Incompetent or Lying? What Did Obama Know and When?
If you like your pretense that you didn’t know the Web site was a disaster, you can keep it:
President Barack Obama, who has portrayed himself as surprised by technical problems with the government’s new health care website, was briefed earlier this year on a consultant’s report that warned of possible widespread site failures, the White House said on Tuesday.
There have been weeks of questions about whether Obama understood the depth of the site’s problems and let it open anyway, or simply “did not have enough awareness” of them, as the president stated at a November 14 news conference.
. . . .
Bits and pieces have leaked out over the past few weeks about flaws in the site’s development process. Monday night, however, Republican lawmakers who oppose Obamacare released a report and recommendations prepared by McKinsey & Co at the government’s request in March 2013.
It cited, among other things, a rushed process that left insufficient time for testing and a focus by officials on getting people enrolled versus making the system work right.
The consequence, it said, could be system failures that could make enrollment slow or at times impossible for consumers, which is exactly what happened.
Questioned about the McKinsey study, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president had been briefed on it in the spring.
Allahpundit provides analysis:
Why isn’t this a bigger story than it is? Lots of reasons. Mainly it’s because O-Care’s implementation is so disastrous in so many ways — the website, the “rate shock” horror stories, the “if you like your plan” fiasco, the palpable panic among Democrats on the Hill — that it can’t help but overshadow Obama’s personal culpability. Plus, there’s little “gotcha” to be had in proving that O knew all along that the launch would be catastrophic. Arguably it’s even worse if he really didn’t know; politicians lie all the time about their personal responsibility for policy failures, but the lack of oversight Obama’s been copping to is genuinely shocking on an agenda item this big. His thinking, I guess, it’s that it’s always better to be seen as well-meaning and negligent than incompetent and deceitful but I’m not sure that rule holds in a matter as momentous as remaking the health-care system. Beyond all that, though, the bloom is far enough off the Hopenchange rose that there’d be no shock value left in proving that O’s lying about the extent of his awareness of the site’s problems. Everyone knows by now that he’s willing to lie, repeatedly and without qualification, about ObamaCare; the lie about people keeping their plans was, by any measure, a bigger lie than the one he’s probably guilty of in claiming now he didn’t know how badly off the website was. Two years ago, this would have complicated his Bambi-esque image. Today, after the IRS scandal, the NSA surveillance revelations, and the “if you like your plan” debacle, it’s just not that important. After all of that, either you’ve already changed your mind about O or you never will. Proof positive that he knew Healthcare.gov was a trainwreck but approved it anyway won’t move the needle.
He has a point: in many situations in life, there comes a point in time when you’re either convinced, or you’re never going to be. People who can explain away the lies we have seen so far will never actually be convinced.
But I disagree that it’s not important to keep pointing out his lies. At a certain point, the disgust reaches critical mass, where even the unreasonable shrug their shoulders, and even the diehards argue a little less loudly. You have to keep the pressure on.
This is a new entitlement, after all — and once the “winners” start getting their goodies, it will all be portrayed as a Big Success, and no attention will be paid to how much it’s costing. It’s already happening to some extent, and while Obama and ObamaCare’s numbers are in the toilet, that won’t necessarily be the case once the freebies start rolling in. Reminding people of all the lies is a critical part of fighting this battle.
“Incompetent or Lying?”
Oh, why must we choose? Surely The Won can be both at once!
alanstorm (cb237b) — 11/20/2013 @ 7:45 amI know: he can be both incompetent and lying.
And probably is.
Patterico (9c670f) — 11/20/2013 @ 7:45 amPatterico, indeed very incompetent. Obama’s reliance on people themselves utterly incompetent – because he has never learned how to recruit or even recognize comptent people is largely to blame.
His inexperience and lack of true leadership skills are so manifest.
SPQR (768505) — 11/20/2013 @ 7:56 amObama is an incompetent liar.
The only people he ever succeeds in fooling are those that want to be fooled.
