Good news for us re: Obamacare/ACA

[carlfense]

^^^^ lol, i was linked to that article by another site as well. so good and so ridiculous

 

I do love how i keep hearing people talk about how high the rates are that they were quoted...without realizing that the premiums you get quoted are always pre-subsidy. Blahhhhh 3 kids on a 70k household income how do i afford that rate...you idiot you aren't gonna pay that rate you're gonna get a real nice subsidy.

 

The other thing is that people's logic seems to go this route right now:

 

1. Healthcare.gov malfunctioning

2. Therefore, Obamacare is terrible and broken

 

instead of

 

1. Healthcare.gov malfunctioning

2. Fix the website

 

It makes more sense if you look at it like they do:

 

1. Obamacare is an abomination.

2. ????

3. ????

4. Glitches in a website?! :steam :steam

5. Obamacare is an abomination.

[TGHusker]

Wow.

I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.” Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.

 

As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on.

 

“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.

 

But none of it smelled right to me. Nothing these folks were saying jibed with the basic facts of the Affordable Care Act as I understand them. I understand them fairly well; I have worked as a senior adviser to a governor and helped him deal with the new federal rules.

 

I decided to hit the pavement. I tracked down Hannity’s guests, one by one, and did my own telephone interviews with them.

http://www.salon.com...y_on_obamacare/

 

very interesting indeed. Thanks for sharing. By the way, this doesn't surprise me about Hannity. Stopped listening to him long ago - If you ever think I'm negative on Obama - Hannity is so over the top constant negativity that it turns off anyone fair minded - even conservatives. Perhaps the reason he is being replaced in the prime time slot by Pretty Gal Megan on Fox.

Like I said in a previous post, If ACA works out great, I'll be more than happy to cheer it on -

and Yes: web glitch does not = ACA. Perhaps incompetence by someone (should have this thing tested big time before going live - too important for this blundering roll out) but not ACA

[carlfense]

Obamacare isn't "the left's" grand plan. Their grand plan is Medicare-for-all. Obamacare is a compromise between the left's vision of universal health care and the right's hatred of government-run insurance. It's based off a blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation, introduced into the Senate as a Republican alternative to Bill Clinton's health-care ideas, and passed into law by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. It's true that Republicans abandoned their idea when Democrats decided to adopt it but that doesn't change the intellectual lineage -- or the point of the plan.

 

Put aside whether Obamacare's failure would hurt Barack Obama, who will never be on a ballot again, and look instead at what it will mean for health-care policy broadly. The case that can be made against the difficulties of implementing a system this complex isn't a case for the status quo. Nor is it a case for Republican health-care ideas, insofar as they exist. After all, Rep. Paul Ryan's health-care plan -- and his Medicare plan -- would also require the government to run online insurance marketplaces. It's a case for a much simpler, government-run health-care system.

 

Republicans don't want to see Obamacare fixed. But long-term, it's even worse for them if the part of it that tries to build on the private insurance system fails.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/21/the-right-doesnt-want-obamacare-fixed-but-its-even-worse-for-them-if-it-fails/

[carlfense]

This option will cost my family $931 per month — $408 per year less than my previous crappy plan and a $5,000 savings in deductibles. A big win for me and my family financially and in terms of what’s covered.

 

Plus in the past, I spent several days looking for and comparing insurance options. Under ObamaCare, even with the slow and sticky website, I spent a total of four hours — to save over $5,400. That kind of return on investment would make Warren Buffett drool.

 

Counter to wild stories about the government taking over health care, the exchange was simply a public portal to a range of all-private insurance options. I went with a “gold” plan for lower deductible and out-of-pocket costs. And I chose Blue Cross Blue Shield because my current primary doctor is in-network.

But one of the most exciting things is the new companies providing private insurance through the exchange; I’ll be watching the reviews over the next year and might change plans when re-enrollment comes around.

. . .

 

In other words, there’s still plenty of time to fix the websites and for more Americans to enroll — and save. Meanwhile, we know that in a state like Oregon, ObamaCare has already reduced the number of uninsured individuals by 10%. Glitches aside, that’s a great start.

 

We’ve suffered through four years of outlandish attacks against ObamaCare -- that it will kill our grandmothers, or at least just kill our economy. But the fact is that ObamaCare has created a private marketplace so that millions of American families like mine can get affordable, quality health insurance while keeping more of our hard-earned money.

 

Ideologues may not like ObamaCare, but my wallet and my family’s health sure do.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/21/was-obamacare-guinea-pig/

[TGHusker]

While we agree that web glitch does not = ACA, where did we fail in the implementation? I heard yesterday that the web contract was not bidded out but a single company (a USA based division of a Canadian company) got the bid to design the web page. 3 years since passing and millions of $$s spent on the web design, and we end up with a roll out flop. Should heads roll over this? If this was a private enterprise, heads would roll - what about our leader of HHS?

