Former Microsoft Exec To Lead HealthCare.gov 214
Antipater writes "NBCNews reports that Kurt DelBene, former head of Microsoft's Office division, will take over operations of Healthcare.gov on Wednesday. DelBene will replace Jeffrey Zients, who stepped in to lead the team fixing the health insurance website when it crashed and burned on its Oct. 1 launch. Zients is set to take over next month as senior White House economic adviser from Gene Sperling.'"
New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:5, Funny)
My healthcare BSOD...
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Sadly it will make you fill out a death application form, 32 pages long. And should you develop the BSOD, you or your family will be taxed for it at a 'cheaper' price. Sorry I mean, an excessively more expensive price.
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My healthcare BSOD...
But if you like your Dr Watson trace... You can keep it.
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They already have info on most everyone in the US. Let them get the website going, they can hook in with Acxiom [acxiom.com] to pre-fill in what data Google has missing or wrong...and voila, the site could be up and running within about 2 months.
Not that I'm in favor of obamacare, mind you, but if they're gonna try to get expertise in getting large web based things to run and information gathering,
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No, they need to split it up into two sections: the back-end and the front-end (the customer-facing website's UI).
Let Google do the back-end, because they seem to be pretty good at that stuff. Don't let them do the UI, however, because it'll suck. Even Ebay does better UIs than Google. Who should do the UI then, you may ask? Honestly, I don't know, but it shouldn't be any large corporation (including MS), because all their UI designers have drunk some tainted kool-aid.
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You obviously haven't used GMail lately.
Re:New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:5, Informative)
> Those who complained about their canceled plans actually got better plans - less cost and more coverage.
Um, really? We didn't. Our plans (wife and I) were canceled because the company didn't want to pay the cadillac tax. For a replacement, we get higher cost, and much higher deductible. The strategy, as I understand it, is that you are supposed to live off your FSA for the first five months or so before your coverage actually starts paying for stuff. This is a definition of "better plans" of which I am unaware.
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No, it is ELITIST bullshit that they are spewing. Making blanket judgements based on what someone like Ezekiel Emanuel told them to say. It doesn't matter if it is true or not, they believe it, because they were told by someone who knows better than anyone else. And it is "better" depending on who you ask, just don't ask the patient, doctor, health insurance company or anyone immediately involved in your health care (lack of) choices. It IS better for the DNC as it provides a nice new entitlement to ensnare
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> It IS better for the DNC as it provides a nice new entitlement to ensnare unsuspecting weak individuals into a lifelong servitude of voting for the candidates the Party Dictates they vote for.
Except... how could that work if the entitlement in question is looked forward even less than having a live frog for breakfast?
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Everyone succumbs to indoctrination given enough time.
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As the saying goes "I got mine so fuck you".
Re:New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:5, Informative)
So... blame your cheapass company for dropping your insurance coverage.
They didn't have to buy you a "cadillac" policy... they could have bought you a regular policy but they are using the "blame it on Obamacare" excuse for screwing you.
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I mean, a conservative policy wonk who disagrees [businessinsider.com] is just a RINO, and we know they are just democrats in disguise.
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Obamacare is taking tax dollars and giving it to these private companies that have absolutely no compunctions about denying coverage, shifting responsibility and shirking responsibility. This is the system Republicans want. Left to the Democrats we would have simply expanded the medicare, paid for it wi
All non-exchange compliant health plans doomed ... (Score:2)
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So... blame your cheapass company for dropping your insurance coverage. They didn't have to buy you a "cadillac" policy... they could have bought you a regular policy but they are using the "blame it on Obamacare" excuse for screwing you.
Keep believing that.
Meanwhile, even the NYT is profiling lefty professionals who are quite surprised to learn that Obamacare means they pay more and get less.
Re:New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are lots of anecdotal stories floating around and being touted as "evidence" for and against ACA.
FWIT, my personal experience is that for my family, I can get better insurance (better list of doctors and hospitals, lower deductibles, lower cost) under ACA than I had before under my old policy which was cancelled because it was not ACA compliant. YMMV
It will take at least a few months to get the actual results sorted out.
A lot of the people who had very cheap insurance which was cancelled had "hospital gown" policies (which means that their ass wasn't covered). Others could prove that they were "healthy" and could show that they didn't need insurance.
