Health Care Thoughts: Don’t Blame the Techies!
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
Health Care Thoughts: Don’t Blame the Techies!
The early phases of the exchange sign up have been an unqualified disaster. It must be the techies, right? Not necessarily.
The program design is wildly complicated, with the exchange system trying to do a start-to-finish on a very complicated transaction and pinging for information verification from various government and data firm web sites. Some of the states sites are reported as working well, but the IRS verification piece is not being completed because it cannot be. Are states sites accurate? Dunno.
This matches the rest of ACA, a program in which almost every segment is incredibly complicated, even while good intentioned.
Don’t blame the techies. This is a program design problem.
I found this in the news:
“Though the federal HealthCare.gov appears to face serious technical problems, state-run marketplaces like Kentucky appear adept at quickly fixing problems and are successfully enrolling people. In Kentucky, 10,766 applications for health coverage were initiated on the first day and “6,909 completed and 2,989 families were enrolled.” Nearly 150,000 New Yorkers have signed up for Obamacare and 35,528 enrollments were completed in three weeks in Washington state”
Rusty, I agree completely. This is the classic management issue. The last change (and it was a major redesign) was done in the last few weeks? Not time to implement. Not time to adequately function test. failed stress test. And the Prez claimed it was going well?
The Prez actually caused us to shut down over this IT disaster. Accept it! Live with it! Wear it!
Dan, from extensive experience, those already enrolled, and eventually signed up for Obamacare will need special handling for the duration of the IT system or their lives. This is not uncommon for IT systems, but the level of errors and the probable duration of the total clean up period makes this systems early signup handling problems extreme.
i suspect we have yet to see the real problems to appear. Those will happen in the months after the system is stabilized.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/americans-will-have-an-extra-six-weeks-to-buy-health-coverage-before-facing-penalty/2013/10/23/db52dd1a-3c36-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html
I cannot find the op ed in NYT that discussed the differences in timing of state efforts beginning two years ago and the federal efforts purportedly being delayed until later.
Dan, this will be real when policies are issued and accurate invoices mailed to the insured.
I really hope it works, otherwise the mess gets really huge.
Rusty, using your metrics I think the ACA will be unsuccessful for the better part of a year. The Web site should be fixed and useable within a couple of months. Most of the fixes will streamline and simplify the user access which will allow shopping and then sign up.
I know that the security issues behind the scenes will be an ongoing head ache and cause many glitches. A major failure is in the works when the personal data collected is hacked. This is almost an inevitability, and has probably already occurred.
TYhs is a comment from an experienced DoD Proj Mgr:
“quid2112 says:
October 25, 2013 at 10:11 am
I predict that they will spend yet another billion$ and get nowhere. The American people will believe their crap when they ask for more money, and they will get it. The problem is, less than 1/10th of 1% of the population has any clue, what-so-ever, of how software is designed, built and operated. I have been a software engineer for almost 30 years now with exposure in just about every corner and industry (currently working with embedded energy devices). I have built hundreds of web applications (some that you have probably been on). There is no way this Obamacare web application will ever work properly, but the population has no clue how this stuff works and this administration will be able to spin this thing for quite a while before the masses finally have had enough. I hope I am wrong, but it is easy to fool the ignorant.”
I agree. The back end of this app is already and will continue to be a disaster. Of this I speak from deep experience.
Oh bull sh*t CoRev:
Have you ever said an honest and unbiased word in your life?
The states dragged their feet up till the very end before deciding they would not implement state exhanges for healthare insurance.
The Republican held state legislatures blocked funding.
“Dr. Donald M. Berwick, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2010 and 2011, said the time and budgetary pressures were a constant worry. ‘The staff was heroic and dedicated, but we did not have enough money, and we all knew that,” he said in an interview on Friday.'”
Rusty:
You amongst them all should know better. Michigan is being run by a bunch of morons in the state legislature who deliberately delayed to decide on the state exchange and the Medicaid expansion. Synder decides a 2nd year of Algebra is not needed . . . because he could not master it.