SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the same-thing-over-and-over-again-and-expexting-different-results dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
"CGI Group, the Montreal-based IT consulting company behind the botched rollout of the Federal Healthcare.gov site, has been removed from the Massachusetts Health Connector project. This comes about two months after being removed from Healthcare.gov, and a few weeks after CGI admitted the MA site 'may not be fully functioning by the end of June, and that one option under consideration is to scrap the multi-million-dollar site and start over.'
Like Oregon's similar troubles, Massachusetts uses paper submissions as a workaround to meet Federal sign-up requirements. 'The paper backlog fell to 21,000 pending applications, from 54,000 two weeks ago.'
If you are in the US, have you used Healthcare.gov or a State equivalent? If you are not in the US, do you use similar online systems in your nation?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by jimbrooking on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:51AM
I am a volunteer and retired IT guy and webmaster for a pretty sucessful database-driven site. I got certified to assist people who want help signing up at healthcare.gov in mid-February. I have been through the somewhat lengthy process of establishing an account on hc.gov, getting a list of qualified plans, going through pros and cons with clients, and letting them choose one. The site has been responsive (weekdays and weekends), a little pedantic, and offering confirmations, opportunities to backtrack and fix errors all along the way. I noticed a very few glitches along the way, probably not obvious to a non-technical type, and easily worked around. My view is that the site works as intended without hangups or delays and is really not a terrible design at all. The implementation was obviously botched, but the rough spots people were complaining about in October and November were not at all evident.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:43AM
It's because of people who don't want to use the system and want it to fail. If you want something to fail you'll latch on to any reason you can possible come up with and blow it out of proportion to make people listen to you.
ZOMG!!! RED is an angry colour that's driving me crazy and making me kill small woodland creatures and it's the Presidents fault!!!! Impeach! Impeach! Impeach! Yes, that's how ridiculous it sounds to the rest of us, especially when forced to watch Fox News. I lost my Dad to Fox News [salon.com] and we aren't even Americans.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:58AM
well, at least it's not kuro5hin.org.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:54PM
I can't think of a more astonishing situation: their generation [wikipedia.org] when [wikipedia.org] young [wikipedia.org].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:03PM
Damn hippies...
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Funny) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday March 18 2014, @01:28PM
> I can't think of a more astonishing situation: their generation when young.
There is a saying, loosely attributed to Edmund Burke:
FWIW, if that is true, it would make me a heartless idiot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:05PM
That quote is simply enlightened self-interest: Conservative policies tend to be about preserving assets for those who have them. Liberal policies tend to be about supporting those with no assets so they are at least not dying on the streets.
Most 25-year-olds have no assets, because they get junior-level pay and have had no time to save up any meager surplus they manage to acquire. (Plus they might be spending the money in stupid ways, because they're 25). So being liberal is in your self-interest because you're more likely to need that extra support for broke people.
Many 35-year-olds, by contrast, have assets, because they now get senior-level pay and have had a decade to sock it away or turn it into a house or invest it. So being conservative is in your self-interest because you want to make sure nobody else takes what you've worked so hard to acquire.
These are far from universal, of course, but they explain how the quote is commonly perceived as reality.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @05:10PM
I don't think "enlightened" is the right modifier here. In fact, I think you can just stick to "self-interest" alone in order to fully capture the motivations of the people who say it (who invariably consider themselves to be in the group who "have a brain.")