Icy (b1b546) — 11/20/2013 @ 7:57 amThe administration which chose the Monopoly colors for the new US currency. http://imgur.com/X4XiJO1
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:04 amObama has no business experience, or project management experience. He’s never had to deal with any of the unexpected problems that can plague a large project or implementation. To him, its probably just like in Star Trek, where the Engineer comes in at that the last second with a quick untested fix that saves the Enterprise.
Obama felt that he could take the risk with “just a few glitches” knowing that the media would watch his back and provide cover for him.
Unfortunately, it was not just a few glitches and there is no Scotty beaming in to the rescue. The site is a major catastrophe and the media was also caught with their pants down. They were all set up on October 1 to show how great and wonderful the website was, and instead all they got were screenfuls of failure.
Eric (fcac04) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:05 amIntrinsic leftism, of and by itself, makes people incompetent, or prone to various forms of ineptitude—although some people who’ve been successful in life (and not incompetent in their field of expertise, such as Warren Buffett) are successful in spite of, not because of, their liberal bent.
Obama, btw, is intrinsically, innately leftwing.
Mark (58ea35) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:06 amEric, great point about the media. They, mostly, are not very good at anything more than rewording press releases, and good ones about Obamacare were not forthcoming.
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:09 amJust lying.
The purpose all along was to move to single payer, so it made no difference to him whether this worked or not.
His big mistake, which could be termed incompetence, was underestimating Americans, a common enough foible on the left, and hitting them hard with new costs. They may have given him a pass on prior lies, but when their pocketbook gets a direct hit, look out.
Patricia (be0117) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:27 amWe actually know what Obama did, but more important:
What did the NY Times, Washington Post, ABC, etc, know and when? Why was the biggest story of 2012 covered up? Did anyone try to report it?
After all, the Republicans were saying it, “everyone knew it” according to some Democrats, but the fact police kept denying it. If anything will indict and convict the mainstream media, it is this.
Who knew? When? And why did they cover it up?
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:30 amBarry, from his youth, has never, in practice, been more than a mouthpiece.
https://archive.org/details/Dr.JohnDrewPresidentOfOccidentalsMarxistClubSpeechAboutYoungBarak
Sure the fault is in his genes that nurture only enhanced but he has never aspired to competence in anything but in persuasion and evasion.
Even Mack Daddy is just a tool of others. He too will be discarded.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:39 amMore background on ibn Dunham.
https://archive.org/details/ObamasCloseTiesToTopSaudiAdvisorFromEarlyAge
Taqiyya is a virtue.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:55 amWhen I was a grad student we had a saying in the lab concerning how to set up and perform longer term time course experiments:
“Never enough time to do it right, but always time to do it over”
Angelo (e4d31e) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:56 amWe were generally joking, or making excuses if it didn’t work
Angelo (e4d31e) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:58 amSeems to be modus operandi for the current administration
Angelo (e4d31e) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:59 amI think Obama has been incomepent and lying all his life. This is nothing new, just exposed is all.
Andy (b63f79) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:19 amHe is even incompetent at lying.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:32 amWell you’re right that the press will trumpet event the smallest success. Over at Salon they’re saying that Obamacare has the GOP in a box. You read it for the basis of the headline and find that Mitch McConnell faces a tough re-election fight next year and “Kentucky Net” has been a big success. The clueless twit who wrote that doesn’t realize that McConnell’s challenge will come from the right. After all the state just elected Rand Paul as a Senator.
And Michael “Sock Puppet” Hiltzik had a column today about the “myth” of Obamacare failure.
Stuff like this just keeps going on. The Left is in deep denial–not to mention deep doo doo.
Comanche Voter (caea51) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:41 am10.We actually know what Obama did, but more important:
What did the NY Times, Washington Post, ABC, etc, know and when? Why was the biggest story of 2012 covered up? Did anyone try to report it?
After all, the Republicans were saying it, “everyone knew it” according to some Democrats, but the fact police kept denying it. If anything will indict and convict the mainstream media, it is this.
Who knew? When? And why did they cover it up?
Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:30 am
Amen.
AZ Bob (7d2a2c) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:01 amWouldn’t it be nice if there was some profession or trade of people that asked questions of the people in power.
