If you would like more information about Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last month.
Posted on 11/09/2013 9:40:38 AM PST by Kaslin
The federal Healthcare.gov website, serving 36 states that chose not to build their own sites, has been - to quote its boss, Kathleen Sebelius - a "debacle." Its estimated cost to taxpayers stands at $394 million so far and will likely rise as the "tech surge" pours millions of additional taxpayer dollars into trying to fix the site. But federal taxpayers are on the hook for a sum more than 10 times greater - $4.3 billion - for state exchange websites. And some of them are even more spectacular failures than the federal site.
The final cost to taxpayers of the federal site may end up well short of the $910.1 million federal taxpayers have already been forced to send to just one state, California. Its troubled CoveredCA.com reportedly has a dodgy provider directory, delays for agent and provider certification, and its own variety of technical glitches.
Independent health broker Alison Gordon said: "The stats released are bogus... When they say they got 36,000 calls in one week, it's because the website isn't up and working properly."
The flawed provider directory is a big deal, because most California plans are attempting to contain costs by offering only a very narrow network of hospitals and doctors. And California is sitting on completed applications rather than send them on to carriers, because they doubt the accuracy of their own data. For this, federal taxpayers ponied up over $900 million dollars.
Other states have wasted obscene amounts of money on websites that function poorly or not at all.
Oregon's website - which seems to be a black hole for the $303 million of federal tax dollars it received, but does have a bunch of quirky, hipster-inspired advertisements - is now so bad Governor John Kitzhaber is saying: "Until that aspect of the website is working, they will not be able to enroll online." The "aspect" of being able to enroll people is kind of the whole game. Kitzhaber is urging Oregonians to apply with paper forms.
Colorado is also in bad shape. "It's painful. It's odious. It's embarrassing to have to go through all these questions that are not necessary if they're going to get kicked out anyway," said Nathan Wilkes, a board member of the Colorado exchange. After spending $178.9 million of federal taxpayer money, Colorado is now planning to replace its deeply troubled website with a brand new one by next October.
Delaware has 890,000 people and an estimated 95,700 uninsured - and its failed website has enrolled four people. But at least that pitiful failure "only" cost federal taxpayers $12.9 million.
That's a bargain compared to Vermont, which is about two thirds the size of Delaware in population, but has managed to squander 13 times as much. Vermont has a total population of 620,000 people, of whom 55,600 are estimated to be uninsured. Yet federal taxpayers have been forced to pony up $168.1 million to Vermont's exchange. That's over $3000 per uninsured Vermonter just to set up a website through which additional tax dollars will flow.
Yet even with that eye-popping largesse from federal taxpayers, the Vermont site is among the country's worst. Governor Peter Shumlin has pressed the panic button, invoking an emergency "safety valve" provision in state law to extend current insurance plans through the end of March, because otherwise Vermonters losing their existing plans will have no options once they confront a broken website.
Even the one supposedly successful state exchange, Kentucky, has cost federal taxpayers a bundle: $253.2 million. And how much "success" did that quarter-billion bucks buy? While 280,000 people there have lost their existing coverage, in the first month only 5,891 people enrolled in private health plans through the exchange.
All told taxpayers are out about $5 billion for a bunch of websites that range from disappointment to debacle. It's time to put the law on pause and figure out if there's anything worth salvaging before we squander even more money.
Interesting. I heard a liberal talking head saying that the state sites were running fine. This particular liberal blamed the problems of the federal site on GOP governors of states deciding not to set up exchanges, which then forced the federal government to do it instead. Interesting liberal spin on this.
WA state is sending out correction letters to some 7000. The rate or plan quoted was not correct because the national link used annual income and WA asked for monthly income.
Sticker shock, part deux.
Wouldn't YOU pay a buck for a beta program if you thought it was a good thing ?
http://therightscoop.com/bombshell-obama-admitted-in-2010-that-millions-would-lose-health-insurance/
It still all boils down to the fact that these websites - all of them - HAVE to confirm identity (so they say). That means massive, massive interaction between and betwixt a myriad of government and likely commercial databases that are customarily one way ONLY (in) AND in all manner of formats and requirements. ALL, supposedly, to very identity - NO, not to fill in missing fields everywhere so the government can get a COMPLETE picture on the mark, I mean insured.
White Sea Canal.
That’s the first comparison that comes to mind.
The gift that keeps on giving...we hope.
Those Dem Senators up for re-election in 14 are real nervous.
It’s gonna take a ginormous MSM campaign to keep them alive.
One year out our opposition candidates should be in boot camp getting ready to shoot their way out of liberal media traps.
It’s disgusting to read about all of the money being pissed away.
For what it’s cost to set this boondoggle up we cou;ld have bought Blue Cross-Blue Shield high option for the 37 million without Insurance.
He must have been one that got his head stuck in his butt
It sure is
How is a feral government that can’t even set up web sites supposed to manage so-called “health care” for millions of citizens?
If you would like more information about Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last month.
They sure are and we must take the opportunity to take the majority in the Senate over. Plus increase our majority in the House.
The cost of the websites alone would probably pay for all of the uninsured to have Cadillac policies from now until they die.
Got this in email this morning:
Subject: Perspective
An email to Fox News’ Bret Baier, read aloud on tonight’s “Special Report,”
This message came to us from Bill in Kentucky.
“Putting things in perspective: March 21st 2010 to October 1 2013 is 3 years, 6 months, 10 days.
December 7, 1941 to May 8, 1945 is 3 years, 5 months, 1 day.
What this means is that in the time we were attacked at Pearl Harbor to the day Germany surrendered
is not enough time for this progressive federal government to build a working webpage.
Mobilization of millions, building tens of thousands of tanks, planes, jeeps, subs, cruisers, destroyers,
torpedoes, millions upon millions of guns, bombs, ammo, etc. Turning the tide in North Africa,
Invading Italy, D-Day, Battle of the Bulge, Race to Berlin – all while we were also fighting the Japanese in the Pacific!!
And in that amount of time – this administration can’t build a working webpage.”
DING DING DING!
But you wouldn’t be able to control the other 85% of Americans. They want their greedy little hands on all the money they can find. Healthcare Industry, Insurance, oh, and let’s not forget about savings and 401K’s. It’s awfully “unfair” that some save and not everyone!
In 2003, we had a proposal in California to buy major medical coverage for everyone who filed a tax return or was listed as a dependent on one. It would have answered the fear of being bankrupted by a serious illness. It was to be funded primarily with a payroll tax, plus savings from some other programs. There was an excellent chance the Governator would have signed. The Democrats shot it down in committee, because if they couldn’t have their single payer plan they wanted the public to go without.
Someday someone’ll write a book that parallels the work done on the real estate meltdown, and details how most of the situations the left claimed to “fix” with OCare were situations the left either created over a period of decades or invented.
Salvation, please add me again. Thanks
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