Reports are that the system cost more than $400 million. One would not expect such an expensive system to suffer from simple and easily fixable problems.
We decided to run the main page of the site through our online validator.
There are some (many?) obvious and easy-to-fix issues:
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<meta name="twitter:url" ontent="HealthCare.gov"/>
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<img alt='Healthcare.gov' class='print-only logo' src='/images/logo.png' alt='Healthcare.gov'/>
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<a href='/' title='Healthcare.gov' class='icon mobile-logo ' href='/'>Healthcare.gov</a>
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<li class='nav-btn'>
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<button type='image' class='btn btn-blue btn-search' value='search' src='/images/invisible.png'>
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<a type='button' class='btn btn-large btn-green left' href='/marketplace/individual'>Apply Now</a>
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<span id='left' class='icon arrow' href='#' tabindex='-1'>
And there are other issues as well.
Such errors in websites call into question the quality of the rest of the site. Many of these problems can easily be found and then fixed using a tool like CSE HTML Validator.
Of course HealthCare.gov is certainly not the only site that has design quality issues. Many websites, even those with large budgets, still fail to check their markup with a tools like HTML validators and CSS checkers. It's often not that hard to address many of the issues that come up, such as the ones listed above.
My offer to HealthCare.gov is to contact me, say they saw this topic, and I will donate a FREE CSE HTML Validator license to help them fix & improve the HealthCare.gov website.