AZ Bob (7d2a2c) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:02 amAngelo, @13: When I worked in the shipyard years ago we had a similar one that was “if you don’t have time to do it right, where will you get the time to do it over”.
Taking something apart and re-doing it was an expensive proposition, even at 1960s wages/costs. Everything had to work as planned and ship on schedule. Another mantra of the shops was “you will not get a chance to make a third piece of scrap”.
Of course we were shipfitters, machinists and welders, not politicians.
gramps (16e9d1) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:19 amThat is sublime. I’m stealing it to use at work myself…
rtrski (b47753) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:36 am404Care is a naked attempt to build a database on everyone and apply the coup de grace to capitalism among the masses:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-20/obamacare-shock-one-california-employers-terrifying-true-story
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:41 amBoth the ECB and the Fed(Bernanke and Bullard) are considering negative rates of interest on deposits.
“Spend it if you got it.”
Argentina, listen up.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:48 amI’m beginning to think even the Party of Blindingly Schtoopid cannot ‘eff this up. They are way too lazy.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:52 am25. Of course, link with that:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/345028.php
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:53 amwe could try to send food stamp to rehab but he won’t go go go I bet
he likes being a lying whore it’s how he rolls
happyfeet (c60db2) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:56 amUnintended consequences, anyone?
http://www.dvice.com/2013-11-19/us-army-will-have-its-iron-man-suits-four-years
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:58 amoff topic
mg (31009b) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:00 amyou know how someone is gluten free?
Don’t worry, they will let you know!
i just found the best pizza in the whole valley the crust is like butter and super-thin and there will probably be consequences
happyfeet (c60db2) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:14 amI’m a go get gelato today also cause we are having a “baby shower” here at the office
I hate baby showers SO much but I like gelato
gelato & tea cakes!
yup
this is my life
happyfeet (c60db2) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:15 amwe could try to send food stamp to rehab but he won’t go go go I bet
His insurance won’t pay for ahole rehab.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:20 am31. Gelato is wonderful when well done. Even then it has to be kept at 25 degrees F, whereas good ice cream has to be colder. Rock hard gelato is worse than none.
I had some grapefruit gelato in Bethesda MD, probably the best gelato I’ve had outside Florence.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:39 amKevin M, I agree that the media covered this up, and this is why they are acting all indignant now to Carney and Obama. CYA.
Patricia (be0117) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:48 amIcy wrote:
Trouble is, there are so many of them.
The unsurprised Dana (3e4784) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:09 pmAnd the President has never faced any penalty for lying. He has won every election he’s run, and he’s now out of elections in which he can run. There’s a fairly large crowd under the Obamabus, other people who have paid the price for his lies, but he never has.
If we put the question, “Should President Obama’s image be carved into Mt Rushmore? on the ballot, there’d be at least 47% who would vote yes.
The realistic Dana (3e4784) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:14 pmOf course, if they ever did carve Teh Won’s image into Mt Rushmore, the other four would get up and walk away.
The serious Dana (3e4784) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:15 pmObama did lose an election, in the year 2000, but it didn’t derail his career.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:19 pmehealthinsurance.com, getinsured.com and GoHealthInsurance.com from will soon enable people to entirely bypass healkthcare.gov
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:20 pmkeep spinning Sam the Sham! sooner or later *someone’s* gotta fall for your schtick.
just not here…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:39 pm“ehealthinsurance.com, getinsured.com and GoHealthInsurance.com from will soon enable people to entirely bypass healkthcare.gov”
Sammy – Did Obama change the rules again so that if you enrolled somewhere other than healthcare.gov you could still get a subsidy or are people still stuck going to Obamacare exchanges?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:40 pmComment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:40 pm
Sammy – Did Obama change the rules again so that if you enrolled somewhere other than healthcare.gov you could still get a subsidy or are people still stuck going to Obamacare exchanges?
That is not a change. That was always the plan and it was supposed to be available on October 1.
These portals didn’t connect themselves because healthcare.gov didn’t work. (Of course no portal necessarily has all the exchange plans, since insurance companies have to arrange to have their plans listed)
Now the insurance companies are asking that they too be allowed to do all the work themselves – connect to healthcare.gov and get the subsidy calculated. And Obama may have agreed at the meeting last Thursday, but what was said and what was agreed to is still secret I think.
