Patterico's Pontifications

11/18/2013

ObamaCare on Life Support?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:50 am



It’s nice to think, anyway. A little hope for change on a Monday morning, from National Journal:

There’s nothing that Democrats want more than to change the subject from Obamacare, despite DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s protestations otherwise. Congressional Democrats don’t want to be dealing with a drip-drip of news about premiums going up, patients losing their doctors, and a broken health care website as they face angry voters in 2014. Hillary Clinton doesn’t want this issue lingering past the midterms. She hitched her presidential prospects to President Obama’s wagon and she’s not about to let someone else’s crisis damage her presidential ambitions yet again, Even Vice President Joe Biden, who called the health care law a “big f—ing deal,” didn’t mention it once at a fundraiser last week for North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan.

Unless the HealthCare.gov website miraculously gets fixed by next month, there’s a growing likelihood that over time, enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise. That became clear when even Obama, to stop the political bleeding, offered an administrative fix that threatened the viability of the entire individual exchange market to forestall a House Democratic mutiny the next day. It was as clear sign as any that the president is pessimistic about the odds that the federal exchange website will be ready by the end of the month, as promised.

More than anything, politics is about self-preservation, and the last two weeks provided numerous examples of how public opinion has turned so hard against the law that even its most ardent supporters are running for the hills.

And now, some humor from SNL, courtesy of Hot Air:

UPDATE: It worked! ObamaCare has been repealed, per Andy Borowitz:

Faced with a barrage of new questions about the Affordable Care Act, President Obama cut short a White House press conference today, telling the stunned press corps, “You know what? Everybody can keep their damn insurance.”

Glaring at the reporters, the President continued, “You heard me. If your insurance is crappy, then you just go ahead and keep it—the crappier, the better. Let’s pretend this whole thing never happened.”

A vein in his forehead visibly throbbing, the President added, “You know, I really wish I hadn’t spent the last three years of my life on this thing. I should’ve just gone around invading countries for no reason. That would’ve made everybody happy. Well, live and learn.”

Heh.

81 Responses to “ObamaCare on Life Support?”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. pivot to “jobs” in t-minus 10

    9

    8

    hah

    then the employer mandate kicks in

    poor maladroit foodstamp painted has himself into a fascist lil corner

    can even his ever-loyal supine lapdog propaganda slut media save him?

    It’s all up to Jon Stewart I think.

    If he decides to let them get away with a propaganda campaign to salvage something of foodstamp’s cachet, they’ll probably get away with it to some degree.

    But if Jon decides to poke holes in their lil rescue boat, then the whole kit n kaboodle will be lost at sea.

    I don’t know Jon Stewart well enough to speculate – I just know he leans pretty heavily towards Team Foodstamp.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  3. hrm…

    *has* painted himself I mean

    kooky

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  4. I officially predict that just about anything will happen next.

    And if it is good for the country, Ag80 is for it,
    if it is bad for the country, Ag80 is against it.
    We promise, no take-backs.
    Ag80 2016

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  5. I was saying just a couple of months ago that we’d see bipartisan calls for repeal by the end of the year.

    … and my prediction comes true in 10, 9, 8 …

    SPQR (768505)

  6. I think it will be repealed too.

    In the article, it’s noted that he uses the snide term “sob stories” about people losing their insurance. So, sob stories supporting liberal views are okay, but not for the conservative side?

    LAT built a newspaper on liberal sob stories!

    Patricia (be0117)

  7. No, the Times used to be very staunch up until the 60s, then it all went blanc mange since then,

    narciso (3fec35)

  8. Hey, when you’ve lost Walter R. Mead (and in a big way) teh end is near.

    Colonel Haiku (8a31be)

  9. I just had a thought: considering the secrecy with which this president has wrapped himself and his administration, I wonder what his presidential library will look like?

    You walk into a grand hall, festooned with paintings of Teh One, and beneath a spotlight in the center of the room, two pedestals bearing his two (Auto?)biographies.

