I am not American, so the kerfuffle over the failure (there is no other word for it) to get Americans to sign up for the brand new shiny health system they have cooked up has left me cold. Frankly, I have enough concerns with the government of these islands to worry about what goes on with the rulers of the Land of The Free -- although I believe the Affordable Care Act is turning out to be anything but free.
No matter, it is their business. Good luck in treating everyone fairly in health matters: if it is effective the Yanks will get all the benefits of health tourism and if it doesn't work out well they will have a huge bureaucracy quick to cover its own backside. There will be reports galore, new departments created and know-it-all people fully understanding where the scheme's toes have become turned up even if they know nothing of why people aren't being cared for.
America, trust us: we see this in the UK all the time.
The troubles of Obamacare as it has become known are legion, but mostly it resides (if the news is to be believed) in the fact that the all-important Healthcare.gov website doesn't work. People can't log on so they can't sign up though I am sure it is some temporary glitch hiding among what is reported to be around 5 million lines of code needing to be rewritten. Anyway, it is being seen to as we speak and results are expected. The Obama administration demands it and when it comes to demanding, big government does it best. After all, this is what government can afford to do; as they are spending your money liberally they can afford to bring in the very best to help out the nearly-very best they hired in the first place.
Money no object where government is concerned.
However, there is a however. Can you imagine eBay getting into this mess? For that matter, how about any other website that depends on ease of customer use (and you can bet that there are some trying to sign up for a new healthcare package that have no great knowledge of how the ins-and-outs of the web works) in order to make money. I know, you will be saying that Obamacare isn't there to make money, but that doesn't alter the fact that it simply doesn't work.
I am not poking a funny finger at the Americans here because we do this failure pretty well ourselves. Government-inspired databases (like the expensive and protracted balls up that was the NHS database) have a history in Britain of not working despite huge investments. Deadlines slide back, targets get lowered, expectations postponed and barriers not overcome.
We are told, by those who think the future is smart, that the internet and all things computer will control (sorry, benefit) our lives. But the evidence is the opposite. The more we depend on government checking on us via little bits of electricity the more it doesn't work. It doesn't work too because there are too many people involved who have no real involvement with it; there are people who insist they want things in it all but who don't really care because they are just being 'concerned.'
Years ago one of my relatives was asked to design a web site for a company that made radiators. So he came up with a way that told the installers who needed to know the size of the radiator for the volume of room to be heated. Straight-forward, and uncomplicated. But the project stalled because the company began to argue about what they needed in it. Could they have market research in there? Could they track the customer's heating needs? Most all, could there be one 'magic button' that when pressed did everything?
Multiply this up to a national scale with numerous government departments, pressure groups, legal checks, census information storing and assorted amusements for hangers-on then the project becomes top heavy. So top heavy it falls over and never gets off the floor again. This dogs dinner of needs makes it not only slow to realise but soon renders it all unworkable.
More to the point, not every bit of code ever written is glitch free. Overcome all the needs, requirements and interference and you still have to make it work. The more complicated it becomes, the less likely it is to do what you want it to do within any kind of reasonable time scale.
Web sites aren't simple; I have created them and it is astonishing how much effort you need to put in to make it a coherent whole, or to make sure it works. I am sorry that Obama's people don't know this but I am not surprised as the top of government has many hundreds of experts in everything. Like society and laws and we all know they happen without problems.
If we are to have this Brave New World where digital power (and therefore control) is everything, it has to be a whole lot simpler with achievable targets put together by people who aren't hampered and restricted by the needs and opinions of the elite. But I don't think we will ever get it.
Too many syntax errors, you see, in how big government functions.
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