The federal government had over three years to develop the websites designed to sell insurance under Obamacare. For most web efforts, six months would be more than adequate to do a complete and fully tested job, so the feds had six times that amount. On top of that, the federal government spent two thirds of a billion dollars to develop the site, an amount which is many multiples of what the most expensive websites cost to build and operate. What this means is that any organization with even a small ability to function effectively would have been able easily to complete and put on line a fully operational website that met the needs of the country. The Obamacare site, however, is anything but operational. Many people still cannot get on the site. Many more folks get on the site, but then they cannot sign up for accounts. Still more people cannot find out what policies are offered in their state or what the price of those policies will be. Right now, it appears that next to no one has been able to sign up. The latest estimate is that fewer than 1000 people per day across the country have actually signed up for insurance since the site went live. At that rate, it would take 25 years for the eight million people who are supposed to buy insurance on the site to do so. The Obamacare exchange site is worse than a disaster.
But all this has been in the news before. What is new today is an interview with the CEO of Aetna, one of the nation's largest providers of health insurance. Aetna was one of the companies enlisted by the feds to help with the website roll out. According to the CEO, there would normally be five types of testing done on a site like this before it was fully ready for roll out. With Obamacare, NONE of the testing was done. The Aetna CEO says that the feds did not provide "code drops" until less than a month before the date for going live. The various testing methodologies are currently being done "on the fly". Indeed the Aetna CEO points out that certain types of testing cannot even be started until all of the functionality of the site is complete. What that means is that until the site can work well for just one person, there is no way to test if it works well for hundreds of thousands who might use it every day.
This bit of info from the Aetna CEO is an indictment of the management of this project by the federal government. There is no way that the site should have been allowed to go live on October 1. Any idiot would have understood that there were going to be massive problems with the untested site. Sadly, we know that the White House was expressly warned that these problems were going to be severe. We also know that president Obama insisted that the roll out proceed as scheduled. This is one problem with the federal government that can be placed directly at the feet of Obama.
Look, I do not believe that Obamacare is a good system or a good move for America. Nevertheless, it is still a disaster to have millions of folks trying to buy insurance but being prevented from doing so by a website that just will not work. We are talking here about the healthcare for millions of Americans. This has to be delayed and fixed. NOW!!!
But all this has been in the news before. What is new today is an interview with the CEO of Aetna, one of the nation's largest providers of health insurance. Aetna was one of the companies enlisted by the feds to help with the website roll out. According to the CEO, there would normally be five types of testing done on a site like this before it was fully ready for roll out. With Obamacare, NONE of the testing was done. The Aetna CEO says that the feds did not provide "code drops" until less than a month before the date for going live. The various testing methodologies are currently being done "on the fly". Indeed the Aetna CEO points out that certain types of testing cannot even be started until all of the functionality of the site is complete. What that means is that until the site can work well for just one person, there is no way to test if it works well for hundreds of thousands who might use it every day.
This bit of info from the Aetna CEO is an indictment of the management of this project by the federal government. There is no way that the site should have been allowed to go live on October 1. Any idiot would have understood that there were going to be massive problems with the untested site. Sadly, we know that the White House was expressly warned that these problems were going to be severe. We also know that president Obama insisted that the roll out proceed as scheduled. This is one problem with the federal government that can be placed directly at the feet of Obama.
Look, I do not believe that Obamacare is a good system or a good move for America. Nevertheless, it is still a disaster to have millions of folks trying to buy insurance but being prevented from doing so by a website that just will not work. We are talking here about the healthcare for millions of Americans. This has to be delayed and fixed. NOW!!!
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