    ‘Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

    Pious Agnostic (c45233)

  10. i’d like to see a skit where they put poor stupid emperor-has-no-clothes foodstamp on miley’s wrecking ball

    happyfeet (c60db2)

  11. We (both the influential as well as the unfamous) in opposition to Ocare must use every opportunity to talk about it publicly. All the damn time. Any and all efforts from the left and media to change the subject or create a distraction must be met with Obamacare talk and more Obamacare talk. The administration with their incompetence, lies and lack of concern for American policy holders who are losing both their insurance and doctors has handed us a club. We need to use it wisely and often to get this sucker repealed.

    elissa (c9c733)

  12. That is a very good article that you just linked, Colonel Haiku.

    elissa (c9c733)

  13. Amen, elissa. They will be playing a game of SQUIRREL the likes of which we havent seen since the last election. Watch for a tsunami of waronwimynz SSM minimum wage class warfare racist BS.

    JD (5c1832)

  14. thank you, Col.

    mg (31009b)

  15. A MUCH simpler plan that achieves some of the goals:

    1. Repeal the ACA entirely and return to the status quo ante.
    2. Make group plans partially taxable (perhaps 30% of value taxable).
    3. Use the tax revenue to buy down the current high-risk HIPAA plans.
    4. Use the tax revenue to create a voucher system for the working poor.
    5. Expand Medicaid, but by a smaller amount.

    This avoids the problem caused by dumping all the expensive patients on the small individual marketplace, does not require a mandate, keeps the current system, removes government control, and creates an incentive on all to keep the cost of plans down. If they really want to put conditions on plans, they can do that with the voucher and HIPAA plans that they are subsidizing.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  16. JD, good to see a post. How bad are things in your neighborhood?

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  17. We were fortunate, MD. The worst of the storms went just to the north of us, by just a few miles, and a few farther to the south. They really went around our immediate area. We lost a couple windows to flying debris, and lost power for a few hours, but in general, all is well.

    JD (5c1832)

  18. “sob stories”

    Liberalism is built on sobs stories. They are liberalism’s raison d’etre. When a liberal starts deriding sob stories, it’s like a conservative deriding history.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  19. The more I read about this Obamacare rollout fiasco…the more it seems to remind me so much of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

    The President was so insulated with yes-men, that he’s now walking naked down the street.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  20. Haiku (#11):

    You realize of course, that Obama is claiming that he is far less involved and on top of things than Ronald Reagan was. For a Democrat, that is a very low bar.

    Empty chair indeed.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  21. The link to the article by Gloria Borger at Time in Colonel’s link above is even more damning,

    JD (5c1832)

  22. #9:

    And Obama probably views himself as the King of kings.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  23. They either repeal it now, or after a few Senators get chased through the streets ala Dan Rostenkowski (remember the great Medicare Fix of 1988?).

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  24. It worked! ObamaCare has been repealed, per Andy Borowitz

    Just to check- you do know the borowitz column is satire, not real, right?

    Tlaloc (504b91)

  25. The worst part of Obamacare has yet to hit. Employer health plans just make no sense once the employer mandate kicks in, and you are going to see a wave of cancellations that make October-November of this year look like child’s play.

    Hadlowe (33cc56)

  26. The worst part of Obamacare has yet to hit.

    That depends who you are. If you are one of the 5 million forced to defray the costs of millions of really sick people (while everyone else is still on the sidelines), you probably think this is pretty bad already.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  27. I don’t understand why our pals Tlaloc, Kman, and Perry have made themselves so scarce around here when it is so obvious that ObamaCare is such a success.
    You’d think they’d want to rub it in our faces. Or something.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  28. The repeal of the catastrophic 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act as explained by a saner NY Times.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  29. JD–the comments to Gloria Borger’s article are brutal.

    rochf (f3fbb0)

  30. The real problem with the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act was that it did not cover catastrophic illnesses. That was stripped out of the bill as too costly (being mainly long-term nursing home costs).

    Lots of other Democrat wishlist items were added, that the elderly did not want, and a tax was imposed on retirees to pay for them.

