Oh My Obamacare, Part 3: Go Live Day For Biggest Software Project Ever

Such crazyness about Obamacare in this country, but I had a moment of clarity the other night….. IT’S JUST A SOFTWARE CHANGE.

Repeat after me, it will make you feel better — Obamacare is just a software upgrade. We all have an ID and can be billed for service. Insurance companies get in the middle of that. Obamacare just forces everyone into the new web-app known as “exchanges” where you decide to buy insurance for you & your family.

Whether it all works or not on day 1 is a software issue. Whether it all works overall is about as complicated as it gets, involving the signup rate, the cost of the subsidies, the doctor payout charts of these newly larger insurance companies, the overall health of the population…etc.

So it’s Day 1, October 1, and I’m on my way to start the process of signing up. I’m sure there will be lots of forms and reading to do and I want to take away some stuff to read over the next couple of days before deciding on my plan. I also have to sort out my complicated (although common these days) living arrangements as it pertains to this new system.

So not a surprise, there’s a delay on day 1. My state’s republican governor opted out of building our own site, so we have to go through the federal one. Here’s the delay screen:

Lots of people hitting the system. It's been a long time since I've seen a web app put you on hold like this — Lots of people hitting the system. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a web app put you on hold like this

OK, as I was putting that into the post, it let me in. I think I was on pause for about 4 minutes total. I’d love to know what kind of hit their database is taking..

First thing I need to do is create an account (just like any other web app). Picking a username is kind of weird here.

Got stuck on the security questions – the popup lists weren’t loading. I tried a couple of times in Chrome so I’m going to try in Safari before giving up for the day….Nope still not working. I did find this calculator to start figuring estimates. I will try more tomorrow if I can get to it. Menu value list (php) code or database problems? We will never know.

Oh My Obamacare! Part 1 – Oh My Obamacare! Part 2 – Oh My Obamacare! Part 3