Now the WH says even with the difficulty of signing up, the individual mandate and therefore fines are not delayed. Is this realistic?

I say close it down until they get it fixed.

[BigRedBuster]

So....we are going to have an individual mandate that people can get fined and but not sure if we will have a way for them to get signed up.

[carlfense]

So....we are going to have an individual mandate that people can get fined and but not sure if we will have a way for them to get signed up.

Huh?

[Junior]

While we agree that web glitch does not = ACA, where did we fail in the implementation? I heard yesterday that the web contract was not bidded out but a single company (a USA based division of a Canadian company) got the bid to design the web page. 3 years since passing and millions of $$s spent on the web design, and we end up with a roll out flop. Should heads roll over this? If this was a private enterprise, heads would roll - what about our leader of HHS?

Now the WH says even with the difficulty of signing up, the individual mandate and therefore fines are not delayed. Is this realistic?

I say close it down until they get it fixed.

 

Maybe Congress could have spent some time helping in the implementation and oversight, rather than voting 50 times to defund it?

[rawhide]

The Senate needs more than 400 million $$ for the website construct? Obama shoulda hired Apple.

[krill]

Most websites grow incrementally to facilitate the needs of visitors, implement new features, refine usability, etc. Healthcare.gov went from 0 to tens of millions of hits in one day. There's just no way to predict how all those people are going to try to use the site and it's really complex with the exchanges.

 

I agree though that it looks bad when people need confidence that this will work. It's a little mind boggling why the government didn't just partner with a proven model like ehealthinsurance, and instead apparently spent a pile of money on something completely new that isn't working as planned.

[TGHusker]

One article summarizing the difficulties

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obamacare-site-red-flags/2013/10/22/id/532315

 

A couple of posters added:

AP makes it sound like what they are trying to do is amazingly complex. It is not. Consumer and mortgage loan software verify not only income but hundreds of other data points from many more external systems than this. Insurers are reporting that spouses and children are getting mixed up in their data. This is very basic stuff and would be one of the first data points tested HAD ANY FUNCTIONAL TESTING OCCURRED AT ALL! If they tried to code in all the logic of 2500 pages of legislation, then I can see the complexity getting the best of them. That is why PROFESSIONALS break those things up into smaller chunks and eat the elephant one bite at a time. Clearly the people who developed this were amateurs. They had 3 years and the most basic functionality does not work. What were they doing for 3 years? And why so much money? I have designed systems that do far more than this for less than $25M. $265M? $678M? For this??? Whoa!!! You don't see this kind of thing in private enterprise. And 50,000 concurrent users is absolutely NOTHING. That is a drop in the bucket of what the big dogs have going against their sites. This does not bode well at all for how the entire health care system is going to be run. Just being a zealot seems to qualify anyone to do anything with these folks. Let the kids go hand out propaganda on the street corner. They can train on the job later when I am not paying for it.

 

 

 

Kenv Mark

• 7 hours ago

• 
  
• 
  

Amen Mark, spot on.

I've been designing and developing database applications for over 35 years, all Internet based since 1994. And the problems they are should never happen in a professionally developed system. The worst thing you can do is try to implement a poorly designed monster of a system and then go back and try to correct the hundreds of thousands of errors and problems, start over with a much better staff and get rid of the political managers and let the pros do their job properly.

[rawhide]

Woulldn't logic kinda dictate that there's gonna be a pretty large hit as soon as the site is opened???

 

Isn't this site or shouldn't this site be for the LI voters. Those of us that have trouble typing and chewing gum synchronously.

 

Oh Jon, say it ain't so:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qtx_ZcHOjw

[carlfense]

The classic definition of chutzpah is the child who kills his parents and then asks for leniency because he's an orphan. But in recent weeks, we've begun to see the Washington definition: A party that does everything possible to sabotage a law and then professes fury when the law's launch is rocky.

 

On Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan became the latest Republicans to call for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down because of the Affordable Care Act's troubled launch. "I do believe people should be held accountable," he said.

 

Okay then.

 

How about House Republicans who refused to appropriate the money the Department of Health and Human Services said it needed to properly implement Obamacare?

 

How about Senate Republicans who tried to intimidate Sebelius out of using existing HHS funds to implement Obamacare? "Would you describe the authority under which you believe you have the ability to conduct such transfers?" Sen. Orrin Hatch demanded at one hearing. It's difficult to imagine the size of the disaster if Sebelius hadn't moved those funds.

