<p>Argbargy, I understand that they had to wait on stuff that wasn’t ready – but there are parts they could have built ahead of time. The could have taken a modular approach and created a system where it was possible to register and set up user account ahead of times, collecting very basic info from people (name, address, phone numbers), plus maybe a check box list to get a sense of basic demographics and insurance needs – such as the optional ability to indicate household size and income range – and then get all people who signed up onto an email list. Then that email list would be there as communications hub, as a way to keep people informed, direct them to other resources,etc. </p>
<p>It doesn’t even matter if that was the SAME login as the insurance buying thing – ideally it should be, but one of the big lost opportunities I see is that there is no way of tracking or identifying people who came to the site and then gave and went away. If you can get people to sign up for your email bulletin, then you’ve got a database with contact info and a way to communicate.</p>
<p>If they had that, then there would be a fallback. When the web sites faltered on day #1 they could have sent out an email bulletin to everyone --and then they could have developed a fallback plan and used their email list to notify people. They could have been getting more people signed up offline the past few weeks – instead of having a nonfunctioning web site be essentially a dead end.</p>
<p>That would have been a sensible way to approach things but I doubt it would be possible. </p>
<p>A contracting company isnt going to start expending resources before requirements are locked and accepted by a governance committee for the project. Changing requirements mean rework and that means costs. You could turn even a successful project into a money loser. The execs at the contractors arent going to sign off on that. </p>
<p>I also dont get why there were so many contractors used with such poor coordination from HHS. The web identity piece was actually supplied not by CGI but by QSSI. On October 3rd it was performing so badly that HHS actually asked CGI if they could create a replacement module. Yikes! This is a launched web site.</p>
<p>The overall picture is that integration happened impossibly late in the game here. </p>
<p>There is a massive failure here somewhere, and its not in the lines of code. Either HHS massively botched the project management to create this kind of time table, or someone overrode for political reasons the pm’s warnings that this project was in Red for Oct 1.</p>
<p>Oh I wanted to mention that apparently these heathcare sites arent the short putt everyone seems to thinking. </p>
<p>CGI got fired by Quebec for some site that they were supposed on have on line. And IBM is getting sued by New Zealand over some botch of a health care system there. Culprit was supposed to be changing requirements from the government and maybe general incompetence.</p>
<p>But that fall back should have been built into the specs right away. It’s essentially how Obama built his campaign web sites – they got the people signed up for email notices way ahead of the time that they were ready to schedule and coordinate events via the sites. So that is something that could have been done months ahead – very basic sites with coming-soon type stuff, a simple and easy way to sign in and provide the type of info that could be used to break out email groups (such as state, zip, current insurance status). Another benefit is that it would have given a much better predictor of the numbers who would be visiting as of October 1st. </p>
<p>Again, to keep things simple the mailing lists could have been managed separately – it doesn’t have to have the same log in system. </p>
<p>I think setting up a fall back system is simply part of the process. Web sites fail - even well designed sites can go down. I’m just saying that they could have created a way to identify and communicate with a large fraction of the future buyers, and chose not to.</p>
<p>I think I could use that and some PERL code for the subsidy and I’d be done. Have a writable pdf for people to print off and mail in. </p>
<p>Its not clear what is going on here… is there a sandbox? is there regression testing? is there horizontal scalability? </p>
<p>Not having plans of how to react “what if x”, “what if y” is planning to fail. Having no time for testing in the project plan is planning to fail. </p>
<p>I guess Plan B was use the phone number but that plan isnt good if the agents cant get their web site working. There should have been Plans C and D. </p>
<p>Why is there no feed back loop between the advertising/promoting events and the performance of the web site? As far as I know they are <em>still</em> driving demand to a site than is failing on even low utilization.</p>
<p>The phone line is lamer than the lamest of call centers. The so-called agents know nothing, read from a script, apologize, and tell you to try the website again in off peak hours. It’s really appalling!</p>
<p>I agree it would be very easy to code a link to that dataset that would create a printable application form. That wouldn’t solve the whole problem – the bigger issue is the need to interface with an IRS computer to verify income – but they could put up the equivalent of the Kaiser Foundation calculator, let people print off a form pre-filled for the plan they want and also submit a financial app – and people could either mail them in or they could set up a system to allow upload of the PDF’s.</p>
<p>Again, I really don’t know why they didn’t have that as fail-safe in any case. Even if the web site was working perfectly, there are going to be some people who aren’t comfortable entering info online or who don’t have an internet connection-- there should be a way for their friends or extended family to download info and application materials without hassle.</p>
<p>"the bigger issue is the need to interface with an IRS computer to verify income "</p>
<p>Ok so if they are verifying 2014 subsidies against 2012 income (facepalm) why not just go “Your subsidies are contingent on income verification. You will receive a letter from the IRS and the VA in 6 weeks confirming your eligibility” and batch it up to the IRS drones on green screens? The numbers we are talking about an miniscule compared to the usual IRS volumes and complexity.</p>
<p>Politically they didnt like the idea that people might worry for 6 weeks about paying full freight?</p>
<p>I agree, they don’t need to have instant verification-- especially not when people are signing up in October for benefits that will start in January.</p>
<p>Obviously, this explains how companies like United Health Group not participating in the exchange also benefit. In fact, they may make more money. that would explain the overall rise in their stock price.</p>
<p>The flip side of this thing where companies are warning about extending the enrollment period because of the effect on profitable young subs has to have a flip side in losing a couple of months in the sign up period because of the flaky web site. </p>
<p>I think UHN and WP are glad to be sitting this out.</p>