HealthCare.gov, heal thyself — but where to start?

At some point in their lives, everybody screws up. The loftier your ambitions, the larger your mistakes usually become. But if you really want to screw up something on a grand scale, you need to marshal the forces of the U.S. government.

Whether you lean left or right or run straight up the middle, there’s no question that the rollout of HealthCare.gov puts the “cluster” in “cluster***k.” Some people couldn’t reach the site at all; others couldn’t register. Some who did register are getting back inaccurate information about what insurance programs they qualify for; insurance companies say they’re getting wrong or duplicate information from the government.

[ For a humorous take on the tech industry’s shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter and follow Cringely on Twitter. | Check out InfoWorld TechBrief, your source for quick, smart views on the news you’ll be talking about — subscribe today. ]

A report in the New York Times says it may take weeks or even months to unravel the mess:

In interviews, experts said the technological problems of the site went far beyond the roadblocks to creating accounts that continue to prevent legions of users from even registering. Indeed, several said, the login problems, though vexing to consumers, may be the easiest to solve. One specialist said that as many as five million lines of software code may need to be rewritten before the Web site runs properly.

It is so “excruciatingly embarrassing,” as former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs stated, that shortly before this story was posted, the president himself went on national TV to offer a mea culpa and promised a “tech surge” to solve the problem. Maybe he’ll order a drone strike on the Department of Health and Human Services.

Where are the geeks when you need them?

Remember, this was the administration that allegedly understood technology, which appointed the first federal CTO, which used superior social media and modern data mining techniques to win two national elections. They weren’t supposed to suck this hard at something this fundamental.

In an essay for CNN, legendary computer science researcher Steven Bellovin says he’s not especially surprised by the screwups:

Sure, the website rollout could have been handled a lot better. With all the delays and warning signs, the government could have stopped touting Healthcare.gov and teasing the public with messages such as “5 days to open enrollment. Don’t wait another minute.”

But the federal government has never had a fantastic track record in dealing with technology projects. This was not just an Obamacare problem. Most of the government has little experience in managing such a big, complex project, and management is a remarkably large part of the effort; building a system like this takes far more than just programming.

The problem, says Bellovin, has more to do with bureaucracy and mismanagement than lack of technical prowess. (Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.)

Anecdotal evidence

For what it’s worth, I filled out my application this morning and ran into exactly zero snags. The website was s-l-o-w — it took about 10 seconds to process the answer to each question, and there were a lot of questions — but overall it ate up less time than a typical visit to the DMV.

I have not yet used it to shop for insurance, so maybe more headaches await me. But overall, the experience was not the nightmare I was anticipating. Healthcare.gov is actually better designed than 90 percent of the commercial websites I see.

Critics of the president — including those who recently tried to hold the U. S. treasury hostage in a pathetic attempt to defund Obamacare — are rubbing their hands in glee at the cockups. As for me, I don’t buy the argument that offering government-subsidized health care is unconstitutional. I think if you’re determined to turn the clock back to 1791, you should be forced to wear powdered wigs and forgo modern conveniences like antibiotics and electricity. Otherwise, you need to accept that the world changes, technology moves on, and our government must at least attempt to keep up with it, even if its track record for that is several orders of magnitude less than stellar.

Personally, I’ve always found it a mark of shame that for decades the United States has been the only industrialized nation to allow tens of millions of its citizens to go without adequate health care. You can certainly argue whether the Affordable Care Act is the right way to go about solving that problem, but leaving it to the “free market” hasn’t worked.

Still, there’s no question that the rollout of Healthcare.gov is an unmitigated screwup that should cost somebody — or maybe several somebodies — their jobs. Will the Obamanistas be able to fix this mess? Let’s just say I maintain a healthy skepticism.

Did you try to enroll at HealthCare.gov and live to tell the tale? Recount your harrowing experiences below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “HealthCare.gov, heal thyself — but where to start?,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, follow Cringely on Twitter, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.