Consumer Reports: ‘Stay Away From HealthCare.gov’

So reads the headline out across different sources today. That can't be especially helpful to see by those working to promote this. I imagine that's the least of the concerns at the HHS and White House, though.

That's neither here nor there. Consumer Reports is talking to us, not them and this is some advice for everyone who has been bashing their heads into the electronic brick wall of HealthCare.gov.

Consumer Reports, which publishes reviews of consumer products and services, advised its readers to avoid the federal healthcare exchange “for at least another month if you can.” “Hopefully that will be long enough for its software vendors to clean up the mess they’ve made,” the magazine said, having tested the site themselves over the course of the past three weeks.

So it isn't saying to stay away forever. In fact, under current law, that wouldn't be a wise thing for anyone, once it's functional. The IRS isn't likely to be taking excuses in the first year for Penalty vs. Proof of enrollment or membership in a qualifying plan.

It's that getting signed up part that seems challenging right now though...

Noting that only 271,000 of the 9.47 million people who tried signing up in the first week managed to create an account. . . . . . . . .

Indeed... getting signed up seems the whole problem. Amazing on that... Math to resources to computer power isn't rocket science. They spent enough money to hire the best on Earth for this ...twice. We ought to have the very model of perfection. Instead..the best advice?

Now three weeks into the exchanges, having offered reviews and advice, Consumer Reports said that “If all [these suggestions] are too much to absorb, follow our previous advice: Stay away from Healthcare.gov,” at least for the time being.

Source

I have to agree from all reports. Until this gets resolved? Staying away may not be a bad idea for now.

Outsourcing, they deserve what they got. Too bad we can't get rid of what we gotten in political corruption.

Yeah, it's a mess. Just because I like to see things for myself, especially with all of the hyperbole being thrown around in regards to the ACA, I decided to make an account to see what I could find. I managed to make an account, and occasionally, I can even sign in. That's where it ends, though. Once I sign in successfully, the next page never loads.

I'm not surprised that the technology being used is outdated. We usually get the old tech. Our computers are the oldest Dell laptops that are still available, our software is always outdated, and our cell phones are at least four generations behind. For example, we finally got upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007 a couple years ago...

Before that, we were having to have IT download a temporary compatibility tool so we could open up attachments from state agencies.

i wonder if that's why the pres came out talking like a salesmen this morning.
he sounded just like a bad used car salesmen, it was pitiful.

I am willing to bet that we see a helluva lot of folks that will refuse to enroll. Some states have made "Abominationcare" illegal within their borders. We can't rely on this obviously corrupt government to rid us of this dead albatross around our collective necks... maybe mass refusals to even enroll in the system will be the end of the system... civil disobedience can be a powerful tool...

This reply is by no means a defense of the web application, rather a bit of possible explanation for the problems
Sorry I'm unable to quote the source directly, but just last week a TV news feature interviewing a web development specialist listed two things of interest and note regarding the website's design:

1. In SEPTEMBER the decision was made (by the Admininstration, not technicians) to require account creation before allowing any browsing of plans available. This is contrary to the vast majority of user-facing web applications which permit browsing and product selection, delaying the acquisition of user in formation until "checkout".

2. The technical specialist indicated that the application was moving around "ten time more data than a normal application", which he thought was a prime source of the "malfunctions".

This makes perfect sense to me regarding these application problems - if you have to "shuttle around" user identification information rather than just merely session-related information server load will be tremend.ous and response times will necessarily be unacceptably slow to the point of at least seeming like a failure to the user (with actual failure likely). What's the difference between "failure" and a half-hour response time when it comes to web users? NONE!

WHO AND WHY was the decision made to require account creation BEFORE allowing users to browse plan availability? The only plausible reason I can come up with is that TPTB wanted to make damn sure they had YOUR information, to the detriment of the application performance. More surveillance, more intrusion, more control & intimidation.

We won't be signing up for Obamacare in this household regardless of the law - we've got private insurance already and I'm on Medicare as well. Good luck to those who feel compelled to sign up to avoid the penalties - you'll need to eveluate whether the "tax penalty" is worth paying or avoiding based on what you'd have to pay for health insurance under the new exchanges. If you happen to be one of the currently uninsured Americans who sought to benefit from the program, you have my best wishes for success. Just my two cents.

ganjoa

I have no problem staying away from it. I don't even know if I'll be required to do this or not. I'm under the impression it is mandatory but I'll figure it out when I get a letter in the mail. Until then - Noone but the media has told me this is required.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


All the good software engineers work for the NSA

Really inexcusable, I have been meaning to google up how much the gov paid these contractors and what companies got the work etc.

Here you go..
www.washingtonpost.com...

