First time online access to less expensive health care for 300 million people. And there are glitches? OMG! Congressional hearings, boards of inquiry, editorials and I-told-you-so finger-wagging schadenfreude from a legion of naysayers. Firing squads to follow.
To read the op-eds and blogs one would think a massive fraud had been perpetrated rather than a mind-bogglingly ambitious innovation initiative. Yes, people, mistakes are going to be made when something big and new is attempted. Trains and cars crashed, rocket ships blew up, ships sank, cities burned, messages didnt get through, connections failed. Throughout history, the cost of entrepreneurial activity has been failure - from which society then learned and on which it based the eventual success of the enterprise in question.
On a slightly smaller scale, those in the US applying to colleges and universities this year are contending with a similar snafu: the introduction of 'enhancements' to the Common Application, the online form which most of the million or more aspirants hoping to pursue higher education must navigate in order to get the institution(s) of their choice to consider them. Let's just say that these enhancements haven't quite worked out the way their no-doubt very intelligent and well-meaning designers intended. Applications disappear into the internet void; students wait two days or more for their payments to register; some materials go through, others do not. If you are 18 years old and believe your entire future is on the line, this is not a positive experience.
One can imagine that the process of designing these enhancements was like the process of designing a brand-new online health care system - or a new fighter jet, for that matter. Lots of people with lots of really, really good ideas insisted that their concept be added in and before anyone knew, the system got so gummed up that it became incapable of handling the volume, which almost invariably exceeds estimates.
The point is not that all innovation is doomed to failure or that big systems inevitably crash or that everyone but you is stupid (research on that is incomplete at this time). No, the point is that big projects are complicated, take time to work out the problems, but if enough people of intelligence and good will contribute and everyone else is patient, society eventually benefits. Hopefully. Meanwhile, it's autumn. Take a walk. Try to relax. If you're applying for health care, it might take a couple more weeks. If you're applying to college, trust us, the colleges are all too well-aware of the problems. And, as the following article suggests, if you are applying to college, don't sign up for Medicare by mistake. Just a suggestion. JL
The College Whisperer comments:
Which website, CommonApp.org or HealthCare.gov, has proven the least navigable and most dysfunctional?
Glitches continue to plague CommonApp.org, the private, not-for-profit web portal millions of high school students rely upon to access applications to more than 500 colleges and universities. [READ, Common App Glitches Frustrate Students...]
At the same time, HealthCare.gov, the government website intended to give millions of Americans access to affordable health insurance exchanges, has been crippled by glitches. [SEE, Who's Fixing HealthCare.gov?]
Both sites compete for the dubious distinction of Worst Online Interface Ever, misadventures in navigation surpassed only by the voyage of the Titanic and the flight of Wrong Way Corrigan. Well, it's hard to say. We do note, however, that several students attempting to apply to the University of Michigan inadvertently signed up for Medicaid. Go figure! :-)
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ATTENTION HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS: Don't sign up for Medicaid!
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