System Malfunction - How politics, partisanship, and spin doomed healthcare.gov.

For four years we've watched the public political spat over President Obama's Affordable Care Act, but the Washington Post has given us a view into what it looks like when a political fight gets into the twitch muscles of an administration.

In an in-depth investigation into the implementation of the president’s health care law, the paper's reporters describe the creation of a jalopy built by a deeply flawed system. The problems piled up over years, flowing from both Republican obstructionism and the hyper political sensitivity of the Obama administration. This mix led to decisions based on politics instead of efficiency, which created the complexity and delay that contributed to the problems the president is scrambling to fix today.

Healthcare.gov’s collapse touches on the big issues of the Obama administration because the website represents a multiyear effort to implement the president's greatest vision. As the Washington Post outlines, three years before the site became an embarrassment, the seeds of its destruction were evident. The ingredients are familiar: partisan hurdles thrown up by the GOP, the jumpy political instincts of administration aides, administration insularity, spin that borders on deception, bureaucratic clots, and the bold and sprawling scope of the project. The question at the heart of this story—and, in a sense, of the entire Obama administration—is, what percentage of each element contributed to the ultimate outcome?

......But the political problems facing the Affordable Care Act weren't just about avoiding specific attacks on the legislation to keep it alive. Obama aides wanted to keep the president's second-term prospects alive.....

Best response I've seen to this BS, yet:

The Washington Post has a very good article on failures of Obamacare exchange implementation. The Left is finding the article to be convincing evidence that the failures were all ... wait for it .. the Republican's fault.
Every single failure, save one, in the article (we'll come back to that one in a minute) was due to the Administration's fear of Republican criticism. So results were hidden, bad decisions were made, and key steps were delayed until after the last election. All because the Obama Administration appears to incredibly thin-skinned about criticism.
But blaming these decisions on Republicans and other Obamacare opponents is absurd. One could easily say that the bad decisions made by the Nixon administration to cover up Watergate and other campaign shenanigans were driven by a fear of political reprisals by Democrats, but no one would be crazy enough to blame the Democrats for them. It reminds me of the folks who wanted to blame failures in the Vietnam war on the anti-war movement. But that is exactly what is going on here, and the amazing thing is just how many people seem willing to enable and support this incredible evasion.
The one other example that Republicans are supposedly to blame is latched onto by Kevin Drum, among others, quite eagerly. Apparently, the PPACA legislation, which was written entirely by Democrats and passed without a single Republican vote, failed to actually provide financing for an enormous new organization to build and run the exchanges. And, amazingly enough, Republicans refused to fix the Democrat's problem with the Democrat-written legislation in a law they hated and wanted repealed. So the Obama Administration had to build the exchanges within the existing CMS organization, which botched the implementation. And for THAT, apparently Republicans are to blame for it all.
Of course, beyond the just bizarre "buck stops anywhere but here" mentality, there are other problems with this logic. First, it is hard to believe that a brand new greenfield organization run entirely by Obama's policy folks and completely without any systems experience would have done better than an organization that at least has some health care systems experience. Further, would the schedule really have been aided by having to start an entirely new organization from scratch? Finally, it is clear from the article that a large part of the reason for moving the work to CMS was not just money but a desire to avoid transparency, to bury and hide the work. Even had the financing mistake** not been made, one gets the sense that Obama might have buried the effort inside CMS anyway.
In fact, this is the overriding theme from the entire article. Every decision made for the Obamacare implementation seemed to be driven by political expediency first, avoiding transparency and accountability second, and actual results last. It is well worth reading yourself to see what conclusions you draw.

** I am not entirely convinced it was a mistake. Remember, the Democrats were scrambling to make the PPACA seem budget neutral. They might easily have left out key bits of financing they know they needed, thinking they could hide the appropriation later. A plan that died when Scott Brown was unexpectedly elected.

Warren Meyer, Coyote Blog, It Turns Out That Democrats Were Responsible for the Watergate Coverup, November 4, 2013.

It happened in a toxic political arena where Republicans were working to undermine the law at every turn. That created hurdles real and imagined. A number of Republican governors did not open their own exchanges, adding to the federal burden. Republicans in Congress tried to defund the law any possible way they could, which meant administration officials had to house health care operations in parts of the government that would be protected from the defunding effort.

I read about hurdles "imagined," the author cites those, but where are the hurdles "real?" The only conceivable real obstacles presented by Republicans are 1. "Republican governors did not open their own exchanges," and 2. "Republicans in Congress tried to defund the law any possible way they could. "

The law provided for governors to decline to open their own exchanges. How in the world can complying with law be defined as obstructionism? As to 2, the Republicans did not and could not defund the law. The Democrats contrived to fix funding for years to come. If that contrivance caused Democrats to move funding to "parts of the government that would be protected from the defunding effort" that is a result of Democrat paranoia. If it is not paranoia, it at least reflects an effort to run around the Constitution and deprive succeeding congresses of their powers to control the purse. How is this Republican obstructionism? It sounds like what it is in reality, Democrat deviousness which backfired.

The article does not cite the author, David Cutler , as having predicted Republican obstructionism as a cause of potential failure of Obamacare. To the contrary, all the predictions of David Cutler which have been borne out of cite deficiencies on the part of the Democrats, not the Republicans.

Slate magazine wants Republicans to share the blame for the failure of Democrats but the failure is exclusive. The passage of the law was done by Democrats exclusively. The Democrats excluded Republicans from participation in the writing of the law so that the law was done exclusively in accordance with their desires. The Democrats managed the implementation of the law and they have had three years to do it. The Republicans had no input and they bear no responsibility, in fact, they deserve political credit for opposing in good faith what they knew would be a disaster.

As the Democrats desperately cast about for anyone against whom they can point the finger of blame, they tried the Republicans and now they will try the insurance companies but the truth remains the truth, the blame is exclusively their own.

Yet another blame Republicans angle (I lifted this from the comment section of one of a WP or WSJ article-can’t recall which):

“It is time for the president to admit that he was misled and failed to be adequately informed. It is clear that this is a clear case of false advertising. Not only should he admit he misinterpreted the preliminary data but other congressional democrats should too. Just like in 2010, democrats supporting the president put themselves at risk. Even when democrats had both houses, Obama rejected their proposals and went with his own ideas. Most democrats were for a single payer, not the Romney plan . Obama rejected their plan to appease republicans who later totally abandon him. There is no reason for congressional democrats to support this phase of this legislation when they never wanted it. Until the democrats stop rubber stamping deals worked out between the speaker and the far right ,they will never get more than lip service from Mr.Obama. The real price of this law is anything but affordable for many middle class families without a subsidy .”

So Obama conspired with the GOP to enact Obamacare and then the GOP doublecrossed him and didn’t vote for it. If Obama had just worked with Democrats on single payer and left the GOP out in the cold, all would be sunshine and lollipops.

Sheesh - these people are beyond crazy!

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