The White House announced Sunday it has met its goal to make the Healthcare.gov website operate smoothly for most users by Nov. 30.
"The bottom line is health care.gov on December first is night and day from where it was October first," said Jeffrey Zients, the president's appointee to fix the website's problems. "The site is now stable and operating at its intended capacity at greatly improved performance."
When the site -- which allows people to compare private plan benefits and costs before buying an insurance policy -- launched Oct. 1, millions of people were disappointed by slow or frozen pages, an inability to log in, and incorrect or missing information. The White House tapped Zients to lead a team to fix the site.
At the beginning of November, Zients said the site had an "up time" of just 43%. As of Nov. 30, the site's up time was 95%.
"We have a much more stable system that's reliably open for business," he said in a Sunday conference call with reporters.
After hardware updates and bug fixes that continued through the weekend, the federal health exchange site now has the capacity to serve 50,000 people at a time, for a total of 800,000 people a day, according to a report issued Sunday by the Department of Health and Human Services.
That figure is "conservative," Zients said, because they figured it using an eight-hour day, rather than a 24-hour day.
According to the administration, Zients' repair team has so far:
• Made hundreds of software fixes, upgraded hardware, and monitored the system to make improvements;
• Stabilized the site at its original intended capacity; and
• Improved overall metrics, which means the site is working well for most users.
A new hardware upgrade made Friday quadrupled the registration capacity, Zients said, and response times are under one second with an error rate below 1%.
Over the holiday weekend, "Traffic has been significantly higher than a typical weekend," Zients said, but the website has handled the traffic smoothly.
Okay well, using Right Wing logic, if the fact that the website was NOT working effectively before meant that Obamacare was an abject failure, then doesn't the fact that it IS working now mean......
Now let the Republican scramble for new talking points begin!
Meh...
ReplyDeleteGet back to us when Healthcare.gov is as perfect as.... the bible. And not the first draft Old Testament or the Utah parody bible written by Joe Smiff, but the actual, perfect, immutable NEW bible written by Jeebus, his ownself!
Anyway, even if the website is fixed, your so-called President Obama isnt off the hook.
Don't forget about BENGHAZI, IRS, FAST & FURIOUS, FAST & FURIOUS VII, the BATMAN reboot and the new STAR WARS trilogy!
You libtards can't deny the simple fact: Obama is the most scandal-ridden president since William Henry Harrison!!!!!!!
Dumb move on the administration's part.
ReplyDeleteFederal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.
Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal.
Still a person with a sad---huh?
DeleteI'm not sad -- I'm FURIOUS that the Obama administration entrusted such an essential component of its signature legislation to such an incompetent contractor. WHY is a question that DOES need to be asked until it has been satisfactorily answered. Unless you are afraid it can't be satisfactorily answered, 7:47?
Delete- Not 7:22. Just a libtard who doesn't believe in sweeping ANY administration's screw-ups under the rug.
My husband works in IT, and has for 17 years. He says that what happened is exactly the same as what happens EVERY single time a new software project is launched. It takes awhile to find the bugs and correct them. That's just reality, NOT a conspiracy.---Julie
DeleteYes, 9:03, the Obama administration is the first in American history to ever have an incompetent government contractor.
DeleteYou poor "libtard."
@7:22 AM said:
Delete"Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut."
That is complete bullshit! 16 government contractors were pre-approved to bid on building the Healthcare.gov website. But only 4 out of the 16 pre-approved government contractors, including CGI wanted to bid on it.
The Obama administration wanted to get the website built as soon as possible, so they chose an expedited bidding process, which ended up limiting the number of government contractors who could bid on the building the website.
CGI put in the highest bid, so they had to give them the job. That's how the law works! Don't like how the law works? Then go whine to congress, and tell them to change it!
There is no freaking conspiracy!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/obamacare-expedited-bidding-limited-who-could-build-site.html
P.S., @9:03 AM:
There's your answer! You are a smug, uninformed libtard who is rooting for failure, and your faux anger is misplaced!
I didn't say they did, 10:09. But if you don't hold all administrations to the same standards, you're a fucking hypocrite. There is no excuse for this one's fucked up website. It sabotaged itself and has no one but itself to blame. AND I have been a liberal Democrat, and voting that way for over 40 years. Don't believe it, I don't give a shit. Nor will I blind myself to failures of candidates I voted for. If that's how you roll, that's on you. But I expect more than incompetence and excuses.
DeleteYou should be furious at your Governor, because if you had issues with getting on Obamacare it was because YOUR STATE failed to meet their obligations to you. The national site was just meant to redirect to your individual state site.
DeleteI hope you have called your Governor and complained.
Anyone who expects perfection, 11:15, will wind up bitter and hate-filled.
DeleteI do have standards. I expect excellence. Sometimes there are failures and when they occur, I expect that we will work to make things better.
