Ask HN: Health Exchanges--How Would You Have Launched?

Lost in the debate about the government shutdown is the fact that the rollout of the health exchange websites has been nothing short of a debacle, at least in Maryland. We are into day 3 and on the Maryland exchange I can't even get past the privacy policy. For reference, Maryland is one of the states that went all out on health reform and developed their own exchange. There are people here who run sites with high traffic. Given that 1)the launch date was fixed so you knew EXACTLY when the traffic was coming months in advance. 2)The traffic, though very large, was somewhat predictable. 3)Most of the people using the site will be from a single geographic region. How would you have implemented the launch?