Patterico's Pontifications

10/17/2013

Obama Set Up Website With the Same Care We Have Come to Expect from Government

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:24 pm



Comedy of errors.

Very important to understand: Between this and the fact that HHS deliberately hid the price of insurance behind a reg wall on Healthcare.gov to reduce “rate shock,” the grand takeaway about the website’s failure is that O and his team made it much worse than it needed to be because they were terrified of transparency. And the reason they were terrified of transparency, both in the case of hiding the cost of the premiums from web users and hiding the site’s architectural problems from contractors who might be hauled before Congress, is because they know they’ve delivered a bad product. Put the premiums on the front page and the public, expecting “affordable care,” would recoil at the truth. Put the contractors at the witness table before Issa’s committee and the public, expecting that the government would “fix” health care, would recoil upon discovering that they can’t even build a website with three years’ lead time.

Who could have guessed?

143 Responses to “Obama Set Up Website With the Same Care We Have Come to Expect from Government”

  1. almost all of us

    we’ve already figured out that if you one of them have to register for the obamacares what you got is the short end of the stick

    bless your heart

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  2. Darn, happyfeet beat me to it!

    Bill M (c8f413)

  3. Of course we would, Mr feets.

    We are still waiting for the promise of final legislation being up on the web 48 hours prior to the vote so we, the public, know what Congress is up to. Remember that one? That’s been 5 years in the making… No surprise here.

    gramps, the original (46c9f9)

  4. http://m.nationalreview.com/corner/361577/assessing-exchanges-yuval-levin

    It is worse than even I thought. Levin points out that the screwed-up websites threaten to do more than just hinder and delay. They threaten collapse of the insurance pools themselves. RTWT.

    SPQR (768505)

  5. So if you are a doctor I would imagine that your confidence level in receiving reimbursement for care under this new set-up must be, ahem, somewhat shaken.

    JVW (709bc7)

  6. Of course we would, Mr feets.

    We are still waiting for the promise of final legislation being up on the web 48 hours prior to the vote so we, the public, know what Congress is up to. Remember that one? That’s been 5 years in the making… No surprise here.

    Comment by gramps, the original (46c9f9) — 10/17/2013 @ 10:46 pm

    I’m waiting for that one too. The most transparent administration ever. /sarc

    Tanny O'Haley (6c44a8)

  7. I hope people are aware the republicans own the defeatist party.
    Stand tall and keep believing the defeatist party will fight for you in the next battle, nitwits. Amnesty will be the next white flag the defeatist party will succumb to. How can anyone back these self indulgent thieves?

    mg (31009b)

  8. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Cruz is able to take credit for one big, “I told you so”?

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  9. “I hope people are aware the republicans own the defeatist party.
    Stand tall and keep believing the defeatist party will fight for you in the next battle, nitwits. Amnesty will be the next white flag the defeatist party will succumb to. How can anyone back these self indulgent thieves?”

    Yup.

    Anyway, it’s much bigger than the personalities involved. I believe technological grown is driving human society toward socialism for a host of different reasons, not least of which is that information technology makes central management somewhat possible, as it never was before. (The Obamacare website being a bad example of this thesis. lol) The best conservative parties can do is fight a rearguard action, slowing it down, and occasionally winning unsatisfying small-to-medium victories, that will inevitably be undone.

    And while that “sounds” defeatist, it’s based on much more decisive and fundamental factors than the optimism of language.

    Former Conservative (6e026c)

  10. *growth

    Former Conservative (6e026c)

  11. If you don’t like the affordable care act not to worry, it seems to be collapsing under the weight of its crappy website. Yet another pile of low bids not getting it done.

    EdWood (c2268a)

  12. I believe technological grown is driving human society toward socialism for a host of different reasons,

    Technology makes the specter of a truly George-Orwell-ian society more plausible and likely, but it’s the naive, clueless belief that socialist or left-leaning impulses are motivated by the milk of human kindness, whether the results are truly kind or not, that’s the main trigger. That particular emotion is the ultimate factor behind the Argentina-ization or Detroit-ization of a nation or community.

    Mark (58ea35)

  13. #9, Former Conservative, you’re confusing ignorance with technological growth. Socialism depends on restricting the advance of technology, especially the free flow of information, in order to deprive the masses of the means to resist state indoctrination. That’s why totalitarians have a well established record of always limiting access to soap boxes, printing presses, radio, TV, and the Internet.

    Technology is freedom, socialism is slavery.

    ropelight (366f66)

  14. , both in the case of hiding the cost of the premiums from web users

    Not really hiding the cost of premiums, but hiding the de facto marginal tax rate they would have. Also making it difficult for anyone to gove advice, and they were also making checking the list of providers in the insurance plans a low low priority, so many people couldn’t do it.

    The site couldn’t tell them, and referred them to the insurance companies, which also couldn’t tell them and the doctors didn’t know what plans they were in.

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  15. While one is tempted to claim ineptness for ObamaCare, we know already that some of the anti-user-friendliness was planned. Many of us also think, as said explicitly by some among the Dems, that the aim is to move to a single-payer. So at some point we should expect the reasons ObamaCare isn’t working (like young healthy folk not signing up) to be turned into reasons why ObamaCare is inadequate and a single payer system is needed.

    We can hope that ObamaCare is recognized to be such a mess that a majority of people want no part of the govt taking even more control, and vote accordingly.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  16. So at some point we should expect the reasons ObamaCare isn’t working (like young healthy folk not signing up) to be turned into reasons why ObamaCare is inadequate and a single payer system is needed.

    The challenge in that case will be to hide the taxes and fees for single payer so that the young and healthy don’t notice them. After all, if they are reluctant to pay for ObamaCare imagine how they will feel about being forced to pay in to single payer. I suppose that single payer advocates will raise taxes on fast food, sugary drinks, and alcohol to try to offset some of the charges, in the hopes that the low information voter doesn’t notice.

    JVW (709bc7)

  17. This seems to be a case of succesful lobbying.

    The Canadian based contractor had a large number of visits to the White House.

    So (guessing and assuming ther are no envelopes of ashg changing hands in the white House) I suppose they said that whatever they threw at them they could do, and they never hinted at any need to get specifications in early, and told them you can change things as often as you like, and they would get it done in time, and also said they could do it cheaper too, because most of the programmers were in India.

    But actually it cost many times the price.

    Who could have guessed?

    Nobody did actually. (guess that it would be this bad)

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  18. You got a large number of enrollments and de-enrollments.

    And then it turned out the 834 transaction reports generated at the end of every day (telling what plan somebody had enrolled in and given to every insurer to prevent double enrollment) sometimes (from some states?) did not have time stamps, so nobody knew which one was the last!!

    The newpaper articles aren’t clear what’s a problem with the federal exchange and what with the states. But the state and the federal must mesh.

    In some cases (other states?) they were not formatted right for the computer system they were going to and had to be examined by hand.

    discovering that they can’t even build a website with three years’ lead time.

    They apparently stumbled onto a company that told them yes, yes, yes.

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  19. They threaten collapse of the insurance pools themselves. RTWT.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/17/2013 @ 10:50 pm

    Many of us also think, as said explicitly by some among the Dems, that the aim is to move to a single-payer. So at some point we should expect the reasons ObamaCare isn’t working (like young healthy folk not signing up) to be turned into reasons why ObamaCare is inadequate and a single payer system is needed.

    We can hope that ObamaCare is recognized to be such a mess that a majority of people want no part of the govt taking even more control, and vote accordingly.

    Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/18/2013 @ 7:25 am

    Unfortunately we’re dealing with an awful lot of people, quite probably a majority, who are willing to believe that we just didn’t give Zero and his buddies enough time or money to do it right, and anyway, what’s wrong with Single Payer, and isn’t the government just here to look after us?

    And many of these people are quite intelligent people, who in other cases are also reasonably wise. But when it comes to government and their precious Democrats, they can’t see a downside, and won’t until they themselves are loaded into cattle cars, real or metaphorical. And even then most of them won’t really believe it’s happening, or at least not to them, it must be a big mistake, and of course it’s going to be fixed real soon.

    Cynical and a bit depressed here, as if you couldn’t tell.

    LibraryGryffon (06c781)

  20. “Yet another pile of low bids not getting it done.”

    Ed Woods – Ha Ha. They got bids? Who knew?

    Long time no see.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  21. “Not really hiding the cost of premiums, but hiding the de facto marginal tax rate they would have.”

    Sammy – Actually both, because not everybody purchasing insurance on an exchange is eligible for a subsidy. Calling it a marginal tax rate is misleading.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  22. So at some point we should expect the reasons ObamaCare isn’t working (like young healthy folk not signing up) to be turned into reasons why ObamaCare is inadequate and a single payer system is needed.

    Then you could hide all the malfunctions under the federal umbrella and everybody’s complaints would fall on deaf ears!

    WINNING!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  23. Obama set up the web site?

    Angry Texan (f808ae)

  24. Contract given to cronies, a typical banana republic-style occurrence. The Obama crew cobbled this together with the same care they give to any of their policies, foreign or domestic… which is not much… with little thought given to impact, unintended consequences (although the destruction of the healthcare insurance industry is intended) and the cost.

    Colonel Haiku (32b8a6)

  25. 25- Sounds like conjecture.

    Angry Texan (f808ae)

  26. Another Friday, another troll…

    Colonel Haiku (32b8a6)

  27. with obamacare the only winning move is not to play

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  28. It’s when their EBT limit gets renewed and they get that Oreo sugar rush.

    nk (dbc370)

  29. Strike that, poorly phrased… Another Friday, another TaFailalot…

    Colonel Haiku (32b8a6)

  30. Colonel Haiku stinks
    Stupid political hack
    run and kiss Ted Cruz

    Angry Texan (f808ae)

  31. You guys engage him and ask him the wrong questions. Ask:

    Tlaloc,
    Are you feeding your kids with food stamps?
    Are you raising them in subsidized housing?
    Are you getting welfare cash?
    Is the government providing your kids’s health insurance and health care?
    Who’s paying your tuition?
    Basically, who’s supporting you?
    Who will feed, clothe, house, educate, and care for your kids?

    See how he answers. This is a guy, and there are many of them, who thinks he is entitled to those things as a matter of principle. That he has a natural right to be a beggar and a mooch and the world has a duty to provide for him. Everything else he says is just wrap around that s*** sandwich.

    nk (dbc370)

  32. Angry Texan,

    Obama sucks monkey turds.

    nk (dbc370)

  33. Angry Texan,

    Yo mama so stupid, she didn’t abort you.

    nk (dbc370)

  34. 34-But she had the right to! 🙂

    Angry Texan (f808ae)

  35. i support a woman’s right to choose

    this is me being supportive of a woman’s right to choose while at the same time I’m enjoying a tasty Jimmy Dean Delights Turkey Sausage Egg White and Cheese English Muffin

    I’m multitasking!

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  36. Obama set up the web site?
    Comment by Angry Texan (f808ae) — 10/18/2013 @ 8:14 am

    — Not personally; but, he did personally place that sign on his Oval Office desk, the one that reads “The Buck Stops Everywhere EXCEPT Here”.
    [h/t Limbaugh Theorem]

    Icy (5f7cca)

  37. There is one practical problem with a fail-to-single-payer strategy. Democrats have intentionally sabotaged any bipartisanship. And they’ve discredited their brand with Obama sufficiently that there isn’t any likelihood of their getting control of both houses and White House soon enough.

    SPQR (768505)

  38. Seems like only yesterday that Covered California was bragging about how awesomely their site rollout was:

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exchange-doctors-20131017,0,7017010.story

    JVW (709bc7)

  39. Know what I find interesting? The new lefty troll uses the adjective “Angry” in his/her name, yet likely believes that the right that is blinded with obsessive rage towards Dear Leader.

    JVW (709bc7)

  40. If you don’t like the affordable care act not to worry, it seems to be collapsing under the weight of its crappy website. Yet another pile of low bids not getting it done.
    Comment by EdWood (c2268a) — 10/18/2013 @ 7:03 am

    — You crawled out from under the wood-pile just to bleat this?

    Icy (5f7cca)

  41. But she had the right to! 🙂

    Comment by Angry Texan (f808ae) — 10/18/2013 @ 8:48 am

    According to late term abortion proponents (a la Wendy Davis), it’s not too late. What trimester are you?

    nk (dbc370)

  42. According to late term abortion proponents (a la Wendy Davis), it’s not too late. What trimester are you?

    Recall the old P.J. O’Rourke quip: “Calm down, honey: I’m for abortion too. Just as long as it is retroactive.”

    JVW (709bc7)

  43. Buh bye Tye

    JD (4596fe)

  44. Everyone has been claiming that Democrats “won” the shutdown showdown. But they are now totally committed to no delay of Obamacare. They took away any flexibility themselves in front of the whole nation.

    SPQR (768505)

  45. http://twitchy.com/2013/10/18/guess-the-cable-network-chyron-announces-gop-flubs-obamacare-launch-pic-video/

    MSNBC crawl: “GOP flubs Obamacare launch”

    Good thing they aren’t Faux News…

    SPQR (768505)

  46. 8. Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 10/18/2013 @ 6:32 am

    Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Cruz is able to take credit for one big, “I told you so”?

    No, it’s the people who said not to do it, just wait and Obamacare will self-destruct, who have the ability to say “I told you so.”

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  47. Warn people, yes, maybe even propose legislation, and better legislation than the crude tool of defunding, but don’t try to force the Democrats to do something.

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  48. If you want to do something, you have to shame the other party into doing something about it, because not doing something then could cost them vootes, not force them.

    The Democrats were shamed, not forced, into making sure soldiers got paid and combat veterans death benfits got paid on time.

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  49. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/18/2013 @ 7:57 am

    because not everybody purchasing insurance on an exchange is eligible for a subsidy.

    But they’re the only people who get quoted a different price, other than the price anyone would see without giving personal information.

    Sammy Finkelman (982d84)

  50. heh angry Texan
    each day he compensates for
    lowT small pecker

    Colonel Haiku (32b8a6)

  51. No, it’s the people who said not to do it, just wait and Obamacare will self-destruct, who have the ability to say “I told you so.”

    Hand raised.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  52. Yep, insist that it’s implemented as the law was written. Make noise about (and allow no Republican to accept) special exemptions for members of Congress… these people shouldn’t have to be told this.

    Elections have consequences.

    Colonel Haiku (ee85e3)

  53. Kevin M, what happens to Obama’s credibility if say two months after forcing a shutdown to prevent delay of Obamacare, he announces a delay of Obamacare?

    SPQR (5a0267)

  54. tye aka Tlaloc aka Angry Texan,

    All we’re asking Barack Obama to do is to enforce ObamaCare the way the law was written—everyone must participate—yet all that you lefty looney tunes want to do is give out exemptions to all of your favorite special interest groups—Congress, Big Labor, Big Business, et al.

