ROLL BACK THE BARREL….
(‘cause no one’s having any fun!)

The roll-out of the Federal web site to “help” folks sign up for Obama Care…is a classic example of the old adage…haste makes waste…and in this case that waste will be coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets, leaving them singing…roll back the barrel…’cause no one’s having any fun!

In plain old Army lingo, it’s been a FUBAR exercise, all because that haste to get that site launched and operating was driven by political motivations to pre-empt, if not negate, Republican efforts to derail it. So, instead of taking the time to properly de-bug an obviously very complicated program, the Administration rushed its set up and deployment of the site apparently believing the PR benefits of doing so would also offset any residues of negative PR blowing back on it from the recent government shut down fiasco.

Well, we’ll make no comments about the merits of the design structure for that site, other than to say it seems to have overlooked the basic concept of K.I.S.S.(Keep It Simple Stupid), and, not allowing for folks to be able to “prospect” or browse it, before being forced to log on to sign up for an insurance plan that might work for them. To be blunt about it…the site was not created user-friendly in concept. It also did not foresee the likely volume of traffic overload it could encounter, all of which merely aggravated all its flaws.

Frankly, any time we come across a website that requires logging on first, by opening an account, with user name and password, etc…before being able to browse it to see if it is offering anything of interest or value…we just skip it…and don’t ever return to it. Perhaps if more folks made that a personal policy when searching the Net for anything, maybe all those hotshot web marketing designers would wake up and take notice. That is…coercion…no matter how sneakily done is still…coercion…and that just doesn’t cut it for us.

CENTURION