    At least they called it a tax.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  31. 30. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/18/2013 @ 12:51 pm

    The real problem with the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act was that it did not cover catastrophic illnesses. That was stripped out of the bill as too costly (being mainly long-term nursing home costs).

    The New York Times article today says it as the opposite.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/us/politics/lesson-is-seen-in-failure-of-1989-law-on-medicare.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all

    To their chagrin, advocates and critics of the measure also discovered that many people who were supposed to be thrilled about the new plan misunderstood it and thought it was going to ease one of their great fears — the expense of living in a nursing home. When consumers came to realize that it did little to help with long-term care, enthusiasm dipped

    Lots of other Democrat wishlist items were added, that the elderly did not want, and a tax was imposed on retirees to pay for them.

    At least they called it a tax.

    No, they called it a premium.

    Wary of being accused of instituting a new tax, backers of the catastrophic-care bill chose to call the payment of up to $800 for individuals and $1,600 for couples a supplemental premium.

    Do you notice, by the way, how much lower the insurance premiums were than they are now?

    This is a contemporary article:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/09/us/retreat-congress-catastrophic-care-debacle-special-report-new-medicare-law-fell.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  32. There was also a surtax. Only on people over the age of 65. With incomes over $35,000.

    The comfortable retirement communities of the West and South were the first to campaign against the surtax. Not only did they resent the extra tax; many were already receiving the benefits the program offered, either as part of their retirement benefits or on the private insurance market. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average Medicare beneficiary would pay the Government $145 this year for benefits available on the market for $62… The term ”catastrophic” implied the catastrophic costs of long-term nursing care, she said. This was something the new program did not offer. So ”the name of the bill itself called attention to the shortcomings of the law,” she said….The late Representative Claude Pepper, the Florida Democrat who was chairman of the Committee on Aging, and Mr. Waxman were demanding protection for the cost of long-term care. To induce them to drop that demand, the House leadership agreed to support an expensive prescription drug benefit.

    It seems like what was left of it after repeal was some prevention the bankruptcy of those with spouses in nursing homes, and a requirement that states provide health benefits to pregnant women and infants.

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  33. It is high time that ObamaCare must stand before the death panel. Or something.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  34. Not to fear, yahoos
    His new “Zone of Competence”
    ensures engagement

    Colonel Haiku (1d6084)

  35. No… wait. He wants a Zone of Immunity for Truth-Tellers, so that His lack of giving two sh*ts about His Job Responsibilities doesn’t sneak up and bite YOU on your ass.

    Colonel Haiku (fcc20b)

  36. President Empty Chair, indeed.

    Thank you for the link, Colonel Haiku.

    Good to hear you’re OK, JD.

    htom (412a17)

  37. He’s got just twelve days
    that’s all He’s got
    twelve days His brain hurts a lot

    Colonel Haiku (90595d)

  38. It’s not that Obamacare doesn’t care (about the website working) it’s that he is not on the lookout for failure.

    Not only does he not know how to prevent it, he really doesn’t have the concept that, with careful attention, it can be prevented.

    In his world, if you hire the people with the right credentials, the job gets done if it at all possible to do it. All people who went through the proper hoops are equally skilled.

    His conception of failure, if anything, is that that is what happens when people goof off on the job, or when it is beyond anybody’s capability.

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  39. All Obama was interested in was that people were devoting enough time to getting the website ready and had a paper plan.

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  40. C’mon,Sammy, he had no interest whatsoever… it’s all a big surprise.

    Colonel Haiku (ee5253)

  41. I do not know if Obama really had no idea of the status of the ObamaCare website, or whether he did but underestimated the amount of moaning and political pressure.

    But I do know this:
    Ag80 would never be so removed from important events under his administration, he would never lie about it, and he wouldn’t be arrogant and condescending, even when he is right.

    Ag80 2016

    Why would you vote for anyone else???
    Really, give me a good reason.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  42. I missed this correction in the 1989 article. In 1989, I guess, corrections were not put into the body of the article.

