Maybe Healthcare.gov Isn't So Fixed

As Peter Suderman noted earlier, the Obama Administration's declaration of victory over Healthcare.gov's technical issues may be a little premature. For the hell of it, this morning I tried signing in to the federal Obamacare exchange Website to set up an account. I used Mozilla Firefox 25.0.1. I picked Arizona as my state. Everything went swimmingly…until I actually tapped the "Get Started" button. I saw code salad, as the screenshot below demonstrates.

U.S. Government

So I started over and tried again. And again. The third try was the charm.

To be fair, I opened Google Chrome and was able to get in and set up an account using that browser on the first try. My email notification of "Marketplace account created" arrived soon after. Just a thought, but maybe the tech wizzes working on Obamacare's woes might need a little more time to slap duct tape on the website's boo boos.

Comments

[Tim]

A fake account, and then you reported on it? You probably committed a dozen felonies.

[Jordan]

His most grave offensive was embarrassing Lord Obama.

[Jordan]

Offense, offensive. Seem thing.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

Somebody's getting an audit!

[Almanian!]

The account is real. The only "fake" thing is all the "scandals" the Rethuglistructiohadists have dreamed up.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! FORWARD!

[Tim]

Yes forward, and, audit Tucille's taxes.

[Ronny Paulino]

*TEAthuglistructiohadists

[John]

It will never be fixed. The only issue now is can the made it just functional enough to allow the state run media to claim it is "fixed".

[Fist of Etiquette]

404 Mission Accomplished

[Bryan C]

+1

[Tim]

I like how they say 80% can sign on. Nothing about actually accomplishing anything, like buying insurance. Imagine if Google only worked 80% of the time.

[GILMORE]

"80%" is a good sounding number that lets the Vast majority of users who have problems feel better thinking that they're actually only that other 20%.

By the way = who is 'measuring' this success rate other than the purveyors themselves? The fact they don't declare 100% success just means they have to allow for the griping of the negative-nancies.

[prolefeed]

Imagine if Google only worked 80% of the time.

Imagine if, when you hit the Google button on your toolbar, 20% of the time you'd be completely unable to even get to the Google home page that day.

And the other 80% of the time, you usually either got no answers to queries, or wrong answers.

How long would Google remain in business?

[Ken Shultz]

This reminds me of Bush's blunders into Iraq. I was surprised as anybody when it turned out there wasn't any WMD to be found, but the problems associated with occupying Iraq were a lot more than just Hussein allegedly having WMD.

I used to argue around here that we should probably shut up about the WMD skepticism for a while since emphasizing that might distract people from focusing on the more substantial and immediate problems of the occupation. If people think the lack of WMD is the biggest problem, then how will we rally them against the war if and when the WMD is found?

Eventually, the Obama Administration will fix their stupid website, and when that happens, if we've got people thinking that the biggest problem with ObamaCare is the stupid exchanges, then how will we rally them against ObamaCare once the website is fixed?

Exactly how many Americans have lost their insurance plans because of ObamaCare? How many of them couldn't afford to buy a new policy? How many people who get their insurance from their employer have been forced to pick a new policy? How much has the price of insurance gone up for the average American because of ObamaCare?

The exchanges are a distraction.

[Lord Humungus]

hmm... I don't think the crappy exchanges are causing the most political damage. Instead it was the political lie "If you like your insurance then you can keep it."

Even if the exchanges were working tip-top 100% - and even with the media carrying water by the buckets - the damage is the law itself.

[Ken Shultz]

Damn straight.

If I thought the Obama Administration were smart, I'd bet they were hoping to keep the website problems in the news as much as possible to distract people from all the other systemic, more fundamental problems.

People aren't losing their plans because of the website. They're losing their plans because of the regulations. The website failures are easy to focus on, but that's the least destructive aspect of ObamaCare.

And fixing ObamaCare is going to take a lot more than fixing the website. Eventually, we're gonna have to repeal the damn thing or the middle class is going to suffer some serious consequences.

[John]

The website is a side issue to people losing their health insurance.

[HazelMeade]

I hear you, but the cancellation notices if anything proved that the website cannot possibly distract from other issues.

Obama only bought time on the cancellations, but it will come back considering state insurance commissioners still have to weigh in.

[Ken Shultz]

There's no question that reality will eventually assert itself, but I'm hoping more opposition to ObamaCare will materialize before reality has its way with the middle class.

It's like the Great Leap Forward. Yeah, eventually reality had its way and millions of people starved to death, and no matter how the Chinese government spun things, all that starvation proved impossible to ignore, but I'm still hoping we can avert a lot of that suffering.

A big chunk of the middle class losing its access to quality, affordable healthcare isn't exactly like starving to death, but the principle of reality asserting itself is the same. And I'm hoping to avert a lot of that suffering before ObamaCare really starts snowballing.

And, also, you'd be surprised how much reality people can ignore. Just look at the Drug War! All that suffering and people still think the problem is the implementation. Reality will assert itself, but I'm not sure people will always recognize it for what it is if we don't spell it out for them.

[SugarFree]

Gawker steps on its dick once again:

International Communism on the March: Healthcare.Gov Works Now

Additional comment lulz:

The vast majority of Americans have coverage through work and do not need to enroll. So why is 50,000 a low number? For cripes sake, it doesn't have to be eBay or Amazon. You aren't going to have that many users.

[Ken Shultz]

"The vast majority of Americans have coverage through work"

They really don't care about minorities, do they.

[Bryan C]

Or about the immediate future. It's not raining right now, so why are we talking about the giant hole in roof?

[prolefeed]

Gawker steps on its dick once again:

International Communism on the March: Healthcare.Gov Works Now

It reads like Gawker is mocking the Obama administration. Not sure how a quasi-Onion-ish parody is stepping on their dick.

[lap83]

If it wasn't for the Teathuglicahadists' trained squirrels which they ordered to destroy the website, we'd all have insurance now and it would probably be free, provided for by friendly doctors and non-profit insurance companies.