ObamaCare IT: Race to the Top - of Incompetence

Reagan: Government is not the solution.Government is the problem.
Obama: My administration is doing everything possible to prove President Reagan was right.

Really, some of those tea party people are beginning to make sense. Almost. People involved in information technology know full well it never works right. Except the amateurs who designed the Obamacare system. 

They make the creators of ARIS look good.

Do you mean to tell me there was no way to test that sucker in a rigorous manner?

How about rationing? Stated beginning with A-L go odd numbered days - former confederate states don't bother. Like the gas rationing that ended the post Sandy crisis here after idiot Cuomo finally did what Christie did in Jersey? (If I had a choice of these guys for president it would not be Cuomo.)

Information Technology people know what a mess things can turn into. So for the people they put in charge of this mess to mess up so badly is almost inconceivable -- unless you've lived through the Obama/Duncan ed deform even bigger mess - and then it all makes sense. They have no clue because it is all so top down. 

Interviews with the IT people making excuse after excuse (we thought the biggest rush would be in November) makes one thing we need a Danielson rubric for how to run things for the Obama administration.

Let's call this ITTT - Incompetence to the Top.

Afterburn
In the midst of my teaching career, from 1984-1987, I earned an MA in computer science at Brooklyn College, an educational experience so different from my previous academic work -- actually it was almost trade school like but with some computer science theory. So I actually know - or knew- a little bit about that stuff. Ok, so it was before the web was invented by Al Gore, but I understand computer coding - or at least some rudimentary aspects.

I taught beginning programming at Brooklyn College in undergrad and grad school in the late 80s. In the first class I told them, "if your assignment is due on Tuesday burn this into your mind: get it done on Sunday because you may need days to get rid of the bugs. And so it was true. I learned that myself because in my entire history of schooling I was a last minute guy - day of or hour of it being due. Suddenly in my computer science classes due dates turned into something else entirely.

The late Jim Scoma, a junior high math teacher in Brooklyn and my programming pal who helped get me through so many of my classes, is the type of person needed to tackle this stuff. When I used to look at his coding I thought it would be complex. But in fact it was very simple -- he made sure it worked from the ground up. Build your system that way.

It's a good lesson. I hear rumors the architecture of the Obama care web is a mess and you can't just fix that easily, especially under the pressure they are feeling - thus put quick fixes. And imagine what this is costing.

Maybe I'll brew some tea.