Article

2013-10-11 Government

Healthcare.gov cost taxpayers $634 Million to NOT WORK

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Posted by Frozen Al 2013-10-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 The software engineering term is FUBAR...

Posted by Raj 2013-10-11 00:20|| 2013-10-11 00:20|| Front Page Top

#2 The company that did most of the work on the coding is CGI Federal which is the USA branch of a Canadian company called CGI Group.

The architecture of the healthcare.gov (which may actually be more of the problem than the coding) was done by Development Seed. That company split off from a consortium in 2011.

Posted by lord garth 2013-10-11 00:48|| 2013-10-11 00:48|| Front Page Top

#3 "They set up the website in such a way that too many requests to the server arrived at the same time," Hancock said.

Hancock described the situation as similar to what happens when hackers conduct a distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attack on a website: they get large numbers of computers to simultaneously request information from the server that runs a website, overwhelming it and causing it to crash or otherwise stumble. "The site basically DDOS'd itself," he said.

LOL. Yes we can!

Posted by RandomJD 2013-10-11 01:40|| 2013-10-11 01:40|| Front Page Top

#4 Also:

Technical glitches have sparked fiery explosions within the NSA's newest and largest [$2 billion] data storage facility in Utah, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and delaying the facility's opening by one year.

It's like God has a plan or something.

Posted by RandomJD 2013-10-11 02:02|| 2013-10-11 02:02|| Front Page Top

#5 Can't help wondering which friend of Obama became richer.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2013-10-11 02:13|| 2013-10-11 02:13|| Front Page Top

Posted by Beavis 2013-10-11 09:30|| 2013-10-11 09:30|| Front Page Top

#7 Fast & Furious was not about 'tracking weapons'.

Benghazi was not about a 'Mohammad video'.

Denial of serviceman death benefits was not about a 'legal interpretation'.

Failure to access the Affordable Healthcare Website is not about a 'software glitch'.

They simply do NOT want us to know the real culprit or cost.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-10-11 10:16|| 2013-10-11 10:16|| Front Page Top

#8 From RandomJD's article on the NSA:

"Within the last 13 months, at least 10 electric surges have each cost about $100,000 in damages ..."

"A report by [the Army Corps of Engineers] said regular quality controls in design and construction were bypassed in order to 'fast track' the project."

How much do you want to bet that the same quality controls were bypassed in Healthcare.gov?

Al

Posted by Frozen Al 2013-10-11 12:20|| 2013-10-11 12:20|| Front Page Top

#9 Load Testing is a very common and critical part of any system development in the major corporate sector. There are numerous load testing software programs that simulate large numbers of hits on a server. It is part of the standard software quality assurance testing process.

Someone mentioned a day or so ago that it looks like the site was ancnot tested. That is obvious. And was once very common back in the day when IBM main frame legacy software was being recoded for Windows NT servers. Corporations that excelled in thier line of business (financial giants, automotive giants, etc.) that now had any third party doing the transition got burned but they brought in consultants to set up test environments that emulated the real world and did not roll the system out into production without extensive testing.

When and if the Hussein regime ever realizes the above, it will take 9 months to a year from that point of enlightenment for the mess to be properly redeveloped, tested, put into Beta, then fully rolled out.

Posted by Zebulon Gruling1694 2013-10-11 12:59|| 2013-10-11 12:59|| Front Page Top

#10 Can't help wondering which friend of Obama became richer.

Well, they mention CGI Inc. in the article. And then there's Xerox. They got $72 million to implement a solution in 15 months and, of course, they failed. Wouldn't be surprised if they get another $72 million and another 15 months to make it right. Dang, I'm in the wrong business. I could waste that much money as well as they could.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-10-11 13:03|| 2013-10-11 13:03|| Front Page Top

#11 Y'all haven't realized that there's MONEY in insurance, BIG MONEY.
Get everybody signed up and the cash pile is worth looting.
That's the whole idea.
BINGO.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2013-10-11 13:07|| 2013-10-11 13:07|| Front Page Top

#12 If this kind of thing happened in private industry people would get fired. Companies that have to make a profit to survive simply cannot afford these types of failures. I believe it would have been possible to set up web sites that actually worked in a lot less time and with a helluva lot less money. But the Champ has to make sure that his friends get to line their pockets.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-10-11 13:16|| 2013-10-11 13:16|| Front Page Top

#13 About what it cost to create SpaceX with a functional commercial rocket service.