That's what President Obama is doing, and the implementation of the ACA WILL be excellent.
Your "it" sabotaged "itself" and has no one but "itself" to blame" rant is unintelligible drivel. Poor thing.
I also agree with this, but my biggest problem, is WHY didn't the President know? Either this isn't that important to him (bologna), or 1. He asked, and his people were too incompetent to tell him the truth, or, 2. He knew, and lied to the American people the entire time building up to Oct. 1.
DeleteSo he is incompetent that he didn't know that it wasn't ready, or knew but still talked it up to be the greatest thing since sliced bread (while knowing that it wasn't ready) making him a liar. You choose.
This is really stupid.
DeleteREMINDER: The Number Of Uninsured Americans Increased by 7.9 Million Under George W. Bush
ReplyDeleteThe week President Obama took office, initial jobless claims, the statistic that immediately gauges layoffs, hit a 26-year high with 637,000 applying for unemployment insurance in one week. It was clear that the president was inheriting a record deficit, a cratering economy and two floundering wars. But buried in all those crises was an unspoken slow-motion disaster that people rarely mentioned: the steady crumbling of our health care system.
“When [former president Bill] Clinton left office, the number of uninsured Americans stood at 38.4 million,” Ron Brownstein wrote in 2009. “By the time [former president George W.] Bush left office that number had grown to just over 46.3 million, an increase of nearly 8 million or 20.6 percent.”
The numbers were just as bad when you looked at the share of the uninsured.
When Clinton left office, 13.7 percent of the population was uninsured. Bush left with 15.4 percent lacking coverage. And the only health reform the last Republican to occupy the White House enacted in his eight years was to add an unfunded prescription drug benefit that guaranteed cuts would need to be made at some point.
So the 15.4 percent of Americans Bush left uninsured in 2008 continued to rise in 2009 to 16.1 percent, then peaked at 16.3 percent in 2010. In 2011, it dipped to 15.7 percent, the biggest drop since 1999. The last census report showed that 48.6 million Americans were uninsured – that’s 15.4 percent. Exactly where it was in 2008.
It would easy to credit the recovering economy for the rise of insured Americans — initial jobless claims last week were half of what they were when Obama took office. But the percentage of the uninsured is now lower than it was in 2006, before the Great Recession hit.
The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman calls the Affordable Care Act’s role in bringing health-cost growth to its lowest rate on record the law’s “secret success.” But the other secret success is how Obamacare is helping to reverse the growth of the uninsured population. This began in 2011 with children and young adults being able to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, covering more than three million. And it continues this year with millions of Americans being added to the Medicaid rolls and millions likely to sign up for private plans, if the law’s health care exchanges begin working well enough.
Still Republicans are playing up the estimated 5 million cancelations of plans due to Obamacare the same way they played up the deficit and faltering economy President Obama inherited as if it had been his fault.
more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/reminder-the-number-of-uninsured-americans-increased-by-7-9-million-under-george-w-bush/
How Print And Broadcast Media Are Hiding Obamacare's Success In Controlling Costs
ReplyDeletehttp://mediamatters.org/research/2013/11/27/how-print-and-broadcast-media-are-hiding-obamac/197079
Not only did the Republicans obstruct this wonderful program, but the media did a horrid job as well. I'm even disappointed w/MSNBC! FOX was a given to spread lies and I'm sure will continue doing so for a period of time.
DeleteI can hardly wait to see them all eat their words!!
Vote out Republicans in their upcoming elections. They are liars, racists and obstructionists pure and simple. They could care less for the people that elected them, Also, make sure you get the Republican governors out of office too across the nation as they've obstructed too! (Start in Alaska w/Parnell as he is up for reelection!)
So now we can get back to their regularly scheduled Benghazi Benghazi BENGHAZI!
ReplyDeleteNPR had a story this morning about an effort by a non-profit to educate people in Mississippi about the healthcare law because the governor absolutely refuses to do anything. The lady from the organization said that groups like their's haven't really gotten this stuff going yet because the idea is that no one was really going to pay attention to it until the deadline was closer. Because…PROCRASTINATION…
ReplyDeleteThey interviewed two people who both said that they were able to save a lot of money. One lady said that she had a bad lung disease and that before Obamacare the cost was about $5,000 a month -- $5,000! And now it's about $25.
The stories about people getting kicked off their insurance rolls are done…now I think the media will be doing stories about how people have FINALLY been able to get on the site…
Personally, I still think it's remarkable that so many people signed up considering all the bad publicity and problems.
What passes for media/journalism (with a few exceptions) will never cover the ACA in a truthful manner.
DeleteThese are the people who spend ever waking hour working with the republicans to undermine the President.
Thank you, President Obama, for letting me secure coverage w/having a pre existing disease! I am ever so thankful!
ReplyDeleteHooray! I am looking forward to finding out what our rates will be.
