The Affordable Care Act is Coming Home to Roost

[IDBillzFan]

HEH. ObamaCare: Best Advertisement For Libertarianism Ever.

 

The writer takes a jab at the CA DMV, and to be fair, if you have a computer, internet and a lick of sense, you can get in and out of our DMV in no more than an hour (assuming you're not getting your first license). If your only option to do something at DMV is to show up and stand in line, then yes, you're screwed.

Edited October 15, 2013 by LABillzFan

[B-Man]

MEGAN MCARDLE: ObamaCare Needs A Drop-Dead Date.

 

Exactly how bad are things on the federal health-care exchanges? The working assumption among most journalists, including me, is that they would be fixed in a few weeks — that is, by the end of this week. But yesterday’s New York Times brought a deeply reported piece from Robert Pear, Sharon LaFraniere and Ian Austen. There is too much information in the piece for an excerpt to do it justice, so I’ll summarize, with some editorial comments — but you should read the whole thing to get the full flavor:

 

– One person familiar with the project says it’s only about 70 percent of the way there, and has heard estimates of somewhere between two weeks to two months to fix it. As a programmer I know points out, “two weeks to two months” is the programming equivalent of “40 days and 40 nights”: “A long time, but I have no way of knowing how long.” When I used to hear estimates like that, I used to assume it would be coming in on the late end of that range, earliest.

 

– The administration delayed writing major rules until after the 2012 election, because it didn’t want to give Republicans any ammunition for their campaign. (This actually was noted at the time: “When it comes to health care, delaying regulations could help the president politically by avoiding discussion of the controversial health reform law. But that makes life difficult for states and industries that need to prepare for the coming changes,” wrote the National Journal. But most of us didn’t understand just how badly this was affecting implementation.)

 

– Despite evidence to the contrary, the administration kept insisting that everything was absolutely on track to launch Oct. 1.

 

And then it gets worse. Megan concludes: “At what point do we admit that the system just isn’t working well enough, roll it back and delay the whole thing for a year?” About two weeks ago. But neither Obama, nor the Democrats, nor the press can admit that Obama made a mistake, so expect this thing to fester for a while longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obamacare’s Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn’t Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are. “A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck

 

.

[DC Tom]

MEGAN MCARDLE: ObamaCare Needs A Drop-Dead Date.

 

Exactly how bad are things on the federal health-care exchanges? The working assumption among most journalists, including me, is that they would be fixed in a few weeks — that is, by the end of this week. But yesterday’s New York Times brought a deeply reported piece from Robert Pear, Sharon LaFraniere and Ian Austen. There is too much information in the piece for an excerpt to do it justice, so I’ll summarize, with some editorial comments — but you should read the whole thing to get the full flavor:

 

– One person familiar with the project says it’s only about 70 percent of the way there, and has heard estimates of somewhere between two weeks to two months to fix it. As a programmer I know points out, “two weeks to two months” is the programming equivalent of “40 days and 40 nights”: “A long time, but I have no way of knowing how long.” When I used to hear estimates like that, I used to assume it would be coming in on the late end of that range, earliest.

 

– The administration delayed writing major rules until after the 2012 election, because it didn’t want to give Republicans any ammunition for their campaign. (This actually was noted at the time: “When it comes to health care, delaying regulations could help the president politically by avoiding discussion of the controversial health reform law. But that makes life difficult for states and industries that need to prepare for the coming changes,” wrote the National Journal. But most of us didn’t understand just how badly this was affecting implementation.)

 

– Despite evidence to the contrary, the administration kept insisting that everything was absolutely on track to launch Oct. 1.

 

And then it gets worse. Megan concludes: “At what point do we admit that the system just isn’t working well enough, roll it back and delay the whole thing for a year?” About two weeks ago. But neither Obama, nor the Democrats, nor the press can admit that Obama made a mistake, so expect this thing to fester for a while longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obamacare’s Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn’t Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are. “A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck

 

.

 

They will roll back the roll-out and delay the individual mandate by a year...but they won't do it until after the budget fiasco is addressed, so the Republicans don't get any credit for their demand to delay it a year.

 

This isn't even close to being about doing what's right, as much as it is doing what !@#$s over the other party.

[3rdnlng]

They will roll back the roll-out and delay the individual mandate by a year...but they won't do it until after the budget fiasco is addressed, so the Republicans don't get any credit for their demand to delay it a year.

 

This isn't even close to being about doing what's right, as much as it is doing what !@#$s over the other party.

 

It's all about voter perception.