    SanFranNan was right—we’ll find out what’s in it after it is passed.
    The problem is that now you lefties are finding out what’s in it, you don’t want to be part of it.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  55. 54.Comment by SPQR (5a0267) — 10/18/2013 @ 11:56 am

    54.Kevin M, what happens to Obama’s credibility if say two months after forcing a shutdown to prevent delay of Obamacare, he announces a delay of Obamacare?

    Let me try to answer this.

    Well, first of all, he portrays the delay as Republicans recklessly risking the nation’s future by not wanting to pass a clean debt limit increase/continuing resolution – nice thing he managed to bundle them together in the end, because the argument about economic catastrophe really only applies to the debt limit.

    And his complaint was they didn’t want to pass a clean bill.

    For the more sophisticated that would be a bill that not contain controversial riders.

    Non-controversial provisions, that the leaders of bith parties agree to, like extra money for Kentucky, or giving a year’s salary to the widow of Senator Lautenberg (as Congress has done with every member who died in office since 1973) are not a problem.

    He never said he was fighting for Obamacare. Just for a clean bill. he was against the future of the United States and the world economy being held hostage. He never went to the merits of the other pieces of legislation that Republicans wanted to attach to the must pass bills.

    Still, he, and all the other Democrats, was all against pushing the effective date forward.

    What he’s likely to do is ask (or try to see if he can do it by himself) for Congress to push the tax/penalty date from about February 15 to the end of the signup period – and probably extend the signup period as well past I think it’s March 24 now.

    just being madness – at the end it wassn’t about delaying Obamcare

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  56. “But they’re the only people who get quoted a different price, other than the price anyone would see without giving personal information.”

    Sammy – You are missing the point. Nobody sees a price without giving personal information. Also what does a marginal tax rate have to do with Obamacare?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  57. He portrays the what the Republicans did as just being madness – and at the end it wasn’t about delaying Obamcare.

    Some people have noticed that Obama went on the air, and the Presidio in San Francisco opened, after the Senate voted Wednesday but before the House did.

    That’s because it was really the Senate that was the sticking point.

    The House, they knew for a few days, would vote for whatever the Senate passed, because Boehner and at least a fifth of the Republicans, probably at least a third, would vote for it, if the clock had run out.

    Obama and Harry Reid forced all 6 Democrats in the gang of 12 to back away from Susan Collins’ compromise.

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304864504579141650091290392

    Politics and Policy

    Behind Debt Deal: Silence, Distrust and Hardball

    Both parties focused mostly on trying to kill any plans that emerged—both from the opposing party and their own colleagues

    Republican Susan Collins and a dozen other senators from both parties were busy last weekend hashing out what looked like a budget compromise, a rare glimmer of hope amid a bitter impasse that shut the government and threatened a debt default.

    But top Senate Democrats hated the emerging deal, which included spending limits and changes to the health-care law, and so did the White House.

    After the White House chief of staff phoned lawmakers and urged them to back away, five Democrats working with Ms. Collins issued a statement saying there was no agreement. A sixth, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, tracked down on his boat, signed, too.

    The thing what I said earlier was, if Obama truly believed there was a possibility of economic disaster, he would not have acted the way he did.

    He wouldn’t have negotiated like he did.

    He made sure it would go down to the wire.

    His artificially set wire, anyway.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  58. “But they’re the only people who get quoted a different price, other than the price anyone would see without giving personal information.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 10/18/2013 @
    12:51 pm

    Sammy – You are missing the point. Nobody sees a price without giving personal information.

    But their supposed reason for setting it up that way, is so that nobody would see a price quoited to them than was higher than what they’d actually bee charged. This only applies to people getting a subsidy.

    Now there may be a bigger reason for requiring personal information up front.

    Also what does a marginal tax rate have to do with Obamacare?

    If they’d set up a calculator, like the one at http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
    people could play around with the numbers and discover what their de facto marginal tax rate was.

    Also, probably, but they are not saying, maybe some people could notice that if they fudged things by just a few dollars they could save a lot of money.

    Or they might see what happened if they used a different address.

    So they wanted people to enter the information up front.

    There is also, of course, the fact it is going to compared with other government databases – and maybe even credit applications, but they are probably not capable of doing that on a routine basis.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  59. Sammy, you didn’t “answer” my point.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  60. http://www.enrollmaven.com/

    Gold, Silver, Bronze (GSB) Plan Enrollment

    17,862*

    Administration GSB Plan Enrollment Goal by 03.31.14

    7,066,000

    Percent of GSB Plan Enrollment Goal Achieved

    0.3%

    Percent of Enrollment Period Elapsed

    9.3%

    *This is a running estimate of the number of people enrolled in paid Obamacare plans calculated using enrollment statistics reported by governmental entities. It is not a measure of web hits, user registrations, applications started, applications completed or any other pre-enrollment parameter, does not include enrollments in jurisdictions which have not yet reported enrollment statistics (except confirmed registrations in states on the federal exchange) and does not count new Medicaid enrollees.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  61. Sammy, if Obamacare is supposed to provide 30 million people with insurance, why is the goal to sign up 7 million? Hmmmmm.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  62. 60. Comment by SPQR (39ad84) — 10/18/2013 @ 1:05 pm

    Sammy, you didn’t “answer” my point.

    Obama’s credibility is only slightly impaired if he asks for or announces a delay of two months in the Obamacare tax penalty. He will make or ask for the smallest changes he possibly can. Maybe even arrange for it to be a concession to Republicans.

    He never claimed the fight with the Republicans was about Obamacare, but only about his not being willing to pay ransom in the form of legislation he didn’t want (and which didn’t have a majority of both houses for it in Congress either) while the Republicans were flirting with worldwide economic catastrophe.

    (As I said, if he really believed that, he wouldn’t have been so stubborn.)

    Now, he says, he thinks the Republicans have learned their lesson and won’t try that again. That is, their leadership won’t let that happen again.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  63. Sammy, your rationalization is ridiculous. The shutdown was portrayed as being about Obamacare. First defunding, then delay.

    To claim that if Obama announced a delay there would be no credibility hit is just insane.

    SPQR (39ad84)

  64. “If they’d set up a calculator, like the one at http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/
    people could play around with the numbers and discover what their de facto marginal tax rate was.”

    Sammy – In what way can that be described as a marginal tax rate? Please explain.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  65. “But their supposed reason for setting it up that way, is so that nobody would see a price quoited to them than was higher than what they’d actually bee charged. This only applies to people getting a subsidy.”

    Sammy – The only way to determine whether or not somebody is eligible for a subsidy is to enter personal information. The starting point in either scenario is the same.

    Play around with one of the exchanges yourself. Set up an account and see what you see.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  66. The Washington Examiner reports the IT company that set up ObamaCare was fired by a Canadian province last year:

    Canadian provincial health officials last year fired the parent company of CGI Federal, the prime contractor for the problem-plagued Obamacare health exchange websites, the Washington Examiner has learned.

    CGI Federal’s parent company, Montreal-based CGI Group, was officially terminated in September 2012 by an Ontario government health agency after the firm missed three years of deadlines and failed to deliver the province’s flagship online medical registry.

    The online registry was supposed to be up and running by June 2011.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  67. Something strange with the website, more than three years lead time, half a billion dollar budget, and a straight forward Web transacton. That is more than enough resources to have done this job.

    Weeks later and they cannot fix the bugs, even they cannot be that incompetent.