The big win is for people who couldn't get insurance or who had very expensive policies. They will be able to get affordable insurance under ACA since the scumbag insurance companies can't refuse to insure them. Also, a lot of people who have very low income and couldn't afford insurance can now get subsidies and can buy insurance... a big win for them.
Re:New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of the people who had very cheap insurance which was cancelled had "hospital gown" policies (which means that their ass wasn't covered). Others could prove that they were "healthy" and could show that they didn't need insurance.
Bingo.
The main 'losers' under the ACA are:
a) people who didn't actually have coverage; are being forced into plans that actually cover things.
b) lowest risk, healthiest people -- they got better rates before because the insurance industry figured they wouldn't have to pay out on them. Now with more (and less healthy) people being added to the system, the rates are rising slightly to accomodate the overall higher insurance costs to the industry.
But insuring all those extra people is a net gain. At least in my books. And I'm speaking as someone still comfortably in the first half of my life, with no significant health concerns, who makes a decent living -- aka someone the insurers love to insure.
The big win is for people who couldn't get insurance or who had very expensive policies. They will be able to get affordable insurance under ACA since the scumbag insurance companies can't refuse to insure them.
Exactly. But its inevitable that there will be some "losers" at the other end of the spectrum whose rates are going up to offset this. But as I said before... its net gain for society.
Changes in rules mean changes in payments (Score:3)
Meanwhile, even the NYT is profiling lefty professionals who are quite surprised to learn that Obamacare means they pay more and get less.
Some people always were going to end up paying more any time you make adjustments in the rules. This is no big surprise unless you weren't paying attention or are just plain dumb. When you shift coverage around the risk pools are going to change and some people are going to end up paying more than before, particularly if they had an unusually good deal. Some will get better pricing others will have to pay a bit more. Most will end up somewhere in the middle.
On the other hand, in my company virtually all
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Yeah... it makes me so tired. I'm neither republican nor democrat. (Although I do register one or t'other, switching back and forth depending on who has the most interesting primary.) It's not about who was right, it's about my insurance becoming more costly and my deductible being substantially higher. But try to mention that and you're shouted down, because Obamacare is so much cheaper and more available. Even the media completely misses the point, that not only does Obamacare eliminate "sub standard
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No. More then likely, lowered premiums for better coverage. Those who complained about their canceled plans actually got better plans - less cost and more coverage.
Whatever guys, Troll dissolves Troll - like Chemistry, like dissolves like.
Really now, I have to ask if you're being paid by OFA or Media Matters after two statements like that. Every single person that I know in the US who had healthcare plans they liked, got theirs cancelled, and are paying anywhere between 40% and 280% more now, and they're getting 60% less coverage, with a 2000% increase in their deductible.
Maybe, maybe...you're just ignorant. Then again, back when you guy's were looking at implementing this, I repeatedly said it was doomed to failure and your healthcare ins
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Because I already live under a socialized medicine system in Canada.
What's wrong with Canada?
Re:New meaning to blue screen of death? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry - how is 7th highest cost for 4th highest life expetancy not a deal?
If life expectancy was less than 7th, I might see your point. Beyond that, the US already spends 17.2% of it's GDP on healthcare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]) and has an infant mortality rate around 34th in the world , so moving to an infant mortality rate of 24th in the world for a cost of 11% of GDP is a huge improvement for your southern neighbors.
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Now that Obamacare is bringing socialism to US healthcare, Mashiki knows from miserable experience the poor quality and excessive expense that his southern neighbors can expect in the years to come.
You bet. [gov.on.ca] Enjoy that "upto 84 and more days" for cancer surgery k? How about 196 days to get an MRI done for neck surgery. A 3.5hr wait for "critical care" emergency room visit.
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The socialists in Canada pay almost $4500 per capita for healthcare
So nearly half of the US.
or more than 11% of GDP.
So only 60% of that of the US.
Because of the waste inherent in socialist systems,
So paying less per capita and less as a percentage of GDP is a sign of inherent waste?
we should not be surprised that healthcare costs in Canada are 7th highest on the planet,
And the US's is the highest.
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So nearly half of the US.
Not really, in some cases it's even more. See, because some things aren't covered at all. Which is why nearly everyone here has insurance, for their universal healthcare. Right now I have an ancient grandfathered plan via green shield that only costs me $1640/yr, which covers most of the things that I need. People getting the same plan today are looking at the 4k-9k/yearly.