[IDBillzFan]

This isn't even close to being about doing what's right, as much as it is doing what !@#$s over the other party.

 

Not to mention, as someone who lives exclusively in the world of coding, "two weeks to two months" is codespeak for "two months to two years."

 

This isn't getting fixed any time soon.

[B-Man]

I Told You So (Obamacare Edition).

 

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me for five years, I’m an Obama voter.”

 

 

 

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[3rdnlng]

Remember this?

 

 

http://chicagoist.com/2012/10/03/il_politicians_view_on_obamacare_wh.php

 

"So let me get this straight. This is a long sentence. We are going to be gifted with a healthcare plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't, which reportedly covers 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman doesn't understand it, passed by Congress, that didn't read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke. So what the blank could possibly go wrong?"

[IDBillzFan]

Remember this?

 

 

http://chicagoist.co...bamacare_wh.php

 

"So let me get this straight. This is a long sentence. We are going to be gifted with a healthcare plan that we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't, which reportedly covers 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman doesn't understand it, passed by Congress, that didn't read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that is broke. So what the blank could possibly go wrong?"

 

Man, you gotta believe she's had an audit or two since that video caught legs.

[B-Man]

Analysis: Only 36K Signed Up for Health Care Through Federal Exchange in First Week of Operation

 

Millward Brown Digital, a consultancy firm, released an analysis today estimating that only 36,000 people had signed up for insurance through the federal Obamacare exchange website.

 

 

[/dev/null]

Analysis: Only 36K Signed Up for Health Care Through Federal Exchange in First Week of Operation

 

Millward Brown Digital, a consultancy firm, released an analysis today estimating that only 36,000 people had signed up for insurance through the federal Obamacare exchange website.

 

 

 

Looks like a pyramid scheme

[IDBillzFan]

Analysis: Only 36K Signed Up for Health Care Through Federal Exchange in First Week of Operation

 

All going to plan.

[Koko78]

Damn that Bush and Boehner. Those evil redneck racist bible-clinging gun enthusiasts who hate women, puppies, blacks and the poor sabotaged Obamacare's rollout. Somehow.

 

'Cause that's how they roll.

[B-Man]

The Hidden Heartlessness of the Obamacare Rollout

 

The Left loves to think of itself as compassionate, and — indeed — many of my more liberal friends are among the most caring people that I know.

 

So why does the Left cling so tightly to timetables and systems that not only risk rendering legal compliance with Obamacare mandates impossible but also place many families at real risk?

 

Today, during our daily ACLJ radio show, Jay Sekulow Live, we asked listeners to call and tell us about their experiences with the exchanges. Of course we heard stories of repeated failures and frustrations, but also truly distressing stories of families dropped from their catastrophic care plans because of Obamacare (insurers were no longer offering plans that weren’t compliant with ACA minimal standards) only to find out they not only can’t yet replace their lost insurance, the new coverage (if they could get it) offers less real coverage for far more money. You can listen to a selection of those calls here.

 

 

It doesn’t seem to occur to the “do you hate Obamacare more than you love your country?” MSNBC crowd that opponents of Obamacare might actually care about real people — how they get their health care, whether they can afford the health insurance they’re required to buy, and whether the government is competent enough to create a program that can even work.

 

 

Eventually, the current news cycle will end, and discussion about whether the Republicans missed an “opportunity” to highlight Obamacare’s failings will fade to irrelevance.

 

We’ll be left with the reality of a program that will directly affect the daily lives of many, many more millions of Americans than those who follow the political news cycle. And for many of them, Obamacare means financial hardship, health-related uncertainty, potentially punitive taxation, and fewer employment opportunities.

 

So, my answer to the MSNBC question is another question: “Why do you love Obamacare more than you love Americans?”

 

 

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Edited October 16, 2013 by B-Man

[B-Man]

The thrill is gone...........................

 

WaPo: Traffic plunges 88% at Healthcare.gov since launch.

 

So, basically, ObamaCare’s appeal is becoming more selective.

 

 

 

 

 

As Good as It Gets? ObamaCare supporters go through the stages of grief. .............Read the whole thing, which is too good to excerpt.

[Doc]

Reportedly less than 50K people have signed up for Obamacare, which is likely almost entirely made up of those who have costly pre-existing conditions who couldn't get coverage before, whereas they need at least 3M young and healthy people signed up to make this work. This could be even a bigger epic fail than previously predicted.

