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A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

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Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#31

Post by [deleted] »

guelo wrote: post #25
rebootthesystem wrote: post #20

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.

[deleted]

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#32

Post by jlebar »

sixbit wrote: post #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 al…

Now we see the real test of whether healthcare.gov has reached the level of consumer tech: Does bug-report-via-top-ranked-HN-comment get anything done?

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#33

Post by danso »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #20

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…

Maybe you should go complain to your legislators. Engineers don't have the Constitutional authority to enact policy willy nilly.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#34

Post by mooneater »

billsmithaustin wrote: post #30
mooneater wrote: post #19

7754 tps over 1 hour is 28M. They may have 1B users in the db but they only tested activity on at most 28M.

True, but running at 7754 tps over an hour with a database of 28M users is easier than with a database of 1B users.

It is much easier to test with a small # of active users and a large (mostly unused) database, than with a large # of active users. To me the title implies 1B active users ("billion user load test").

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#35

Post by leakybit »

kartan wrote: post #11
ProAm wrote: 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.

Development is contracted out, it usually go along the lines:

Budget $1 Billion

1. Large government contractors: keep $400 million, outsource all work to->

2. Other government contractors: keep $200 million, outsource all work to->

3. Third party companies: keep $100 million, outsource all work to-->

4. ....

5 .....

..

10. Bangladesh code farm does all coding for $10 million.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#36

Post by BinaryIdiot »

jlebar wrote: post #32
sixbit wrote: post #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 al…

Now we see the real test of whether healthcare.gov has reached the level of consumer tech: Does bug-report-via-top-ranked-HN-comment get anything done?

After doing 6 years of government contracting and also interviewing with Nava I get the impression they're a higher grade of government contractor than what you typically work with. The initial failure of Healthcare.gov was no surprise to me (in fact I was surprised they even had a homepage working based on my government contracting experiences) and having Nava come in and fix things in what was likely a pretty horrific codebase is nothing short of impressive.

Having said that there is still a ton of red tape and issues surrounding not just government contracting in general but also around the fact that different states and insurance providers have different systems that all work differently but somehow need to work together under this single application.

So I wouldn't expect much even though the Nava folks, in my short time dealing with them and comparing them to other contractors, seem fairly solid.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#38

Post by maxerickson »

rgbrenner wrote: post #28
foota wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The cost of Medicaid and Medicare may show up in insurance premiums.

http://kff.org/report-section/uncompensated-care-for-the-uni...

There are other discussions of cost shifting that will make more aggressive claims; I've chosen to link Kaiser Family Foundation because I think they are pretty credible.

Re: A Billion User Load Test on Healthcare.gov

#40

Post by llimllib »

jlebar wrote: post #32
sixbit wrote: post #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 al…

Now we see the real test of whether healthcare.gov has reached the level of consumer tech: Does bug-report-via-top-ranked-HN-comment get anything done?

AFAICT it's actually a Cigna bug report yeah? Happy to make sure it gets to the right place if I'm wrong.

(/me doesn't work for nava, does work on healthcare.gov)

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