6 ms·

Ask HN: Why can't I access healthcare.gov from outside the US?

6 points by llamataboot 13y ago

Currently living abroad. Need to access the exchange to buy health insurance. Do I really need to access it through a proxy server?

jongibbins 13y ago
I think the site may be down. Visiting http://www.healthcare.gov http://www.healthcare.gov gives me an upside down IIS7 logo! http://www.healthcare.gov/welcome.png http://www.healthcare.gov/welcome.png (I'm in the UK)
- caw 13y ago
  In the US -- getting the main page of the site. So either it's a CDN thing, they brought the site back up since the original post, or it is indeed region locked.
  - jongibbins 13y ago
    On further inspection it looks like it's just diverting to show my localhost:80 here.
  - llamataboot 13y ago
    I can access via a proxy, but not from a European IP address. Seems strange to not even show an error page and just block entire regions from accessing the site.
meerita 13y ago
I see this: "It works!" Wich to me is an insult. You can work on something much better and informative for the people that such message.
- yebyen 13y ago
  This is the default index.html for Apache I think from what others are saying, it's redirected you to localhost:80. You must be running a default Apache config on localhost. I don't think they (healthcare.gov) are.
  - munimkazia 13y ago
    That's funny because I am seeing nginx's default page. They are probably balancing the load across servers with different setup.
hiciu 13y ago
$ dig healthcare.gov +short 92.123.189.103 $ dig www.healthcare.gov +short www.geodirector.hc.gov.akadns.net. bh.georedirector.akadns.net. 127.0.0.1 $ wget healthcare.gov -O /dev/null --2013-12-11 15:57:05-- http://healthcare.gov/ Resolving healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)... 23.8.119.205, 2a02:26f0:59:38e::1ce1, 2a02:26f0:59:396::1ce1 Connecting to healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)|23.8.119.205|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://healthcare.gov/ [following] --2013-12-11 15:57:05-- https://healthcare.gov/ Connecting to healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)|23.8.119.205|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://www.healthcare.gov/ [following] --2013-12-11 15:57:06-- https://www.healthcare.gov/ Resolving www.healthcare.gov (www.healthcare.gov)... 127.0.0.1 Connecting to www.healthcare.gov (www.healthcare.gov)|127.0.0.1|:443... failed: Connection refused.
waffl 13y ago
Oddly enough, I just wanted to take a look at the site, living in Germany. downforeveryoneorjustme shows it's online. Also checked on my NY based vps via Lynx and the site loads. So it must be region locked.
munimkazia 13y ago
I am from India, and I am getting the default nginx page. That does not look good.

6 points by llamataboot 13y ago

Currently living abroad. Need to access the exchange to buy health insurance. Do I really need to access it through a proxy server?

jongibbins 13y ago

I think the site may be down. Visiting http://www.healthcare.gov http://www.healthcare.gov gives me an upside down IIS7 logo! http://www.healthcare.gov/welcome.png http://www.healthcare.gov/welcome.png (I'm in the UK)

caw 13y ago
In the US -- getting the main page of the site. So either it's a CDN thing, they brought the site back up since the original post, or it is indeed region locked.
- jongibbins 13y ago
  On further inspection it looks like it's just diverting to show my localhost:80 here.
- llamataboot 13y ago
  I can access via a proxy, but not from a European IP address. Seems strange to not even show an error page and just block entire regions from accessing the site.

meerita 13y ago

I see this: "It works!" Wich to me is an insult. You can work on something much better and informative for the people that such message.

yebyen 13y ago
This is the default index.html for Apache I think from what others are saying, it's redirected you to localhost:80. You must be running a default Apache config on localhost. I don't think they (healthcare.gov) are.
- munimkazia 13y ago
  That's funny because I am seeing nginx's default page. They are probably balancing the load across servers with different setup.

hiciu 13y ago

$ dig healthcare.gov +short 92.123.189.103 $ dig www.healthcare.gov +short www.geodirector.hc.gov.akadns.net. bh.georedirector.akadns.net. 127.0.0.1 $ wget healthcare.gov -O /dev/null --2013-12-11 15:57:05-- http://healthcare.gov/ Resolving healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)... 23.8.119.205, 2a02:26f0:59:38e::1ce1, 2a02:26f0:59:396::1ce1 Connecting to healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)|23.8.119.205|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://healthcare.gov/ [following] --2013-12-11 15:57:05-- https://healthcare.gov/ Connecting to healthcare.gov (healthcare.gov)|23.8.119.205|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://www.healthcare.gov/ [following] --2013-12-11 15:57:06-- https://www.healthcare.gov/ Resolving www.healthcare.gov (www.healthcare.gov)... 127.0.0.1 Connecting to www.healthcare.gov (www.healthcare.gov)|127.0.0.1|:443... failed: Connection refused.

waffl 13y ago

Oddly enough, I just wanted to take a look at the site, living in Germany. downforeveryoneorjustme shows it's online. Also checked on my NY based vps via Lynx and the site loads. So it must be region locked.

munimkazia 13y ago

I am from India, and I am getting the default nginx page. That does not look good.