Can Three 20 Year Old Entrepreneurs Working Three Nights  For Nothing Save Healthcare.Gov, Which Took Three Years and $634 million to Build?

Skewered through and through with office pens, and bound head and foot with red tape.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870),   David Copperfield

ObamaCare is a hugely complicated approach to addressing problems in health care that have simpler solutions.

Gordon Crovitz “ObamaCare’s Serious Complications, “ Wall Street Journal, October 12. 2013

Can three 20 year olds  – George Kalogeropoulus, Ning Liang , and Michael Wasser- working in San Francisco for 3 nights on a website called healthsherpa.com  save healthgov.com save healthcare.gov from itself by replacing it with a simpler website? 

Is the website of the three, which has now been visited by hundreds of thousands  seeking answers that could not find on healthcar.gov,  a breakthrough that could  salvage  a bureaucratic, red-tape bound, muscle-bound,  federal website from its overly complicated rules for doing things? 

Could  healthcare.sherpa replace healthcare.gov, as intimated by Fox News?

Can you just go to healthsherpa.com, type in your zip code to see if your state qualifies for help, enter your income,  family size,  pick your plan, and follow a few simple instructions, and Voila!  In a few moments, find out how much an exchange plan would cost and how it compares to your current plan?

The answer seems to be, Yes it can. But , and it’s a Big If  , say the  big guys,  the government website developers, healthsherpa.com does not replace healthcare.gov.   It does not allow users to purchase insurance, verify citizenship, estimate tax breaks or subsidies.

As H.L, Menckem (1880-1956) said,  “For every complicated problem, there is a simple solution,  and it’s wrong.”

Actually,  the healthsherpa.com solution is not wrong,  it is incomplete.  It is a start. It is just a fragment of a larger solution.   It helps consumers find an answer to those burning questions, “How much is this government plan going to cost?”  “ Should I  pay the penalty of $95? Should I wait until the smoke clears  over healthcare.gov  mess?” Or, conversely, “Maybe I ought to enroll.  This looks like a good deal.”

Healthsherpa raises some fundamental issues.

Maybe healthcare.gov  suffers from inelastic thinking, from an bureaucratic mindset cultivated and developed by excessive time spent on government projects.   Maybe healthcare.gov is hidebound by too many government rules and regulations. 

Maybe a simpler approach  can help achieve the “fix” healthcare.gov so badly needs.

Tweet:   Three young coders in San Francisco have developed a website,  healthsherpa.com, that helps consumers find rates of health exchange plans.

Sources

1.       Healthsherpa.com Does What ObamaCare Can’t – Provides Rate Information, Washington Times, November 14

2.      Why Healthsherpa.Com Is Not A Replacement for Healthcare.gov,  e-plurubusunum.com, November 11

3.      Healthsherpa Helps Thousands Get Insurance Quotes, NPR, November 13

4.      Fix’s Misleading Healthcare.gov Cpmparison Disputed by Actual Web Developers,  Mediamatters.org, November 18

5.      Trio of Young Coders Build Website in Days, CNN, November 11