[ajross]

Having used a handful of insurance (health and otherwise) industry sites over the years, all I can say is that while all this criticism is no doubt valid, the bar is a lot lower than people might expect.

Medicare was successfully delivering care decades before the web was even invented and we all somehow survived.

[jtbigwoo]

>> Having used a handful of insurance (health and otherwise) industry sites over the years, all I can say is that while all this criticism is no doubt valid, the bar is a lot lower than people might expect.

On most health insurance sites, the first page is splashy and nice and then the sign-up process looks like it was transported to the present directly from 2003.

[bjudson]

But isn't the point of all this to make the process of getting health coverage less painful? A few glitches or a slow site are to be expected, but from what I can gather, the site was literally unusable for several days.

[ajross]

As I see it the point was to make it less unaffordable. Certainly "less painful" would be desirable, but as long as people can get the coverage (open enrollment is several months long, so a few days of downtime is bad, but nonfatal from a service perspective) and care gets reimbursed (still unknown, but I don't think it uses this particular infrastructure) I think you have to view the system implementation as a success.

Again, BCBS et. al. have been inflicting terrible web experiences on their users for quite some time now.

[sliverstorm]

the site was literally unusable for several days.

Why are we still surprised when a website gets crippled by a big launch? This happens again and again and again, and people are surprised every time!

[betterunix]

My thoughts exactly. This website was supposed to go from "testing" to "ready for millions of users who will present loads of unexpected corner cases" in just one day? That is not remotely trivial.