The Glorious Success of ObamaCare in Washington State — Never Mind That We Are Simply Creating a New Entitlement
The problem with over-focusing on the crappy ObamaCare web site is that one day they will fix the ObamaCare web site (although not by the end of the month!), and then the crappy and oppressive ObamaCare law will be portrayed as a success. The Los Angeles Times is already doing this with a story about Washington state, and the scariest detail merits only an aside in one sentence. (I’ll highlight it for you so you can’t miss it.) Listen to how glorious the success is:
Mindy Mansfield had health insurance when she worked at a factory that made air flow vents in Cle Elum, a small town in central Washington state. It covered the pills she took for her Type 2 diabetes and the ones she needed to ease her arthritis.
But as she edged toward retirement age after nearly two decades as a machine operator, Mansfield was laid off. She moved in with her older sister in Kent, lost her medical coverage and jettisoned her arthritis medication because “it was just too expensive.”
Two years of worry about whether she could stay healthy without a safety net were erased in just 20 minutes Saturday — the time it took the 62-year-old to navigate Washington’s online insurance exchange with a little help from “in-person assister” Pearl Rodriguez.
Mansfield was one of 100 uninsured women and men who flocked to an aging community center here on a drizzly afternoon and signed up for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is formally known. They were part of the Washington Healthplanfinder’s “mobile enrollment tour.”
More than 55,000 people in Washington state enrolled in health coverage in October — most in Medicaid — and about 40,000 more applied for coverage, making the Evergreen State one of the brightest success stories in the rocky national rollout of the federal health law. Here in the home of online shopping giant Amazon.com, officials credit the exchange’s success in part to the Pacific Northwest’s high-tech bent.
Did you see what they did there? The phrase “most in Medicaid” is almost whispered, isn’t it? Amid the state’s basking in the glow of being one of the “brightest success stories” in the nation, there’s just one teeny problem: almost no healthy people are signing up to be a part of the system and contribute.
How bad are the numbers? The L.A. Times won’t tell you, so I will. From the Washington Post:
During the first two weeks of October, Oregon cut its uninsured rate by 10 percent — without signing up a single person for private health insurance.
Instead, a surge of 56,000 Oregonians flocked to the health law’s expansion of Medicaid.
At the same time, technological issues with the state marketplace, called Cover Oregon, prevented the private plans selling there from signing up any Oregonians in October.
In Washington state, officials have reported 42,605 enrollments in the state Medicaid program and 6,390 sign-ups for private insurance.
This glorious success is simply people flocking to a new entitlement that we can’t afford. Hooray.
Well, at least their web site is working. How did they do that? A deck headline credits that crazy Pacific Northwest tech know-how: “Officials credit the exchange’s success in part to the Northwest’s high-tech bent.” But the fact is, they simply decided not to hide the prices the way the feds did:
Another important decision Washington insurance exchange officials made early on was to allow insurance seekers to shop for plans without having to go through the lengthy application process first. Not all state exchanges initially had the same anonymous browsing capability.
HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange used by more than half of the country, lets people see what plans are available, but “to find out the actual costs for your personal situation,” the site says, “you need to apply.”
That was a conscious decision on the part of the feds to decrease transparency. The tech wizards in Washington decided not to go that route, and lo and behold, the site works. Kind of.
For all its success, the Washington exchange has not been without glitches. On its first day of operation, the website was shut down for five hours and then again overnight for maintenance. Pages were slow to load, or screens would freeze, said spokesman Michael Marchand.
“We had a choice,” he said. “Keeping the site up and troubleshooting with everyone in it, or going into maintenance mode and taking the site off-line to find out what the issues were…. We did that in the first 48 hours. We’ve been stable since then.”
In addition, an estimated 8,000 early applicants were notified that the price they were expecting to pay for their coverage was incorrect, because the site miscalculated the size of the tax credit they were due. The exchange has fixed the error.
The bottom line: even with occasional glitches and incorrect information, with a working web site and feel-good stories to tell, Big Media is rushing to portray the state’s experience as SUCCESS!!! The cost of a new entitlement with nothing to counteract the cost? Uninimportant. The fact that entitlements are killing our children’s futures, and here we are adding a new one? Not worth a mention.
If it’s happening in Washington State, it will happen in the country as a whole. ObamaCare will be portrayed as a giant success the very second they get half a chance to make it appear that way. Count on it.
So, sure. Document the incompetence of the rollout. It is staggering. But don’t put all your chips on that one bet.
DEM SPIN UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias says it’s good that you can’t keep your plan.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/13/2013 @ 7:26 amFeelings, nothing more than feelings.
