Originally, I was going to use the step-stool analogy, only the problem here is that in order for Obamacare to work all three problems need to be resolved. At the moment the administration is more or less working on one full time, and desultorily working on another. The third has yet to be addressed. So… consider a set of gears, with three obstructions. All three obstructions must be cleared before the machine can operate.
If it can operate.
- Obstruction One: millions of people are losing their health insurance (and those that aren’t are getting massive premium hikes). Up to almost 11 million will, according to NBC; 2 million already have, according to CBS (CNN can’t bear to give hard numbers, and instead settled on general pronouncements of doom). As has been discussed on numerous sites, this is a personal problem-shading-to-disaster for a measurable percentage of the population of the United States; it’s also an indication that the President flat-out lied when he said that if you like your plan, you can keep it. The White House is… not doing anything about that, apparently. Unless you count unleashing Valerie Jarrett upon the world.
- Obstruction Two: almost half of the previously-uninsured don’t… know enough about the danged law. I and Jim Geraghty are just as shocked as you are, but apparently this is a thing: “Even though the health insurance exchanges opened about a month ago and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent promoting them, almost half (47 percent) of uninsured Americans still do not know where they can get information on how the Affordable Care Act will affect them…” The White House is supposedly doing something about that. Supposedly.
Quick note about these two points: taken together, they indicate that there’s a huge pool of people who are now vulnerable to next year’s individual mandate. So, time to access the website…
- Obstruction Three: the websites don’t work. The federal exchange is a hot mess, and the state exchanges only look good in comparison. Neither half of the exchanges network is particularly prepared to handle a rush of tens of millions of people, which is the major reason why the White House bought itself six more weeks of time by fully extending open enrollment to March 31st, 2014. This, of course, won’t help the people who will be without coverage starting January 1st, 2014 (see Obstruction One) – but one step at a time, hey? Presumably, the entire focus of the White House is now engaged in fixing this problem, and to be fair: it’s the prerequisite for fixing the other ones.
…but the problem is that, once the site is fixed, the administration’s real problems start. Because while various Lefty pundits may be content to argue about how many angels can dance on the premium of a new Obamacare policy the populace is going to focus on Hey, my healthcare costs doubled and my deductible is godawful, instead.
[pause]
The populace will not be happy about that. And I do not blame them in the slightest: they were lied to, by incompetents. And I’m not going to blame ordinary, decent Democrats for being upset, either: heck, my mother is a Democrat who raised me to be a God-fearing, patriotic American (as did my Democratic father, God rest his soul). They didn’t deserve to be lied to by callous, vicious con artists who wanted a better spot at the trough. And we need to do a better job at saying that, frankly.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
I am neither signning up for insurance nor paying the fine. They can cart me off to jail, where I’ll go peacefully (if not quietly). I’ll consider myself a political prisoner and use my downtime there to write.
Make sure you’re not expecting a refund .. but you’re a sharp enough gator to know that.
.
Mew
Given the security vulnerabilities pointed out today by of all websites, Mother Jones. As Logan Dobson pointed out today on twitter, perversely it might be a good thing the damn website is broke so no one can sign up.
It’s a shame that we don’t have corporations with years of experience in running data centers that can handle millions of transactions daily. I’m sure that those people would have been able to lend their knowledge in getting a working website.
.
I guess it’s a good thing that the People We Have Been Waiting For are running the site.
I am a card-carrying citizen of an American Indian tribe, and plan to take advantage of that — since I can lawfully refuse to carry insurance, the fine should not apply to me. Now at the moment I have insurance through my job, so the stand is moot…but should I ever leave, I can be covered at not bring covered.
.
Which is a point I plan on bringing up at odd times to my liberal and progressive friends — that they are going to have to bear the costs of their own bad choices, and I AM NOT. And that, moreover, my ethnicity has saved me from such a fate, so their choice to double down on racial politics has failed them in my case. (The fact that I don’t “look Indian,” and nevertheless can lawfully claim to be one for federal purposes, is going to be the match that lights the fuse of their exploding tempers.)
That is absolutely wonderful and I was laughing by the second sentence.
One bright spot: the big insurance companies have tended to stay out of the exchange market. I think 3rd party payers of medical costs is a big problem that distorts medical costs BUT the old, imperfect system was vastly superior to the abomination that is Obamacare.
Hopefully, we have learned our lesson and never fall for a comprehensive law when carefully monitored steps should be the approach to any problem.
Freddie, I think you’re being optimistic.
.
Obamacare is just the latest example of “making a federal case out of it”.
.
The Left learned that this technique – mangling Sun Tzu, “choosing to fight in a narrow place where numbers matter less” – works for them, and have gone after their statist dreams since the 1930s.
.
They may be fumbling on the two yard line here, but .. they’re still at the wrong end of the field, and I just don’t see any effective push-back.
.
Mew
So I am an optimist. I come by it naturally because my ancestors survived the Roman Empire, avoided being sold into slavery to the Arabs by the Vikings and were able to procreate during the 14th Century while half of the European population died from starvation and disease. What came next? The frigging Renaissance.
The way I figure is that, worse comes to worse, the ideas that made our country great will be easier to reestablish then originally enact.
Obamacare will crash and burn and then what? The progressives could not get single payer when the Democrats completely controlled the government. Why should they succeed now, with our divided government, especially after demonstrating they are incompetent fools? I used to be a leftist but reality and history turned me around. Obamacare is a dose of reality that has the potential to turn around millions.
I can always hope and, if I am wrong, I will still have God to keep me company:
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
This is only the first rumble, the second one will be in January when all those people who think they’re covered find out they aren’t, the third one will be in April when all those people who haven’t been paying attention find out their tax returns will be significantly lower then they thought do to the penalty for not having health insurance. Then in October when they first cancellation notices start going out for employer provided health insurance. We’ll see the fourth rumble. Krakatoa doesn’t happen all at once there are warning signs in advance, this is only the beginning.