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I don't think that's right. Essentially, if you go with a platinum plan, you have similar out of pocket costs to a good corporate group plan - of course you're paying the full fare, so the premiums will appear higher than for an employee. But it probably compares favorably to what was available to individuals before.
There is still a downside, though. The plans offered (in New York state, at least) do not offer any out of network coverage at all (which stinks IMO). I'm sticking with my ex-employer's plan
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Really now, I have to ask if you're being paid by OFA or Media Matters after two statements like that.
Media matters pays my rent. That's why I believe what I believe. You want your rent paid for you, then you just have to jump on board and change your views. It really is that easy. We're rich over hear, bought off by our corporate overlords. I know conservatives don't have any corporate sugar daddy's pumping money into think-tanks, but that is really your bad, since paying people to produce political material is really the best way to carry on a balanced and objective discussion, since the facts always win
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Yeah, they're very experienced at hiring Akamai to deal with DoS attacks :)
Clippy? (Score:5, Funny)
Will the web site feature a seemingly-friendly, but obnoxious-as-hell talking paper clip that pops up whenever its unwanted?
Looks Like You're Trying to Sign Up for Obamacare! (Score:3, Funny)
Would you Like to:
[N/A] Keep your existing health plan?
[ ] Automatically get shunted into Medicaid?
[ ] Pay through the nose for a plan with a higher deductible, a higher co-pay, and higher monthly fees?
[ ] Appeal your death panel ruling?
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Would you Like to:
Correct version of the above:
Would you like to:
There is no corresponding correction to "death panels" because those are imaginary.
Re:Looks Like You're Trying to Sign Up for Obamaca (Score:4, Interesting)
When Obama said: "If you like your plan you can keep it," — he meant to say: "If I like your plan, you can keep it." The millions, whose plans aren't, in Obama's omniscient and benevolent opinion, good enough — because they don't cover, say, obesity counseling, or contraception, or gender-changes — are out of luck...
No, they aren't. There always are patients, who could be kept alive at high costs but without much, if any, prospect of recovering. When and whether to "pull the plug" on them is currently up to the patients and/or their families. Once the government becomes the single payer — which is what Obama and you dream about — the decision will be the government's. It is unlikely, that it will be a single shirley sharrod deciding — more like a panel of them. "Death panel" is a perfectly apt term describing the outfit...
If the IRS is already used today to suppress opposition [usnews.com], why wouldn't the next charismatic demagogue in the White House use these panels to an even graver effect? No, not even against the opposition figures themselves — too obvious...
"Hey, if you'd like your mother to be approved for surgery, rather than referred to End of Life Counseling, do not talk about this and that in your next public appearance. Do we understand each other?"
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"When and whether to "pull the plug" on them is currently up to the insurance companies."
fixed that for you
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Sure. Thanks for confirming, that death panels do, in fact, exist. However, the worst the insurance company can do today is notify the hospital, they'll stop paying — and they don't want to do that for fear of very bad publicity. The hospital — being a separate entity currently — will not pull the plug on their own.
Once we arrive at the "single payer" nirvana, hospitals will, effectively, be run by the
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Re: Looks Like You're Trying to Sign Up for Obamac (Score:2)
My God. Your first post was bad enough. This is epic astroturfing.
Ezekiel is that you??
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You know, I keep expecting the old 'Clippy' dig on MS to get old...
Hasn't yet :)
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"Hey, it looks like you're trying to find an emergency room. I can help with that!"
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"It looks like you passed out and your spleen is falling out.
Would you like to purchase Microsoft Spleen Express, or Microsoft Spleen Pro?
I will assume Spleen Pro and bill your credit card unless you cancel within 5 seconds..."
Second one? (Score:2)
Wait, so you mean this is the second guy to "step in and fix it" since October? That would seem to indicate this is truly an enormous disaster.
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And yet...nobody is in jail, being fined, or even refunding all that money they were paid to develop it.
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And yet...nobody is in jail, being fined, or even refunding all that money they were paid to develop it.
Its not really contractor's fault. I'm sure they did some pretty screwy things but the epic fail really comes down to time and specification. The contractors were only given months to implemented it, despite the administration knowing they needed it over 3 years ago, and the administration was making last minute changes, can't show plan prices from the insurance company have to connect to a bunch of different gov't agencies in order to calculate a subsidy.
