(2013-10-07) — The failure of the new ObamaCare health insurance exchange website came as “a bolt from the blue” to the IT staff in the Obama administration, especially because the system had been thoroughly beta-tested for nearly a year among the Amish community in rural Lancaster, Pennsylvania. HealthCare.gov servers buckled under traffic five times greater than the maximum anticipated volume.

“We were firing on all cylinders during the prototype stage,” said an unnamed IT staffer at HealthCare.gov. “Page-load times were measured in minutes rather than the current hours, and that was after heavy local TV promotion soliciting Amish beta customers.”

The crew that coded Amish.HealthCare.gov said the telephone hotline was “practically silent” turning the trial period, meaning that virtually no problems were reported with the system.

“We thought we were, as NASA says, ‘Go at throttle up.'” the source said. “The fact that people now report they can’t login after dozens of attempts for almost a week is a real mystery to us.”

A White House spokesman said the president is “focused like a laser” on solving the problem.

“We just posted an invitation to our Amish beta-tester forum,” said Press Secretary Jay Carney, “We’re asking for volunteers to fly from Lancaster down to D.C. later today to do a focus group so we can get to the bottom of this.”