    Correction: October 10, 1989, Tuesday, Late Edition – Final Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about efforts to repeal the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act referred incorrectly to the surtax that helps provide the benefits. Generally, those of the elderly with incomes of more than $15,000, not $35,000 – calculated by their income tax liability – pay the surtax. Those with incomes above $35,000 pay the maximum surtax, $800

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  43. Obama was going around, and earlier, planning to go around, promoting the website, so of course he had an interest in hearing that everything was on track.

    Sammy Finkelman (d7b491)

  44. If Obama had this interest you claim he had, Sammy, how was he caught unawares that it wasn’t even close to being ready? Which is he lying about… that he had an interest, or that he had no clue it was a disaster… a traveshamockery???

    Colonel Haiku (2bcc2f)

  45. A or B???

    Colonel Haiku (2bcc2f)

  46. If I find out Sammy’s in on Teh Big Con, I… I… why I don’t know what I will do.

    Colonel Haiku (2bcc2f)

  47. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,

    If Obama were reallllllly surprised and upset that the website is a disaster, he would have fired his staffers for failing to communicate to him that the people working on the website had expressed concerns that it might not work.

    After all, his staffers have submitted to insane ridicule and humiliation—have they not ?

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  48. So Megyn Kelly just disclosed that counter to Obama’s assertion on 11/14/13 that only the privately insured would be adversely impacted by the deficient “grandfather clause”, his DOJ filed a brief (on 10/17/13) in federal court that states the majority of those covered by group healthcare plans would also lose their coverage for the same reason before the end of 2013.

    Colonel Haiku (67e491)

  49. #47, I should have written “have submitted him

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  50. In his world, if you hire the people with the right credentials, the job gets done if it at all possible to do it. All people who went through the proper hoops are equally skilled.

    His conception of failure, if anything, is that that is what happens when people goof off on the job, or when it is beyond anybody’s capability.

    Whether gooofing off on the job, or far more likely in this case, the job was too big for the team assembled and the timeframe for delivery too narrow. Regardless, Sammy, wouldn’t the one in charge of the whole kit and kaboodle want to be on top of the project to make sure it’s up and ready to roll out on the appointed date?? And if the team didn’t deliver, wouldn’t they be fired and replaced??

    This is, after all, the president’s legacy jewel in the crown of his presidency.

    Dana (d14468)

  51. narciso- she gets to keep her tricoxigin.

    mg (31009b)

  52. #31:

    Sammy, the article I linked to says:

    The term ”catastrophic” implied the catastrophic costs of long-term nursing care, she said. This was something the new program did not offer. So ”the name of the bill itself called attention to the shortcomings of the law,” she said.

    Long-term nursing care was what the elderly wanted. But that was financially out of reach; the annual cost was estimated at $20 billion or more, doubling within a few years.

    The late Representative Claude Pepper, the Florida Democrat who was chairman of the Committee on Aging, and Mr. Waxman were demanding protection for the cost of long-term care. To induce them to drop that demand, the House leadership agreed to support an expensive prescription drug benefit. Other additions followed.

    So if today’s NY Times says the opposite, they’re wrong. As usual.

    And it was a tax, as you admit in #32

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  53. Unless the HealthCare.gov website miraculously gets fixed by next month, there’s a growing likelihood that over time, enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise. That became clear when even Obama, to stop the political bleeding, offered an administrative fix that threatened the viability of the entire individual exchange market to forestall a House Democratic mutiny the next day.

    The Obama administration better hope the website doesn’t get fixed, because that’s when the manure will really hit the fan.

    http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/rude-awakening-for-federal-way-woman-who-got-shout-out-from-president-cant-afford-obamacare-policy-after-all/#.Uoq1uZH1JMg.twitter

    Posted November 18th, 2013
    Rude Awakening for Federal Way Woman Who Got Shout-Out From President – Can’t Afford Obamacare Policy After All

    After Jessica Sanford Sends Fan Letter to Obama for Making Insurance Affordable, State Says She Must Pay Full Ticket

    OLYMPIA, Nov. 17.—Jessica Sanford, the Federal Way woman who got a shout-out from President Obama last month with her fan letter for the Affordable Care Act, got a rather rude awakening last week. Turns out she doesn’t qualify for a tax credit after all.

