What went wrong with the Obamacare website?

Let’s acknowledge that building the marketplace website was no easy task and the systems and numerous interfaces behind it must be mind boggling. Then let me say I know nothing about programming or system engineering.

So, how do I presume to know what went wrong? Well, for many years I contracted to have websites, and systems built and modified. I conceived ideas and worked with the experts to translate concepts into working websites.

What does all this take? It takes involvement, tight control, quality experienced people and testing.

I had ideas that seemed simple to me, but drove the systems people to distraction. I pushed and pushed until they could convince me what I wanted was either impossible or too expensive or would take too long to accomplish. I approved every design decision along the way and if it didn’t look right, we redid it. We got input from the end users and from others who had experience with similar systems and websites. We met regularly and had conference calls and we made decisions in a timely manner or knew the consequences of any delay.

In short, we managed the project from the top down and the senior person responsible for the end result was involved on a regular basis. If this approach is followed you simply do not end up releasing a product that does not work. You may make modifications along the way, you may even delay a launch date, but turning something on that doesn’t work is inexcusable.

But make no mistake; this does not mean Obamacare is a failure. What we should really focus on is the fundamental flaws in the design of the system, and the long-term costs and liabilities.