    Pons Asinorum (9a1b21)

  68. Sammy teh Guiless

    Colonel Haiku (cabbd2)

  69. SammyTime

    Colonel Haiku (cabbd2)

  70. Pons,

    It makes me wonder if it’s by design like so many other Obama Administration “flubs.” If he can use technology to avoid it, why would Obama want the American people to find out for sure that his promises about ObamaCare were lies?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  71. I think I saw a Washington Examiner piece that said no one can find the competitive bids for Obamacare IT contract.

    How much criminal corruption is going to be revealed in 2017? How many people will be on Obama’s pardon list in Jan 2017? Hundreds?

    SPQR (768505)

  72. So if you are a doctor I would imagine that your confidence level in receiving reimbursement for care under this new set-up must be, ahem, somewhat shaken.

    Comment by JVW”

    Doctors who could have bailed out already. Many have sold their practices to hospitals. Many with smaller practices and no student loans, have gone to cash practices.

    I told my medical students yesterday that they no longer have to worry about Obamacare. It will never work. The problem is that it may kill health insurance completely. The question is whether that is a bug or a feature.

    I just don’t know what is next. Thank God I am retired but I still have to worry about my own care.

    MikeK (dc6ffe)

  73. Many have sold their practices to hospitals.

    My brother did.

    And I think you are right also that Obamacare is over. Even if they get the applications right, the premiums are exorbitant.

    Patricia (be0117)

  74. BTW, Attorneys, why are they worried about subpenas?
    Is their criminal behavior going on?

    Patricia (be0117)

  75. Pons,

    It makes me wonder if it’s by design like so many other Obama Administration “flubs.” If he can use technology to avoid it, why would Obama want the American people to find out for sure that his promises about ObamaCare were lies?

    @71 Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 10/18/2013 @ 2:26 pm

    You know DRJ, at first I thought it is was just shear incompetence, but these glitches have been with us for what, more than a week. In the internet world (network, bandwidth, server capacity) a week is like a year. More than enough time to increase bandwidth and server capacity to match traffic loads.

    And yeah, your idea makes total sense to me. It would be so easy to do.

    It makes one wonder.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  76. There is one thing about government programs, even if they work as well as can be expected, people find a way.

    That way is always the same: Black markets.

    No matter how benevolent or well-intended the government’s intentions.

    There is a reason that the President carped a while on Medicare fraud. Anybody heard that complaint lately?

    That’s because he can’t. If he admitted to Medicare fraud now, it would naturally indicate that Obamacare is subject to the same.

    Why is this so hard to understand?

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  77. Requirements –> Design –> Programming –> Coding –> Testing –> Launch

    is the old-fashioned way to do this. There’s actually testing at the exit of each stage, to be sure that that product meets the requirements for both that stage and all previous stages. In this case, the Requirements were not finalized until a week before Launch. Coding was started months before Design and Programming. I’m not surprised it’s a colossal collapsing failure.

    There’s an old supplemental text: The Mythical Man-Month. People should read it an heed its warnings.

    htom (412a17)

  78. Patricia, probably. The Obama administration seems to be hiding quite a lot of criminal conduct.

    SPQR (768505)

  79. 74. …And I think you are right also that Obamacare is over. Even if they get the applications right, the premiums are exorbitant.

    Comment by Patricia (be0117) — 10/18/2013 @ 7:19 pm

    Not just the premiums. But also the deductibles and the copays. Price conscious buyers, who according to industry experts will be the majority of people who sign up on the individual exchanges, are going to be stunned by the fact that with their Bronze plans they have to pay $5-$6k out of pocket before the insurance even kicks in, and then they’re still on the hook for 40% of the tab.

    Also, many if not most of the plans only cover in-network care. The Bronze plans in particular have extremely narrow networks. If you find a primary care physician in network, he may refer you to a specialist out of network. Finding a specialist in network could be next to impossible.

    First they have to fix the website though so people can find out the true horrors of Obamacare. And that may take a while. I saw an interview with the CEO of Aetna, and he thinks it will be 2017 before they get things sorted out.

    Not kidding. Three more years, and hundreds of millions more dollars.

    Richard Fernandez at Belmont club has a good post up about what’s really wrong with the Obamacare exchanges. This:

    http://www.jec.senate.gov/republicans/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=8e6dbf03-ca4a-44be-9de4-a100c43fb5c8

    The Krell Machine

    http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2013/10/15/the-krell-machine/

    Readers of this site will recall that on the first day the Obamacare exchanges rolled out it was plain that they were complete failures. Their woes were not due to high traffic or minor glitches but something more fundamental. I wrote: “the problems experienced were the direct consequence of the length of the law and its attendant regulatory complexity. These regulations are often called “business rules,” and they have to be implemented in software. The Obamacare ruleset is now reportedly eight times the length of the Bible and still growing. This has had unavoidable results.”

    Steve57 (022c57)

  80. From pjmedia, quoting Yuval Levin, from the National Review Online:

    One key problem, which to date has been the most prominent in public, has to do with a late-in-the-game decision to require users to go through a complex account-creation process before even reaching any coverage options.

    Most of the problems people have faced so far are a function of that decision, and have had to do with creating user accounts and so getting through the very first steps involved in purchasing coverage. Some journalists and analysts have speculated that this decision was made in order to prevent people from seeing premium costs before they could also see any subsidies they might be eligible for, so that the shock of higher prices could be contained and so that simply curious observers and journalists couldn’t get a picture of premium costs in the various states.

    It gets worse, because apparently some of the few people who successfully enrolled in Obamacare received inaccurate pricing information and will pay more than what the Obamacare website calculated:

    The calculation of subsidies continues to fail tests, and it’s pretty clear that some actual consumers have made actual purchases with bad information, which will become apparent to them when they get their first bills.

    So it appears, the “glitches” were the result of last minute decisions made to hide the cost comparisons of Obamacare. In sum, the dishonesty was deliberate, but he delay of enrollment is good-ole-fashion incompetence.

    Another proud moment for Democrats/liberals.

    Makes one happy not to be associated with such a wretched ideology that absolutely needs dishonesty and invisibility to advance their causes. Their apologisits have much work now.

    Pons Asinorum (8ce71a)

  81. I have never seen people fundamentally misunderstand the problem more than the MFM when it comes to Obamacare:

    Obamacare’s Reviled Medicare Cuts Have Turned Out Better Than Expected

    While glitches continue to trouble insurance exchanges, another controversial part of the law has been a surprising success

    …Back in 2009 and 2010, one of the harshest criticisms of President Obama’s health care law was that it would hurt seniors. The law’s $700 billion in cuts to Medicare over 10 years would deprive seniors of benefits and choices, critics said. Of particular concern was the plan to cut more than $100 billion out of a quasi-governmental program called Medicare Advantage, which allows seniors to get government-funded private insurance plans in place of traditional Medicare.

    Four years later, with the ACA in place, it appears that worries about the future of Medicare Advantage have not come to fruition — at least not yet. The program is more popular than ever. Between 2010 and 2013, enrollment in the program increased 30%, defying the expectations of some of the top policy experts in Washington.

    Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/10/14/obamacares-reviled-medicare-cuts-have-turned-out-better-than-expected/#ixzz2iCD04dBs

    Really? That’s their measure of success?

    Perhaps the program wouldn’t be so popular if the enrollees had accurate information about what the cuts would do. Something if you rely on Time magazine for, you’ll never get.

    http://www.wtnh.com/news/health/thousands-of-doctors-fired-by-united-healthcare

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)– In the midst of major changes in health care, UnitedHealthCare has sent thousands of pink slips to Connecticut doctors.

    Termination letters went to physicians caring for Medicare patients. Those letters were sent out to doctors caring for ‘Medicare Advantage’ patients. It’s a plan, marketed to Seniors to provide additional services through UnitedHealthCare.

    A mix of primary care and specialty doctors are affected by it. And it comes at a questionable time.

    Open enrollment for Medicare starts next Tuesday, and it’s still not clear at this time as to which doctors are still in the United network.

    The Connecticut State Medical Society is fighting back. The biggest concern is patient access to healthcare.

    “What the government is looking for is to manage better care by adding a patient centered medical home so that you have a doctor who is totally invested with taking care of every aspect of the patient and coordinating it. This is clearly not a patient centered decision,” said Dr. Michael Saffir, President of CT State Medical Society.

    What part of “cuts to Medicare over 10 years would deprive seniors of benefits and choices” did these people not understand.

    How can people like this Dr. Saffir, Kate Pickert at Time, be so clueless? When you look at the sales pitch of Obamacare, and then the cuts to Medicare and the double counting, what you can be sure of is those promises about “what the government is looking for” were complete BS.

    I can’t understand anyone falling for them.

    It’s like looking at Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” Then you look at the inadequacies of the Navy’s 30 year ship building plan under Obama. And one thing becomes obvious. There was never going to be a “pivot to Asia.” There was just going to be a “pivot away from Europe and the ME” followed by a “pivot to domestic spending.”

    Steve57 (022c57)

  82. Steve, they have their catechism, and that’s that.
    Leftism is a religion, and its dogma shall not be questioned.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  83. After people wade through the exchange website, and after they recover from the sticker shock, then they’re in for their next shock.

    Obamacare’s other looming problem: access shock

    President Obama’s health care law was supposed to expand choice for consumers. But with just weeks to go before open enrollment begins on the law’s subsidized insurance exchanges, it’s increasingly looking like the array of plans and providers being offered will fall short of the program’s ambitions.

    In New Hampshire, for instance, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield is the only insurer offering coverage on the state’s exchange. Even more strikingly, the plans it will be selling through the exchange will have a relatively limited provider network.

    The Concord Monitor reports, “By contracting with 16 of the 26 acute general care hospitals in the state, Anthem was able to keep premium costs 25 percent lower than they would be if all hospitals in the state were part of the network, according to a statement from the insurer.”

    …“Nearly half the exchange plans in 13 states with early filings will be of the narrow-network type, according to an unpublished McKinsey & Co. analysis of 955 plan offerings,” Modern Healthcare reported last month. “Enrollees in such plans will have limited or no coverage if they seek care outside their plan network. In exchange, subscribers will enjoy lower premiums than they would pay for plans with broader networks, insurers say.”

    The article continued, “Insurers including Aetna and Health Net say narrower networks, made up of hospitals and physicians selected using cost and patient-outcomes criteria, are necessary to keep their exchange plan premiums affordable while still meeting the requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

    In other words, Obamacare drives up the cost of premiums by requiring companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions, to pay for a number of designated benefits and to limit out-of-pocket spending. So to keep rates in check, insurers are paring down their networks.

    This means that a beneficiary may have an insurance policy that theoretically covers a medical service, but could have a tough time finding an appointment or a facility that can provide the service.

    Modern Healthcare raises another potential issue: “There also are concerns that narrow-network plans will cause risk-selection problems in the exchanges because lower-priced plans with smaller networks are likely to attract younger, healthier enrollees and drive people with serious health conditions into plans with wider networks. That could force all plans to pare down their networks to survive, thus limiting consumer choice. Then regulators might have to step in.”

    Does anyone still believe the guy who, when asked about “patient centric care” by a woman discussing her then 105 mom getting a pacemaker at 99, said (paraphrasing) “sometimes you’re better off taking the painkiller than getting the operation” was ever at all interested in improving patient access to physicians and services.

    The whole Obamacare thing was sold with lies, bait-and-switch tactics, and pay offs to pols and his constituent groups. At what point do people realize Obama and his minions were just lying the whole time.

    Obamacare was never about delivering health care. It’s about government control and wealth redistribution.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  84. 83. Steve, they have their catechism, and that’s that.
    Leftism is a religion, and its dogma shall not be questioned.

    Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 10/19/2013 @ 12:19 pm

    It is a cult. Still, I’d think at some point some of them would realize that they’re worshiping a false messiah.

    I mean, people do escape cults.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  85. It is a cult. Still, I’d think at some point some of them would realize that they’re worshiping a false messiah.

    Oh, I think they will when they get their bill. 😉

    Pons Asinoirum (8ce71a)

  86. The author of the examiner article doesn’t seem to notice the bait-and-switch:

    Interestingly, one of the arguments that supporters of the health care law have consistently made is that even though Obamacare may make health insurance more expensive in some cases, people will be getting better, more comprehensive policies. But the limitations on access undercut this point.

    The response to this, I suppose, would be that somebody who would otherwise be uninsured is still far better off having insurance, even if there are restrictions on its use.

    No, when they were selling Obamacare, supporters of the law promised everyone would see their rates go down.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/pelosi-i-dont-recall-saying-premiums-would-go-down-everybody-under-obamacare_733919.html

    (Nancy Pelosi, attempting to airbrush her lies from history)

    When it became obvious that wasn’t remotely true, then they pretend they never made that promise. This is obvious from the fact they had their fallback lie already prepared. Then and only then did the argument become that while Obamacare may be more expensive, but people will like their plan better because it provides better access to more services.

    When it becomes clear that isn’t true, then it well become as the author realizes that the uninsured are better with something than nothing.

    But the uninsured aren’t putting up with these exchanges to sign up. It is the formerly insured who are highly motivated to keep their insurance.

    And they aren’t better off with the something Obamacare is delivering. They used to have something. A plan they liked, but was terminated. Doctors they liked, who they can no longer see. Like those Medicare Advantage patients in Connecticut.

    At that point do the cultists understand that Obama was lying when he promised if you like your plan, you can keep it? If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?

    Steve57 (022c57)

  87. That interview I mentioned with the Aetna CEO.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101110161

    Aetna’s CEO gave a harshly critical review Monday of the federal government’s Obamacare marketplace, saying, “There’s so much wrong, you just don’t know what’s broken until you get a lot more of it fixed.”

    Steve57 (022c57)

  88. some more details(from Motley Fool) about the Obamacare tax/penalty. it’s not completely accurate but heps piece this thing together)

    The penalty is for going 3 months straught without health insurance (I thought it was one month)

    You need to sign up by about the middle of the previous month to get in by the first of the next month. Therefore you need to sign up by about feb 15 to get coverage starting March 1. with only January and February missing, there is no penalty.

    Someone signing up near the last date enrollment for 2014 is open – in late March – would get coverage starting May 1 and be missing 4 months,

    The penalty initially is low. It is a minimum of $95 per adult and $47.50 per child up to $285 or family (they stop counting after 2 children)

    It goeds to a maximum of whatever the average annual premium is for all the bronze (4th tier) insurance policies on the exchange availabnle to you.

    But no more than annual household income (modified adjusted gross incoem I suppose) minus $10,000 if it is an individual or $20,000 if we are talking about a family multplied by 1%. That will go up to 2 1/2% eventually.

