I got stuck in an infinite loop trying out a health care exchange; did you?
Surprisingly, the largest government computer systems integration in history isn't going very well. Who would have predicted that?
Imagine if Amazon's checkout required 47 steps...and you couldn't see a price before you finished those steps. That includes the most personal of personal information, and questions consumers you can't readily answer. And Amazon had to double-check with the IRS and with Equifax and Experian before you could start shopping. Oh, and it's 5 days before Christmas. That gives you a sense of the task at hand.
Playing with one of the state exchanges, I got about two-thirds of the way through before I got stuck in what programmers might call an infinite loop. I couldn't proceed without answering a question that wasn't on the page I was stuck on. There was no way forward. With a quick Google search, I found I am not the only one.
One complainer on Washington state's health care exchange Facebook page wrote this on Oct. 6: "I'm not able to get past the 'Household Income' page on the application. Says 'Please select the individuals for employment income' and they are selected. Hit 'next' and it still gives me the same message. All other questions are answered. I've gone all the way back to the beginning of the app to make sure everything is filled out correctly. Why can't I get past this page???"
The problem seems persistent. Here's another complaint from Oct. 11:
"I am not able to get past the 'Household Income' page on the application. Says 'Please select the individuals for employment income' and they are selected. Hit 'next' and it still gives me the same message. All other questions are answered. I've gone all the way back to the beginning of the app to make sure everything is filled out correctly. Why can't I get past this page???
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Plenty of outsiders are trying to guess at why the websites aren't functioning properly, but only the engineers looking at the servers really know, and so far, they aren't talking.
Have you tried logging in to a health care exchange? What happened? Did it work for you? If it broke, what happened?
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