They all still have to use some part of healthcare.gov if they expect to get money from the government before tax filing season in 2015 or something like that because that’s the only place that calculates the subsidy in advance.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:48 pm“That is not a change. That was always the plan and it was supposed to be available on October 1.”
Sammy – Stop and think.
I asked whether what you described was a result of Obama changing the rules again.
What I described was the actual or supposed regulations.
Try to stay focused. I know you have a lot of distractions.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 11/20/2013 @ 12:52 pmIt’s the brazen not-a-care-in-the-world manner he lies, coupled with his gross incompetence that strikes me. I would have loved to hear what William F. Buckley, Jr would have had to say about this fellow.
Colonel Haiku (9fea4c) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:11 pmOT/Breaking, from Legal Insurrection: GZ’s girlfriend was trlling the MFM for a paid interview *before* the 011 call, but no one wanted to pay her price. odds that the whole thing was a fake to drive up the “value” of her offer?
pretty d*mn high. Dave Surls & other bandwagon riders hardest hit….
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/zimmerman-girlfriend-shopping-interview-for-money-prior-to-911-call/
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:11 pmZimmerman really really needs to look for a better class of girlfriend.
Milhouse (b95258) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:40 pmOh, I’ll take “Both”, please.
There have been repeated references to “A listers hire A listers, B listers hire C listers” … but who do the C listers hire?
htom (412a17) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:50 pmfloor wax and desert topping.
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:51 pmI wonder how David Brooks thinks the crease in Barack Obama’s dress slacks enters into all of this.
Elephant Stone (019afb) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:56 pmSome people think that BarryCare is just wonderful.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/20/2013 @ 1:56 pmThe guy’s just a sweetheart.
Obamacare. “Of the hos in Nevada, for the hos in Nevada, by the hos in DC.”
nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:02 pmComment by nk (dbc370) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:04 am
Why Not?
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:04 pmIt appears they both have comparable value.
Oh, really? That was always the plan, Sammy? So the taxpayers shelled out 600 million for what? The feds built an entirely unnecessary website then. If it was always the plan to use websites that already worked then Obama is going to have to explain Helthcare.gov. The next obvious question is why, and at that expense?
I don’t think you have this latest dodge entirely thought out, Sammy. This latest excuse you’ve come up with just makes the messiah look even more incompetent and dishonest.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:07 pmAt this point I think that’s going to take plastic surgery, not just a simple name change the kind of entirely new identity the witness protection program provides people with, and perhaps moving to Canada.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:10 pmWhy?
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:11 pmAnother payoff to a crony – in this case, his wife’s college friend.
Somewhat OT:
CIGNA, which had exited the California market back in May (along with Aetna), has returned, with a catch.
They are offering ACA-compliant policies, but not on the State Exchange. This means that they are not eligible for subsidies. Now, you might think this makes them less attractive, but not so. They are better and/or cheaper than their competitor’s Exchange-based policies for those people not qualifying for subsidies.
Like other ACA policies, they also have no health or preexisting condition barrier, but they DO have an income barrier — you have to NOT qualify for subsidies to make them competitive. This means the number of cancelled policy holders coming to CIGNA will be much higher than to Exchange insurers and the number of previously uninsured (and sicker) applicants (more likely to need subsidies) will be far fewer.
Neat trick.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:13 pmWell they know what’s important:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2013/11/20/nbc-finds-no-time-ongoing-obamacare-disaster-plenty-obamas-first-date
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:14 pmAlso, CIGNA is offering its 2013 California customers automatic renewal at a small price bump for 2014, whether or not their plan was “grandfathered.”
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:19 pmYeah, Obama’s blaming all the glitches on Republicans! Teh raisins OTFG!
Colonel Haiku (8a31be) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:38 pm56. Added feature–prolly customers may feel more secure from experiencing identity fraud/theft through the exchanges, too.
elissa (c37a48) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:50 pmTFG believes He’s above it all, including the Law.
