mandate, joining their Republican colleagues in saying it would be unfair to penalize Americans for failing to buy insurance when the primary sign-up website doesn't work.

The Democratic dominoes began to fall quickly Wednesday, after Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., circulated a letter urging President Obama to extend enrollment beyond March 31, 2014.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., in a statement released late Wednesday, said: "I believe, given the technical issues, it makes sense to extend the time for people to sign up."

Shaheen and several moderate Democrats supporting her, including Pryor, are up for re-election in 2014, and no doubt taking note of the widespread discontent with the launch of HealthCare.gov.

But political motivation aside, the sudden support from moderate Democrats for delaying the mandate threatens to force President Obama's hand.

Republicans are already crafting bills to delay the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance. The GOP has the numbers to pass such a proposal in the House; with 15 Democrats, they might be able to muscle something through in the Senate.

Then Obama would have to decide whether to veto.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is not up for election next year, is working on a bill that would delay the IRS penalty for one year for anyone who does not get insurance.

This comes as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., drafts a separate bill to delay the requirement until the system has been certified as working for six straight months.

The White House, while defending the health care law and vowing to fix the problems with the website, has not explicitly ruled out the possibility of delaying the individual mandate. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, also backed Shaheen's call in a written statement Wednesday.

"I have repeatedly said this law is not perfect and have proposed changes to make it work for Alaska families and small businesses," he said. "Given the recent website issues, I also support extending open enrollment season. I want to work with the administration to ensure that individuals are not unfairly penalized if technical issues with the website continue."

Other Democratic senators that spoke out in support of Sheehan Wednesday include Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina.

Shaheen, in her letter to Obama wrote: "As website glitches persist, we are losing valuable time to educate and enroll people in insurance plans. I also fear that people that have tried, and failed, to enroll online may become frustrated and not return to the website to try again at a later date. ... Allowing extra time for consumers is critically important so they have the opportunity to become familiar with the website, survey their options and enroll."

Other Democrats were less gentle in their complaints.

"The president should man up, let us know who was responsible, who was in charge here and fire them," Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said "somebody ought to get fired."

Editorial pages in newspapers across America have been similarly rough on the roll-out, and the law itself.

Obama's hometown newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, wrote: "The bugs aren't just in the software. They're in the law itself."

Amid the complaints, the administration says its newly hired team of specialists is working around the clock to fix the site. Officials also met Wednesday with top insurance industry executives.

The meeting included representatives from insurance giants like Humana, Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

A statement from America's Health Insurance Plans described it as a "positive and productive meeting" that allowed CEOs to give an "on-the-ground perspective of how open enrollment is proceeding," including the "ongoing technical challenges."

Not all Democrats are joining the call for a delay.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi urged the administration to fix the problems but stick to the current set of deadlines.

Some analysts claimed that individuals would have to sign up by mid-February in order to be registered by the end of March and avoid the IRS penalty. But a White House official said Wednesday that is not the case, and the deadline continues to be March 31.

Senators Hagan, Pryor, Landrieu, Begich, & Shaheen. What do they have in common? Oh yes, they are up for re-election next year! Yes, Senators Nelson and Manchin are not up next year, but they still are in red/purple states and have to be careful. Personally, even if they help republicans pass any sort of delay they should still be hit in the general for only pushing for any delay once it's their position on the line.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't have anything against delaying the mandate as such on the grounds that the site is likely to be only semi-usable for many Americans in the near future, as long as we remain committed to having it- because not having it defeats the whole purpose of the current system.

In which case everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, both those who voted for it and everyone who delayed the passage of the ACA back in the day to ensure that it would contain 'free market friendly' provisions.

The ACA represents an attempt to create nationwide health insurance that is still friendly to the insurance market. If that cannot be implemented, we'd have been better off going single-payer.