OT Better health insurance website??

[Dean Hoffman]

Article here

from the Atlantic. Three guys built a simpler site for Obamacare than the feds did. They started on it after seeing the fed's version. It's here if anyone is interested. I saw in the comments another site that might be better since it includes the subsidies. Both sites are missing a lot of information about deductibles etc. I don't know crap about this stuff so take it for what it's worth. Security at the HHS site is lacking. Article from the Foundry: The Foundry is connected to the Heritage Foundation.

[passerby]

How's the "penguin" site going to know the individual subsidies and the plan details? You need these two pieces of info to give users any kind of useful info. How does anyone know if the info on the site has any correlation to reality, where does the data come from?

From the flurry of coverage about the HealthCare.gov issues I thought that the only non-ideological complaint about the implementation was that backend communication with all the insurance providers was the part that was lacking. In order to build a better site, those three guys would have to have a better access to ALL the participating healthcare insurance companies (their IT departments specifically) than HHS - how's that possible?

[Norminn]

Security is lacking? How astonishing.......how many updates for Windows have been issued since the latest version was published? Anything that can be programmed can be hacked, and there are droves of people with nothing better to do than find security holes in computers. I have probably gotten thousands of updates for various programs over the years (20) that I have had a pc. I also worked through the formation of a new payroll and pension system with a large employer....my job for three years of blood, sweat and tears was to audit payroll and benefit data before it was fed to the home office of our large and esteemed corporation. The lead-up to going live involved HUNDREDS of changes to the payroll system, trying to find bugs...there were very unique little glitches that anyone without personal knowledge of most of our employees would never have found. That said, I can't imagine how complex the ACA site needs to be, with security both directions to filter out spammers and hackers, verify ID's, and feed the right info for the person's state insurance status back to applicants.

I'm not real optimistic that it will come together soon, but once it does, and with the increasing computerization of provider systems, Medicare et al will be more difficult to cheat, and there will be much more data about wasteful/useless treatments, complications of drugs and treatments, etc. Another 10 years and medicine in US might be beneficial :o)

Folks getting cancellations from private insurers may be getting blessings in disguise....plans that cost a lot and really screw the policy holder until they have a claim and find out there coverage is lousy.