Colonel Haiku (fa70e5) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:56 pmComment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 2:13 pm
CIGNA has no wish to participate in the “death spiral”.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/20/2013 @ 3:10 pmCIGNA has no wish to participate in the “death spiral”.
More like a lifeboat. I’m sure someone will put a stop to it.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 5:50 pmWasn’t he stumping a few months ago, endlessly repeating some blather about how ‘the other party wants to run on a platform of denying 30 million people health coverage”?
They need to dig that up and start playing it, with a running counter beneath it showing the up til now 5 million who’ve lost their coverage…and a time ticker of how many more days there are to go before the law is even fully implemented (e.g. the illegal employer mandate kicks in).
I have little doubt that number will be far greater than 30 million by the time next November rolls around. I’m just terrified that, like $3+/gallon gas, news like this will become the ‘norm’ and no longer distinctly painful to too many sheeple by then.
rtrski (2454bc) — 11/20/2013 @ 5:52 pmNo matter, how blue a state, they will throw you under the bus;
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/19/With-27-000-Health-Insurance-Policies-Cancelled-In-Connecticut-Gov-Says-ObamaCare-Is-Working
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 5:54 pm* I meant illegally delayed employer mandate…
rtrski (2454bc) — 11/20/2013 @ 5:56 pmNot O/T at all. As a matter of fact it’s directly pertinent to the exchange Sammy and daley were having earlier. Sammy claims that purchasing these policies directly from private webportals with a subsidy was “the plan all along.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-19/obama-breaks-the-health-law-to-save-it.html
I won’t quote the exact language. The author links to the language of the 2409 page statute (not an HHS rule, but the law) here if you care to check and see if she’s correct (she is):
http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/rights/law/patient-protection.pdf
Sammy didn’t get daley’s hint. Not only was what Sammy claims not the plan all along, it is illegal for Obama to do this. The short version is that people are only eligible for a subsidy if the purchase is made through a state (not a federal exchange). And the states, but not the feds, may enter into an agreement with an eligible entity to perform some of the responsibilities of the exchange.
But the insurers are not eligible entities. The can’t perform any of the functions of the exchanges including calculating the subsidy and providing enrollee data to the federal data hub. CIGNA is simply complying with the law with their income rule. The Obama administration is the one entity in all this acting lawlessly.
Of course this isn’t the first time the Obama administration has ignored the “law of the land.” They’re offering subsidies through the federal exchanges when the law by design says the subsidies can only be offered on the state exchanges. The law offers the states the option of either developing their own exchanges or let the feds set up one for them. But the IRS is supposed to send subscribers a letter telling them what their subsidy would have been if their state had set up an exchange. That was supposed to provide an incentive to get the states to set up exchanges.
Since so many didn’t, Obama decided to have the IRS simply ignore the law and rule subsidies will be available through the federal exchanges even though the law says the opposite.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/20/2013 @ 6:08 pmSteve57,
Not that one of the things about the CIGNA plans is that the people most likely to be dead loads on their plan — sick people with no prior coverage — are almost always going to qualify for subsidies, and therefore avoid CIGNA.
I’m just waiting for February when we have countless tales of people signing up for Platinum plans, having their needed medical procedure(s) or rehabs, or whatever, then stopping their payments (better than cancelling as you get 90 days grace).
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 6:35 pm*NotE that…
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 6:36 pmany questions;
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303531204579207724152219590
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:04 pmAnd then there’s the $2 billion in startup costs for local mom & pop insurance providers. I guess this is meant to be the People’s competition for the mean old insurance companies.
No word which slush fund this money is headed for.
You almost begin to think this whole Presidency has been the world’s largest bust-out.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:12 pmSeems like enemy action to me;
http://thefederalist.com/2013/11/19/third-world-health-care/
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:19 pmThe premier sh*theel crony capitalist, Kevin. A born grifter.
Colonel Haiku (1810a1) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:28 pmThey’ve finally completed repairs on the Obamacare website. If you need to sign up, or would just like to check it out, you can do that by first clicking here http://home.roadrunner.com/~pjrpole/ACA.html
once you’re at the website — simply click on the “Apply Now” button to get started.