    At least that’s what the letter said that she got from the state. Now she says her dream of affordable health insurance has gone poof. She can’t afford it. She’ll have to go without. “I’m really terribly embarrassed,” she says. “It has completely turned around on me. I mean, completely.”

    Washington is supposed to be one of the better state exchanges. The problem is the state exchange, which also has to interface with the federal data hubs, which have to interface with the insurers. The whole thing is way to complicated, and you’re going to see lots of stories like this when the federal website does work.

    Which will probably be after Obama’s term ends, if ever, it this turd isn’t tossed out. It can’t be polished.

    Now she says her health-insurance dream has gone bust. Without a tax credit she has to consider the cheapest “bronze” level plans, but the deductibles are so high that couldn’t afford to purchase prescription medication. “I was like, forget that – I’m not going to pay.”

    So now she is looking forward to no health insurance at all. Under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, she will have to pay a penalty of $95.

    No, she’ll be looking at a higher tax of 1% of her adjusted gross income above the filing threshold. Just as she makes too much money to qualify for the subsidy, and really she makes too much money to enroll her son in Medicaid, she makes to much money to merely pay the minimum penalty of $95. By 2016 when the tax rises to 2.5% of income she’ll no doubt be paying about a grand. Plus $360 a year for medicaid. Plus copays and deductibles. Plus she still won’t have her own insurance.

    The way the program works is a bit complicated. When households with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level sign up for health insurance at the state exchange, their children are automatically enrolled in the Medicaid program – there is no choice about it. Those who make between 200 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level can enroll their children with a premium of $20 a month per child, with a maximum of $40. Those who make between 250 percent and 300 percent pay a premium of $30 a month.

    It’s an interesting article. The whole thing is complicated, not just navigating the website.

    The lady doesn’t seem very bright. She’s still a big Obama/Obamacare fan. She thinks the state of Washington isn’t handling the roll out well. As if the states have any leeway to speak of. That was one reason 36 states didn’t open their own exchanges. Because they have to do things according to the dictates of the HHS. They can only act as lightning rods to take the blame for Obama, just as Obama’s “fix” isn’t designed to actually let anyone keep their health plans. It’s too late for that. But Obama can blame the insurance companies for all the damage he caused. And the Obamabots will be gullible enough to buy that.

    Steve57 (338553)

  54. You know, Obama may be clinically insane.

    Obama flubs during health care conference call with community organizers, claims ‘more than 100 MILLION Americans’ have enrolled

    President Barack Obama told a conference-call audience of progressive volunteers on Monday evening that ‘more than 100 million Americans’ – in a nation of less than 314 million – have successfully signed up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act.

    And at a time when his signature legislative initiative’s website has made the White House the butt of jokes, the website hosting the conference call was plagued with its own connection errors and other malfunctions.

    …’I just wanted to take a few minutes to speak to everybody because you guys are the ones who are in the trenches, day-in, day-out,’ Obama said, complaining of ‘misinformation’ that has circulated about his health insurance overhaul law.

    But ‘problems with the website … have created and fed a lot of this misinformation,’ he admitted.

    Boasting of his administration’s skill in encouraging taxpayers to buy health insurance policies through public marketplaces, he claimed that ‘in the first month alone, we’ve seen more than 100 million Americans already successfully enroll in the new insurance plans.’

    That number is att odds with reality, but Obama didn’t skip a beat or make any effort to correct himself, and his next comments did little to clear up the mistake.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509715/Obama-flubs-health-care-conference-community-organizers-More-100-million-Americans-successfully-enrolled.html#ixzz2l4NqSFrH
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    The Daily Mail reporter says he thinks he meant to say 100 thousand as opposed to 100 million. But apparently at other times he said one million people had completed applications for themselves and their families, representing a million and a half people.

