Posted on 10/19/2013 10:33:39 AM PDT by neverdem
Amid all the tussling over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, a couple of bombshells went off in the blogosphere that may prove of more enduring importance.
They suggest that there is a nontrivial possibility that Obamacare may implode.
The first bombshell went off on Tuesday, from Ezra Klein of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog.
Klein was one of those young writers who formed JournoList a few years ago so that like-minded Obama fans could coordinate their lines of argument. It was like one of those college-sophomore clubs, not really necessary in an age of ready contact through e-mail, but it shows him as a guy inclined to play team ball.
So it’s noteworthy when he writes, “So far, the Affordable Care Act’s launch has been a failure. Not ‘troubled.’ Not ‘glitchy.’ A failure.”
Klein notes that the rollout of the Medicare prescription-drug program was also rocky two weeks into the process. But later it got smoothed out.
Klein fears Obamacare won’t. It’s not just a problem of overloaded servers. Everyone knew there would be lots of traffic in a nation of 312 million people. Information-technology folks say it’s easy to add servers.
It’s harder to get software systems to communicate. And as Klein quotes insurance consultant Bob Laszlewski, “the backroom connection between the insurance companies and the federal government is a disaster.”
The reconciliation system isn’t working and hasn’t even been tested, Klein reports. Insurers are getting virtually no usable data from the exchanges.
Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle, who unlike most Obamacare architects actually worked at an IT firm for a couple of years, sees the possibility of even more trouble ahead.
She points out that the administration delayed writing major rules during the 2012 campaign to avoid giving Republicans campaign fodder.
The biggest contractor did not start writing software code until spring 2013. They were still fiddling with the Healthcare.gov website in September.
Instead of subcontracting the responsibility for integrating the software of the multiple contractors, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services decided to do it in-house — “a decision,” McArdle writes, “equivalent to someone who has never even hung a picture deciding that they should become their own general contractor and build a house.”
“If the exchanges don’t get fixed soon,” she writes, “they could destroy Obamacare.” You need the exchanges to enroll enough young healthy people to subsidize those who are sick and old, which is one of the central features of Obamacare.
Otherwise, premiums shoot up and up, pushing others out of the system — a death spiral that can continue year after year.
“At what point,” she asks, “do we admit that the system just isn’t working well enough, roll it back, and delay the whole thing for a year?” She suggests that if the system can’t enroll 50 percent of its users by November 1, such a hugely drastic step would be in order.
That sounds like a nightmare of the first order — for individuals, for insurers, for employers, and for the Obama administration. A far worse nightmare than when Congress in 1989 repealed the Medicare prescription-drug plan it had passed the year before because of widespread dissatisfaction.
Of course it’s possible this nightmare will not happen. Things will get ironed out somehow.
But if they don’t, who’s responsible? First, a president who is not much interested in how government works on the ground. As a community organizer he never did get all the asbestos removed from the Altgeld housing project.
Politico reports that his “universal health care” promise was first made when his press secretary and speechwriter needed a rousing ending to a 2007 campaign speech to a liberal group.
Second, lawmakers and administrators who assume that, in an Information Age, all you have to do is to assign a task to an IT team and they will perform it. Cross your fingers, and it gets done.
Third, government IT-procurement rules that are kludgy. Apple didn’t bid on this. The IT work went to insider firms that specialize in jumping through the hoops and ladders of government-procurement rules.
Unfortunately, the consequences of a meltdown are enormous when a system is supposed to be used by everybody. If a private firm’s software fails, it can go bankrupt. No one else much cares.
But if Obamacare’s software crashes, the consequences will be catastrophic — for the nation and for the Democratic party.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner. © 2013 The Washington Examiner. Distributed by Creators.com
I’ve heard that a high-ranking executive in the Canadian company that got the obamacare.gov contract is an old buddy of Miz Michelle.
I was doing some digging earlier today, trying to find links between Serco's management and Sebelius. Every search I did of the form [manager name] + serco + sebelius the first hits turned up by Bing were links to NSA spy lists (wikileaks?). Weird.
The regime used “trusted” computer geeks from their campaign organization to try to hide from congress.
Unfortunately, the only thing they know how to build a program for is voter fraud.