Let me know what you think.
Colonel Haiku (101cd9) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:36 pmbeep beep.
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 8:39 pmIf you STILL don’t know that OBAMA is a lying pile of excrement. You are a lying pile of excrement.
Gus (70b624) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:20 pm40. A shameless moby. If he had talent it might be more risible.
In other news: the seas are not impressed.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/11/democrats-are-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-now/
People have ‘let him be clear’ and a healthy majority the world over are now convinced he’s a lying pig-skinned sh*t sack.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:49 pmWe are beginning to see stories that some elements in the White House knew before Oct 1st that healthcare.gov was ready to “train wreck.”
Neo (d1c681) — 11/20/2013 @ 9:56 pmIf we assume for the sake of conjecture that the POTUS knew, what possible other failure were they trying to obscure with this “train wreck” ?
One quick thought was that they tried to used the simple failure of the web site to hide the fact that much of it just wasn’t complete, but that explanation seems a bit empty.
78. I think Soetoro has never learned there are consequences to be paid for being a useless ph*ck, never giving a rat’s ass. He skates. He can’t imagine worrying that he might not escape.
One example, first debate with the Bain exec.
Mack Daddy was obviously stoned. I was amazed he didn’t have a pizza delivered. What did he care if he bombed, they’d steal the election.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:06 pmAs I say, why can’t it be both;
http://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/three-things-to-keep-in-mind-about-obamacare/#comment-21326
narciso (3fec35) — 11/20/2013 @ 10:43 pmnarciso, I agree with everything J.E. Dyer says at your link. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be both.
Yes, this is all part of a malign plan, as the man says. But it’s being executed by a bunch of incompetents. Who are so incompetent they don’t understand what it is they’re lying about, or how to lie about it.
They tried to boil the frog, but they all have Ivy League degrees and they’re smarter than everyone else so they didn’t need to consult with anyone on the recipe. Consequently instead of turning up the heat gradually so the frog wouldn’t jump out of the pot they brought it up to boil first and then tossed the frogs in.
Now alot of the blind frogs have woken up to the fact Obama wants to burn them.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:15 pmTo illustrate what I said in #10: This Just In!
The WaPo reports:
What was their first clue? Gotta love the diversity, too.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:16 pmI have to believe that if Obama had known the web site would utterly fail Oct 1, he would have traded a delay in the rollout for something he wanted, like a tax hike or getting rid of the sequester.
It really doesn’t make sense for him to call a bluff with a busted flush.
So, I side with “surrounded by sycophants and stooges who don’t want to upset the boss.” And I eagerly await the tell-all books from the frustrated ex-aides that are due real soon now.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:20 pmI think what’s more important is to examine whether the entire debacle was done in error or on purpose.
It is known that O’Care was only to be an interim stage to get to Full Government Health Care.
Isn’t the failure of O’Care more likely to cause that to come about?
Isn’t it very likely that it was never intended to succeed even somewhat but was engineered to fail so that bills to “save health care” would be brought up and passed that would enact full Government Health care?
As I understand it, the website wasn’t even complete and would NEVER have fully worked on the first day.
And this was a known fact.
We’re being manipulated down a bad road by bad people and no one seems to be looking at that aspect.
The GOP also WANTS Government Health Care. They just want the reward to go to THEIR pals and donors. That’s the only argument they have with the Democrats on this subject.
Once the Government has control of a person’s health care, that person is no longer a sovereign citizen but a subject to the State.
Subject to the whims of bureaucrats and lobbyists and the tyranny of increasing taxes and decreasing choices and a lower life expectancy and thus a lessening of involved citizens.
Who will fight the Government if they can cut off your health care for whatever reason they decide?
Who will fight or make other choices when Government decides that certain life style choices or actions are OK and others are bad and enforce those decisions by refusing to give someone their health care because they don’t adhere to their view of how they are leading their lives?
It’s the reactivation of the Feudal System where all the peasants belong to the land owner.
