As someone who has rolled out several major software projects (although none within an order of magnitude of this one), I am not in the least surprised by the rollout problems. Given the number of participants (federal government, states, many insurance companies), multiple databases and the like, this is very normal.
I also expect that given severe deadlines, more bugs and crashes are very likely to happen (as are load problems). Indeed, I would suggest that most people wait a few days to let things settle down.
I guarantee that
-- Glitches and crashes are likely to continue
-- We are likely to see more severe problems such as mis-pricing of insurance (just wait for FauxNews to come up with an incorrect quote as an indication of severe problems in the ACA.)
-- We may see problems with data transfer to insurance companies as well
-- There could be downtime for some of these sites as well. Parts of the sites may need to be reworked.
-- Indeed, I think several usability fixes may have to be made too, although those will have to wait for a while.
Rightwingers will use this to rant and rave about Obamcare and how Government can't do anything right (excluding the fact that the software was largely developed by private contractors). And they will use every problem as an excuse to claim failure. And Republicans will try to sabotage the exchanges legislatively.
But, the key point is, the exchanges are up, they are providing opportunities and affordable health care to uninsured Americans. They will get better, and kinks will be worked out. Amazon circa 1995 wasn't much of a site either. But it improved dramatically, and so will the exchanges.
It is important that progressives (and frankly I'm far more centrist than most Kossacks) keep this in perspective as wingnuts attack Obamacare. Remember that Rethupicans wouldn't care if the exchanges were as easy to use as Apple devices and as smooth as Amazon or Google. They want these dead and don't care if that removes any chance for medical insurance for millions of Americans.
