Two Weeks Later, Reporter Still Can't Sign Up for Obamacare (how not to start an online service).

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/14/13 | Daniel Halper

[Usagi_yo]

The healthcare.gov website has been online for two weeks. But folks are having trouble signing up.

One person who says she's been trying for two weeks straight to sign up is CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. ..... Snip .....

[Usagi_yo]

Amazing as all the things they needed for a decent roll-out was pretty well much off the shelf software.

But despite the fact online game companies have been successfully rolling out membership driven products for the better part of two decades, Obama chose some obscure consulting firm that was previously fired from Canada for incompetence.

I wonder if it was a newly acquired minority owned consulting firm packed with liberal 'out of office' politicians and their families.

[mmichaels1970]

I tried to go through the healthcare.gov mess about a week ago just to see what would happen. Took a couple hours to fill out the entire application.

Just checked back there on a whim, and the entire application is gone. Just says my application was incomplete and wants to wade me through all of the questions in the two hour process again.

[arista]

I’ve worked on ecommerce projects in the past. One thing I’ve learned is that if the rollout does not go well and people get a bad first impression, it is very difficult to regain customers’ trust and get them to come back again later, even if you’ve fix the initial problems.

[SubMareener]

It does not work with FireFox! You get a blank screen. I finally tried Internet Explorer and it worked.

[5thGenTexan]

I’ve worked on ecommerce projects in the past. One thing I’ve learned is that if the rollout does not go well and people get a bad first impression, it is very difficult to regain customers’ trust and get them to come back again later, even if you’ve fix the initial problems.

That is true in the free market system. But in the government mandated system, you don't need to worry about these types of issues...just ask any DMV or SSA employee.

[arista]

That is true in the free market system. But in the government mandated system, you don't need to worry about these types of issues...just ask any DMV or SSA employee.

The difference is that Obamacare depends on young healthy people going to the website and signing up. It won't work if only the expensive people with pre-existing conditions sign up because you need healthy people in the system to pay for the sick people. If it's too much trouble to sign up, people are likely to just continue getting their healthcare for free in the emergency room

[5thGenTexan]

Actually, I think it is more like:

The difference is that Obamacare depends on young healthy people going to the website and signing up out of fear of repercussions from the government.