Programmers Volunteer To Help Fix Government’s Healthcare Website

If there’s one thing programmers hate, it’s a broken website paired with a terrible user experience. It runs contrary to everything geeks, nerds and their ilk believe in, and often, their first instinct is to probe into the code, see what’s wrong and propose a suggestion.

Whether it’s white hatters exposing security flaws in software or web developers recommending fixes for a problem on a website, programmers can be awfully altruistic when it comes to making technology safer, easier to use and more friendly for everyone. Especially when it comes to technology intended as a public resource.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that the disastrous rollout of Healthcare.gov has attracted the vigorous attention of the open source community. The site was quickly overloaded by consumers when it opened earlier this month, leading to vocal complaints and assertions from the Obama administration that the issues would be resolved as quickly as possible.