This implies that healthcare.gov web site is tougher to develop than a complete space rocket, launching and service company? Give me a break!!

Posted by 3dc 2013-10-11 13:20|| 2013-10-11 13:20|| Front Page Top

#14 EU and 3dc, I'm a recently retired expert (gee I'm an ex-'pert) in this area. As one of my long time ago bosses said "It's not rocket science; it's harder".

Basically rocket science has defined goals and rules. Physics and math may be a bitch but they are what they are.

Large scale corporate and gov't systems have neither and are, especially gov't systems subject to "scope creep". I would bet all $600 mill that there never was a defined and frozen specification for this beast AND there never will be. OBTW it don't matter to the developers/consultants/ 3rd parties, as long as the checks keep clearing.

Of course the real agenda is a total failure that can be used to sell us into a single payer system. I think they may have miscalculated the timing of the failure. The insurance industry and healthcare industry have not been sufficiently crippled yet to force the switch.

Posted by AlanC 2013-10-11 14:17|| 2013-10-11 14:17|| Front Page Top

#15 To paraphrase a Thing from Snowy Mountain comment: Notice that all those Google Analytics hipsters that ran the IT side of the Obama campaign are nowhere to be found.

Posted by Pappy 2013-10-11 15:12|| 2013-10-11 15:12|| Front Page Top

#16 Of course the real agenda is a total failure that can be used to sell us into a single payer system. I think they may have miscalculated the timing of the failure. The insurance industry and healthcare industry have not been sufficiently crippled yet to force the switch.

Bingo. More broadly, socialism concerns itself only with dividing up existing wealth, not creating new wealth. But that never occurs to them, so they don't realize that *on the brink of insolvency* is the worst possible time to impose socialism. QE/ZIRP can't hide the rot for much longer. I guess we've got that going for us.

Posted by RandomJD 2013-10-11 15:51|| 2013-10-11 15:51|| Front Page Top

#17

Posted by 3dc 2013-10-11 16:11|| 2013-10-11 16:11|| Front Page Top

#18 Large scale corporate and gov't systems have neither and are, especially gov't systems subject to "scope creep". I would bet all $600 mill that there never was a defined and frozen specification for this beast AND there never will be.

AlanC, I wouldn't doubt any of what you say for a minute.

Actually, after my post, I thought I should have included a clause to the effect that "provided there is a high level specification that isn't full of design flaws". Imagine a software specification created by the likes of Hillary Clinton.

You may also be quite right about this system's failure being a feature, not a bug. I wouldn't put it past them.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-10-11 16:20|| 2013-10-11 16:20|| Front Page Top

#19 Three things:
1. Quality
2. Within budget
3. Fast

Pick two out of three and that is what you get.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2013-10-11 16:26|| 2013-10-11 16:26|| Front Page Top

#20 Health Care Website Fails Despite Amish Beta Success

The failure of the new ObamaCare health insurance exchange website came as a bolt from the blue to the IT staff in the Obama administration, especially because the system had been thoroughly beta-tested for nearly a year among the Amish community in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania. HealthCare.gov servers buckled under traffic five times greater than the maximum anticipated volume.

We were firing on all cylinders during the prototype stage, said an unnamed IT staffer at HealthCare.gov. Page-load times were measured in minutes rather than the current hours, and that was after heavy local TV promotion soliciting Amish beta customers.

The crew that coded Amish.HealthCare.gov said the telephone hotline was practically silent turning the trial period, meaning that virtually no problems were reported with the system.

We thought we were, as NASA says, Go at throttle up. the source said. The fact that people now report they cant login after dozens of attempts for almost a week is a real mystery to us.

A White House spokesman said the president is focused like a laser on solving the problem.

We just posted an invitation to our Amish beta-tester forum, said Press Secretary Jay Carney, Were asking for volunteers to fly from Lancaster down to D.C. later today to do a focus group so we can get to the bottom of this.

