Government incompetence is no mystery. It’s very similar to government competence: throw enough money at a problem and something will happen.
It may not be what you want, or what you expected, but something will indeed happen.
The ObamaCare rollout is a grand example of governmental hubris and incompetence, as I explained this weekend at Townhall.com.
But the story has a more amusing twist. Three young professional website technicians saw the fiasco of healthcare.gov and decided to try a different approach, cooking up a website in their spare time.
They found enough information and access to information buried in the multi-million dollar contractors’ code, and reconfigured everything.
Their insight? The main ObamaCare website had it all backwards. People want to be able to start shopping immediately. So that’s what they allow visitors to do, start shopping without sign-up.
On e‑commerce websites, you can sign up at almost any point.
The young men’s TheHealthSherpa.com is up and running, allowing people not served by a state-led marketplace to check out the “competition,” select the policy that’s right for them, and go directly to the company offering the service.
So how could three guys working pro bono do a better job than the inside-the-beltway “Internet” professionals who were paid millions?
The well-connected insiders were thinking as insiders do. Instead of seeing that their job was to entice customers, they tried corralling citizens, requiring people to first “sign up.”
Of course, the real and enduring problems of ObamaCare are on the “back end,” behind the websites, where the regulations and taxes and mandates (and pride and hubris and incompetence) will do the most damage.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “TheHealthSherpa.com”
Great story, isn’t it! You packed a lot of wisdom in that last paragraph too.
You missed a few points that were on NEWSMAX and probably other sites.
1. An executive of the firm – (and it was some $678 million no bod contract) was a classmate of Michelle
Obama’s.
Old who do you know.
2. The same executive had a number of visits to the WH.
3. NO AS ABOVE IN 1 – NO BID.
4. Perhaps the GREAT ONE thinks that there are no people around who know how to build websites, hence the no bid to his wife’s old classmate.
Went to Doctor’s office last Friday.
Everybody in waiting room was complaining about cancellation notices and sticker shock for new policies. Receptionist fielded calls one after the other from concerned patients. A min-age couple sitting next to me, said their premium was quoted at over $1300/month (more than double) with a $5/k deductible!
My nurse, as single mom, said she can’t afford health insurance for her kids anymore.
Obamacare is in meltdown. Obama lied yes he did, and the site is broken yes it is, but that isn’t the half of it. It’s an epic failure at the design level.
The Obama admin didn’t have it backwards. They’re weren’t looking to create a commercial enterprise. They don’t have to encourage you to buy their product or make it impossible to resist. They have the weight of law behind them and government brooks no competition.
The website technicians who built a useful website failed to understand that Obamacare and e‑commerce have different reasons for existence.