It’s been one full week since the flagship technology portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) went live. And since that time, the befuddled beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only by Congress.
The site itself, which apparently underwent major code renovations over the weekend, still rejects user logins, fails to load drop-down menus and other crucial components for users that successfully gain entrance, and otherwise prevents uninsured Americans in the 36 states it serves from purchasing healthcare at competitive rates – Healthcare.gov’s primary purpose. The site is so busted that, as of a couple days ago, the number of people that successfully purchased healthcare through it was in the “single digits,” according to the Washington Post.
Given the complicated nature of federal contracts, it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between the cost to develop Healthcare.gov and the amount of money spent building private online businesses. But for the sake of putting the monstrous amount of money into perspective, here are a few figures to chew on: Facebook, which received its first investment in June 2004, operated for a full six years before surpassing the $600 million mark in June 2010. Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year. And LinkedIn and Spotify, meanwhile, have only raised, respectively, $200 million and $288 million.
Digital Trends
39 comments:
The great thing about working for the government is your boss is never worried about losing his job.
Has anyone on this website tried to sign up for it?
Let the cost overruns begin!!
Can this be true? Ritmo always claims they are the smart ones and we are the dumb ones.
AllenS: Fuck no - we have enough hassles with our free market insurance. And hoping our small group does not get canned and thrown into the exchanges.
Sure there will be some rough patches at first, but ObamaCare will ultimately prove to be a godsend. And as soon as all the illegals have government-mandated medical insurance all those hospitals that closed their emergency rooms and then moved because of all the walk-in pregnancies will return like the swallows home to Capistrano.
Our only hope now is that the dysfunction of Obamacare is front loaded enough to kill it early, because the damage will grow every year it survives.
Have you heard the new solution being offered by some on the left? Single payer will solve all these problems. That's like fixing an abusive husband by giving him a gun.
Single payer? I've never heard of that before. How fresh.
The problem is the same one exemplified by Choom joking how the shovel ready projects weren't, after all.
They think they're so smart, any big mistake is just another, "Oops", and no big deal.
And, of course, nobody will get fired.
I don't think it can survive, at least not anywhere near the way it's now half-ass imagined.
It will probably not be entirely dumped either although that would be the smart move followed by real and free market reforms. It will be modified heavily to solve one problem at a time, stumbling along, screwing people's lives in a long trail of dropped opportunities, and bloody bandages until we end up with something that works poorly but people have gotten used to.
The Dems have effectively started the 100 years war of American politics, a huge muddy slog that will go on and on for decades.
On the positive, it may be the thing that teaches young and dumb Americans what you really get from a big fat hungry government.
I'm sure there's plenty of waste. There always is.
But this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. What Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn do is trivial compared to what the Obamacare site was expected to do. Those sites simply accept user-uploaded content and then serve it up again. That's easy. Insurance applications aren't.
AllenS, here's my one brush with someone I know actually trying to sign up:
28 y/o female currently paying $126/mo for insurance found out her new ACA Exchange policy would increase her deductible by $500 and cost $336 a month. But of course she qualified for a subsidy, right? Yes ... of $11/month (subject to repayment with interest and penalties if she later got a higher-paying job). So she declined to complete the rest of the sign up.
"So she declined to complete the rest of the sign up."
But I assume her account with all her personal information was already saved and will never be deleted. Doesn't that feel great? Thousands of strangers now have access to your identity and personal information in great detail, and most of them are Democrats who already think sharing your tax information is a valid form of political pressure. Of course none of them would share that info with criminals for money either.
If she's upset about that reality, tell her too bad. That situation is for life now, but thank you for trying our website.
sharing your tax information is a valid form of political pressure
Exactly. What could go wrong?? The next crop of Republican candidates will have to face not only its divorce files and tax returns being made public, but also their colonoscopy videos.
And of course the big scam (well, only one of many, really, from the Obama crowd) is that the MSM and the Feds have a full-court press going trying to imply that purchase of ins is mandatory--which it IS NOT. If one elects to "go bare" all one has to do is pay the fine/tax--which, for young people is probably the most cost effective option for the first few years--especially since when/if they incur a maj illness they can still get ins as "pre-existing conditions" are held harmless as not a basis for denial of coverage.
Virgil said,
"...since when/if they incur a maj illness they can still get ins as "pre-existing conditions" are held harmless as not a basis for denial of coverage."
You can enroll but your coverage does not kick in for up to 45 days. Perhaps as long as three months depending on the time of year of your enrollment.
