TheHealthCare.govlaunch did not go so well . Some people paid the website a visit only to be greeted by a blank screen . Others found error messages or talk to misleading call heart reps or had their personal entropy compromised . The whole thing is borked , andeverybody have a go at it it .
It ’s been less than a month now since the much predict home for the Obama administration ’s healthcare exchange went online , and it ’s move to be at least another month before it actually works . The problem are by no means minor . Reutersreportsthat hundred of thousands of Americans could turn a loss memory access to low - price health insurance as a solution of the bungled launch . At this point , everybody ’s play the incrimination game pretty hard . Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blames the ( too many ) contractor who build the site . Obamablames himself . American , for some ground , seemto want to fault the little girl in the lineage photoon HealthCare.gov . But quite frankly we might never be able to find a single perpetrator .
So , as Bloomberg Businessweekcommemorates the epical failthat was the Healthcare.gov launch with a wondrous glitchy Obama cover , it ’s deserving throw a flavor how that fail really happen .
Site Overload
It was bad from the start . On day one , citizenry hear to access HealthCare.gov immediately hit a wall . rather of expose the many affordable care option available under Obamacare , the site read , sadly :
We have a set of visitors on the site right now . Please stick around on this pageboy . We ’re mould to make the experience better , and we do n’t want you to mislay your place in line . We ’ll send out you to the login page as soon as we can . Thanks for your longanimity !
Just keep staring at that blinking cursor , America !
Unfortunately , the contractor who progress the site see this coming … but did n’t say anything . Just Clarence Shepard Day Jr. before the launching , site tests showed that HealthCare.gov would crashafter just a few hundred visitors . The almost 10 million that evince up on launch date never had a chance .
Site Suicide
After the nightmarish bottleneck in the site ’s first days , Reutersasked a bunch of security expertswhat could be cause all the trouble . The experts agreed that it was n’t just the traffic . The site ’s very architecture was to blame , specifically the fact that the site made exploiter download an ungovernable amount of data just to enter . One expert counted 92 separate file and plugins — including 56 JavaScript files — that user had to download when they hit the “ lend oneself ” button on HealthCare.gov . Another said that the amount of information devolve back and forward was so vivid , it made it appear “ as if the system was attack itself . ” So you lie with about spread denial of service attacks ? HealthCare.gov was in effect launching one against itself .
Glitchy Sign Up Process
If you were lucky enough to actually load HealthCare.gov in those first few Day , you probably did n’t make it very far . Glitchesplagued the sign - up process . Some people reported that the situation would n’t realise their logarithm in or passwords — more on that in a second — while others hap upon error content and “ page not found ” screens . At the very least , plenty of mass complain that the land site ran slowly . Meanwhile , the insurance companies that were receiving information from the exchange complained that theywere receiving incomplete and duplicate lotion . That all adds up to a lot of distressed Americans .
Bad Customer Service
Whenever you muster up the courage to actually call a customer service hotline and endure the sorry grasp euphony , the last thing you need is to be secern the untimely affair . Well , that ’s precisely what HealthCare.gov rep did . As early as October 8 , the situation ’s call centerwas telling hoi polloi to reset their passwordsto help ease the site ’s enter problem . But , whoops , that ’s not even true because call center repswere give the wrong handwriting . Meanwhile , other people were being told to re - register completely , albeit with a novel username since their sometime one was stuck in limbo somewhere . Sound commodious ?
Data Center Outages
Last weekend , a data center powering HealthCare.gov experienced a nonstarter and lost connectivity . The outage regard not only all of the Americans seek to bless up for coverage through the federal exchange but also masses in the 14 states and District of Columbia who had set up their own exchange . This one is arguably not the government ’s fault , though . Verizon’sTerremarkoperates the datum centre and said the outage happened during plan maintenance . But surely , HealthCare.gov’scrappy architecturedidn’t aid .
Privacy Violations
So on top of all that nonsense , we ’ve recently learned that HealthCare.gov is go against its own secrecy policy . Security researcher Ben Simospotted some troublewhen seek to recuperate his username and password . For some ground , HealthCare.gov was sending his personal data to third party companies , including analytics services like DoubleClick and Google Analytics . Those society have since said that they have no interest in this kind of data , but the very fact that HealthCare.gov sends it to themappears to be a encroachment of HealthCare.gov ’s own privacy insurance policy : It promises that “ no personally identifiable information is collected by these peter . ”
Security Risks
File this one under “ avoidable misplay . ” A memo date stamp four days before HealthCare.gov go live give away that the political science knew that the site had “ inbuilt protection risks,”but it moved forward anyway . The memo also said that the internet site had n’t been test enough , “ exposing a level of uncertainty that can be view as high endangerment . ” Personal data that hoi polloi surrender to HealthCare.gov include birthdate , Social Security number and reckon income reach ; however , security researchers bring out how the gaps could let on users ’ email address and allow hackers to take over full accounts . Nevertheless , Secretary Kathleen Sebeliustold a House committee this weekthat they die onward with the launching because they had a “ mitigation plan ” in place . A little belatedly for that now , Kathleen .
Update 11/01 : All thing considered , the bustle of problem with HealthCare.gov left a mess of people run aground while adjudicate to find health insurance . Like , passably much everyone . Federal Reserve note released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee show thatonly six the great unwashed successfully enrolled in healthcare planson the internet site ’s first day live . By the end of day two , the number had climbed to 248 . That ’s a pretty far cry from the millions of uninsured Americans who need this site to play .
Barack ObamaHealthObamacare
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