First, apologies to my readers for the diversion from the usual fare, but I’ll point out that this entry is covered under the masthead in the category of “recent news” and there’s a relevant WUWT category.
Since like many of you, I’ve been forced to sign a document (at my radio station where I employed part-time) that confirms I’ve been given another document that advises me of my Obamacare rights, and of course being in tune to the news, I’ve been wondering if the claims about the Obamacare websites are as bad as claimed.
I read an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune “Sebelius visit fails to reassure as health care website glitches persist” that said:
Sebelius, who is making similar trips to cities across the country to spread the word about the website, told the audience of about 100 people that Healthcare.gov was “open for business.”
“Believe me, we had some early glitches,” said Sebelius, who was introduced by Rooney, a backer of the law. “But it’s getting better every day.”
So, I decided to find out myself. I went to http://healthcare.gov and chose my state, California. What follows is a record of what I actually got. I never made it past step 1:
Try it yourself: https://coveredca.com/shopandcompare/
NOTE: To be accurate, the website security certificate will work if the “www” is used as prefix, but not the link above sans www. By following the link from the Tribune article, with no other changes on my part, I ended up with the sans “www” connection, which they didn’t get a proper security certificate for. One wonders how many other “glitches” exist in basic security on these websites.
Even when you go in with the “www” there are problems. In Firefox I get this:
UPDATE: Reader Ben points out that it gets a failing grade from an SSL grading service, SSL Labs:
Source: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=coveredca.com
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It’s probably not even fixable. If they spent that much money already, it means there was never a design to begin with. But as long as they are spending their limitless money, they can claim they’re working on it. Software that has no specification has little chance of ever functioning properly.
First and foremost, this is YOUR website and you can do with it anything you damn well please. This includes giving space to Willis for his most delightful and entertaining stories about the South Pacific, and posting pictures of your cat sitting in a bowl if you so choose.
Second, as I understand it, Watts Up With That did not start life as exclusively a Climate Chage website, although that subject does take up the vast majority of bandwidth. I note that the mission statement on the masthead still says “(c)ommentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts.” Please remain true to all of that mission statement!
Cheers,
John
andrewmharding says:
October 13, 2013 at 5:27 am
Anthony, I work in the NHS here in the UK. I gather Obamacare is similar
===============================
Obamacare is the NHS X 10
Since all attention is on Mr. Obama’s amazing ability to at once hold the nation hostage and blame others for it, the media is not seriously reporting the debacle of Obamacare. No one in media, oddly is asking the How? How does an incredibly well funded effort by the Obama Administration to create a website over a three year period fail so badly by means of unprofessional coding, development and implementation?
Something in the $100 million dollar range was spent on this embarrassingly badly written website.
And it does not work.
But when a citizen does get through, that person finds the next surprise:
You cannot keep your insurance plan or, frequently, your doctor, and the price is insanely high.
Imagine finding out that a guy who promised the seas would stop rising and the Earth would start cooling also misled people about health care.
The only question left is why would someone be willing to shut down the rest of the government in favor of refusing to even delay this already failed, unworkable, deceptive Obamacare?
” andrewmharding says:
October 13, 2013 at 5:27 am
Anthony, I work in the NHS here in the UK. I gather Obamacare is similar. Believe me it does not work!”
It works quite well, once you get past the right-wing press.
Almost seamless. I go to the doctor. The doctor wanders onto the computer and looks at my med history, nips onto whichever hospital I had the treatment at and looks at the consultants notes, along with x-rays/MRI etc (all viewable on the IT system).
“writes” a prescription, if needed prints it…although I can, now, get it sent direct to a pharmacy to be produced.
I can log onto the local surgery at which I am registered and look at my notes….
Dental care has not caught-up yet, that is all so 20th century still.
Oh, and my local hospital now has several MRI suites…..much has happened in the NHS since it was updated. Shame the present lot are flogging it to overseas tax avoiders.
“If you have no right to select your own health are then what individual right do you have?”
Amazing statement.. as if someone with no means, or with pre existing conditions have any right to select.. Ha!! Go die!