From the FAQ at the Kaiser site which is linked by Healthcare.gov:
"If you enroll in a private health insurance plan any time between October 1, 2013 and December 15, 2013 and make your first premium payment by the due date specified by your plan, your new health coverage starts January 1, 2014.
After that, if you enroll between the 1st and 15th day of the month and pay your premium by the due date, your coverage begins the first day of the next month. So if you enroll on February 10, 2014, your coverage begins March 1, 2014.
If you enroll between the 16th and the last day of the month and pay your premium by the due date, your effective date of coverage will be the first day of the second following month. So if you enroll on February 16, 2014, your coverage starts on April 1, 2014."
I'll admit to visiting.
Not for what you think ;)
Alinsky the thing.
And those answers only concern the open enrollment period of October to March. It appears that from April to September you cannot enroll unless you experience a qualifying life event - which does not include a heart attack or a broken leg.
So you can still buy private coverage (which itself must comply to new ACA standards)?
I tried to give silly answers to security questions, but it didn't work.
Ravel sound like she cracked the code ;)
And here - Kaiser - is a calculator which will give you an estimate for a Silver plan.
It is also linked by healthcare.gov. Note the out-of-pocket maximums.
I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but the "you can sign up when you get sick" idea is just another lie.
Rabel- thanks for the link. This looks like the place where interested applicants should go first.
I put in the data for a family member- he is 56 and smokes and would pay only about $3,000 for a silver plan. I will tell him to look into this.
Let me modify my 11:46. If you have chest pains on April 1 and need a quadruple bypass and you do not have health insurance you cannot get coverage until Jan 1 of the following year.
And bad news for low income smokers. The law allows insurers to add up to a 50% surcharge for smokers. The federal subsidies cannot be applied to that surcharge.
Rabel:
"And those answers only concern the open enrollment period of October to March. It appears that from April to September you cannot enroll unless you experience a qualifying life event - which does not include a heart attack or a broken leg."
So the govt is telling private insurers they can not offer new policies between April and September. What is the logic?
"And bad news for low income smokers. The law allows insurers to add up to a 50% surcharge for smokers. The federal subsidies cannot be applied to that surcharge."
Not very empathetic on the part of bleeding heart libs. Smokers are smokers because of past societal approval of the habit.
Rabel@12:12/
The crazy inconsistency of that aspect is that it does not allow insurers to add a surcharge for HIV/AIDS types--a FAR more costly cohort.
Revenant said...
But this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. What Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn do is trivial compared to what the Obamacare site was expected to do.
Maybe the people making promises and spending our money should have understood the difference.
all those hospitals that closed their emergency rooms and then moved because of all the walk-in pregnancies will return like the swallows home to Capistrano.
Well, if they had just swallowed in the first place, maybe there wouldn't be so many pregnancies.
Oh, wait, this isn't Trooper's blog?
That's like fixing an abusive husband by giving him a gun.
Come on, Bagoh, he WILL be much less likely to hit the missus with a lamp if he can pistol whip her instead.
Maybe the people making promises and spending our money should have understood the difference.
Definitely. But maybe the voters should have paid closer attention as well. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that this was a high-risk project that probably wasn't going to be functional in time.
If a person promises to completely remodel your house in a day and you cut him at fat check to pay for it... well, shame on him for promising it, but shame on you for your gullibility.
Revenant said...
But maybe the voters should have paid closer attention as well.
Ha - good one!
Rabel said...
And here - Kaiser - is a calculator which will give you an estimate for a Silver plan.
And as for the other Kaiser calculators, it cuts off at age 64.
I presume no Obamacare supplemental insurance for anyone on Medicare parts A & B.
I could be wrong, but I have seen nothing saying otherwise.
Obamacare does decrease funding for Medicare by the amount previously allocated for Medicare Advantage...which was a form of supplemental coverage in addition to A&B. I note that Humana and others are still selling "Medicare Advantage" plans however.
Is it possible to fully separate the lies from the facts in this mess?
For now I am not impacted as my coverage continues uninterrupted, but with ever increasing costs for accommodate Obammycare.
Even automobile insurance has been impacted seriously in no-fault states by potential liabilities for unlimited medical care ... my own just went up $318.00 per year for PL on a record of no violations, no accidents, no claims of any kind for over 20 years.
Someone needs to make sure Beohner reads this.
How much health care would $634,000,000 have bought for the uninsured ...
Or maybe even if part of it was invested in ... say Apple, (or insurance companies - haha) or something tame and solid. Or something DBQ might think is sound? You know ... like the endowments Harvard has?
Mmmm?
(How about that for thinking out of the box? ;;-) )
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