    I don’t think you can say he just misspoke or flubbed his lines. He lies deliberately for such short term gains when the truth is going to come out fairly quickly. Like that video story about Benghazi. He lies when people already don’t believe him. I honestly don’t think he cares what comes out of his mouth, he’s such a pathological liar. And he’s convinced he can sell the lie to anyone. Or at least he won’t get called on it.

    Steve57 (338553)

  55. 56.

    I don’t think you can say he just misspoke or flubbed his lines. He lies deliberately for such short term gains when the truth is going to come out fairly quickly. Like that video story about Benghazi. He lies when people already don’t believe him. I honestly don’t think he cares what comes out of his mouth, he’s such a pathological liar. And he’s convinced he can sell the lie to anyone. Or at least he won’t get called on it.

    In spades, he’s just a flim-flam man elevated by someone or some donor group a long time ago. Best guess SF’s Prince Bandar.

    No wonder the latter is so royally pissed. A crack whore, Mack Daddy, foreign national from Occidental gets a transcript from Columbia and a Harvard Law appointment.

    Then he’s processed at Trinity UCC by the Black Muslim elders. And three gay lovers dusted in a matter of days, Young, Bland and Spencer. His IL Senator post gifted, on and on and on.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  56. 57. There is no chance Ogabe did not know the site was going to flop. They had already waived the Employer Mandate for the same reason the site was designed to hide the costs of individual policies.

    He just assumes he will skate at every juncture.

    And why shouldn’t he, he’s ShamWow, just the messenger. It’s Congress and HHS whose azzes are on the line, not his.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  57. Obama’s statement that he has “one more campaign in me” for ObamaCare made me chuckle. If he really means what he says (and he rarely does), then it means he won’t be campaigning on the environment, immigration reform, gay marriage, and all those other promises he’s made to his patient supporters. (If I were an immigration reform activist, I would be especially upset after hearing 5 years of promises.) And that doesn’t include the unemployed who hope Obama means it every time he promises to make the economy and jobs his first priority.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  58. Yes, the lies do keep coming. Apparently he was briefed about all the flaws in healthcare.gov. Clearly he chose to ignore the information to avoid giving his enemies (it’s his word, he made a Kinsley gaffe, so I’ll keep using it) ammunition.

    And the good news just keeps on a comin.’

    http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/19/cms-tech-officer-roughly-30-40-of-the-obamacare-exchange-system-still-needs-to-be-built-including-the-payment-system/

    There is no functioning payment system.

    One of the key points that O-Care critic Bob Laszewski has stressed all along is that the front end of Healthcare.gov shouldn’t be fixed until the back end is. The back end is where an applicant’s information, including payment information presumably, is transmitted to the insurer he signed up with. Because of the “834″ problem mentioned in the excerpt above, much of the info received thus far by insurance companies from the federal website is garbled or incomplete. That problem is manageable, says Laszewski, as long as the number of enrollments is low; if there’s only a trickle of bad data flowing in, insurers may have the time and manpower needed to correct it piecemeal. If, however, the front end of the website is fixed and enrollments pick up precipitously, the trickle turns into a flood and suddenly insurance companies are overwhelmed with garbled data. Listening to Chao here, it sounds like CMS is setting itself up for precisely that problem — they’re desperate to finish the front end first in order to get “young healthies” on the rolls ASAP, but they haven’t even begun to build part of the back end of the site.

    And the site doesn’t even incorporate basic security.

    http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/11/19/healthcaregov-already-compromised-security-expert-says/

    One key problem facing Healthcare.gov is that security wasn’t built into the site from the very beginning, he said — an opinion shared by both Kennedy and Fred Chang, the distinguished chair in cyber security at Southern Methodist University.

    “There’s not a lot of security built into the site, at least that’s what we can see from a 10,000 foot view,” Kennedy told the committee. And although the site doesn’t house medical records, it integrates deeply with other sites, includes ecommerce information, and houses a vast array of data that presents a very salient target.

