Healthcare.gov’s technical problems frustrate Americans – The Verge

Healthcare.gov signed up 462,125 people in one week

2014-11-26T12:29:44-05:00

Healthcare.gov has come along way since its disastrous rollout last year. The first week of open enrollment for 2015 healthcare plans began on November 15, and Healthcare.gov seems to have handled the rush without breaking. The Obama Administration is reporting that 462,125 people signed up for plans through the site in the first week of open enrollment, and nearly half of them had not purchased plans through the site before. The numbers are a marked improvement over last year's famously buggy launch, which signed up just over 100,000 customers in the first month.

The White House has made huge changes to the site since the disastrous launch …

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The US government is hacking Healthcare.gov to make sure it’s secure

2014-11-06T21:35:33-05:00

The launch of Healthcare.gov, the US government's health insurance website, was beset with technical problems so severe that only six people were able to enroll on its first day in October 2013. Ahead of a second enrollment period, beginning on November 15th, government officials are launching cyberattacks against the revamped site to make sure the same crippling bugs and security holes don't appear again.

Andy Slavitt, hired to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Healthcare.gov program, says that groups of white-hat hackers in his team are conducting weekly attacks on the network that simulate real hacking attempts, in …

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Read 8 damning emails from behind the scenes of the Healthcare.gov meltdown

2014-09-18T16:38:49-04:00

We all now know what happened with the federal healthcare marketplace, Healthcare.gov. The three-year development was complicated by changing specifications, and the government's convoluted procurement process meant entrenched companies were getting contracts over and over. But a wave of government accountability reports, concluded after months of investigations, is bringing new attention to the meltdown.

The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning.

Titled …

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The White House just made a geek task force to stop the next Healthcare.gov debacle

2014-08-11T16:20:21-04:00

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The White House doesn't want to see a fiasco like last year's Healthcare.gov launch happen again, and it's establishing a crew of tech experts today to, theoretically, make sure it doesn't. Called the US Digital Service (USDS), the new group will be led by Mikey Dickerson, a former Google engineer who is said to have played a key role in repairing Healthcare.gov. USDS' goal is make sure that government agencies have good practices for IT, particularly when it comes to public-facing systems so that they can hopefully avoid major issues in the future.

"Make it simple and intuitive."

In general, the USDS is tasked with seeing that the governmen …

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Government still slogging through 2.6 million ‘inconsistencies’ on Obamacare applications

2014-07-01T11:31:53-04:00

Time to check in on the Healthcare.gov quagmire, where health department officials are facing 2.6 million "inconsistencies" - places where information submitted on an application failed to match government records - that were supposed to be resolved months ago.

Income and citizenship status are causing the most problems, followed by employer-sponsored minimum coverage, Social Security number, non-employer sponsored minimum coverage, incarceration status, and Native American status. All these factors affect an applicant's eligibility for insurance and subsidies.

The department expected some applicants would have problems with their applicati …

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A smarter, more reliable Healthcare.gov is coming

2014-06-05T17:53:31-04:00

Americans won't soon forget the botched launch of Healthcare.gov. Nor will President Obama, since the fiasco turned his signature legislative achievement into a sideshow that took months to patch up. Eventually it got there with the help of some bright engineers from Google, Oracle, and other Silicon Valley companies. Now the same team that came to the site's rescue is determined to improve thing further for round two. Healthcare.gov's second enrollment period begins November 15th. Five months may seem plenty far off to those of us on the outside, but after such a nightmarish start, the "Marketplace 2.0" group isn't taking any chances. Wired …

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Oregon is switching to Healthcare.gov from its own troubled exchange

2014-04-25T15:50:01-04:00

Oregon is giving up on its state-run online health exchange and switching over to the federal website, making it the first state to make the jump, according to the Associated Press. Oregon's health exchange, known as Cover Oregon, has reportedly been plagued with issues and hasn't even been able to fully process new applications online - those enrolling have apparently still had to fill out paper forms as well. Fixing Cover Oregon reportedly would have cost a staggering $78 million, while transitioning over to Healthcare.gov will only cost between $4 million and $6 million.

Oregon reportedly paid $134 million for the site

Though Healthcare.g …

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Healthcare.gov users asked to reset passwords following Heartbleed bug

2014-04-19T13:04:01-04:00

The officials are requesting that Healthcare.gov users reset their passwords after a continuing internal review by the Department of Homeland security flagged the site as possibly being vulnerable to a Heartbleed exploit. The move to reset passwords is being taken "out of an abundance of caution," according to a a notice published on the site, which serves as a portal for the health insurance exchanges set up under Obamacare. In addition, the note says that "there's no indication" that any information was revealed through Heartbleed.

Critics of the Affordable Care Act may seize the opportunity to attack the much-maligned Healthcare.gov webs …

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US health secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigns six months after Healthcare.gov debacle

2014-04-10T19:19:58-04:00

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United States Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned from her position today, some six months after the debacle that was the rollout of health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov. Sebelius, who held the spot for five years, will likely be replaced by Sylvia Burwell following a formal nomination from President Obama tomorrow morning, reports The New York Times. The paper added that the decision was Sebelius' following conversations with the President about her future.

Just after the end of Healthcare.gov enrollment

Healthcare.gov's launch - which Sebelius oversaw - was stymied by numerous problems, not the least of wh …

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After Healthcare.gov, can the government make its technology suck less?

2014-04-02T09:45:01-04:00

When the government's health insurance shopping site Healthcare.gov first launched on October 1st, it was obvious that something was very wrong. The site rejected valid passwords, served up blank drop-down menus, and crashed repeatedly. After millions of visits on the first day, only six people got all the way through.

Even more remarkable than the scale of the catastrophe was the speed with which the site was fixed. An Oceans 11-style recruitment effort pulled together a team of about a dozen technologists and managers who packed their bags, flew to Washington, DC, and worked for two months straight, including on Thanksgiving. By early Dec …

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