President Obama Screws This Up...Let me count the ways....

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post the details on the proposed "fix" from President Obama to address those policy holders who have recently lost their coverage.

Its a mess.

The whole thing is a god-damned mess.

A few thoughts:

1) No excuse for this. Many pro-ACA people were looking forward to a reasonably competent rollout on October 1st. The expectation wasn't perfection, but something usable that most people could access and find a reasonable experience awaiting them. Didn't happen. Now, a lot of people who were apprehensive about this idea in the first place are even less inclined to give it a chance. True, many don't really get a choice, but my God, does it look silly and amateurish. The White House knew this time was coming and fucked it up anyway. All that crap we listen to on a daily basis about how Government doesn't anything very well just got a whole lot stinkier.

2) Another thing this White House screwed up royally was in permitting Mr. Obama to repeat over and over again that "if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance." I don't buy that no one thought about the small percent of consumers for whom this would not hold true. I think the White House realized it would perform poorly politically and just decided to procrastinate on dealing with it. Wrong move.Perhaps the White House did try to warn the POTUS and he ignored them. Who knows? Regardless, almost nothing of this sort improves by being ignored. Again, you look foolish at best and a liar at worst on this one.

3) Lest I give the loyal opposition a pass, I also don't believe that no one from the Republican party who realized this issue for the 5% individual market really gives a crap about them staying insured. No voices proposed any solutions, they were too busy voting on full repeal votes in the House or shaving bits and pieces of the law wherever they could. They were perfectly happy to let this crash and then raise holy hell, rather than exert pressure on the Administration months ago to avoid this. The blind squirrels found themselves a nut, finally after months of looking for them.

4) The media is also doing itself no favors with Obamacare. I know that the happy stories don't play nearly as well as the disaster stories do, but give me a break, would you? Many of the disaster stories have already been debunked, but again, perception is reality. More damage done.

5) Surely I'm not alone today in telling President Obama, the White House, both parties, etc. you are ALL at times simply pathetic. This sort of performance doesn't fly in the private sector and as the guardians of our Country, we deserve better than this. We really do. How much of this is political game playing and how much is incompetence, I can't say other that that I suspect there's plenty of both to go around.

I still support the ACA. More than a million Americans are on their way securing new health insurance as a result of the ACA and that is a good thing. It will improve, certainly. Some day, these frustrations will be behind us. But until then...

Please get your heads out of your asses, would you?


Sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/14/the-white-houses-obamacare-fix-is-about-to-create-a-big-mess/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost