HealthCare.gov will work. That means Obamacare can work, too.
By Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, WashPost, Updated: December 2, 2013
HealthCare.gov is clearly working better. But is it actually working? It depends on how you read the data.
A report released by the Obama administration this weekend shows the consumer experience is clearly improved. More than 400 of the 600 fixes on the administration's "punchcard" of repairs have been made. System response time has fallen from eight seconds to less than one second. The administration believes HealthCare.gov can now handle 50,000 concurrent users. The site, which was down 55 percent of the time in early November, is now functional more than 90 percent of the time.
Of course, that means the site still suffers a disastrous outage rate judged by the standards of major retail Web sites — and that's not counting the time it spends down for scheduled maintenance. We have no idea whether the 200 fixes left on the list are the really important ones, or the really difficult ones. We don't know what percentage of people who begin an application suffer some failure before completion. The administration hasn't released information on the error rate in the eligibility determinations or the transmissions to insurers, so it's impossible to judge whether the site's critical back-end functions are reliable. And there are important pieces of the site, like the payment mechanisms, that have yet to be built.
So there remain reason for concern. But here's what's indisputable: HealthCare.gov is improving, and fast. Or, to put it differently, HealthCare.gov will be fixed. In fact, for most people, it is probably fixed now, or will be fixed quite soon.
(More here.)
HealthCare.gov is clearly working better. But is it actually working? It depends on how you read the data.
A report released by the Obama administration this weekend shows the consumer experience is clearly improved. More than 400 of the 600 fixes on the administration's "punchcard" of repairs have been made. System response time has fallen from eight seconds to less than one second. The administration believes HealthCare.gov can now handle 50,000 concurrent users. The site, which was down 55 percent of the time in early November, is now functional more than 90 percent of the time.
Of course, that means the site still suffers a disastrous outage rate judged by the standards of major retail Web sites — and that's not counting the time it spends down for scheduled maintenance. We have no idea whether the 200 fixes left on the list are the really important ones, or the really difficult ones. We don't know what percentage of people who begin an application suffer some failure before completion. The administration hasn't released information on the error rate in the eligibility determinations or the transmissions to insurers, so it's impossible to judge whether the site's critical back-end functions are reliable. And there are important pieces of the site, like the payment mechanisms, that have yet to be built.
So there remain reason for concern. But here's what's indisputable: HealthCare.gov is improving, and fast. Or, to put it differently, HealthCare.gov will be fixed. In fact, for most people, it is probably fixed now, or will be fixed quite soon.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
We have met our 'goals' so that means the program is working? What color is the sky in Klein and Soltas' world? How many of those who have been able to navigate the website are covered, as of today, with insurance that they, the consumer wants, likes and pays for? Klein, Soltas are busy in the left-side-of-the-aisle sandbox, furiously trying to cover Obamacare - I'm afraid they are running out of sand.
Post a Comment
<< Home