MSNBC Reporter Quits Obamacare Sign Up Demo After Glitches: "This Is Where My Patience Would Be Exhausted"

Obamacare's bumps and glitches continue in this MSNBC segment, in which one of the network's reporters takes viewers through the process of signing up for health insurance on Maryland's health insurance exchange.

Or at least tries, anyway. That's because it doesn't work. She fills in her personal information, but runs into an online error. The system's live chat option doesn't work. And the help line gives her a recorded message. At the end, she simply gives up on the process. 

(Video via GOPICYMI.)

Multiple states appear to be having technical trouble with the rollout of the health law's exchanges today. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has argued that the exchanges deserve to be given the "same slack" people give to Apple. 

Comments

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

You would think a State Propaganda Organ like MSNBC would at least have the foresight to conduct a dry-run before trying this on the air.

[AlmightyJB]

But if they had tge ability to think things through beforehand, they wouldn't be supporting these policies in the first place.

[Tonio]

^This.

[Banjos]

True believers never question, second guess, or overall think.

[MJGreen]

Yep. Of course it was going to work! What are you, a teathuglican?

[Tonio]

^This, also.

[anon]

You would think a State Propaganda Organ like MSNBC would at least have the foresight to conduct a dry-run before trying this on the air.

It just shows their complete devotion to anything and everything the Federal Government and their messiah do.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Hahaha! Your computer are broken lady.

[AlmightyJB]

She just needs to reboot.

[Scarecrow Repair]

I didn't watch, but I am curious -- is it an Apple?

[Michael]

It appears to be a Windows XP machine running IE8, which is about the gold standard upon which any government website should run in the present day.

[Scarecrow Repair]

So do I cut them some slack or not? I am confused and troubled without my government to guide me.

[Mumu Bobby]

Lotus spreadsheet software maintenance is amazingly expensive........ since the government is the only user.

[Redmanfms]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

Deep Breath

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

[Banjos]

A shutdown and now this, is it my Birthday or something?

[Lord Humungus]

bring out the dancer (of your favorite sexual persuasion) inside the cake!

[Spoonman.]

Well, I just tried to create an account (Pennsylvania, so a federal exchange) and I got that my account could not be created.

The password and username requirements were absurd, as a bonus.

[CatoTheElder]

The password and username requirements were absurd, as a bonus.

I thought the same.

[Tonio]

The password and username requirements were absurd, as a bonus.

Assume you mean absurd as in enforced complexity and security rules.

I expect a lot of lost and forgotten passwords. They authentication and recovery of these are going to be marvelous to behold.

[Spoonman.]

Yeah, your username needed to have one of three special characters in it, and there were all sorts of poorly stated requirements for passwords. On the plus side the requirements were so odd that I didn't use a password I use anywhere else, so when it inevitably gets hacked it won't cause me much worry.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Why would a username need to have a special character in it? That does not make sense.

[Invisible Finger]

The private sector is stockpiling all the good programmers.

[Bobarian]

And all the good usernames, too.

[Tonio]

You're right, NLK. My best guess is that some bureaucrat was unclear on the diff between username and password and ordered the programmers to make it so.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

It irritates hackers. "What son of a bitch uses a $ sign in his username?"

[RBS]

RB$

[CatoTheElder]

I imagine that the $ sign is popular with Randians.

[CE]

Only on their cuff links.

[Nephilium]

And the passwords have a character limit and forbid certain special characters...

[Tonio]

Delicious. But quotes and apostrophes can cause problems in some circumstances.

[Scarecrow Repair]

Are they trying to help little Johnny Tables?

[Banjos]

Let me guess: 25 long and has to have an uppercase and lowercase letter, a number, a symbol, a non English letter, and none can be repeated.

[Lord Humungus]

sounds like our server guy is moonlighting.

[Larrybud]

What's also funny is that the site has no CAPTCHA. Gonna have bots signing up!

[Tonio]

Oh, that's delicious.

[Michael]

The password and username requirements were absurd, as a bonus.

So is it safe to assume that two factor authentication is not part of the equation either?