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Which likely means the contractor delivered exactly what they were contracted to deliver, it's just that the government didn't know what it actually needed when it wrote the requirements and now wants to blame them for the fact that the resultant product can't fulfill its purpose.
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And we're now entrusting said government to be in charge of all our healthcare needs/decisions why now exactly???
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Chrome Robot: Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. I am here to protect you. You have nowhere to go. You have nowhere to go.
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the government is not a profit entity. they don't have the same motives to watch you DIE due to neglect that insurance companies currently have.
if there ever was a death panel, it was the insurance company. taking some of the control away from them could ONLY be a godsend. even if the gov farks the whole thing up, it can't possibly be worse than what we have now.
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Which likely means the contractor delivered exactly what they were contracted to deliver, it's just that the government didn't know what it actually needed when it wrote the requirements and now wants to blame them for the fact that the resultant product can't fulfill its purpose.
And you know this from your experience working in companies like CGI? Well, that's were I used to work, and they have an amazing legal and sales team. Programming... not so much. My first-hand experience of *different* government contracts is: the government was handcuffed by their own rules, and CGI knew it, and moved in for the kill. Easy. Money.
There is a problem to be fixed, for sure, and it probably stems from the way policy is written, and legal precedents. So not that easy.
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And yet...nobody is in jail, being fined, or even refunding all that money they were paid to develop it.
Well, yea.
For that to happen, someone in federal government would have to admit to making a mistake, and as we all should know at this point, es ist VERBOTEN .
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Yes, so horrible that the for-profit healthcare system in this country created so many life saving & extending drugs and treatments
Oh what a horrible world it was before the ACA was passed... millions of dead poor people in the street, insurance companies rolling the dice and canceling policies just because they felt like it
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Yes, so horrible that the for-profit healthcare system in this country created so many life saving & extending drugs and treatments
Yep, the USA had teh best healthcare system in the world, and it has now been ruined. It provided by far the best outcomes to the most people at the cheapest price, and nobody in the world could do anything remotely as good. And did you hear that we're exceptional? Just fyi.
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You use that word... but I don't think you understand it's meaning.
In fact... 'fascism' is a term that while not often applied to the current government, does pretty accurately describe the unilateral rule we have seen from this administration on this law (amongst other things).
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Here are some fascist traits more associated with conservative politics:
Fix it and implement the missing 40% of project (Score:2)
Wait, so you mean this is the second guy to "step in and fix it" since October? That would seem to indicate this is truly an enormous disaster.
Its not just fixing the front end user interface. There is the 40% of the project that is back end and has not even been implemented at all according to recent testimony to congress.
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Or that someone was throwing him a freebie job until another one opened up (and they could hopefully find someone better for this one).
Scenario: We have a clusterfuck. And need a new person to head it. But we have no idea who it is.
So we hire some guy who's a business CEO and economics type - clearly completely wrong for the job - but not 2 months later he gets a job suited to the CEO/economics type - as an economics advisor. And we spent the time he was 'in charge' hiring someone who appears to maybe
Polilitical Link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Polilitical Link (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Polilitical Link (Score:4, Funny)
What did critters ever do to you?
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Right, no cronyism here. Move along now, nothing to see.
Re:Polilitical Link (Score:5, Informative)
Close. It's Suzan DelBene.http://delbene.house.gov/ [house.gov]
Meet Sticky, the helpful animated syringe (Score:5, Funny)
Oh please oh please oh please
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That's absolutely brilliant.
Re:Meet Sticky, the helpful animated syringe (Score:4, Funny)
Your rate offers will be ready in (Score:5, Funny)
45 seconds
2 minutes
15 seconds
30 seconds
microsoft exec plus the US Government... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm trying to think how this could end well.
Re:microsoft exec plus the US Government... (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, that's easy . . . just look at Nokia and Steve Elop! The Microsoft exec will run Obamacare into bankruptcy, then Microsoft will buy Obamacare cheap for all the patents and IP . . . and then Microsoft will own our healthcare, as well as our desktops!
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You're right, I should have said, end well for us, not Microsoft....
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Well, some people like watching train wrecks...
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Personally I am glad that healthcare.gov doesn't use .NET, or the bitching on forums about how that choice killed the website would've been terrible.