 

How about congressional Republicans who refuse to permit the packages of technical fixes and tweaks that laws of this size routinely require?

How about Republican governors who told the Obama administration they absolutely had to be left to build their own health-care exchanges -- you'll remember that the House Democrats' health-care plan included a single, national exchange -- and then refused to build, leaving the construction of 34 insurance marketplaces up to HHS?

 

How about the coordinated Republican effort to get the law declared unconstitutional -- an effort that ultimately failed, but that stalled implementation as government and industry waited for the uncertainty to resolve?

 

How about the dozens of Republican governors who refused to take federal dollars to expand Medicaid, leaving about 5.5 million low-income people who'd be eligible for free, federally-funded government insurance to slip through the cracks?

 

The GOP's strategy hasn't just tried to win elections and repeal Obamacare. They've actively sought to sabotage the implementation of the law. They intimidated the people who were implementing the law. They made clear that problems would be exploited rather than fixed. A few weeks ago, they literally shut down the government because they refused to pass a funding bill that contiained money for Obamacare.

 

The Obama administration deserves all the criticism it's getting for the poor start of health law and more. Their job was to implement the law effectively -- even if Republicans were standing in their way. So far, it's clear that they weren't able to smoothly surmount both the complexities of the law and the political roadblocks thrown in their path. Who President Obama will ultimately hold accountable -- if anyone -- for the failed launch is an interesting question.

 

But the GOP's complaints that their plan to undermine the law worked too well and someone has to pay border on the comic. If Republicans believe Sebelius is truly to blame for the law's poor launch, they should be pinning a medal on her.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/24/wonkbook-the-gops-obamacare-chutzpah/

[rawhide]

The classic definition of chutzpah is the child who kills his parents and then asks for leniency because he's an orphan. But in recent weeks, we've begun to see the Washington definition: A party that does everything possible to sabotage a law and then professes fury when the law's launch is rocky.

 

On Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan became the latest Republicans to call for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down because of the Affordable Care Act's troubled launch. "I do believe people should be held accountable," he said.

 

Okay then.

 

How about House Republicans who refused to appropriate the money the Department of Health and Human Services said it needed to properly implement Obamacare?

 

How about Senate Republicans who tried to intimidate Sebelius out of using existing HHS funds to implement Obamacare? "Would you describe the authority under which you believe you have the ability to conduct such transfers?" Sen. Orrin Hatch demanded at one hearing. It's difficult to imagine the size of the disaster if Sebelius hadn't moved those funds.

 

How about congressional Republicans who refuse to permit the packages of technical fixes and tweaks that laws of this size routinely require?

How about Republican governors who told the Obama administration they absolutely had to be left to build their own health-care exchanges -- you'll remember that the House Democrats' health-care plan included a single, national exchange -- and then refused to build, leaving the construction of 34 insurance marketplaces up to HHS?

 

How about the coordinated Republican effort to get the law declared unconstitutional -- an effort that ultimately failed, but that stalled implementation as government and industry waited for the uncertainty to resolve?

 

How about the dozens of Republican governors who refused to take federal dollars to expand Medicaid, leaving about 5.5 million low-income people who'd be eligible for free, federally-funded government insurance to slip through the cracks?

 

The GOP's strategy hasn't just tried to win elections and repeal Obamacare. They've actively sought to sabotage the implementation of the law. They intimidated the people who were implementing the law. They made clear that problems would be exploited rather than fixed. A few weeks ago, they literally shut down the government because they refused to pass a funding bill that contiained money for Obamacare.

 

The Obama administration deserves all the criticism it's getting for the poor start of health law and more. Their job was to implement the law effectively -- even if Republicans were standing in their way. So far, it's clear that they weren't able to smoothly surmount both the complexities of the law and the political roadblocks thrown in their path. Who President Obama will ultimately hold accountable -- if anyone -- for the failed launch is an interesting question.

 

But the GOP's complaints that their plan to undermine the law worked too well and someone has to pay border on the comic. If Republicans believe Sebelius is truly to blame for the law's poor launch, they should be pinning a medal on her.

http://www.washingto...acare-chutzpah/

Is that the same as senate intelligence panel???

[strigori]

After reading about the hearings today I think they problems become pretty clear with regards to the website. They hired morons to build the website, and multiple groups of morons to make different parts of a system that had to integrate into one functioning unit. And really, anyone who thinks what they are doing matching plans, and checking income verification is complicated, should never have anything to do with making decisions about anything tech related. I would have to do some research that I really don't feel like doing, but who wants to bet the 'tech' companies who got the contracts benefited from some form of cronyism? Idiots. All of them.