American Exceptionalism

[Deleted]

Mar 11, 2014 12:14:04 GMT -5 glen said:

SF - In general I agree that the political system is broken. Part of that IMO is that there is too much government. Too much money controlled by government. Corruption follows the money.

As for your ACA example...how many billions were wasted on ACA web sites that are totally FUBAR? If the ACA is so good, why does the prez need to illegally and unilaterally change the bill? Here's an idea - let's follow the process and the law and have both houses of Congress work together to fix the legislation. Don't give me this BS that there's stonewalling. That's partially true but there's also the lack of willingness to negotiate now that the D's don't have filibuster proof majorities in both houses. That's why congress-people who would normally go crazy with the prez overreaching are sitting silent. It is to their benefit - for now. Wait until a Republican president decides to unilaterally change legislation. Let's see how everyone on the other side takes that. Sorry man, the ACA stinks and the process that made it law stinks (deemed to have passed in the House - WTF?) Now you have an issue that there's opposition!?!? Really and truly put yourself in the other shoes. Be honest. If letters were reversed what would you be saying now?

The contracts for the ACA software system are cost plus award fee contracts. Some problems had been anticipated. Show me a computer program of any complexity that works right out of the box. Show me any that work perfectly even after having been fully tested. The cost to fix these problems was built into the budgeted contract ceiling cost. Failing to meet scheduled milestones actually saves money as the award fee is reduced.

[th24]

You know congress is shot to hell when they do this!

 

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK! WTF!

[glen]

MP - I've spent my career as a developer. Show me a website ANYWHERE in business - Amazon, whatever, that cost the company hundreds of millions?!?!? And to imply that we actually saved money by the failures!?!?! WHAT? Seriously!?! Wow. You are definitely a government guy for sure. Try that one in the private sector and see how long you'd last.

Sorry, no dice. They had no farking clue what they were doing when they completely upended the health insurance system in this country. Now you guys want to unilaterally (and really, without thought other than timing relative to election cycles) make changes to the law outside the legislative process. Viva la revolucion!

[Deleted]

Mar 12, 2014 7:04:12 GMT -5 glen said:

MP - I've spent my career as a developer. Show me a website ANYWHERE in business - Amazon, whatever, that cost the company hundreds of millions?!?!? And to imply that we actually saved money by the failures!?!?! WHAT? Seriously!?! Wow. You are definitely a government guy for sure. Try that one in the private sector and see how long you'd last.

Sorry, no dice. They had no farking clue what they were doing when they completely upended the health insurance system in this country. Now you guys want to unilaterally (and really, without thought other than timing relative to election cycles) make changes to the law outside the legislative process. Viva la revolucion!

It is painfully clear that you know nothing about Government contracts. For the last 15 years of my career (I worked for a defense contractor for 40 years) I negotiated contracts with the Government - all types: fixed price, cost plus fixed fee, cost plus incentive fee, and even cost plus zero fee. With the exception of the cost plus fixed fee, the contractor can get more profit by exceeding contract expectations, i.e., delivering units at less cost, meeting or beating schedule. If costs exceed certain limits the contractor's profit is reduced. If costs reach or exceed ceiling prices, the contractor eats those costs above ceiling. So yes my friend, the Government can see savings on the profit side that contractor's don't like so they do their level best to insure profits are maximized. I doubt that Amazon had to deal with different state systems and insurance regulations - the most complex part of Amazon's on-line dealings is the sales tax, which they avoided when they first implemented their systems. Shipping costs are another "complexity" - choose a), b) or c) and look up rates based on zip codes. Nowhere near as complex as integrating various insurance companies, available policies, minimum required standards, cost shelters dependent on income, across the majority of states that opted out of doing it on their own. If you think there is a commercial website that came on line day 1 with even a hint of this complexity share it with us.

[th24]

The Dems are screwed come November! Hell they just lost a special election down in Florida!

[th24]

I think your going to see a new demographic come November- young voters are who socially liberal and financially conservative!  

[glen]

MP - I'm not doubting your expertise with regard to gov't contracts. I get it. All I'm saying is that what was paid for by not just the Feds but many states was WAY more expensive (and delivered less) than what private sector would've done. How much did VT spend on their failed portal? $150M? They weren't dealing with multiple states, just 1. This was gross waste of taxpayer money.

[Deleted]

First of all, it was the private sector that coded and delivered the software system under a government contract. The VT contract was originally bid at $84M, only $4M less than the original contract let by the Feds for the 36 state package. The System developed for the group of 36 states is currently costed somewhere around $394M - that works out to about $10.9M per state covered. VT experienced almost exactly the same "going public problems" that the big system did albeit on a much smaller scale project, i.e., fewer insurance companies, fewer policies, common state data bases, no intra-state data formatting or data base structural difference across states. VT did not experience the initial day one cross country media and Republican nay sayer curiosity based attempted log-ins that helped overload the undersized federal system to begin with.