    “It’s not only social security numbers … it’s one of the largest collections of personal data, social security and everything else, that we’ve ever seen,” Kennedy said.

    This apparently is the plan: HHS wants to get the front end fixed so people can input that personal information first before they even get around to figuring out how to secure it.

    I’ve seen evidence on some blogs that based purely on TrustedSEC’s testimony and written report the bloggers were able to view people’s personal profiles. They have not posted the personal information.

    This thing is a disaster from any angle you look at it.

    The article at Fox concludes:

    All four cyber security experts unanimously concurred that, given the security issues, Americans should not use the site at present.

    Until of course they get it fixed. Which will be never. Because they are just now getting around to incorporating security features that should have been built in from the start.

    The best analogy I’ve heard is that if this crew was building a house they’d have laid the foundation, framed it, roofed it, finished the the interior and exterior walls, laid carpeting, and now they’ve decided to do the electrical wiring, the plumbing, and putting in a basement.

    Steve57 (338553)

  59. Forgot to mention, now they’re going to pour the slab for the garage, too.

    Steve57 (338553)

  60. Somebody didn’t tell President Prom Queen that building houses is hard. There’s a lot of stuff you’ve got to think about.

    “But even if we get the hardware and software working exactly the way it’s supposed to with relatively minor glitches, what we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” (November 14, 2013)

    Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/political-potpourri/2013/nov/17/president-obamas-fatal-conceit-insurance-too-compl/#ixzz2l8Dt6A4r
    Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

    It’s amazing watching a man in his 50s lecturing the rest of us about the epiphany he’s having that life isn’t as simple as he thought.

    Steve57 (338553)

  61. I presume, the bidet system will function properly.

    mg (31009b)

  62. Bidet? He just found out that houses in the DC area really need HVAC systems. When he gets that then he learned he really needs to buy that property he built his house on.

    Tony Rezko used to handle details like that for him.

    Then there’s a little matter getting the permits and bringing it into code.

    That last part isn’t really his fault. How many times has he told us during the healthcare.gov rollout that he doesn’t do code?

    Steve57 (338553)

  63. Mark Knoller reports that Obama said today he “underestimated the complexities” of building a website. Apparently he underestimated the complexities of everything government is able to do, like responding to a hurricane.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  64. I thought Halliburton would have helped out fixing the web-site, since they have hurricane building talents.

    mg (31009b)

  65. I’m still waiting for him to stop the rise of the oceans. Or whatever.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  66. But if he can’t stop the rise of the oceans, I’d settle for stopping the rise of the national debt.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  67. DRJ – Obama probably thought the website was going to be shovel ready on the date it was supposed to launch, before he read about its minor glitches in the newspapers.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  68. Indeed, daleyrocks.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  69. President Pinocchio has no reason to sully his hands with mundane matters such as details when he has important matters such as solving the problems of the world and golf to occupy his time.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  70. Bathhouse Barry is so pressed for time, that he felt it necessary to amend the Gettysburg Address and delete ‘under God.’

    But I bet he’ll have plenty of time to sit on the couch and watch ESPN, tonite.

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  71. Comment by Steve57 (338553) — 11/18/2013 @ 10:26 pm

    I heard a clip from that conversation with OFA. Obama did not sound like himself, very weary and discouraged sounding along with preoccupied.

    David Gelerter (Sp? from Yale) said a few days ago that it is not known how to secure a site like Healthcare.gov and what it wants to do.
    Making the site was possible and no good excuse for not having it work like it should, but “making it secure does not have a known answer”.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  72. Well you would ordinarily encrypt the site, but it has so many access points, that would prove impossible,

    narciso (3fec35)

  73. 74. David Gelernter, very seriously wounded and maimed by the Unabomber.

    I don’t see why, in principle, healthcare.gov should be insecure.

    Having so much inquiring of data bases going on, of course, is a problem, and an individual could be impersonated, but why should this be more insecure than, say, irs.gov?

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  74. All they have to do is limit how much can go out from the various databases at one time.