Is this the Office 2010 - 2013 "upgrade" guy? (Score:2)
Many of them think the best upgrade for Office 2015 would be to make it look like Office 2010 instead of this forced Windows-8 style which looks clu
website looks good just the PHB driven backend (Score:2)
The backed parts controlled by PHB's are what failed in the website.
The tech's did not have that much time after getting the specs and have very limited QA time.
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Oh? 3 years went by between the passage of the law and the launch of the site... how much more time do you think they should have had?
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The law wasn't the "specs". Specs are "how do we handshake with SSA to verify a SSN", "what format will NJ's DOVS return birth certificate data in?"
It took years to write the specs one the framework of the statute was in place.
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Healthcare.gov will be fixed in 2 weeks (Score:5, Funny)
Old addage (Score:2)
The blind leading the blind.
Brilliant! Ribbons everywhere! (Score:2)
They can replace everything with Ribbons... allowing users to customize their experience! Not only will they never be able to sign up for health care now, but they won't even know where to click to exit the web site!
Why? (Score:2)
What large connected software system has MS built without purchasing a company that was already doing the thing and re-brand it?
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Windows? Office? Visual Studio? I'm not sure about others, but I'd guess that's my ignorance. Not that you really need an answer. Because with the company, they buy the management team. Which means that the proportion of projects acquired vs. homegrown is directly proportional to the likelihood that he worked for a company that did things well enough to be acquired by MS
Very unfair to the original team (Score:2)
The problems are largely resolved and in 3 months when the deadline hits and millions more are enrolled the old administrators will take the blame for past problems and this guy will get the credit.
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Jay Carney, is that you?
Nice idea in theory... the practice thus far doesn't fall in life.
Aside from the fact that the enrollment #'s (at both the state & federal exchange levels) are well behind schedule, good sized portions of the website still do not exist, like the payment system: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-29/obamacare-payment-system-to-insurers-delayed-by-months.html [bloomberg.com]
No... the website was only the second blow from this horrible law... the first being the massive wave of insurance cancela
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Unlike your partisan hackery, I've been actually USING the website. I put up with about a month of TERRIBLE performance before I could get myself registered. I enrolled, paid my 1st month's premium to Coventry, and will have healthcare I signed up for under the exchange starting next year.
Man, the Republicans could have just waited. (Score:2)
And the whole thing would have just exploded. Does Obama have a change of heart and wants this whole thing to just die?
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You would think, but Obama has never backed down on anything. It's not in his mindset.
It's not that he wouldn't think he was wrong, but that the idea couldn't possibly ever occur to him. After all, he's been surrounded by Yes Men his whole life. Who can blame him?
Obamacare is ideologically-driven, and the only thought that was put into the possibility of its failure was that it could facilitate the call to go all out and implement a single-payer system. One could say this is a cynical observation, but i
Political favors (Score:2)
Gotta love 'em
Can we just have single payer yet? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please? How much more complicated do we have to make it before we do what the rest of the civilized world is doing?
I know Americans like to be different but it's gone too far.
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This debacle is making single payer look better and better....
that's the point, Dems say. But if feds fail even (Score:2)
That's kind of the point, some Democrat congress critters say. Let this fail horribly and a certain segment of the voting public will once again be clamoring for CHANGE. Any change will do. Those voters don't bother to ask "change to what?"
If they did think about what the new (single payer) system would be like, they'd realize they'll have the US government, who can't even manage to have a website built, would be running the whole show. Instead of taking six months to maybe buy medical insurance on heal
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and so this is how it is in other countries that do have single-payer?
huh? what? they don't have the problems you list? other countries _do_ make this work and the people _do_ like it?
so you must be saying that we can't do things even 2nd world countries can?
why do you hate america so much?
yes, 30 day wait for Dr. appointment in Canada (Score:2)
A) The Canadians I know come to the US for medical care.
Do we want a system so awesome that people can't get the care they need and have to go to other countries? Canada DOES measure quality by the percentage of people who are able to see a doctor within 30 days. For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days. I called my doctor at 4PM today to make an appointment for tomorrow morning . So yes, that is a problem with government run healt
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We're still trying 'everything else'.
I felt a disturbance. (Score:2)
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With a website that's only usable with Internet Explorer.
Version 6!