    In other words 1% of (MAGI minus either $10,000 or $20,000) as calculated on your 2014 income tax return. There will be a line on the 1040 to provide information about helath insurance (and presumabably either another form or a worksheet to calculate what should be entered)

    There is no penalty for people in jail or who were members of an Indian tribe (and this have access to other care) It sounds like if you could have gotten Medicaid but didn’t take it you might get a penalty. If you couldn’t get Medicaid, because, say you are not an American citizen, or is that only illegal immigrant, there is no penalty.

    If you don’t make enough income to file an income tax return there is no penalty, or if a plan (for an individual I think) would cost over 8% of your income – we’re talking premiums here, not deductibekl or co-payments or co-insurance. You can also apply for some other economic hardship exemptions.

    If receiving insurance benefits runs counter to your religious beliefs (provided you belong to a religious group recognized by the federal government), no penalties are applicable for you.

    If you opt to join a federally recognized health care sharing ministry, you can be exempted from paying the penalties.

    The penalty is only collected from income tax refunds, and possibly, by mandatory withholding. But the amount of withholding is always controlled by the taxpayer. withholding too little could make someone subject to paying and filing estimated taxes, but that probably applies only to owing actual income taxes.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  89. There’s also the problem that so many policies now have limited networks.

    A patient in a hospital may be seen by doctors not in the network, and billed.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  90. Comment by Steve57 (022c57) — 10/19/2013 @ 12:36 pm

    At that point do the cultists understand that Obama was lying when he promised if you like your plan, you can keep it? If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor/

    Hopefully, too late to matter to Obama.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  91. The calculation of subsidies continues to fail tests, and it’s pretty clear that some actual consumers have made actual purchases with bad information, which will become apparent to them when they get their first bills.

    If these web site had been set up by a private companies, and not the government, the lawyers would be gearing up for class-action lawsuits.

    For fraud.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  92. 64. Comment by SPQR (39ad84) — 10/18/2013 @ 1:36 pm

    The shutdown was portrayed as being about Obamacare.

    Not by Obama. It was portrayed by Obama as Republicans being reckless and putting the entire world economy at risk, because they didn’t want to pass a “clean” debt ceiling raise, which he managed to confound with the continuing resolution and governmewnt shutdown.

    Harry Reid talked a little about how they shouldn’t shut down the government becausde they feel very strongly about something, but Obama never even hinted this had anything in particular to do with Obamacare, nor did he defend Obamacare. He said, if anything, that all these issues are for another time.

    To claim that if Obama announced a delay there would be no credibility hit is just insane.

    There would be some hit to his perceived competence.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  93. Sammy, you live in an alternate universe evidently. One where rules of ordinary logic seem lost.

    SPQR (768505)

  94. According to Drudge, the nation’s finest IT minds have been called in to solve the problem called Sebelius.

    After this clusterfark, I really have to ask how confident are you, as an American, that you will receive adequate health insurance under a federal plan?

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  95. 95. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/20/2013 @ 6:32 pm

    Sammy, you live in an alternate universe evidently. One where rules of ordinary logic seem lost.

    Go and show me one place where Obama, or even Harry Reid, defended Obamacare in the past few weeks. You won’t find it, I think.

    Obama criticized the Republicans for demanding ransom for “doing their jobs” or America “paying its bills.”

    He never defended Obamacare on its own merits, but only the principle that the debt limit, or the continuing resolution, should not be a vehicle to force unwilling Democrats to change the law.

    The closest he came to talking about Obamacare was something like this:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-oct-8-news-conference-on-the-shutdown-and-debt-limit/2013/10/08/866088c0-3038-11e3-8906-3daa2bcde110_print.html

    ….we don’t get to select which programs we implement or not….And I don’t get a chance to go back and say, you know what, this cockamamie idea that this Republican congressman came up with I really don’t like, so let’s not — let’s not implement that.

    Since he never defended Obamacare on its own merits, he can’t be hurt by Obamacare failing, by virtue of anything he said this October.

    He can only be hurt because he more generally backed the law. The controversy this month adds nothing to it. He was not defending Obamacare, even though Republicans were attacking it.

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: The only thing that I will say is that we’re not going to pay a ransom for America paying its bills. That’s something that should be non-negotiable, and everybody should agree on that. Everybody should say one of the most valuable things we have is America’s creditworthiness. This is not something we should even come close to fooling around with.

    Did he discuss Obamacare at any point? No!! Patterico pointed out he wasn’t asked about the veterans kept out of the memorial (actually somebody tried to get out somethinbg, but he waved away the question) or about the problems with Obamacare (with the exchanges) https://patterico.com/2013/10/08/obama-faces-zero-questions-on-glaring-issues-at-presser/

    And he didn’t volunteer anything about Obamacare either.

    What he said was:

    We can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy. Democracy doesn’t function this way. And this is not just for me; it’s also for my successors in office.

    Whatever party they’re from, they shouldn’t have to pay a ransom either for Congress doing its basic job. We’ve got to put a stop to it.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  96. 94. The penalty for being uninsured next year is $95.

    $95 for a single person and an additional $95 for a spouse, plus $47.50 for any uninsured child, up to 2, for a maximum minimum penalty of $285.

    That’s for being uninsured a whole year. It’s prorated, but only months that are part of a series of at least consecutive months of being uninsured count. If necessary, I think they will look at January and February 2015 to evaluate November or December 2014.

    In fact, the penalty for being uninsured next year is $95 or 1 percent of your income, whichever is higher

    1% of your modified adjusted gross income minus either $10,000 for an individual or $20,000 for a family, but no more than the lower of the average of the premiums of the bronze plans aavailable to you on the exchange.

    So if you make $75,000 a year and you decide to go without insurance, the penalty will be $750.

    First of all, that’s either $650 or $550 depending on the family. I think there’s also a Dollar maximum.

    There are a number of things you can do to avoid having to pay it, from deliberately getting your utilities shut off to under-withholding taxes from your paycheck so that they don’t have a refund from which to take out the penalty.

    I think underwitholding is a better idea, but the underwithholding should be no more than $1,000. I didn’t hear about this unpaid utlity bill exception. Is that supposed to be away of proving hardship?

    repeatedly logging in until you finally get the system to work. It is unlikely to get loads of healthy, young, premium-paying folks to sign up for insurance and thereby make this whole thing financially viable.

    I don’t think the difficulty of logging in, which may go away, will be the prime reason people don’t buy insurance. It’ll be cost.

    And there’s another thing. People’s incomes aren’t as stable as presumed by the people who set this up.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  97. 96. Of course they could see this coming as October 1 drew closer. This was a last minute attempt to avert disaster.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  98. This is what the web site says: (hat tip: Drudge -via Politico)

    Blog post dated today:

    http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/doing-better-making-improvements-healthcaregov.html

    …..TECH SURGE

    To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering.

    Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov. ….

    The way to bet is that this probably still won’t be enough.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  99. 95. Sammy, you live in an alternate universe evidently. One where rules of ordinary logic seem lost.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/20/2013 @ 6:32 pm

    That could be. If so, that’s why he understands Obamacare so well. It exists in the same universe.

    He got some of the details wrong. For instance your health insurance from your employer is “affordable” if the premiums don’t exceed 9.5% of your income. Not 8%.

    Oh, and bye the bye that’s just for the employee if your employer chooses to drop your spouse and kids.

    Like UPS is doing.

    http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/21/news/companies/ups-obamacare/index.html

    UPS cuts insurance to 15,000 spouses, blames Obamacare

    UPS stresses that this is only if your spouse is offered insurance by his/her/its employer.

    “We believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer — just as UPS has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee,” the memo states.