AZ Bob (ade845) — 11/13/2013 @ 7:40 amamericans belly up to the trough
it’s what they do
a nation of piggy piggy food stampers down to their very soul
nasty whores
happyfeet (8ce051) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:06 amOh, I so much hope that young, healthy people will opt out, at least until thissss goes bankrupt.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:10 amI think the most amazing failure of the ACA was that given the length of time between Pearl Harbor and Victory in Europe in WWII, the government workers couldn’t make a website work. That little nugget of info really goes a long way toward dispelling the idea that government can be competent nowadays.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:24 amI’d trade my lower premiums and lower copays and lower deductible and better doctors for …. wait … why again?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:25 amOh, I so much hope that young, healthy people will opt out
But, FREE contraceptives for only $239/month!
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:27 am6.Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:25 am
I’d trade my lower premiums and lower copays and lower deductible and better doctors for …. wait … why again?
Now you can get bad, ineffective, inexpensive (at point of sale) treatment for alcoholism, and one free doctor visit a year without a co-pay.
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:38 amThat the media portrays this as a success will only meant that the media is lying, too. The folks at the LA Times might not care that they are tying themselves to a boat anchor, but most journalists will.
Oh, and Healthcare.gov will never work until they scrap everything and start over using real engineers. Which they are incapable of hiring. It will be through the hated insurers and places that esurance.com that anyone manages to sign up.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:40 amI wonder what the subsidy cliff will do to young workers going forward. I mean currently they largely don’t have jobs, so they’ll be eligible for medicaid or their parent’s plan…but going forward for the people that do get a job, getting over that subsidy cliff is going to be a tough one.
Will probably discourage wage earnings though, so it’ll give Democrats a wider wage gap statistic to complain about.
DejectedHead (a094a6) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:40 amNow you can get bad, ineffective, inexpensive (at point of sale) treatment for alcoholism
Now, that is one thing I’m pretty sure I won’t need, given that I haven’t had a drink for a very long time.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:44 amDH,
There is no major subsidy cliff for young people, since the subsidy for them doesn’t amount to much, especially if they are reasonably healthy and don’t have lots of subsidized co-pays.
The big cliffs are for people in their 50’s and 60’s where the premiums can jump by up to $10,000 for a couple if they make that extra dollar.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:48 amFeel-good stories to tell?
I thought that the plural of anecdotes wasn’t data.
Pious Agnostic (c45233) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:06 amBut, FREE contraceptives for only $239/month!
The pill is from $10.00 to $13.00 for either the 21-day or 28-day regimens. Condoms are about $0.50 each. Steak dinner for two, cheap at $50.00. Decent roses are $2.00 each and have you priced Godiva chocolates lately? How much do you … err … date?
Sandra Fluke is not a slut, she’s a dreamer.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:08 amRush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.
Rosie teh Riveter!
Colonel Haiku (d63e9f) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:19 amnk, the $239/month is the insurance cost, of course.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:27 amnk,
And of course, this viral ad.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:29 amI got it, Kevin. I’m still boiling over how Sandra Fluke got away with inflating at most a $300.00 per year cost for contraceptives to $3,000.00. Boiling even more that people who … err … date know it but still lionize the lying little vulva.
nk (dbc370) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:32 amFrom each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. Just pray the bullet to teh back of your greying head comes early, comrade.
Colonel Haiku (0f1c4b) — 11/13/2013 @ 9:32 am3 “L”s, nk… lingerie, liquor and teh lube.
Colonel Haiku (58bb61) — 11/13/2013 @ 11:18 amBut Obamacare won’t add a single dime to the deficit. (Medicare, on the other hand, as expanded by Obamacare, will go from leaking money like a sieve to leaking money like a vastly expanded sieve that’s been hit by a point-blank shotgun blast.)
rtrski (e8b8d6) — 11/13/2013 @ 12:04 pmComment by DejectedHead (a094a6) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:24 am
And when Pearl Harbor Day rolls around in about 4-weeks, it will have been longer than the period from that event, to VJ-Day – and it still won’t work.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/13/2013 @ 12:09 pmThe comparison of Obamacare to WWII is illuminating. However, FDR had the good sense to appeal to the patriotism of American industrialists, and they responded magnificently. Arthur Herman’s book Freedom’s Forge is a great read that tells the story. The New Dealers in FDR’s gang were beside themselves with anger over the whole thing, and they extracted a price on some of the patriots. But when the auto companies began rolling out B24’s at Model T rates, the end was certain, bloody as it would prove to be. Some of the delightful details in the book involve things like the construction of Hoover Dam which gave Kaiser the experience to think he could build anything, like Liberty ships, and the origins of the Kaiser health care plan. The bureaucrats in DC were just as much a problem for our WWII war effort as they are today in everything. But our industrialists knew how to organize the effort, and as a result of their initiatives mom and pop enterprises sprang up all over the country making simple little sub-assemblies that fed into the distributed production lines that ultimately delivered major pieces to the huge factories that were created to churn out airplanes, tanks, and ships. Singer Sewing machine, for example, made M1s and other small arms. There is no comparison between the WWII effort and the amatuer bumbling of Obamacare.