And that’s why the 1% want this and they want unrestricted immigration; lots of serfs to tend their gardens and mow their lawns.
jakee308 (e940d5) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:25 pmI wonder when someone like Bob Woodward will write a book on this. Bet you it sells.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 11/20/2013 @ 11:29 pmWhat?!? Where do you get the idea that nobody is looking at it from that angle. Read some of these comments. Lots of people have been looking at it from that aspect. In fact, Gallup has even done polling on the question. And now thanks to ObamaCrash, the majority of Americans do not want government health care:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165917/majority-say-healthcare-not-gov-responsibility.aspx
I fail to see how we’re being manipulated down the wrong road by Obama and the Keystone Koders. Look at that poll. Before Obama came along, Americans believed by a wide margin that universal health care coverage was a government responsibility. As they got to know Obama the gap narrowed. Once Obama was sworn in, it was virtually a tie. And now with this rollout of the website people are running away from the idea of gub’mint health care like scalded frogs.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/21/2013 @ 12:20 amActually, jakee, you need to read comments on all the Obamacare related posts. Because it’s a widely held belief that Obamacare was designed to fail in order to lead toward single-payer.
But if the Obama and the Dems intended to manipulate us down that road, they’re sure doing it wrong.
I mean, “we can’t even build a website” is hardly a selling point when your next move is supposed to be, “we need to take over all aspects of your health care.”
Steve57 (338553) — 11/21/2013 @ 12:26 amFurther to my response to narciso about how it can be both, does anyone think it’s smart for Obama to peddle his 5% lie, that the ACA is only going to effect the “tiny percentage” of people who purchase insurance on the individual market, when people are already getting letters like this from their employer-provided insurers?
http://thefederalist.com/2013/11/20/obamacare-rage/
The relevant working from the letter is an image scanned into the article. But this opening should suffice to clue everyone in.
Actually not just as recently as a few days ago. Jay Carney doubled down on it on the 19th, the day before Robert Tracinski posted that at The Federalist. Jonathon Carl asked him if the President’s promise that you can keep your doctor was still operative. Carney somehow tried to spin it that it was.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wh-hints-you-might-be-losing-your-doctor-too_767913.html
So as people are getting letters warning them about losing their employer provided health insurance due to Obamacare, Carney is, like his boss, telling them they won’t see a change. And there’s something else; he’s saying if you’re on Medicare you won’t see a change. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Medicare enrollees have already been informed that due to Obama’s cuts to Medicare Advantage they will lose their doctors.
http://conservativenews247.com/article/view/68901/Thousands-of-Doctors-Dropped-From-Medicare-Advantage
Yes, these people are evil. But they are also incompetent. They’ve gone past the realm of comedy. “Who are you going to believe, baby, me or your lying eyes?” says the philandering husband caught in bed with the woman next door.
Now they’re trying to get people who actually have letters in their hands warning them they probably will lose their coverage, and definitely will lose their doctors, to believe their lies instead.
I have to chalk this up to ignorance-bred incompetence on a magnitude I never thought I’d witness, even in Pyongyang-on-the-Potomac.
Steve57 (338553) — 11/21/2013 @ 2:07 amTrue, Steve, I was being a little flip, but didn’t this happen with the HMO bill forty years ago, sponsored by guess who, I wasn’t aware of it, till I came down to Florida, it trimmed costs, but with the preexisting condition exclusion, which eventually with circumstances, ballooned to 40 million.
narciso (3fec35) — 11/21/2013 @ 5:30 amYou know who, was Ted Kennedy, the sage of single payer;
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/179680/
narciso (3fec35) — 11/21/2013 @ 5:42 amThe 56% of U.S. adults who now say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage continues to reflect a record high.
Based on human nature here in the US and various other nations throughout the world where people continue to think and act like sheeple (liberal ones, at that), the public has to be mugged over and over again — and all over after that — by reality before they start to kind of blink and feel sort of uneasy. After all, the fact that a majority of Americans blame George W Bush, and not the disgrace now occupying the White House, for ongoing economic problems is a sign that the canary in the coal mine has been drooping.
