Posted on 11/10/2013 4:57:51 AM PST by Kaslin
CBS Evening News reports S.F. programmers build alternative to HealthCare.Gov Website
On Friday, President Obama had this to say about problems with the Obamcare website during a speech in New Orleans: "I promise you, nobody's been more frustrated. I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don't write code."
But plenty of programmers do write code. And three of them have created their own website that addresses some of the most annoying problems with HealthCare.gov.
In a San Francisco office shared with other tech start-ups, three 20-year-olds saw HealthCare.gov as a challenge.
With a few late nights, Ning Liang, George Kalogeropoulos and Michael Wasser built "thehealthsherpa.com," a two-week-old website that solves one of the biggest problems with the government's site.
"They got it completely backwards in terms of what people want up front," said Liang. He added: "They want prices and benefits, so that they could make the decision."
Liang showed CBS News how it worked. "You come to our website and you put in your zip code -- in this case a California zip code. You hit 'find plans,' and you immediately see the exchange plans that are available for that zip code."
The CBS video interview is interesting.
Click on link at the top if video does not play.
Thanks to reader "Rick" for the link.
Not Quite Ready
I entered my zipcode, 60012, and requested all plans for me alone - over 50, and no plans came up. I tried again with "you and spouse" and again no plans came up. Either they do not have all zipcodes entered or there are some other issues.
In my post Tips on Navigating Obamacare Costs on HealthCare.Gov - My Personal Experience - Obamashock! I noted there were 60 plans for McHenry County.
Perhaps they need to add "county" for some states.
Regardless, the website has a better interface and with a few bugs fixed, no one will need Healthcare.Gov, a website that cost taxpayers something on the order of $300 million.
I emailed the website developers and will post an update when I hear back.
As is typical with government projects, it seems no one really knows for sure what the healthcare.gov costs.
Then shut it the hell down and wait till the Canadians fix this thing like everybody else!
He already said he was sorry!
This has become a marvelous opportunity for hackers hoping to implant rootkits and viruses onto computers. Through all sorts of tricks they could convince suckers to “sign up for Obamacare”, while stealing their credit card numbers, getting them to send money (”premiums”), you name it.
It could become the new “Nigerian letter”.
These programmers are showing how easily and cheaply this could be done if only the people in charge were not involved in any way. This will be graciously accepted by the people in charge who will be appropriately rewarding to those programmers.
Knock, knock.
“Who’s there?”
“Guido and Vinnie.”
John Stossel showed ehealthinsurance.com and asked why they weren’t allowed to sell health insurance through their private site, which already worked.
For the Obama administration, the only thing WORSE than a poorly-operating website, just might be an efficiently-operating site. Do you really think they want a lot of people to know how bad and expensive the available plans are?
That site is worthless too! It doesn’t recognize 92101 (San Diego)
0bama wants his site. That is the way that his minions will determine who really is required to pay into the system.
I entered an obscure WI zip code, and it worked perfectly.
Only thing is, it doesn’t mention deductibles.
Yeah, I second that! Am in Washington state and so far have coverage through my employer. But if I was in California and pushed onto the exchange in Los Angeles, our (including my wife) cost would escalate nearly $1000/month. This is better??? What are the folks at healthcare.gov smoking, and why aren’t they sharing with us?
Yeah, if you are stupid enough to click on the healthcare.gov website
You mean the thehealthsherpa.com site? Sure it does, I just tried it
A 70’s pong game worked better than the Obama web site.
How do they fix the trust of a lying president part?
One of the last minute changes put in before October 1 was limiting information availability and requiring personal information so only your own subsidized price would be shown. The didn’t want people looking at the actual prices allowing reporters or bloggers to build and publicize various scenarios. The “most transparent administration in history” wanted to make this as opaque as possible.
Odumbo quote: “I promise you, nobody’s been more frustrated. I wanted to go in and fix it myself...”
You think odumbocare registration/signup is screwed up now, think what it would be if odumbo gets his hands in there.
“Repeal and Impeach” gets my YES vote.
It must be my browser then. I am using my phone’s Dolphin browser. I will try with Chrome.
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