Welcome to the sign-up link for the Affordable Health Care Act. Just follow a few quick and easy steps and you will be signed on for health care insurance. Note that failure to register and obtain health insurance will result in a fine each year, which will be assessed by the IRS.
2 Choose a password (Must have 29 characters including two capitals and five numbers)
3 Names and social security numbers of all family members going back 6 generations
4 All previous addresses where you and your parents have resided since your birth as well as the names of your next door neighbors.
5 Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party or Tea Party?
-Yes
-No
6 What is your religion?
a How often do you pray?
b To whom do you pray?
c What do you pray about?
7 Do you believe in Global Warming? If not, why not?
8 What blogs do you read?
9 Who did you vote for in the last election?
10 Once you have answered the above questions, you may proceed to the next step:
11 Once you navigate the above quick and easy path to health care insurance, you will be directed to the name of a US government health care insurance specialist.
12 In order to identify the correct specialist, you must choose one of the below agencies:
13 The agency you will be assigned to is based on the letter of the first name of the first man your mother slept with. If you need time to get that information, you may press the pause button.
14 Now click the below link.
Sorry. Error. Go back.
15 Please repeat process (to prove you are not a robot)
16 If you are having problems, please call the below number................................................
1-800 #*!?&#^
14 Now click the below link.
Sorry. Error. Go back.
15 Please repeat process (to prove you are not a robot)
16 If you are having problems, please call the below number................................................
1-800 #*!?&#^
Actually they give you a multiple choice quiz to verify ONE former address. But the programming does lose the data you entered, fill in other data, and end up putting you in the wrong category, from which there is no recourse, other than writing a letter to London, Kentucky appealing.
ReplyDeleteBetter to download a paper application and mail THAT to London, KY.
http://marketplace.cms.gov/getofficialresources/publications-and-articles/individual-short-form.pdf
http://marketplace.cms.gov/getofficialresources/publications-and-articles/marketplace-application-for-family.pdf
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
ReplyDeleteSorry, Siarlys, I couldn't help myself.
I'm sure you couldn't Gary. I've been convinced of that for some time.
ReplyDeleteIt is incredible that in 2013, they revert to paper or individual interviews or phone calls to collect and process data. It simply cannot be accomplished. Each manually produced field or piece of data would then have to be key punched manually by some government worker. Further, it has to be keypunched twice to be sure there are no errors and that 100 isn't entered as 10 or 1000.
ReplyDeleteEvery single day, there are hundreds of millions of transactions, perhaps billions, that are successfully communicated electronically. Just go to Amazon and see how well the process works with an infinitely larger number of selections you can choose. Electronic payments, and transactions are routine among the banks and businesses.
There is nothing particularly difficult in the technology but there is a problem in that the emphasis to get personal data first for an "account" and get that verified... by other organizations.
It is more of a political priority problem than a website problem.
There are two problems Miggie:
ReplyDelete1) The web site seems to lose data already entered, populate fields with data not entered, which shows bad programming for sure.
2) The decision as to what category an individual falls into is made automatically by the program, rather than by a human being, and there is no opportunity to click "I think that's wrong, can we go through this again?"
I suspect that trying to make it possible for the program itself to determine eligibility and category introduced a complexity that should have been avoided. Sure, have the DATA entered on line, but then have a trained, qualified human being interpret the data, and have a conversation or at least a live chat with the applicant.
As I've noted before, the program classified me as Medicaid-eligible, which stops the process without further consideration. My option is to appeal (in writing) the determination that I am Medicaid eligible, and demand the right to pay the premium I can afford -- which I have done.
ecommerce doesn't require this kind of human judgement, but making a decision interpreting the data does. No doubt the administration's younger acolytes are worshippers of the digital (not unlike yourself apparently) and are cocksure that the programming can do it all.
It is a simple sequential decision tree process that computers do very well,even on complex processes like tax returns and even medical diagnosis. They are primarily yes/no answers to questions that leads to the next decision based on the answer.
ReplyDeleteThe names and personal information goes directly into fields that have to be compatible in all 50 states and for all policies in each state and participating insurance companies. When personal data has to be key punched into the system another element of error is introduced in just the key punching. That is not only for numbers but also for the spouse and dependents fields that are being mixed up. On top of that every provider participant has to be on the exact same protocol, i.e what the signal for moving to the next field, (that has to be same) signaling end of this form, go on to the next one. All this runs at the speed of light and works just fine in commerce but beyond what the government can do.
As the program fixes were given to a firm run by donation bundlers for Obama, you can't expect professional expertise.
When Amazon, Turbo Tax or tens of thousands of other competitive, free market companies make programs like this, they do a much better job because they do it for profit. Owners and managers stay on top of the project to keep their jobs. This doesn't exist in government projects.
That is just the technical aspect, add in all the political aspects of the law you have a train wreck. Who but the tax payers will pay for the cost of all this incompetence? We will end up with a health system like Cuba has. All have the same coverage, need or want every aspect or not. You pay for it though. People will wait for doctor appointments , referrals, hospital beds, etc.
The nightmare begins.