Health Exchange Delays Tied to Software Crash In Early Rush to Enroll

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/us/health-exchange-delays-tied-to-software-crash-in-early-rush.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — The technical problems that have hampered enrollment in the online health insurance exchanges resulted from the failure of a major software component, designed by private contractors, that crashed under the weight of millions of users last week, federal officials said Monday.

Todd Park, President Obama’s top technology adviser, said the failure occurred in the part of the Web site that lets people create user accounts at the beginning of the insurance sign-up process. The crash prevented many people from viewing any of their insurance options or gaining access to information on what federal subsidies might be available.

“At lower volumes, it would work fine,” Mr. Park said of the Web site, healthcare.gov. “At higher volumes, it has problems.”

“Right now,” he added, “we’ve got what we think we need. The contractors have sent reinforcements. They are working 24-7. We just wish there was more time in a day.”

[snooper2]

1. somebody forgot indexing 101

[AnnieBW]

2. DDOS?

The tinfoil-hat part of me is wondering if this was a coordinated Denial of Service attack on the ACA website by the Koch Brothers, Paulbots, Teahadists, and/or other wingnuts.

[steve2470]

3. I think it's certainly part of the overall problem nt

[AltrCargo]

4. seems like sombody forgot to hire load testers. :-)

now i wonder who is handling this big project.