ReplyDeleteOT: Sister Sarah's book has sold less than 1000 copies through Amazon in the ENTIRE month of November according to Novel Rank. That's what I call a flop!
http://www.novelrank.com/asin/0062292889
At the peepond there are at least 2 articles about her book sales that are trying to say there were no bulk sales.
DeleteYes, the website is decidedly improved! Was finally able to complete enrollment for my husband, which was in limbo since October 1, by removing that application and starting a new one. Got him enrolled today within a half-hour with no glitches and at great savings to us--at least $3800 per year SAVINGS (if he gets to the maximum out-of pocket/deductible) but possibly as much as $10600 SAVINGS (if he continues to have good health)!
ReplyDeleteCongrats. Would you mind sharing what state you are in? And if your state had a site up and running or if you had to go through a national website?
DeleteAlso share more about your experience, did you find having the policies equal between insurers make it easier.
I know I would like to know more about your experience and I am sure others would too.
I am in Wisconsin, where the infamous Scott Walker has fought the ACA every step of the way. We have no state site (along with no expansion of Medicaid), so we had to go through the federal site. We already had a good idea of the insurance we wanted after going to a presentation by a non-profit group, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, which explained the process and their role in it. They cover the east side of Wisconsin and were formed through a grant from the ACA, allowing people to get health insurance without paying for a layer of profit. So it turned out their plan was the lowest price at all levels, and we decided to go with the bronze plan because my husband sees a doctor very rarely (this week is the first time he will see a doctor all this year, and that is for a routine physical which will be totally covered as preventive care for him next year), and even if we pay the maximum in out-of-pocket/deductible costs--$5800 per year--this will be less than half of what we previously have paid in premiums to include him on my retiree health insurance. I would definitely start with whatever non-profit organization your state might have --I don't know how prevalent they are, but I can't see why anyone would want insurance from for-profit companies if this option is available. Then each level of plan gives you examples of yearly costs for common conditions (diabetes, pregnancy, etc.) that you can compare, along with copays and co-insurance rates and deductible and out-of-pocket maximum costs. One thing to keep in mind is that in addition to a monthly subsidy (on our retirement income,ours is $238 which reduces the premium to under $300 a month), if you get the silver plan, you may also get help in paying co-pays and co-insurance amounts, which is called cost-sharing. In our case, we didn't look into that because we figured the higher premiums would offset the savings, especially since my husband is pretty healthy. Good luck to you and others in this quest. It would be great to hear some other real-life stories of getting new health insurance!
DeleteANON at 2:16 PM
DeleteThank you for all the knowledge you shared about your experience. And I am sorry you have that bagga as Governor, but I know your pain since Perry is mine.
I personally believe that Scott Walker's election in the first place and his survival in the recall election was due to widespread election fraud--in other words, it was rigged by the GOP. I would not be surprised if that is the case in many other states. It is not safe to vote (for Democrats, at least) on touch-screen machines because they are easily programmable to flip votes, the companies have Republican ties, and there is no paper trail for a paper ballot hand count later. This needs to be made known to the general public. Go to this site for more info: http://www.bradblog.com/
DeleteTell me what you think about the Governor of Georgia :(
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forwardprogressives.com/georgia-republican-brags-about-sabotaging-obamacare-as-governor-gets-paid-by-health-care-industry/
No conflict of interest there. What a crook, the citizens deserve better. Hope he gets booted and replaced by a Democrat.
DeleteThe Health Care Reality Conservatives Ignore
ReplyDeleteFor all the difficulties of the Affordable Care Act’s rollout, Americans are more patient than you might think: A new poll shows a majority expressing optimism that the problems are going to be ironed out.
Not only that, a majority continues to support the law or think it didn’t go far enough. Nevertheless, the conservatives rooting for its demise have been expressing not just vindication, but triumph. ”We could be looking at the collapse of American liberalism,” said columnist Charles Krauthammer. ”Liberalism is crumbling in front of our eyes,” echoed Michele Bachmann.
...In all their glee about the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act, most Republicans are barely bothering to offer an alternative, other than a return to the way things used to be. It isn't surprising, because to be brutally frank, they never much cared about the spectacular human suffering created by free-market health care.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/29/opinion/waldman-obamacare/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/12/01/why-america-needs-obamacare/
If the individual states would have done the job they were supposed to do there never would have been a problem. The nationwide site was just meant to redirect to the state sites,
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that in every state that got their sites up and running that ACA is working wonderfully.
The states that refused medicare expansion have cut off their noses to spite their faces. As more "success" stories come out, I have a feeling more will reconsider their attempt at making the ACA fail.
ReplyDeleteNext on the list, Immigration Reform.
The government hired so-called experienced software developers and website designers to work on creating aca site. They were paid million of dollars. They created a mess. How is this possible?
ReplyDeleteThe cynic in me says that some of these people had in mind to sabotage the roll-out.