[creech]

Airlines are blasted unmercifully about losing some fraction of one percent of checked luggage. Yet this enrollment fiasco will go on and on with the media making one excuse after another until, one hopes, the real constitutional "anarchists" are voted into office in 2014 and start rolling back the Top. Men.

[Adam330]

And this is precisely why the shutdown was such an absurd strategy. This would be the top headline all week if there weren't a shutdown, but now it will be buried.

[Neoliberal Kochtopus]

Yeah, I just bet the media would be all over this.

How hard is it to get through to you folks that it was the Democrats who chose to shut down the government?

[sarcasmic]

Cunning.

[CatoTheElder]

When one side in a negotiation states flatly, "Absolutely, I will not negotiate," that side is generally considered to be the cause of failure to resolve a dispute in good faith.

But that is a verbatim quote from Obama's own lips.

So, it's still the Republican's fault even though they've proffered several compromises.

[sarcasmic]

Ever heard the expression "Heads I win, tails you lose"?

It's always like that with the Democrats. If the Republicans offer to negotiate, they're still being obstructionists because they're not giving the Democrats exactly what they want, and when the Democrats refuse to negotiate, they are the ones offering to compromise in the form of exactly what they want.

See?

Heads the Democrats win, tails the Republicans lose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Close. When Democrats stonewall and obstruct, they are just "sticking to their principles" or "standing up for the little guy."

They are on the side of the angels. Everything they do is good. If you aren't doing what they want, it must mean that you are evil.

[CE]

Wanting to change the (un)Affordable Care Act = obstructionism.

Wanting to change the debt ceiling law = being reasonable.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

That remark basically screams "I was a great law student and now I'm a shitty lawyer." What kind of competent lawyer doesn't negotiate?

[Killazontherun]

^this.

[Invisible Finger]

So the Democrats finally did something right?

[Adam330]

Yes, the media would be talking about it constantly. Now they aren't because there are shinier things.

[CatoTheElder]

I don't know about elsewhere, but when I tried to create an account in the Texas version, HealthCare.gov crashed at the security questions page. I had only wasted about ten minutes getting to the point that I concluded that HealthCare.gov is a shitty system. I suppose that's pretty good for government work.

[anon]

Pretty sure we *all* saw this coming.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, this was as shocking to me as the sun rising in the east.

[JD the elder]

John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!

Yeah, but if Mr. Obama's Wild Healthcare Ride breaks down, the customers don't die...oh, wait.

[Larrybud]

The difference is that if I didn't want to go to Disneyland, I didn't have to pay for Disneyland

[CE]

Fortunately, there was no individual Disneyland mandate back then.

[TANSTaaFL]

And now I give you the only appropriate response - Ron Swanson laughing...

http://youtu.be/0mfd-V-X3Ko

[Adamsmith1776]

"Of course it does not work because the GOP caused the government to shut down on the very day it was supposed to start. It is all their fault." At least that is the theme BHO and company will start to spin soon. The sad thing is all of the attention to this screw-up distracts from the real harm the law is causing and will continue to cause.

[Paul.]

The 'glitch' in the system is Teabagging rethugnicans shutting down the government.

[Paul.]

Kathleen Sebelius has argued that the exchanges deserve to be given the "same slack" people give to Apple.

Hauled before a Senate committee and forced to answer questions about their business practices?

[Invisible Finger]

I am giving the same slack.

NONE. I don't have any Apple products.

[Bobarian]

At least you have the option to not use Apple products...

[The Last American Hero]

If Apple's new phone had half the problems of these exchanges, the share price would plummet and there would be a new executive team in place before the end of the year, probably before the end of the month. So when does the Secretary submit her resignation?

[Paul.]

Steve Jobs ran Apple until he died... so...

[bboroshaff]

Actually, Apple ran Jobs off back in 1985 then had to bring him back to save the company after it was near bankruptcy.

[datcv]

Did they contract with Electronic Arts roll this out?

[radar]

How adorable - SadBeard thinks he's funny!

Matt Yglesias ? @mattyglesias It's just like conservatives always warned ? ObamaCare is too popular and it's overloading the servers.12:41 PM - 1 Oct 2013