[B-Man]

Something very strange going on behind Healthcare.gov

 

Healthcare.gov, the web site for Obamacare, is the crown jewel of the American welfare state and President Obama's signature domestic policy achievement.

 

Hundreds of millions of Americans will use Healthcare.gov every day for decades to come if the site ever functions properly and Obamacare becomes as permanent a feature of American life as Social Security.

 

So, if you were picking the IT firm to design Healthcare.gov, you would spare no effort to make sure every potential bidder knew about the opportunity, that the integrity of the bid selection process was beyond question, and that the company most likely to create the best possible site got the award, right?

 

But that's not what happened with Healthcare.gov. Officials with both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian IT firm that won the $93 million contract, are instead acting like they've got something to hide.

 

Several weeks ago, Washington Examiner senior investigative reporter Richard Pollock found that two federal contract databases listed CGI as the lone bidder for the Healthcare.gov.

 

So, Pollock started asking questions at CGI and HHS. Nobody would talk on the record, but insisted "on background" that as many as four bidders sought the contract before it was awarded to the Canadian firm's U.S. subsidiary.

 

When Pollock pressed for documentation of the multiple bidders, including names of the companies involved, neither CGI nor HHS produced it. Tasha Bradley, an HHS spokesman, even claimed that "off the record, Richard, you will need to FOIA us for that information."

Then things really got strange yesterday when Bradley said this:

 

"Off the record, we have gotten a number of questions about your report. We are currently giving those reporters the same information that I provided to you and saying, on the record, that your reporting was incorrect."

 

Did you catch that? HHS refuses to document "on background" its claim there were four bidders, but goes "on the record" with other news organizations to trash the Examiner for reporting that the only available official documents found to date say there was only one bidder.

 

Just another day in "the most transparent administration in history," right?

 

 

http://washingtonexa...article/2537287

[DC Tom]

http://washingtonexa...article/2537287

 

Wrong. The site wasn't put up for competitive bid; it was given to CGI under a pre-existing contract.

 

Y'know, not unlike how Halliburton was granted their Iraq contracts.

 

Democrats are !@#$ing hypocrites.

[B-Man]

Wrong. The site wasn't put up for competitive bid; it was given to CGI under a pre-existing contract.

 

Y'know, not unlike how Halliburton was granted their Iraq contracts.

 

Democrats are !@#$ing hypocrites.

 

Well, then Tom, why are they claiming that there were 4 bids ? (that they can't name).............................Rhetorical question

 

 

 

ObamaCare's Black Box :Why the exchanges are worse than even the critics imagined.

 

The White House set low expectations for the Affordable Care Act's October 1 debut, so anything remotely competent should have seemed like a success. But three weeks on, the catastrophe that is Healthcare.gov and the 36 insurance exchanges run by the federal government is an insult to the "glitches" President Obama said were inevitable.

 

This isn't some coding error, or even the Health and Human Service Department's usual incompetence. The failures that have all but disabled ObamaCare are the result of deliberate political choices, which HHS and the White House are compounding with secrecy and stonewalling.

 

The health industry and low-level Administration officials warned that the exchanges were badly off schedule and not stress-tested despite three years to prepare and more than a half-billion dollars in funding. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her planners swore they'd be ready while impugning critics and even withholding documents from the HHS inspector general for a routine performance audit this summer.

 

Yet the launch has been worse even than critics predicted. The rare users who weren't locked out experienced crashes, delays and error messages. Mrs. Sebelius initially claimed this was merely servers crashing under unexpectedly high demand. She called it "a great problem to have."

 

Now that traffic has abated, HHS concedes there were built-in information technology and structural defects.

 

{snip}

 

Before the rollout, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Sebelius likened the exchanges to a new Apple product and asked for forbearance as problems were fixed. But Apple doesn't ship products that don't work and then force everyone to buy them, and a private business executive who supervised a fiasco like this would already have been fired.

 

The crowd in charge of the country that includes Silicon Valley ought to be ashamed that they can't produce a serviceable website in 2013. A useful act of contrition would be to resign, or, failing that, to beg Congress for a year delay to clean up their wreckage.

 

 

http://online.wsj.co...137501568384292

[DC Tom]

Before the rollout, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Sebelius likened the exchanges to a new Apple product and asked for forbearance as problems were fixed. But Apple doesn't ship products that don't work and then force everyone to buy them, and a private business executive who supervised a fiasco like this would already have been fired.

 

Another key point in that: Apple doesn't ship **** until they know it's ready. Apple's quality metrics determine their ship date, not the other way around.

[Doc]

"Built-in defects"?