There will be no celebratory books written about the Hte Won’s reign. No victories, just pathos. But a lot of low information voters are learning the freedom isn’t free. Once they learn to hold everything Democrats say as a contemptible lie that exploits and subverts their compassion for others, we might make progress. Assuming the Republicans can clean house.
bobathome (c0c2b5) — 11/13/2013 @ 12:56 pmFormer Raider great Todd Christensen dies at age 57
Icy (e9047b) — 11/13/2013 @ 2:28 pmTrue, but that was after their shellacking in ’38
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 2:31 pmI guess the 404Care site has something like 27,000 enrollees.
Over the weekend 3 twenty somethings put together a site that works.
A job Americans won’t do?
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 2:46 pmOh, lawdy, lawdy, when ya done lost teh JuiceBox Mafia capo youse is in big trouble…
“Obamacare is in much more trouble than it was one week ago”
Colonel Haiku (8a31be) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:10 pm– Ezra Klein
Dingy has called an emergency meetup on 404Care.
Feinstein is cosponsoring Landrieu’s “Let ’em keep their damn plan”.
No word on how it will be expensed.
If I were the WH Jackazz I’d steer way clear of the woods and streetlights.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:21 pmEzra was far too young and green to have been given the position of influence that he was in the national media. And he was clearly way too impressionable and flattered by being able to hang around with the “cool kids” and the “powerful” in D.C. But I never thought he was stupid, and some of his recent work on Obamacare has been quite good. When the dust settles I think he’ll be one of the few in his profession who have a shred of reputation intact. Of course he’ll always be a leftist and a progressive policy wonk but that’s quite different than being Tommy Xtopher/Chris Matthews level Obamawhore.
elissa (6d358f) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:32 pmReally, what is so hard about this?
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/11/13/Electability
The Dhimmis can run any penniless pervert but the Republicans tell anyone without $100 Million to roll around in to get lost.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:33 pmAs an aside, I don’t know why anyone would not prefer discussing their pathologies with DRJ, who is lady-like and respectful, than me.
Just sayin.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:42 pmWayback Machine… this week in 1971, Three Dog Night’s “Incorrect Promiser” went to number 7 on Billboard’s Top 100!
Colonel Haiku (399c43) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:43 pmComment by DejectedHead (a094a6) — 11/13/2013 @ 8:24 am
That is a very thoughtful and interesting observation.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:56 pmActually there’s a parallel, with a president who ran on a demagogic campaign, seemingly banished the opposition, went back into economic downturn, lost
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 3:59 pmthe controlling majority in the House.
Is that your final answer:
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/its-hillarys-fault-hosts-cycle-blame-obamacare-issues-everyone-except-obama
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 4:08 pmLiyah!… Liyah!… Liyah!
Colonel Haiku (9a1c93) — 11/13/2013 @ 4:12 pmNo word on how it will be expensed.
I guess it would be too much to ask that they pay for it by cancelling the Ethanol subsidies and mandates?
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/13/2013 @ 4:19 pmhttp://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/
http://andstillipersist.com/2013/09/obamacare-and-the-thermocline-of-truth/
Referenced today in Morning Jolt.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 11/13/2013 @ 4:44 pmWell except for the obvious, how did you like the play;
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/13/obamacare-promises-where-things-stand/
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:01 pmhttp://minx.cc/?post=344938
(and didn’t fire anybody)
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:24 pm34. Went back into economic downturn? when did that happen?
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:25 pm1937, we’ve never been out of it,
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:26 pm23. Didn’t FDR have Texan Jesse Jones working for him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_H._Jones
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:27 pmhttp://blogs.rollcall.com/218/house-democrats-frustration-with-obamacare-rollout-reaches-fever-pitch/
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 5:35 pmthis is waterboarding the language;
http://twitchy.com/2013/11/13/epic-bootlicking-check-out-new-york-times-latest-unreal-beclowning-excuse-for-obamas-lies-pic/#.UoOEieh02DE.twitter
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:13 pmnarciso #45,
I clicked on that—an “incorrect promise“—as the New York Slimes calls it.