    Spouses of UPS employees who don’t work — or who are not offered coverage by their own employer — will get to stay on the UPS plan.

    So now basically in this case it’s now “affordable” according to the “law of the land” to spend 19% of your combined income on health insurance.

    That’s well over halfway to a reasonable mortgage (PITI divided by gross income equal or less than 31%).

    Remember when Baracky ObaMessiah said the “world” wouldn’t let Americans drive their SUVs and heat their homes and eat all they want?

    That’s what Obamacare is about. Delivering health care? Peeshaw.

    Anyway, from what I read Sammy gets that.

    Sometimes it’s valuable to get the read from the Sammyverse.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  100. 101. They basically have ’til early|middle Nov. If the signees are still overwhelmingly with Medicare she’s a goner.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  101. All the world loves a lover.

    President Mean Girl is a lover, who loves himself.

    Therefore by that logic he’s concluded he must be the world.

    So when Baracky ObaMessiah warned you about what the world wouldn’t let you do, he was talking about what he wouldn’t let you do.

    But that way he gets to blame the other, fake, world when you get the bill.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  102. 102. Leave us not forget ‘deductibles’.

    I kinda think Senate Republicans can’t even be bothered with Excel drafts of these outlines.

    There are going to be a lot of unhappy folk come a year this Nov.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  103. gary @103, I think you meant Medicaid.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  104. The Obamaneycare tax penalty skyrockets in coming years. Everything about the law is designed with that frog in boiling water in mind, and the frog are young, healthy Americans of moderate income. They are about to become hugely leveraged in order to fund dependency for a ton of democrat voters.

    I’m sure by then the plan is to blame whatever conservative is trying to reform the problem. Kinda like all the big spenders blaming Cruz for a potential debt default (screwing up the credit of the country). I’m sure plenty of Republicans will assist if the GOP still exists at that point.

    Dustin (7f11f5)

  105. 106. No doubt, details aren’t my thing, I’s a big idea man.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  106. 107. …I’m sure by then the plan is to blame whatever conservative is trying to reform the problem. Kinda like all the big spenders blaming Cruz for a potential debt default (screwing up the credit of the country). I’m sure plenty of Republicans will assist if the GOP still exists at that point.

    Comment by Dustin (7f11f5) — 10/20/2013 @ 8:28 pm

    The Republicans will still exist at that point. The Democrats need them to take the blame.

    Detroit hasn’t had a GOP mayor in over 50 years. What do the liberals who’ve been running Detroit into the ground blame for Detroit’s bankruptcy? Republicans.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  107. This is funny and I don’t care who you are:

    “To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering.”

    As anyone who works in the real world knows, this means:

    “OMG. Nothing works. We will not accept our failure. All we can do is issue a statement. You are on your own, because those penalties will still apply.”

    It’s kind of like when your cable company says sorry you missed the final episode of “Breaking Bad” because we screwed up, but you still have to pay your monthly bill.

    The difference is Walt only had cancer on TV.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  108. …our team has called in additional help…

    IOW the gub’mint has hired consultants, so now Obama can blame the consultants.

    Damned outside help!

    Steve57 (022c57)

  109. What do the liberals who’ve been running Detroit into the ground blame for Detroit’s bankruptcy? Republicans.

    Great point, steve, as crazy as that is I totally believe you.

    Dustin (7f11f5)

  110. You don’t have to believe me, Dustin. Just watch MSNBC, if you can stomach it.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  111. 107. Comment by Dustin (7f11f5) — 10/20/2013 @ 8:28 pm

    The Obamaneycare tax penalty skyrockets in coming years.

    The minimum skyrockets, going up I think to $695 per adult from $95.

    The maximum goes from 1% of (MAGI – $10,000 or $20,000) to 2 1/2% of (MAGI – $10,000 or $20,000) unless some indexing for inflation affects that.

    The exceptions remain.

    Everything about the law is designed with that frog in boiling water in mind, and the frog are young, healthy Americans of moderate income. They are about to become hugely leveraged in order to fund dependency for a ton of democrat voters.

    I think there are people who knew all along this wouldn’t work, but they carefully designed to push the problems past the 2010 and 2012 and even 2014 elections.

    In 2015 we get people losing their tax refunds, or Congress passing a law saying they don’t lose them, which a lot of members of Congress are probably contemplating doing already. That’s why the additional income verification they just passed.

    I’m sure by then the plan is to blame whatever conservative is trying to reform the problem.

    I think the master plan is to reach January 20, 2017 before this whole thing collapses.

    You notice the “Cadillac” plan tax, which the unions hate, doesn’t take effect until 2018!

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  112. The minimum skyrockets, going up I think to $695 per adult from $95.

    Or 1% of your income, whichever is larger.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  113. Of course, as soon as I insult Sammy, he makes a brief post with a good point. I should just shut up.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  114. The maximum goes from 1% of (MAGI – $10,000 or $20,000) to 2 1/2% of (MAGI – $10,000 or $20,000) unless some indexing for inflation affects that.

    Sorry I missed this. I try to follow along but sometimes my eyes glaze over.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  115. Comment by Steve57 (022c57) — 10/20/2013 @ 8:20 pm

    that’s why he understands Obamacare so well. It exists in the same universe.

    Oh, I don’t understand it. I’m trying to get the details right. Maybe I should take another look at the law itself.

    He got some of the details wrong. For instance your health insurance from your employer is “affordable” if the premiums don’t exceed 9.5% of your income. Not 8%.

    I’ve read both numbers, 8% and 9.5%. I assume they apply to different things.

    Oh, and bye the bye that’s just for the employee if your employer chooses to drop your spouse and kids.

    Right. That’s what the 9.5% figure is.

    I think the 9.5% figure is the percentage of your income your health insurance policy provided by your employer has to cost you before you are eligible to buy on the exchange. As noted, that 9.5% is only for the employee alone.

    I think the 8% figure is the lowest premium cost (of a silver plan?) on the exchange for you not to be assessed the penalty for not buying a policy.

    UPS stresses that this is only if your spouse is offered insurance by his/her/its employer.

    That could still raise somebody’s expenses.

    So now basically in this case it’s now “affordable” according to the “law of the land” to spend 19% of your combined income on health insurance.

    You have to hit that before you can get a subsidy. If you don’t have an employer plan, then you don’t have to hit that. Unions don’t like this. It means employer plans don’t get subsidized. (well, unless it’s a small business)

    Individual policies do.

    That’s well over halfway to a reasonable mortgage (PITI divided by gross income equal or less than 31%).

    In general health care costs are approaching that level.

    And remember another thing. That 19% is only for the premium! The deductible, co-payments, and co-insurance is more, as is out-of-network costs.

    That’s what Obamacare is about. Delivering health care? Peeshaw.

    It’s about trying to shift the costs around and hiding them somewhere.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  116. 115. No by 2016 it’s 2 1/2%

    It becomes increasingly impractical.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  117. Sammy, Republicans in the House passed a CR that funded govt while defunding – and then later delayed- Obamacare and Obama threatened a veto and Senate refused to pass it.

    But you claim that Obama was not “defending” Obamacare.

    Bizarre.

    SPQR (768505)

  118. Oh, and bye the bye that’s just for the employee if your employer chooses to drop your spouse and kids.

    Right. That’s what the 9.5% figure is.

    Remember the “family ‘glitch?'”

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/23/aca-family-glitch-issues/2804017/

    Congress defined “affordable” as 9.5% or less of an employee’s household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the “error” was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn’t provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.