Unfortunately, the political climate was a big contributor to the high cost and botched roll-outs. A more reasonable approach could have been used where certain states could have provided test beds for software development, interfacing with insurance company data bases, interfacing with IRS and other Federal data bases used to determine elligibilty, user experiences - user interfaces NEVER work as originally coded - users do things other than that intended by input specs. In parallel, insurance companies across the country should have been surveyed to see what impact the new ACA minimum standards would have on existing policy holders. The results of these test bed activities would facilitate extension to the other states. Unfortunately, the Republican led opposition to ANY health care improvements mandated a much speedier roll-out to avoid a possible shift in the Congress that would then derail the entire program.

[SaintsFan]

Mar 12, 2014 19:16:48 GMT -5 @misspractice said:

First of all, it was the private sector that coded and delivered the software system under a government contract. The VT contract was originally bid at $84M, only $4M less than the original contract let by the Feds for the 36 state package. The System developed for the group of 36 states is currently costed somewhere around $394M - that works out to about $10.9M per state covered. VT experienced almost exactly the same "going public problems" that the big system did albeit on a much smaller scale project, i.e., fewer insurance companies, fewer policies, common state data bases, no intra-state data formatting or data base structural difference across states. VT did not experience the initial day one cross country media and Republican nay sayer curiosity based attempted log-ins that helped overload the undersized federal system to begin with.

Unfortunately, the political climate was a big contributor to the high cost and botched roll-outs. A more reasonable approach could have been used where certain states could have provided test beds for software development, interfacing with insurance company data bases, interfacing with IRS and other Federal data bases used to determine elligibilty, user experiences - user interfaces NEVER work as originally coded - users do things other than that intended by input specs. In parallel, insurance companies across the country should have been surveyed to see what impact the new ACA minimum standards would have on existing policy holders. The results of these test bed activities would facilitate extension to the other states. Unfortunately, the Republican led opposition to ANY health care improvements mandated a much speedier roll-out to avoid a possible shift in the Congress that would then derail the entire program.

Great post MP. Two points are often overlooked by the private sector and/or general public.

1 - Politicians will force project roll outs even if there is a totally absurd completion date. They dont live in the land of reality. They base any and every thing they do on their political aspirations.

2 - There is no standard and state to state, county to county, city to city, village to village the differences in technological advancements is cavernous. Throw in the insane amounts of laws, rules and regulations and you have an absolute mess. People claim cities or counties or states should control or set the rules and regulations for themselves... this does nothing but create logistical nightmares for accomplishing any task that. Even the simple sharing of data is laborious.

Ive developed small apps, medium sized apps and large apps in the private sector and now the public sector. NOTHING begins to approach the cluster eff that is developing for government. Mostly because the people making the decisions are NOT real CIOs, CTOs, project managers etc they are political hack appointees or politicians themselves and if you think its as simple as privatizing youve clearly got your head in the sand. The problem isnt those that are actually creating the systems... the problem is the people who want to be in charge arent qualified and are unwilling to give the public an answer they may not like... but are more than willing to blow as much smoke up anyones ass as possible.

Ive worked in both the public and private sector and ill tell you the public sector worker is unfairly trashed.

[Deleted]

I didn't even touch on the added complexity of making such a complex system "user friendly"! A good percentage of the users are likely to be anything but knowledgeable computer users and coding to both enable their interactions and to prevent unanticipated system problems when the desired input is not made is a challenge for any programmer. No matter how explicitly you identify what has to be input, users will misinterpret or miss type even the simplest items. Having them then navigate through all of the previously unknown options while operating under heightened tension (Am I doing this right? What does that mean? are typical internal questions) slows system response and access for others.

[glen]

MP / SF - I agree. So why are you both so intent on having government so involved in everything?

[Deleted]

Mar 13, 2014 10:43:40 GMT -5 glen said:

MP / SF - I agree. So why are you both so intent on having government so involved in everything?

Simply because there are things that NEED to be done, limits that NEED to be set, and people that NEED to be helped and the private sector will not fill those needs. The government we have now is a total dysfunctional tumor on this country - we need folks in government that realize there are TWO sides to just about all issues and they need to work to identify the points they agree on and then work to moderate or eliminate the rest. The polarization has been recognized as a good political tactic by the side not holding the White House and the country be damned until they get the power back............

[hockeyguy]

An interesting argument. Below is a link to a CNN poll(hardly FoxNews)out 2 days ago that says a full 39% of Americans support the ACA (but since some say they oppose it because it doesn't go far enough, the numbers are closer to 50/50). I don't think the 50% of Americans who oppose the ACA all belong to the party not in control of the Whitehouse. More importantly it appears more and more clear that a key projection that the program was sold on, that 7 million healthy 18-34 y/o's will sign-up and pay, is going to fall at least 1 million short and possibly 1.5 million short. $250/mo x 12 mos, x 1,000,000 is 3 billion dollars (possibly 4.5 billion) that "somebody" is going to have to make up. Wonder who. This is one man's egotistical dream, not well supported by a majority of Americans, sold on a best case scenario house of cards. Sort of like a Ponzi scheme, I take your money (which comes from young people overpaying for insurance they don't want, and give it to someone else) except they aren't buying it. Good luck with that.

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/11/cnn-poll-support-for-obamacare-edges-up/

[CellarRat]

Mar 10, 2014 11:39:08 GMT -5 gorvy said:

49 million Americans are suffering from hunger.

Are these folks in the red states? Maybe they should move to NY where there is plenty of free housing and food.