It's got to be a massive undertaking setting up databases where they can match everyone's health records to all the phone/text/email records they already have.

BobM88
It's got to be a massive undertaking setting up databases where they can match everyone's health records to all the phone/text/email records they already have.

Which brings one question to mind, how fast would this happen if there was a Military Draft in operation?

Seemed to work pretty fast for the Vietnam war.

Regards, Iwinder

reply to post by Iwinder


You know, that's a fantastic point, isn't it? How many draftees flooded the system during the Vietnam war? Granted they weren't signing up on a web site, but that also meant a hell of a lot of hand work for people that doesn't have to be done now.

If you want to check out Obamacare before signing up use fake information to open a account.

if enough people did that it would cause major problems later when they try to match the database to the taxpayers.

If every person set up a fake account then later when they were forced to sign up set up a real account there would be a big list of fake people for the IRS data base to have to try to track and penalize.

ANNED
If you want to check out Obamacare before signing up use fake information to open a account.

if enough people did that it would cause major problems later when they try to match the database to the taxpayers.

If every person set up a fake account then later when they were forced to sign up set up a real account there would be a big list of fake people for the IRS data base to have to try to track and penalize.

Brilliant! I love it... just use a proxy lest the NSA catches on

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I've been saying -- and I maintain my stance that the ACA wasn't ever really designed to work, but fail miserably and force the people into the arms of a single-payer system similar to Canada/UK/France.

At first I'll admit I didn't think it was that horrible, but the reports came in (which were verifiable via the calculators) my mind started to change.

It'll be an interesting next few years, that's for sure.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


I think my political science instructor summed it up best, last fall (as a democrat no less).

What entered Congress to debate in 2009 was bad, but it was workable. It could have benefited far more than harmed and done real good. It wouldn't have been in the spirit or sense I personally feel our system was built to handle things, but as he noted then, this is a split nation and neither side will ever get 'exactly' what IT wants. Our system has failed if that ever changes, as the other half (whichever half for an issue) will have been stomped to achieve it.

What came out of Congress in 2009 ....was a total shambles of what went in. Most positive things were stripped, more negative things added and the original heart of the bill was torn out. So we ended up with the worst of all sides in "Compromise" that should have seen the result go through the shredder for a fresh start.

...but of course, as we all recall, by then? We were told...if not ordered..to accept this and like it because SOMETHING was going to pass with the not so subtle implication that failure to appreciate this would result in worse being forced upon us.

Hell of a way to run a nation ...and I'll always say this was a bipartisan train wreck, with very different contributions from each. It still required both to cooperate in their roles to happen.

madmac5150
I am willing to bet that we see a helluva lot of folks that will refuse to enroll. Some states have made "Abominationcare" illegal within their borders. We can't rely on this obviously corrupt government to rid us of this dead albatross around our collective necks... maybe mass refusals to even enroll in the system will be the end of the system...

Nope. Watch and see what happens. Americans are not lawbreakers. American citizens are used to obeying the laws because they're used to laws that are good for them.

The people who refuse to enroll will ultimately be labeled as mentally ill (like in the old Soviet Union where if you disagreed with totalitarianism, you had to be crazy). They will ultimately force everyone into this system and you will not have a choice.

That's the twisted genius of the whole thing. Taking over the healthcare industry gives them control over the domain of mental health by default. They can then use the mental health industry to finish the job of brainwashing people and coercing those who refuse to comply with Obamacare.

If they give you a choice between complying with Obamacare and languishing in a loony bin, what would you do? Most people want nothing to do with that.

They are already well on their way to doing this. If you're paying attention, you can see it. Every day, they're hammering away. Talking about how mental illness is the real problem in America. Which some of that is true but they can easily invent new mental illnesses once they control the system. Lots of people who are not currently mentally ill might wake up one morning and find they've become "mentally unbalanced" overnight.


Edit -

The Obamacare mandate "tax" is obviously not a tax and never was. Was never meant to be. It's obviously a penalty and was obviously designed to coerce. They never had any intentions of giving people any choice whatsoever. And the only reason the "tax" starts out relatively small was they didn't want to risk having people make too much noise about it before 2016. And obviously, they wanted to leave enough wiggle room for the court to call it a tax. Because Obama obviously knows when he's not being honest and when he's making empty promises.

If you noticed the mandate doesn't even kick in at all until 2014, you can see they absolutely planned ahead and scheduled this thing around the election schedule. And it doesn't go up to it's full force until 2016.

Anyway, most people will not refuse and if you do, they will take steps to give this mandate some teeth. I have no doubt of that. The part of this law that supposedly forbids them from punishing you for not complying can be changed just as easily as the part where Obama changes his mind in the space of a few months and decides there's going to be a mandate even after he said there wouldn't be.