    It occurs to me that if one person works for an employer that won’t cover his/her/its spouse, and the spouse also works for an employer who only covers the employee, then this couple who is required to spend up to 19% of their combined income on their employer-provided policies may still need a third policy for the kids.

    Once those websites get fixed, it’s still gonna be glitchapalooza.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  119. 120. …Bizarre.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/20/2013 @ 9:12 pm

    I don’t disagree. But I’m humbly pointing out that bizarre is appropriate when discussing Obamacare.

    Required, in fact.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  120. O/T, but blame Bush.

    http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/20/boko-haram-islamists-hack-19-motorists-to-death/

    “We have recovered 19 dead bodies from the scene of the attack by Boko Haram gunmen,” Musa Abur, leader of a civilian vigilante group in the area told AFP.

    “Five of the victims, who included two truck drivers and their assistants, were shot dead while the rest were slaughtered,” he said.

    They’re clearly using the term “slaughtered” in the African sense. Not how Americans removed from making meat use the term. Not just killing but butchering.

    As in when a Namibian farmer tells you he’s going to slaughter a sheep for the church banquet. Being good Lutherans, they do that.

    Of course the article I linked to are not discussing good Lutherans.

    On college campuses tomorrow they’ll be teaching that the reason Israeli soldiers don’t rape Palestinian women (since they don’t) is because they’ve “dehumanized” the Palis.

    Funny. The Red Army systematically raped German women precisely because rape is dehumanizing.

    You will not hear President Mean Girl denouncing these people as the animals that they are. He’s too busy calling Republicans terrorists and murderers.

    Quite a contrast, no? You can hack somebody apart with a machete and friend of Obama Eric Holder’s old law firm would provide you with a lawyer pro bono.

    But if you belong to the TEA Party the Obama machine will try to bankrupt you.

    It’s telling, who they really hate. Stay thirsty, my friends.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  121. 120. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/20/2013 @ 9:12 pm

    Sammy, Republicans in the House passed a CR that funded govt while defunding – and then later delayed- Obamacare and Obama threatened a veto and Senate refused to pass it.

    But you claim that Obama was not “defending” Obamacare.

    Not verbally. He defended the general principle of not negotiating over the debt ceiling (and the continuing reolsution)

    We can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy. Democracy doesn’t function this way. And this is not just for me; it’s also for my successors in office.

    Whatever party they’re from, they shouldn’t have to pay a ransom either for Congress doing its basic job. We’ve got to put a stop to it.

    When he talked about future presidents, was he talking about Obamacare?

    Bizarre.

    The point is, he made no defense of the law on the merits, just that this should not be a mechanism to change it.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  122. 121. Comment by Steve57 (022c57) — 10/20/2013 @ 9:12 pm

    Once those websites get fixed, it’s still gonna be glitchapalooza

    Then we get to the bugs in the law.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  123. 123. I thought they only attacked schoolchildren.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  124. Boko Haram is also against the polio vaccine, as is Al Qaeda in general.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  125. 125. …Then we get to the bugs in the law.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0) — 10/20/2013 @ 10:10 pm

    Don’t get it, Sammy. We’re already waste deep into the bugs in the law. That’s precisely why the Obamacare exchanges don’t work; they’re an attempt to implement an unworkable law.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  126. In essence, the Obamacare exchanges are the physical manifestation of the Obamacare law.

    Steve57 (022c57)

  127. Rage against the dying of the light.

    As Obamacare is being implemented, Americans can’t afford to pay for it. We can’t even sign up for it on the impossibly cumbersome websites, but the IRS will fine us for not doing so anyway! Obama gave his pals, and Congress gave themselves, tickets off this train wreck via waivers

    “They’re here.”

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  128. A recent Gallup Poll reveals that a majority of Democrats, unlike independents and Republicans, currently have a generally positive view of the IRS, the agency which not only will be enforcing Obamacare but also has been in the news for its corruption. This is in marked contrast to an increasingly significant majority of negative reaction from both Republicans and independents.

    Current responses also are in contrast to several years ago, in which polls showed a greater convergence of opinions, with both sides having an overall negative view of the IRS.

    This is another tell-tell sign of just how philosophically corrupt the left has become in today’s era, throughout this nation.

    Mark (58ea35)

  129. 128. Comment by Steve57 (022c57) — 10/20/2013 @ 10:20 pm

    We’re already waste deep into the bugs in the law.

    Some of them, but I’d say only ankle deep.

    That’s precisely why the Obamacare exchanges don’t work; they’re an attempt to implement an unworkable law.

    Partially, they are an attempt to try to make it work, by hoping people buy insurance. It was estimated 4/5 of the people who buy policies on the exchange will get subsidies, so they didn’t want to hit people with the list price. But the problems on the back end are worse, actually.

    They were also worried that people might just not pay attention, or even know about it, but Ted Cruz and the Heritage Foundation solved that problem for them.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  130. There is aplace in Nigeria where peole have organized against Boko Haram. This has bene the advice because this is the way oil theives/insurgents in southern Nogeria were gotten rid of. It is suspected that higher-ups in the Nogerian Army don’t want to totally defeat Boko Haram – for one thing, their budget might be cut. Boko Harsam is against modern schools and hospitals, steals money and kills people.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  131. Obama is set to hold a Rose Garden public event to tout Obamacare (at leasst originally) now he will say how much he doesn’t like the website, but trot out a few people saying in the meantime it hass helped this person and taht person and that person.

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)

  132. Having just heard a clip of President Obama’s comments about ObamaCare, I’m inclined to think he is his own “Baghdad Bob” on this topic.

    Too bad he didn’t have to answer real questions about his claims.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  133. If we can only get the govt. to give the NSA data bank contract to the same group that did ObamaCare our civil liberties will be safe.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  134. Il Douche claims his toy government slush fund already has 500K applicants.

    MSNBC, AP, WaPo, everyone knows this is a feint. Those successfully covered via an Exchange in private healthcare insurance probably does not approach 4 digits let alone 6.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  135. Multiple folk have reported that if they actually get through the 800 number “all reps are busy please call again” message they eventually get a message that says go to the web site.

    A repub would never ever live this down, they would have to ask scrubone to take him in exile.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  136. More on the current state of things:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-18/four-things-we-think-we-know-about-obamacare.html

    So OR, for a particularly Progressive instance, has 56K enrollees, all Medicaid.

    The Barack Obama administration has been expecting 7 million people to join the exchanges in the first year, with a slightly larger number going onto Medicaid.

    Good luck with that Soft Bottom.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  137. This is the type of dissent on blogs that Obama was warning us about.
    Why can’t you people just put down your Bibles, your guns, and your blogs, and support the President ?
    After all, he has only our best interest at heart.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  138. 139. Do check out Sam the Moby’s $95 penalty.

    It’s actually 1% of your income this year or $95 which ever is higher, payable for those not insured by March end(your insurer naturally, controls this fact).

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  139. Obama’s little Rose Garden speech was surreal to me. Just surreal.

    I haven’t seen that much denial of reality since … since the last Downfall parody.

    SPQR (768505)

  140. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 10/21/2013 @ 10:44 am

    I haven’t seen that much denial of reality since …

    New Coke maybe? Lisa? RCA Videodisk?

    Apple III? IBM’s PCjr? PS/2 Operating system?

    Windows 1.0? Microsoft BOB?

    Windows Me? Vista? Newton OS?

    The Intel Pentium chip?

    Worth studying maybe:

    Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?: Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Organization by Robert Mittelstaedt

    Sammy Finkelman (86c6e0)


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