I concur. By the end of the first week, it was quite evident that the system was nowhere near ready for use. The Democrats' refusal to negotiate has wrought this situation, so let them savor every bite of the $hit sandwich.
So the ones outside on the train are paying for the ones sitting inside... Until the train wreck where everyone is in need of care, no one is paying, the train is wrecked and there are no doctors around.
What I’ve heard from people that routinely fix software glitches, this could be completely reprogrammed by someone who knows what he is doing in a few days.
Its not rocket science, its just routine business.
With all of the horror stories from single payer countries passing this House of Representatives? That's just a useful fiction the rats might believe. The rats are devious, but they are not that smart. They could have lost the Senate too in either 2010 or 2012.
As someone else on FR noted, 2,000+ pages of a law, plus 30,000 (!) pages of regulations cannot be programmed into a computer. The Big Blue, chess playing computer, was less complex than this.
In person, on national news websites, and on local news/chat websites, we need to make sure our neighbors understand what ObamaCare means.
We have a social responsibility to let others know that “navigators” have no background checks and may be illegals or felons working on identity theft.
We have a collective responsibility (the pro-ObamaCare far left fringe should love that phrase) to let people know that ObamaCare is not going well and buying a policy may mean paying premiums for insurance that won’t actually exist if they need it, under a policy that will not guarantee that any doctors will be willing to treat those who manage to buy coverage.
We especially need, for the good of our fellow diverse Americans, legal or illegal, to ridicule the idea of paying for coverage now, at prices that are artificially high to subsidize those insiders with connections, when people can get the same prices later (and probably with a much shorter wait) once they actually need the insurance, if that need ever arises.
This is my area of expertise, "the backroom connection between the insurance companies and the federal government is a disaster." You do not write one line of code until all parties have agreed (at least in principle) on the data model. Without an agreed on data model you have NOTHING and never will have anything. Gov should have said, at some point the the data model dev cycle, here is our data model, use it or you do not get any Obamacare customers. If they do not have an aggreed upon data model they are beyond screwed and someone (or two) needed to be locked up, this is a 600+ million dollar F up.
“Unfortunately, the only thing they know how to build a program for is voter fraud.”
Hey! That explains why I clicked on “ankle wrap” and got this cool heart/lung machine!
With the DemocRATS, SNAFUs are acceptable as long as you’re wasting someone else’s money. The extremist Obama regime has taken government waste to a whole new level.
I could have built the back end software almost all by myself. I'm not much on user interfaced but I love data. lol, really a small team of 10 or so good experienced people could easily built this is 3 years of less, most likely a lot less.
Toni Townes-Whitley of CGI, charged with oversight of
the ObamaCare website implementation, also was a classmate of Michelle Obama from the Princeton Class of 1985.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3080945/posts?page=21
Otherwise, premiums shoot up and up, pushing others out of the system — a death spiral that can continue year after year.
What's the problem? Just borrow more money from ourselves.
As long as Congress "budgets" by CRs, Obama will threaten default unless Congress coughs up more dough, and the Collaborators will fold.
My advice: don’t ride on the front of the train.
I had doctor shock yesterday, for an appointment that I made
before obamacare signup started. First, I have been without insurance since approx. 1996, when my insurance premiums went to over 1500- per month. I just couldn’t afford it anymore.
Since then, I have been a self payer. I have never been one to go to a doctor or hospital unless absolutely necessary. In an emergency situation, which I had to use once, (my throat swelled shut and I couldn’t breathe) I went to the emergency room, and I worked out a payment plan with them, and paid in full. I have excellent credit. I pay cash for my prescriptions. I have never asked for handouts or stiffed anyone, nor do I get any assistance.
Yesterday, my doctor (a neurologist) handed me my bill for services. I was SHOCKED. I normally pay $140- cash for my office visit and he told me due to OBAMACARE, my cash payment was now $251-! I am reeling. So, off to get my prescription, and SHOCK again. Due to OBAMACARE, as told to me by the pharmacist, the same prescription that I have been taking monthly for the last 20 years, is double! So,
they are gonna get money out of you one way or another to pay for those that don’t pay a dime.
They don't think they will be able to scrap it and have a new system running within a year, so they will continue with patches, compounding their errors.
What frightens me is the Collaborators failing to do something with this huge manatee.
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