Is 50,000 users at one time on a website(Healthcare.gov) normal or is this number two small

[bigdarryl]

I was under the impression that most websites could handle millions of users at a time.Why is Healthcare.gov only have the capacity to handle 50,000 users at a time.Any DU'er with tech skills know

[flyingfysh]

1. It depends

It depends on how will the web site is designed and what kind of hardware is behind it. Knowing how to do scalable web sites us very important for a programmer to know, it is not easy, especially if the site does a lot of database access.
It Is also important to know how to deal with unexpected spikes in demand, without buying a lot of servers that may not be needed. This is why a lot of sites with uneven demand use cloud computing. It brings in the processors you need, and you don't pay for machines you don't use.
It takes a lot of experience to know how to do it right.

[BlueStreak]

2. "At a time" is a nebulous concept.

If you are talking about 50,000 users simultaneously in some part of an intense transactional process, that's a whole lot of users. If you are talking about 50,000 people browsing static content, that's not a particularly large number.

The healthcare.org design is problematic in that it forces any significant browsing to be from a logged-in user session. So even though most people accessing the system at any time aren't there to do a "transaction" per se (i.e. they are shopping, not enrolling), the healthcare.gov site has to bear at least some of the overhead of a complex transaction. That is, it must make database references to the user's profile/application on almost every page view.

That is a poor design decision, but it is what it is. And if they have been able to scale it to deal with 50,000 active visitors, that should be plenty, except for the deadline-driven crush that may happen mid-December, and probably will happen the last week of March, 2014.

[truedelphi]

5. The March 31st 2014 deadline is a way bad decision as well.

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2013, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

At least, with over five million uninsured in California, and the fact that the most that can be signed up in any week is around 40,000, I'd say it is a bad idea.

[BlueStreak]

6. They have plenty of capacity for now

Performance simply hasn't been an issue for the past month. I wouldn't lose any sleep about this. This is not what will bring the ACA down.

The real issue is that in so many markets, the pricing is just not very good.

[truedelphi]

7. It's not just that the pricing is not that good.

In my county, I have three choices - one is Kaiser, which caused through
mis-diagnosis, our family bankruptcy.

Then the second choice is Anthem, and they are hard to deal with. They are my county's MediCal dentistry insurance. Three years back, they had me jump through a lot of hoops, to get a needed surgery, and then after doing everything I did, they still didn't reimburse me.

[BlueStreak]

9. Yes. I should have been a bit more expansive in that area

The issue is lack of competition in many markets. That shows up as very high prices, often double or triple what the pre-ACA pricing was. It shows up as really, really crappy provider networks. And, as you say, you simply may not trust a particular insurance company.

In my market, 90% of the policies are from Anthem BCBS. They carry my insurance now. I know first-hand that they will do everything possible to fleece me, but at least I have heard of them. The only other provider on the exchange is completely unheard-of. The prices are clearly the result of collusion -- virtually identical for the same plan types. When you dig into the coverage network, Anthem's network is horrible. Obviously st some point they determined the companies like United Healthcare and Humana would be dropping out of the market, so their strategy was to double the prices and simultaneously whack the provider reimbursement rates to the Medicaid levels - maybe even lower. So only about 10% of the providers in our county joined that network.

I'm sure our Governor and health commission didn't lift a finger to try to improve the level of competition because they want to see "Obamacare" fail.

The website is not going to be the determining factor. The lack of competition is the thing that has the potential to wreck this program. And none of this would have happened if they simply would have included a public option as a backstop in markets with poor competition.

[cbdo2007]

3. That number is two small - should be 50,002

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. that is a determination based on bandwidth....

No not every website can handle millions. In this case you are also dealing with database servers that require special kinds of code on special servers that also have to process the request based on formulas. It is much more complex than you are understanding. Another issue is that this is also accessing other databases and back end programming servers all over the country to retrieve the information from thousands of sources.

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. That'd be a question I think EarlG could answer quite well for ya.

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Post the question in the ATA (Ask the Administrators) Group.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1259

I think he may be happy to answer that for you.

CC