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  75. Yes, I don’t see how this works;

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101211556

    narciso (3fec35)

  76. Oh, that part, actually paying anyone, or enrolling, never has worked.

    The whole back end doesn’t work. It can’t even process Medicaid enrollments.

    Nothing goes out in usable form to anything outside healthcare.gov.

    That’s the part written by CGI.

    Sammy Finkelman (03c829)

  77. Morning Jolt’s Jim Geraghty gives the following scenario:

    Allow me to lay out a scenario that some will find excessively optimistic, and some will find excessively pessimistic.

    Everyone in America is now required to buy health insurance or pay a fine equal to one percent of their income, and that process they’re supposed to use to shop for and buy insurance doesn’t have a billing system.

    The cries to delay the individual mandate will grow deafening, but Obama will insist on full-speed-ahead.

    Next year, those who have had their plans canceled will be angry, those who are paying higher premiums will be angry, those who are paying the fine will be angry, the insurers sure as heck will be angry, and those who did manage to buy through the site will be angry once they see their premiums, copays, and deductibles.

    And then, in fall 2014, the employer mandate kicks in, and an as-yet-unknown percentage of employers decide that it’s cheaper to pay the penalty than pay the cost of insurance for their employees. Millions more Americans are suddenly informed that their plans are canceled.

    Meanwhile, premiums for 2015 are higher, because insurers are dealing with the consequences of the older, sicker pool of workers who signed up in 2014.

    Obama and his team will keep insisting that the health-care system is improving, contradicting the personal experience of millions of Americans.

    The 2014 midterms turn into a bloodbath for Democrats. Obama spends the final two years of his presidency vetoing efforts to repeal the whole damn thing.

    Here’s where I really turn into an optimist: The catastrophic failure of Obamacare will cause Americans to drastically reevaluate President Obama himself, and the criteria they used to evaluate him as a potential president in 2008 and 2012. Maybe charisma, nice speeches, a beautiful family, and perfect pant creases aren’t enough.

    You’re not supposed to go from being an obscure state senator to president of the United States in a four-year span. The next president can’t get the job based upon potential. We need a proven problem-solver. [Like who?? – SF]

    In the coming years, a solid majority of Americans outside of committed liberals will begin to acknowledge the hard truth that Barack Obama has been a failure as a president. It isn’t merely that his signature reform was sold with lies and managed to exacerbate the problems of the health-care system instead of solving them.

    What else will be Obama’s legacy? This terrific economy we’re enjoying? The out-of-control domestic-surveillance programs at the NSA? Partisan abuses of the IRS? The national debt more than doubling under Obama’s presidency? The partisan fury in Washington? Eight years of ignoring the ticking time bomb of entitlements as the Baby Boomers begin to retire?

    This isn’t even touching on foreign policy. Yes, President Obama authorized the bin Laden mission and got U.S. troops out of Iraq, but the Middle East is a bloody mess, Israel feels besieged and abandoned, our allies are alienated by our NSA activities, we’re spent enormous amounts of blood and treasure in Afghanistan for inconclusive results, Russia is on the march, and we appear to be desperately trying to get a deal with the Iranians that the French think will allow Tehran to pursue a nuclear program. He has no warm relationships with any other world leader.

    We on the right argued that America made the wrong call in 2008. Barack Obama is naïve in his view of the world. He did not and does not understand what causes businesses to hire people.

    He has way too much faith in government spending’s ability to create jobs, and is ultimately comfortable with the practices of crony capitalism. He never foresees the failures of the federal bureaucracy and rarely is upset about them for long. Scandals like Fast & Furious, the IRS abuses, and Benghazi percolate under him and congressional demands for accountability are dismissed as partisan witch hunts. His cabinet is a collection of egomaniacs and tired pols who are incapable of instituting a culture of responsibility for taxpayer dollars. He is ultimately incurious about the world and has resisted reevaluating his approaches. He wings it at the worst times, instituting ‘red lines’, then hastily retreats from his commitments.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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