Too many Americans have been held hostage by the current president, but they’ve showed signs of something like the Stockholm Syndrome since 2009. They better get their act together before the US ends up like a cross between Venezuela, Greece, France, Mexico and Argentina.
Mark (58ea35) — 11/21/2013 @ 7:39 amIt’s not being talked about where it needs to be talked about; National Media.
The only way to get it there is by Reps and Sens hammering it home.
Sure all the conservative blogs are talking about it but even so, many are attributing the failure to Obama’s ineptitude or something.
This wasn’t a mistake. This is on purpose. No one wants to state for the record that Obama’s entire Presidency has been about the deconstruction of the United States and the Middle Class Whites.
There’s no other way to categorize his actions.
He’s not stupid, he’s not naive. His wife stated very clearly that Obama would change America. Every one wants to believe he meant to change it for the better but he never intended that.
jakee308 (e940d5) — 11/21/2013 @ 1:14 pmIt’s change for someone’s better, just not for the majority of Americans.
askeptic (b8ab92) — 11/21/2013 @ 1:28 pmThis is all for the Vanguard of the Proletariat.
Here is the biggest irony.
Obama and the Dems had the perfect opportunity to wrangle concessions from the Republicans a month and a half ago, in exchange for delaying the rollout so that they would both have time to fix it, and ensure that it starts after the 2014 elections (and nearly two years before the 2016 elections).
Instead, they took a course of action that basically eliminated not only their opportunity to further their agenda, but also whatever advantage they received during the shutdown.
Michael Ejercito (906585) — 11/21/2013 @ 7:52 pmThe New York Times had an article in Saturday November 23, 2013 paper about the problem with the website and who knew it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/tension-and-woes-before-health-website-crash.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Most of the people interviewed did not allow their named to be used because the Obama Administration requested that all government employees and contractors involved keep their work confidential.
But it says on August 27, they realized there was a lot of trouble. This happened after government officials decided they did not trust CGI. They even ordered them to drive from their headquarters near Dulles International Airport in Virginia to the headquarters of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Baltimore to have their code reviewed. It’s not clear if this was the Aug 27 meeting or preceded it.
CGI claimed the prolem was that the government wanted to use MarkLogic database software (NoSQL?) instead of systems developed by Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, which their programmers were more familiar with.
And they said they kept on changing the requirements and wanted too many bells and whistles.
Some CGI software engineers had actually quit their jobs, saying it was impossible.
At the August 27 meeting they threw out nearly 30 requirements, including a Spanish language version and apayment system for insurers to gte paid the government subsidies (that could wait until it was needed and didn’t have to be ready Oct. 1.)
Sammy Finkelman (8cd742) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:41 pmThe person who wound up in charge most of the time wass Henry Chao. But he was unable to make many deicions on his own and had to consult superiors and people in the White House. It took weeks to get an answer to such a question as to whether users should be required to provide Social Security numbers.
Chao was at his wit’s end. One evening last summer he called he called (his old boss?) Wallace Fung, who had retired in 2008 as the Medicare agency’s chief technology officer.
Fung told the New York Times he told Chau he had to greatly simplify the sites functions.
Part of the conversation went as follows, according to Wallace Fung:
Sammy Finkelman (8cd742) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:45 pmIn the last week of September, after a performance test showed that the site could not handle more than 500 users at a time, CMS asked CGI to explain.
CGI said “We have not identified any inefficient and ineffective code” once again blaming the choice of MarkLogic software.
Sammy Finkelman (8cd742) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:48 pm94. A very good point.
Even assuming 404Care was intended to fail and bring down the economy, gifted opportunists would have gladly taken advantage of a free grift.
At the very least the employer signup period could have been pushed back without the connection to the election being so obvious.
They really have no backdoor revolution option anymore, they’ll have to seize control.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:49 pmThere was supposed to be backup system hat would go live if the website crashed. It was never created. There was not enough access to the database center.
Sammy Finkelman (8cd742) — 11/23/2013 @ 11:53 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/us/politics/years-delay-expected-in-major-element-of-health-law.html?hp&_r=0
Sammy Finkelman (6ee5be) — 11/27/2013 @ 10:42 am