The WSJ reports that six days into the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the new health-care law, the federal government finally acknowledged that design and software problems have kept customers from applying online for coverage. The website is troubled by coding problems and flaws in the architecture of the system, according to insurance-industry advisers, technical experts and people close to the development of the marketplace.
Information technology experts who examined the healthcare.gov website at the request of The Wall Street Journal say the site appeared to be built on a sloppy software foundation and five outside technology experts interviewed by Reuters say they believe flaws in system architecture, not high traffic, contribute to the problems.
One magor cause of the problems is that hitting 'apply' on HealthCare.gov causes 92 separate files, plug-ins and other mammoth swarms of data to stream between the user's computer and the servers powering the government website, says Matthew Hancock, an independent expert in website design. He was able to track the files being requested through a feature in the Firefox browser. Of the 92 he found, 56 were JavaScript files... "They set up the website in such a way that too many requests to the server arrived at the same time," says Hancock adding that because so much traffic was going back and forth between the users' computers and the server hosting the government website, it was as if the system was attacking itself.
The delays come three months after the Government Accountability Office said a smooth and timely rollout could not be guaranteed because the online system was not fully completed or tested. 'If there's not a general trend of improvement in the next 72 hours of use in this is system then it would indicate the problems they're dealing with are more deep seated and not an easy fix,' says Jay Dunlap, senior vice president of health care technology company EXL.
The Website was designed and built by two companies, the lowest bidders, of course. One is Serco, a British company based in Hook, North Hampshire. Among its operations are public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military and nuclear weapons contracts, detention centres and prisons and schools. The other is Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), a health information technology company out of India with branch locations in VA, MD and SC. QSSI is the same company that designed the Website that I use for my glucometer tracking. That Website is a joke. There is a separate .js fle for every single function and event. Every time I upload data from the meter or input any other data manually, more than 100 files get sent back and forth, as it updates every single record with every single change of even one record. On average, every time I do an update, 200 MB of data gets sent and received, even if I'm only uploading a single meter reading (because it uploads all meter records every time, and the more records the meter accumulates, the worse it gets). And the Obamacare Website is set up the same way by the same people. The Website won't be a quick fix, it'll need a complete rewrite, and it's already cost the taxpayers millions. Your Obamacare at work.
Information technology experts who examined the healthcare.gov website at the request of The Wall Street Journal say the site appeared to be built on a sloppy software foundation and five outside technology experts interviewed by Reuters say they believe flaws in system architecture, not high traffic, contribute to the problems.
One magor cause of the problems is that hitting 'apply' on HealthCare.gov causes 92 separate files, plug-ins and other mammoth swarms of data to stream between the user's computer and the servers powering the government website, says Matthew Hancock, an independent expert in website design. He was able to track the files being requested through a feature in the Firefox browser. Of the 92 he found, 56 were JavaScript files... "They set up the website in such a way that too many requests to the server arrived at the same time," says Hancock adding that because so much traffic was going back and forth between the users' computers and the server hosting the government website, it was as if the system was attacking itself.
The delays come three months after the Government Accountability Office said a smooth and timely rollout could not be guaranteed because the online system was not fully completed or tested. 'If there's not a general trend of improvement in the next 72 hours of use in this is system then it would indicate the problems they're dealing with are more deep seated and not an easy fix,' says Jay Dunlap, senior vice president of health care technology company EXL.
The Website was designed and built by two companies, the lowest bidders, of course. One is Serco, a British company based in Hook, North Hampshire. Among its operations are public and private transport and traffic control, aviation, military and nuclear weapons contracts, detention centres and prisons and schools. The other is Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), a health information technology company out of India with branch locations in VA, MD and SC. QSSI is the same company that designed the Website that I use for my glucometer tracking. That Website is a joke. There is a separate .js fle for every single function and event. Every time I upload data from the meter or input any other data manually, more than 100 files get sent back and forth, as it updates every single record with every single change of even one record. On average, every time I do an update, 200 MB of data gets sent and received, even if I'm only uploading a single meter reading (because it uploads all meter records every time, and the more records the meter accumulates, the worse it gets). And the Obamacare Website is set up the same way by the same people. The Website won't be a quick fix, it'll need a complete rewrite, and it's already cost the taxpayers millions. Your Obamacare at work.