The USA spends twice what any other modern country does on healthcare per capita and gets lousy or no service for 1/3 its citizens.
Its really all about keeping that 40% off the top for “insurance” companies to fly around in their corporate jets.
If they had gone into any 8th grade class in America (even in Philsdelphia or Cleveland!) and asked the students to create their web site for free, it would have turned out better. I think the actual goal wasn’t signing up people for health insurance, it was getting info on them, which they have even without anyone actually signing up.
Obviously, spending TRILLIONS on war is so much better than trying to provide a minimum of decent healthcare and education.
I don’t like Obama, but neither do I like Bush or any of the other war mongers.
Its a shame that like the climate change debate these things have to turn into a left wing – right wing argument.
reds under the bed, Stalinist takeover of the government, whatever whatever
Obamacare is a lousy compromise. Too bad for America.
While I realize that people will argue with me, and anyone can find facts to back up their argument (CAGW is a great example), Canadian medicare is an excellent (but not perfect) system. Canadians overwhelmingly support their medicare system. No sane politicians (not even the old Reform Party) advocate against it. Brian Mulroney (the Canadian equivalent of Thatcher and Reagan) called it a sacred trust.
Thank heaven I live in Canada, the home ofTommy Douglas.
My experience with the federal health insurance website for Florida was a similar amateur hour experience. I finally gave up after a few dozen attempts spread over a week, and found an HHS spreadsheet with approved plan rates for many of the states. I am self-employed and purchase insurance in the open market. The bronze plan for two adults with no kids is around $630/month. The plan is similar to what we have now, but we currently pay $190/month. This can’t be true, I thought to myself. The Dear Leader said that premiums would drop by $2500 per year, not increase by $5300 per year.
I then went to my insurance carrier’s website, and in a few minutes, had a price quote for the *exact* same policy that I currently have. That is, “if you like your current insurance plan, then you can keep it”. The price estimate is $780/month…
My health insurance plan’s premium is increasing by a factor of four. Forward, comrades!
This reminds me of the manufacturer’s rebate programs that you sometimes see in retail stores. The analogy is that I go buy a gallon of milk. The price has increased, overnight, from $4.00 to $16.00, but if I fill out the paperwork and wait, a rebate check for $12.00 might show up in the mail. The final cost has not changed. However, the price of milk is now almost completely controlled by the entity that sends you the rebate check.
I am now exploring the possibility of claiming self-insurance.
Another option I am looking into is short-term insurance (less than 1 year) that is far less expensive. It is not Obamacare approved, so I would also have to pay the IRS penalty. Since this is currently the higher of 1% of gross income or $95, it is a far cheaper option than Obamacare.
I have also heard that the IRS can only deduct the Obamacare fine from your tax refund. If you pay taxes such that you do not receive a refund, then the IRS has no method of imposing Obamacare’s punishment. Does anyone know if this is true?
Finally, even if Obamacare is repealed, I am 95% confident that insurance premiums will not drop. There is a money diode in place at the insurance carriers. If you don’t like your new premiums, you get to keep them.
I recall seeing interviews with a couple of private companies who provide health insurance “navigation” indicating that they were doing this (relatively) inexpensively and with easy navigation. I haven’t heard any follow-up with these folks. In 2010 when my youngest graduated from college and my insurance no longer covered her, it was easy to go to a search engine, get a list of insurance plans and links so that you could compare plans and companies. So, with all this out there, how could the government go over half-billion over budget and put out a lousy, nonworking product when all they had to do was buy what was already out there and do some minor mods? I believe it says something about the government’s ability to manage the whole health care thing. It also hides the higher costs. And the government shut down sure serves to distract from ACA problems.
Disclaimer: My health insurance has been either TRICARE or Medicare/TRICARE for the past 6 years (retired Reservist). I’ve been satisfied with it, but haven’t used it for anything other than routine checkups, lab work and a few prescriptions. When my daughter graduated in 2010, the government wasn’t required to cover her until she was 26. Since she was an adult with college degrees, my parental advice was to stop playing rugby until she had insurance of her own. She found a good moderately high deductible policy with limited dental for a bit over $100/month. When TRICARE indicated they would cover her, the cost was more than twice her current policy and didn’t include any dental.
