The Obama administration had three years to build Healthcare.gov correctly. Clearly they failed, and now the administration is calling in chits from Silicon Valley to help save their botched website.
The Obama administration Sunday said it’s called on “the best and brightest” tech experts from both government and the private sector to help fix the troubled website at the root of the Obamacare enrollment problems.
The unusual Sunday 600-word blog post from the Department of Health and Human Services was the first update in more than a week on the many failings of an expensive website that HHS itself described as “frustrating for many Americans.” But it didn’t specify whom the administration had called in, or when the American people would see clear-cut results on HealthCare.gov.
“We’re kind of thinking of it as a tech ‘surge,’” an HHS official told POLITICO.
The Health and Human Services statement didn’t explain everything that’s wrong, or give technical details about the repairs under way. It outlined some steps being taken to fix the site, including updates with “new code that includes bug fixes.”
The Obama administration still refuses to give some basic information about Healthcare.gov, such as how many Americans have actually been able to purchase health insurance through it. Today Obama will do what he does best — give a speech — in the White House Rose Garden to address the failure of his signature law. He will also surround himself with human props, people who the administration claims have been able to sign up for Obamacare. Unless the president’s production team can wedge millions of Americans into the shot, the props will only serve to highlight that very few Americans have successfully signed up for Obamacare.
While the “tech surge” commences, gold standard product ratings magazine Consumer Reports offers Americans’ advice on Healthcare.gov: Stay away from it for several more weeks.
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