So I’ve been working on the Oregon implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. Known locally as Cover Oregon. Cover OREGON is probably in a little better shape than the fed. Still, as a whole this thing is a hot mess. It’s important to realize I am speaking in generalities about the situation as a whole. This is in no way meant as a comment on Cover Oregon or Oracle, but as a comment on the national situation and my opinion sitting in the middle of a small portion.
So why is it all jacked up? The easy answer is unrealistic expectations. Software engineering at this level is an iterative game. The first version is always shit, and then you keep making it better and better through iterative improvement. That’s why gMail was in beta for years and years after the world was all using it by default. Politicians were sold on the illusion of a stable automated system in an unrealistic time line. What they are getting is an early Beta being pressed into service before it is ready.
It will get better, but it will take time.
So I am a bit of a South Park fan boy, and many problems can be well summed up through an absurd South Park reference. I give you South Park on HealthCare.gov.
