October 18, 2013 
I talked about my experience trying to use the site day one. I honestly hoped it was an anomaly but it doesn’t seem to be.
But, as I think about Healthcare.gov and the general benefits selection process, I see two huge gaps.
Back in 1999, I was working with a company called Firepond. The had what was called a product configurator. At the time, I was at E&Y and Empire BCBS and several other Blues hired them to build a tool for brokers. The tool sat behind a really slick web interface which allowed the broker to ask a consumer less than 10 questions. They would move a sliding bar across the screen and it would dynamically rank their plan options to tell them what was the best option for them to buy. It seems like that wold be great for Medicare.gov and Healthcare.gov.
What we were missing then which Big Data might actually help us solve now is individual claims data. This is what drives me crazy when you have to pick your benefits at work. Why can’t I upload my benefits information and have a tool actually tell me what to buy? If I had my claims history plus a predictive model, I could make smarter decisions about how to select my benefits.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
Yr right – a product configurator is exactly what’s needed. I DO have my claims data – but very little I can actually do with it to compare plans, given available consumer tools, opaque plan details.