ObamaCare Case Study

On March 10, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly called “ObamaCare,” became law. The basic premise of the law established state-based health insurance exchanges via the Internet, in which individuals and small businesses could purchase private insurance plans. The Obama administration claimed the website would be a simple, easy to use, one stop destination for uninsured Americans to find affordable health care. However, on the launch date for the website, October 1, 2013, hopeful enrollees encountered all sorts of problems ranging from ranging from error messages to misinformation to tedious delays. 8.1 million users visited the website from October 1 to 4, with less than 1% being able to register (1). Through our due diligence we have discovered management ignored various red flags indicating the website wasn’t ready for release. We propose that administrative officials form a task force, consisting of the brightest minds of the technological world, in order to get the site back on track. First off, the problems associated with HealthCare.gov reach far beyond technological failures. In order to implement ObamaCare, administrative officials had to first come to a consensus on how exactly the federal exchange would work. After achieving this consensus, these regulations would enable the contractors to design the site to fit the proposed model. Unfortunately, administrative officials lingered in establishing these regulations, ridding contractors of critical time necessary to prepare the website (2). This imposed time crunch prevented QSSI, the firm responsible for testing, from adequately checking the systems. To be specific, only 23 percent of the units code had been tested by the launch date, this number should have been 100 percent (2). In order to discover the exact issues associated with this site, each element must be tested appropriately and in a timely manner. This will allow the task force to determine the roots of the

Cited: 1. Mullaney, T. (2013, October 6). Obama adviser: Demand overwhelmed HealthCare.gov. Retrieved March 1, 2015, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/05/health-care-website-repairs/2927597/ 2. Red Flags: How Politics and Poor Management Led to the Meltdown of HealthCare.gov. (2014, June 1). Retrieved March 1, 2015, from http://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e3ff7336-426b-4363-ad41-086ee120a2f1/HealthCare.gov REPORT.pdf 3. Bedard, P. (2014, June 14). Senate report: Buffing Obama 's legacy trumped fixing Healthcare.gov in early Obamacare launch. Retrieved March 1, 2015, from http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2549924