Posted by Beavis 2013-10-11 16:29|| 2013-10-11 16:29|| Front Page Top

#21 "We were firing on all cylinders during the prototype stage," said an unnamed IT staffer at HealthCare.gov. "Page-load times were measured in minutes rather than the current hours, and that was after heavy local TV promotion soliciting Amish beta customers."

Beta testing is not load testing. A load test was initiated over a network used by a major bank headquarters once and the test shut down the entire bank network. The bank network engineer came racing into the development room demanding that "whatever you guys are doing, please stop!!"

The load test software was running on the network, then out across the internet targeting a server farm on the other side of the US that was to handle high volumes of credit card transactions.

THAT is a load test.

Posted by Thrans Splat1574 2013-10-11 16:46|| 2013-10-11 16:46|| Front Page Top

#22 What part of "Amish" did you miss?

Posted by Pappy 2013-10-11 17:44|| 2013-10-11 17:44|| Front Page Top

#23 And yet somehow, magically, Amazon can handle millions of orders a day without a problem, including shipping - free (if you have Amazon Prime) - physical items to your house in a couple of days.

Posted by Barbara 2013-10-11 17:46|| 2013-10-11 17:46|| Front Page Top

#24 Page load times measured in minutes. I assume a web page has locked up or crashed after 32 seconds. Non IT people make that assumption after 3.2 seconds...

Posted by M. Murcek 2013-10-11 18:11|| 2013-10-11 18:11|| Front Page Top

#25 As I've said elsewhere: you CANNOT set a deadline for a software project BEFORE you gather requirements and do some preliminary analysis. It makes matters much worse when the requirements are buried in 1800 pages of legalese and G*d knows how many thousands of pages of regulations. And the requirements are changing by the hour. The only constant is the end date.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2013-10-11 19:08|| 2013-10-11 19:08|| Front Page Top

#26 To paraphrase a Thing from Snowy Mountain comment: Notice that all those Google Analytics hipsters that ran the IT side of the Obama campaign are nowhere to be found.

And in followup:

Bill Gates suddenly dies and finds himself face to face with God. God stood over Bill Gates and said, "Well Bill, I'm really confused on this one. It's a tough decision; I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home in America, yet you also created that ghastly Windows '95 among other indiscretions. I believe I'll do something I've never done before; I'll let you decide where you want to go." Bill pushed up his glasses, looked up at God and replied, "Could you briefly explain the difference between the two?" Looking slightly puzzled, God said, "Better yet, why don't I let you visit both places briefly, then you can make your decision. Which do you choose to see first, Heaven or Hell?" Bill played with his pocket protector for a moment, then looked back at God and said, "I think I'll try Hell first." So, with a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, Bill Gates went to Hell. When he materialized in Hell, Bill looked around. It was a beautiful and clean place, a bit warm, with sandy beaches and tall mountains, clear skies, pristine water, and beautiful women frolicking about. A smile came across Bill's face as he took in a deep breath of the clean air. "This is great," he thought, "if this is Hell, I can't wait to see heaven." Within seconds of his thought, another flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke appeared, and Bill was off to Heaven. Heaven was a place high above the clouds, where angels were drifting about playing their harps and singing in a beautiful chorus. It was a very nice place, Bill thought, but not as enticing as Hell. Bill looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for God and Bill Gates was sent to Hell for eternity. Time passed, and God decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was progressing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill Gates shackled to a wall in a dark cave amid bone thin men and tongues of fire, being burned and tortured by demons. "So, how is everything going?" God asked. Bill responded with a crackling voice filled with anguish and disappointment, "This is awful! It's nothing like the Hell I visited the first time!! I can't believe this is happening! What happened to the other place....with the beaches and the mountains and the beautiful women? "That was the demo," replied God.

The Hipsters made the demo for selling the Administration. They outsourced the actual administration of the health plan to India.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-10-11 19:25|| 2013-10-11 19:25|| Front Page Top

#27 And then of course you get feature creep. And when the design is by committee you are guaranteed a lot of feature creep.

Posted by CrazyFool 2013-10-11 19:35|| 2013-10-11 19:35|| Front Page Top

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