>>While the ACA website was a debacle, it pales in comparison to the flawed architectural policies of the statues and their implementations, that have led to basically the opposite of what was promised.

Depends who or what you read. It's no longer scientific to focus only on premium price. For example: latest (October) California evidence is that their ACA rollout increased coverage among low income adults by 7% and decreased the frequency of out-of-pocket expenses for families by 10%. Since out of pocket medical expenses used to be the common cause of personal bankruptcy, IMHO it's fundamentally dishonest not to include that when assessing the ACA.

>>The cautionary tale here - flawed architectures - which occur in any software system and certainly in the aforementioned topic.

The ACA website was straight out of Ayn Rand. Committees made decisions that disenfranchised the competents who shrugged and walked away. Then when the proverbial hit the fan the apparatchiks created special incentives for the competents to clean up the mess- and in the absence of John Galt, that's what the competents did. ;-)

FWIW, Mugabe in Zimbabwe is trying that with expelled farmers as well, inviting them to take back the derelict farms confiscated from them and save the country from ruin. I knew some of those farmers personally in the 1980s and their John Galt is the new lives they created for themselves in Zambia, Canada, the UK and the Antipodes. Rand would laugh to see her scenarios coming true in serious real life. ;-)