Obamacare and you

[CountDeMoney]

Website failures, imagine that. 

Of all the programs of all scopes and scales that I've seen, from onlining minor ODBC projects to standing up e911 centers, I've never seen "Day 1" actually become "Day 1".

I'd like to think that all of these rollout failures would educate people on the weaknesses of relying solely upon the word IT sachems and witchdoctors, on how simply expecting all this bullshit technology to magically work alone is naive, but it won't.  The mindset is too ingrained.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to patch a video game I just bought.

[garbon]

Website failures, imagine that. 

Of all the programs of all scopes and scales that I've seen, from onlining minor ODBC projects to standing up e911 centers, I've never seen "Day 1" actually become "Day 1".

I'd like to think that all of these rollout failures would educate people on the weaknesses of relying solely upon the word IT sachems and witchdoctors, on how simply expecting all this bullshit technology to magically work alone is naive, but it won't.  The mindset is too ingrained.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to patch a video game I just bought.

Weren't these sites supposedly going live at what is now almost 2 months ago?

[Ed Anger]

I miss filling out forms with Carbon paper.

[CountDeMoney]

Weren't these sites supposedly going live at what is now almost 2 months ago?

You seem to think governments work on the same clocks you and I do.

[Admiral Yi]

I think we need to claw back some money from bonehead contractors.

[CountDeMoney]

That would be a good first step, but the contractor model is too ingrained as well.  Everybody's too busy gutting their internal workforces.

[Admiral Yi]

If you're suggesting federal agencies maintain in house capability, I don't see the point.  HHS is not going to be creating an Obamacare.gov every year.

[CountDeMoney]

If HHS had enough in-house talent and infrastructure to build a project, I'm sure it would've done a better job than a wide disparate number of contractors independently developing their own pieces of the puzzle and trying to fit them all together.  A lot easier to build something from the ground up and out than down and in.

[Capetan Mihali]

I miss filling out forms with Carbon paper.

We do plea agreements that way.  By the time you get to the 5th copy, for the defense attorney, it usually looks untouched by any writing implement whatsoever. 

[Berkut]

If HHS had enough in-house talent and infrastructure to build a project, I'm sure it would've done a better job than a wide disparate number of contractors independently developing their own pieces of the puzzle and trying to fit them all together.  A lot easier to build something from the ground up and out than down and in.

There is no way HHS would have the in-house talent or infrastructure to do something like this - what would those people be doing when they weren't building gigantic websites?

This is actually an example of where the contractor model makes perfect sense. The real problem here is simply one of scope and timing. As is always the case, the people who decide WHAT should be done have no appreciation for what CAN be done realistically given the time constraints.

So I am sure you had people making decisions about timing and content based on nothing more than political concerns, rather than approaching the issue from the proper technical perspective. I bet a billion fake internet dollars nobody went to the technical people and said something like "Given the resources available, what can we get done by this November 1st deadline?". No, they simply went and said "Hey, this has to be done by November 1st! And it has to have everything in it and working by then! Get to it!".

[Admiral Yi]

Time constraints?  They've had five years.

[Maximus]

Define "they"

[CountDeMoney]

So I am sure you had people making decisions about timing and content based on nothing more than political concerns, rather than approaching the issue from the proper technical perspective.

Of course that's what happened.  That's what always happens, whether it's government or anywhere else;  there's a level of expectation from the top that technology-driven projects are just like any other project, and that a website with such severe back end requirements can be created with the same deadline-oriented speed and efficiency of, say, an advertising campaign.

I bet a billion fake internet dollars nobody went to the technical people and said something like "Given the resources available, what can we get done by this November 1st deadline?". No, they simply went and said "Hey, this has to be done by November 1st! And it has to have everything in it and working by then! Get to it!".

And I'll bet another billyun fake internet dollars that the technical people (contractors) were too afraid to speak up and tell them, "no, it can't be done". 

C'mon, you've been in those conversations;  nobody in the room wants to tell the guy in the big chair at the end of the table that what he's asking for can't be done on time, in the way he wants it done, or at the price he wants it.

[Grey Fox]

Time constraints?  They've had five years.

[Admiral Yi]

Define "they"

The people responsible for getting this going.

I understand your implicit point.  I don't know when exactly the politicos green lit the project and starting the bidding and the work.  However, that begs the question of how a contractor should respond when given an unrealistic work proposal. 

"We need a website capable of processing insurance requests for ONE BILLION people, and you have 2 months to do it.  What's your bid?" 

If you accept the job you're telling the politicos the work can be performed in the time allotted and with the budget specified.