[Sub-Driver]

Only 5? Ya sure about dat?

[Noamie]

You can have a competent coder, but if you give him an unrealistic deadline then it won’t work.

It’s possible that ObamaCare will be in even worse shape on November 1st.

[TomServo]

“One specialist said that as many as five million lines of software code may need to be rewritten before the Web site runs properly,” the Times reports — that’s out of a total of approximately 500 million lines of code, according to another expert.

Sure are alot of "experts" out there. Amazing the analysis they've performed in the last 3 weeks.

[norwaypinesavage]

The solution is quite simple:

Hire 100,000 IT coders, and simply require them to write 50 lines each. Of course, another 200,000 bureaucrats will be required to oversee them.

System integration? Irrelevant.

Time to success - infinity, but 300,000 jobs will be created, and the jobless numbers will look great (for a while).

[CodeToad]

There isn't a single web site. It is comprised of many, many interconnects and web sites.

[rlmorel]

Lets get a whole army of government employee, typewriter pounding code-monkeys cracking on this.

They will “solve” it while billions pours in from the government solidifying the bureaucratic base.

[TruthInThoughtWordAndDeed]

From an experienced coder:

Even small projects with just five to ten screens take months to research, plan, write, debug, debug, debug, roll out, and debug, debug, debug.

There is no hope for Obamacare code. It will NEVER be fixed.

[Hoodat]

— that’s out of a total of approximately 500 million lines of code

There's your problem right there.

[RightGeek]

[dfwgator]

Just rewrite it from scratch, it will be quicker.

[sergeantdave]

Try vacuum tubes and punch cards.

[Billthedrill]

As a thankfully-ex PM I think I can see a way out of this, but it's politically impossible. What they need to do is (1) delay the program for a year, (2) completely review the underlying document with an eye to simplification of the decision trees, (3) continue the signups to convey the impression to the public that everything is just fine.

Item (2) is the stickler. The legislation is broken. Code Toad posted the - well, I suppose you could call that very high-level flowchart, and it's a mess. If you try to recreate that with one monolithic piece of code without breaking it up you'll never finish.

There is another issue. The ACA contains a large number of "The Secretary shall determine" statements that cannot be coded because they refer to decisions that haven't been made yet. Well, they can be coded, but I don't think very many people will be satisfied with a window that pops up and says, "We'll let you know later. Trust us."

The real issue is that the ACA was written on a legislative model that was already pretty clumsy - every Democrat Representative and Senator inside the beltway slathered everything he or she ever wanted or imagined that they might want later, the idea being to get the thing approved and massage it to do pretty much anything they wanted once it was in place and unassailable. It isn't a working piece of legislation, it's a giant piñata, it's broken, the candy is all over the ground, and some poor PM is being tasked with putting it back together in a form that works when it never worked in the first place.

[newnhdad]

at least we know where the extra $800 billion is going..

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Contractors said fixing the problems by the November 1 deadline set by the administration would be “unrealistic,”

Let the boy-king issue unrealistic edicts. Rush it. Compound your errors. Let it buuuuuuuurn.