The diagnosis for HealthCare.gov: Not a disease for the Obama administration

Around this time last year, the launch of HealthCare.gov, an Obama initiative dovetailed with the President’s other plans for American healthcare, flubbed. What would have been the official website of Obamacare looked more ill than millions of Americans still awaiting medical insurance.

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The dismal attempt of the Obama administration to pack in affordable care in an accessible platform prompted a relaunch, which is ongoing as of writing. This time around, the bugs are getting cleaned out for a faster-loading page that won’t crumble under heavy site traffic. As millions of Americans go after health security, Healthcare.gov should be absorbing online insurance applications with speed and ease. No apologetic page timeouts would be tolerated. And first of all, the menu of affordable services should load rapidly to apprise Americans of their healthcare entitlements.

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HealthCare.gov CEO Kevin Counihan is inaugurating the enrollment on Nov. 15. Meanwhile, the IT experts behind the site are subjecting it to the ultimate stress test: the security breach, or the dreaded hack. To fend off attacks, government officials are introducing into the website a vaccine in the form of simulated hacking, performed on a weekly basis. These measures promise a website immune to Murphy’s Law in a high-expectations season that flips at the slightest glitch. It is estimated that twice as many Americans who signed up last year (only 12, if you consider the previous successful enrollments on the first day—yes, it was that bad) will be staking either their doubts or their faiths on Obamacare by actually signing up.

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While it is good that millions of Americans don’t have to line up for medical insurance, and that affordable care, despite the drawbacks of the past, still remains a priority, the law has to be implemented neatly. Otherwise, the Obama administration will risk the ire of the many Affordable Care Act naysayers, who, as things look up this year, might be giving it a shot.

The job of administering health care is not confined to practitioners. As demonstrated by the rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions, the approach to healthcare services determines a population’s receptivity to measures that intend to improve access and service. Visit this Candis Kinkus blog for an informative take on managing medical services.