Obamacare site crumbled like a wet cookie in “stress” tests…

**Posted by Phineas

"Train wreck"
“Train wreck”

And yet they let the godforsaken thing go live, anyway:

Days before the launch of President Obama’s online health Β­insurance marketplace, government officials and contractors tested a key part of the Web site to see whether it could handle tens of thousands of consumers at the same time. It crashed after a simulation in which just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.

Despite the failed test, federal health officials plowed ahead.

When the Web site went live Oct. 1, it locked up shortly after midnight as about 2,000 users attempted to complete the first step, according to two people familiar with the project.

Let’s not forget, these are the same people who think they can manage healthcare for a nation of 330,000,000 people with very diverse needs, and yet these hubristic morons couldn’t build a system over three years that could handle the population of even Sierra County, California. Though I suppose this shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, since we already knew that the site had received only 4-6 days of testing.

More from the Post article:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency in charge of running the health insurance exchange in 36 states, invited about 10 insurers to give advice and help test the Web site.

About a month before the exchange opened, this testing group urged agency officials not to launch it nationwide because it was still riddled with problems, according to an insurance IT executive who was close to the rollout.

β€œWe discussed .?.?. is there a way to do a pilot β€” by state, by geographic region?” the executive said.

It was clear at the time, the executive said, that the CMS was still dealing with the way the exchange handled enrollment, federal subsidies and the security of consumers’ personal information, such as income.

One key problem, according to a person close to the project, was that the agency assumed the role of managing the 55 contractors involved and had not ensured that all the pieces were working together.

Some key testing of the system did not take place until the week before launch, according to this person. As late as Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end: create an account, determine eligibility for federal subsidies and sign up for a health insurance plan, according to two sources familiar with the project.

President Sham-Wow held a press conference patent medicine show yesterday at which, when not dealing with a fainting pregnant woman, he declared that no one was “madder than me” about the problems with the Obamacare rollout. So he also announced several firings, right?

Would you like that bridge gift-wrapped?

Remember, this is only the front end, the sales showroom for Obamacare. Just imagine what’s in store for us when they start handling sensitive patient data and managing treatment.

Don’t faint.

RELATED:Β Jim Geraghty thinks the private insurance death spiral is looking increasingly inevitable. For Obamacare, that’s a feature, not a bug. UnitedHealthCare in Connecticut has removed thousands of doctors from its network. Remember, Obama said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Β He’s a funny guy. The mind-boggling incompetence of Obamacare. Finally, a must-read: Charles Cooke on “Obamacare Snake Oil. If we had an honest press, instead of a courtier media, they’d be throwing this in The One’s face.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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