Live data from Hacker News

A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

blog.navapbc.com

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#21
post #18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the government, we're thrilled they can do anything.

I know it's just a throw away joke, but this persistent idea that government is incompetent, no matter what is really damaging. When it comes to health care systems there is no evidence whatsoever that less government means more efficiency, if anything the US is a huge example to the contrary.

Im not really joking, their ability to do anything efficiently or correctly for a reasonable sum of money is embarrassing. I know it's a joke as well, but it's funny because it's true.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#22
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the government, we're thrilled they can do anything.

It all depends how much politics are involved, or how much public workers can freely do their jobs: https://www.nasa.gov/ http://www.darpa.mil/ And is Healthcare.gov developed by the government or just bough to an external company? It just an observation, I don't know if Healthcare.gov is a good or bad technology.

I believe it was one of the first projects of the digital service. (https://www.usds.gov/)

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#23

I am sure my wife will be very happy to learn about this test. It will definitely make up for our insurance going from about $12K per year to $26K per year. That, along with keeping our doctor and saving $2,500 per year have been fantastic. News Flash: Engineers think technology while, in the real world, the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's like tuning your Ferrarri for more power while your reality…

Fairly certain you're paying for the unemployed person down the street's insurance. (I say this not pejoratively toward's the unemployed)

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#24
Healthcare.gov is the absolute worst. They had a button "End coverage for 2017" I clicked it around the end of November because I chose a non-marketplace plan for 2017, and the end result of that click was Cigna my current marketplace insurer for 2016 received a transmission from them, and interpreted it incorrectly, which made my 2016 plan inactive and retroactively terminated me back to 08/31 despite having paid all my premiums and processed claims up until end of November.

Their escalation process is useless, 30 days to resolve (if I'm that lucky). Will try not to get injured in the meantime.

Glitches and data sync issues are unreal, this is not an isolated incident. Every year it's been something. 2014 I was on Covered California and had to take them to administrative court to resolve data and tax form issues (canceled then due to a move and it completely wiped out my 2014 enrollment). Then in 2015 on HealthCare.gov they had me enrolled in the same plan twice and the insurer wanted double the premiums until they could resolve it.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#25

I am sure my wife will be very happy to learn about this test. It will definitely make up for our insurance going from about $12K per year to $26K per year. That, along with keeping our doctor and saving $2,500 per year have been fantastic. News Flash: Engineers think technology while, in the real world, the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's like tuning your Ferrarri for more power while your reality…

The goal of technology is to be so flawless that it dissapears into the background of our lives. When healthcare.gov was crashing the technology was extremely important and it made all the news and became a political controversy. Now that the technology is fine people like you can finger wag engineers and tell them that their work is unimportant.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#26
A week to fill a DB and 70 m3x-large is way too expensive to find out how far you can scale. Me and my friend built stacktical (https://www.stacktical.com) so that with very minimal load testing it's possible to understand and share how many concurrent users your current and upcoming application infrastructure can handle. Testers are welcome

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#27
post #22
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends how much politics are involved, or how much public workers can freely do their jobs: https://www.nasa.gov/ http://www.darpa.mil/ And is Healthcare.gov developed by the government or just bough to an external company? It just an observation, I don't know if Healthcare.gov is a good or bad technology.

I believe it was one of the first projects of the digital service. ( https://www.usds.gov/ )

Not quite. It was designed by a contractor, developed by several others, and once it was released to the public and shown to be dreadful, another contractor was put in charge of fixing it. It's still primarily developed by contract to this day.

The first head of the USDS was involved in coordinating the fixing of Healthcare.gov, though.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#28
post #23

I am sure my wife will be very happy to learn about this test. It will definitely make up for our insurance going from about $12K per year to $26K per year. That, along with keeping our doctor and saving $2,500 per year have been fantastic. News Flash: Engineers think technology while, in the real world, the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's like tuning your Ferrarri for more power while your reality…

Fairly certain you're paying for the unemployed person down the street's insurance. (I say this not pejoratively toward's the unemployed)

Insurance companies don't insure the unemployed for free. They're either paying their own premiums, or they're on medicaid/medicare. If they're on medicaid, it was paid for by the state/fed government from taxes... not from insurance premiums paid by someone else.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#29
From the information provided I am doubtful that this is really a load test of healthcare.gov. It sounds like they are testing the login and account management system in isolation from the overall workflow of entering your financial data, dependents, etc. and shopping for plans, which is where the sausage gets made. It is an interesting post but it seems like this is about the most trivial component of the overall healthcare.gov solution, unless I am missing something.
Post reply on HN