Good Allah, that’s like when George Stephanopolous referred to a tax hike during the Clinton years as “a broad based contribution.”
The left inhabit an Orwellian universe, and they’re trying to impose it upon the rest of us.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:28 pmI hope the House and Senate GOP keep their hands off of any proposed legislative ‘fixes’ to ObamaCare.
The Dhimmicrats are licking their chops for an opportunity to finally share the blame with this disaster. All it will take is one GOP vote before Hairy Reed and SanFranNan start referring to it as a “bi-partisan” piece of legislation.
These Democrats are not the Scoop Jacksons or Daniel Patrick Moynahans—rather, these Democrats are Lucy with the football, everytime the GOP thinks they’re going to get to kick the football in good faith.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:34 pmThere’s light at the end of the tunnel;
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/20179
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:35 pmthis is waterboarding the language;
For those who don’t click on your link, it goes to the Twitchy.com page that points out the New York Times applying the ultimate in weasel-word phrases, “incorrect promise,” to describe the blatant lies from the guy in the White House.
The NYT has sunk so far, so low, that, yes, I now do blatantly, totally hope it tanks. I used to feel a tinge of guilt in wishing such an outcome on a business that employs hundreds of people. But now, in regards to the reaction I have towards a company that in its own right is helping sink this nation? Tough ta-tas, NYT.
Mark (58ea35) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:49 pmIf a person is laying on the ground, bleeding, you help that injured person. You don’t ignore he or she and leave them to their fates. The Republicans need to help ease the suffering of people who have lost their healthcare, not take a “let it burn” attitude.
Colonel Haiku (1d6084) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:52 pmAccording to news reports, the rats are heading to the exits at the NYT.
Colonel Haiku (1d6084) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:54 pmIt can’t be done, Colonel, it’s like the zombies in the walking dead,
narciso (3fec35) — 11/13/2013 @ 6:55 pmthe rats are heading to the exits at the NYT.
And yet I read today they still have something like over 1,100 editors/writers/reporters, which is a larger staff than I thought would be the case right now. Regrettably, Armageddon will have to happen to knock out bilge like the New York Times.
Politics aside, and speaking of zombies, I’m amazed by the ability of seemingly marginal or non-competitive companies (eg, some of the obscure auto companies like Mitsubishi, or retailers like Kmart) to hang on year after year, decade after decade. In effect, segments of the economy remain a part of the mix — or more resilient than they have a right to be — because of the concept of “I am, therefore I exist.”
I guess even deadbeats on welfare, drugs and alcohol contribute a teeny, tiny share to keeping the economy afloat.
Venezuela, here I come!
Mark (58ea35) — 11/13/2013 @ 7:07 pm50. Certainly, but that would have to be restricted to paying insurance companies directly to let the collateral keep their policy.
Especially now that their identities have been stolen hundreds of times over.
Fixing an abortion is a Pandora’s box.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 7:11 pmWe have not discussed the price that the Dhimmis will have to pay to put in a fix.
Let us not be kind.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/13/2013 @ 7:53 pmMark,
“Venezuela, here I come!”?
When and if the American economy hits bottom will not be a good time to be a gringo. Rightly or wrongly (and it’s a bit of both, really) South and Central Americans don’t like us all that much, and in the event that the U.S. economy sinks with all hands, the ‘leaders’ in that part of the world are sure to blame all ills, of whatever origin, on Those Damn Yankees … because they are no better than OUR “leaders’.
C. S. P. Schofield (e8b801) — 11/14/2013 @ 7:10 am@marciso 34. 41. 42.
Actually there’s a parallel, with a president who ran on a demagogic campaign, seemingly banished the opposition, went back into economic downturn, lost the controlling majority in the House.
It was a demagogic campaign, here wss indeed an economic downturn caused in fact by a decision of the president (by raising interest rates and others would say cutting the deficit) which resulted in the coining of the term “recession”
Things were back to where they were in 1936 by 1938 (the year as a whole was worse than 1937, but the same about as 1929 and 1936)
By 1939 there was an uopward trend which never ended.
The thing that makes it hard to think of this is
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/14/2013 @ 1:00 pm“lost the controlling majority in the House” – the majority was a combination of Southern Democrats and Republicans.
The Washington State insurance commissioner said he wouldn’t go along with Obamas request to allow old law insurance policies to be sold to existing customers.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/healthcarecheckup/2013/11/14/state-insurance-commissioner-rejects-obamas-proposal-to-extend-canceled-policies/
Sammy Finkelman (d7b491) — 11/14/2013 @ 6:35 pm