I had no trouble with the site, and your apology is accepted
There’s a point to be made that hasn’t been generally pointed out. In the election last Fall one of the things that doomed Romney was the complete failure of the Orca system. I don’t know the details but Orca was designed for last minute Get Out The Vote initiatives. It crashed. At the time some Obama supporters insinuated that if Romney had been the truly excellent businessman he was then he would’ve insured that it would’ve worked. You see, Obama’s GOTV computer software worked flawlessly. What’s interesting is how, when it had to work (for him), Obama presided over the development of competent software but, when it didn’t have to work – for him – since everything was now in place, well, it doesn’t.
chris y: I think a lot of folks will do as you indicated, get a lower cost insurance and pay the fine, er tax, as long as that insurance exists.
Your subsidy analogy is more like this. Subsidized milk goes from $4 to $16/gallon. Some people get $12 in subsidies, some get subsidies up to $12 and a lot get no subsidies. The price of milk goes to $16/gallon and a lot of your neighbors pay more than $4 and all the younger neighbors get to pay the $16/gallon and your $12/gallon, assuming they decide not to become lactose intolerant.
You know the reason you pay $4/gallon is the milk subsidy currently in effect.
Ed_B.
You’re right about the cost and I genuinely believe that everyone has the right to medical treatment, but here in the UK we are inundated with health tourists / migrants from poorer EU states (and Ireland, where crossing the Irish Sea for an abortion is commonplace – a conservative estimate is 1000 plus per annum) or the system is abused by the indigenous low life and feckless who, because it is free, use it to the max.
The system here is unsustainable and i’m sure it will prove to be so in the US.
[snip -rant – mod]
Doomed.
Whatever you do, don’t call it “health care reform” or Obamacare. The Obama administration was not the first to implement the tax that is at the heart of the scheme. Please call it by it’s real name – Romneycare.
Thanks,
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
Victim of Romneycare since 2007
commieBob says:
October 13, 2013 at 6:16 am
Obamacare is a lousy compromise. Too bad for America.
While I realize that people will argue with me, and anyone can find facts to back up their argument (CAGW is a great example), Canadian medicare is an excellent (but not perfect) system. Canadians overwhelmingly support their medicare system. No sane politicians (not even the old Reform Party) advocate against it. Brian Mulroney (the Canadian equivalent of Thatcher and Reagan) called it a sacred trust.
________________________________________________________________________
I heard lots of anecdotes about Canadians coming across the border to get treatment in the US they couldn’t get or were waiting for very long periods to get in Canada. What happens to the quality of the Canadian system when the US medical system becomes just like Canada’s?
And a bloody good one it was too!
This thread has been about a glimpse through the fog of the tip of the iceberg, out of the corner of our eye.
Big changes to society and government can only work when done with major bipartisan and popular support. ACA never had these. With the website failures, with heavy resistence from many doctors, with the string of broken promises (“if you like your health plan you can keep it”), and especially with the sticker-shock prices, ACA has about a year to either make the voters very happy, or else go down in flames and take a certain political faction down with it as voters finally get to voice their opinion on the matter in next year’s 2014 elections.
No wonder Washington is locked up, the stakes for ACA are huge and the fear there must be genuine.
Michael D Smith says- October 13, 2013 at 5:58 am
“It’s probably not even fixable. If they spent that much money already, it means there was never a design to begin with. But as long as they are spending their limitless money, they can claim they’re working on it. Software that has no specification has little chance of ever functioning properly.”
That sure sounds familiar. My brother manages a software group that does database development. I asked him this summer what was the most important step in any of the projects he has worked on. He said that if the specifications are not well defined by the customer, and then frozen in place prior to coding, then the project is doomed. Then he turned to me and with his best Bender (Futurama) impersonation, loudly said DOOOMMMED!!!!!
He also said this was partly based on bitter past experience developing database software for… Alberta HealthCare!
🙂
Odd that they didn’t ask Al for help. He did invent the Internet!