Obamacare: Sicker by the minute

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image courtesy The Daily Gator

The doctor can’t see you if you can’t sign up.

It looks like the best thing the GOP can do is stand back and let Obamacare stumble along into oblivion. The problems are not getting better, they’re getting worse.

The Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov, was for a while reported to have cost over $600 million– more than the original iphone, LinkedIn and Spotify. It turns out that the actual cost for the digital disaster was closer to $500 million.

But the fact that Healthcare.gov can’t do the one job it was built to do isn’t the most infuriating part of this debacle – it’s that we, the taxpayers, seem to have forked up more than $500 million of the federal purse to build the digital equivalent of a rock.

Whew. That’s much better.

It seems that IT companies in the US were so busy that the Obama regime had to outsource the creation of Obamacare website to a Canadian firm! Apparently Obama didn’t think America needed those jobs. The Canadian firm, CGI, was handed a no-bid contract for $93 million and it blew up to $500 million and no one wants to talk about it.

Today, Pollock details the murky path HHS officials followed to give the Healthcare.gov project’s $93 million design project to CGI.

“CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal,” Pollock reports.

Obama’s signature achievement is driving everyone nuts and could actually be harmful. Insurance companies are being given bad and wrong information:

Insurers say the federal health-care marketplace is generating flawed data that is straining their ability to handle even the trickle of enrollees who have gotten through so far, in a sign that technological problems extend further than the website traffic and software issues already identified.

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions. Medical Mutual of Ohio said one customer had successfully signed up for three of its plans.

The flaws could do lasting damage to the law if customers are deterred from signing up or mistakenly believe they have obtained coverage.

It works, says the Obama regime, but insurers are told to shut up:

“We know that people are enrolling in coverage and the system works. As individual problems are raised by insurers, we work aggressively to address them,” HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said Thursday.

Health-department officials have pressured insurers to refrain from commenting publicly about the problems, according to executives at four health plans, who asked not to be named. The HHS declined to comment.

how many have been enrolled? They’re not saying.

It would be wise for the GOP to hold hearings and put the spotlight on the sheer incompetence of this regime:

But the persistence of the technological problems could force a steeper political price for the Obama administration as Republican lawmakers redirect their focus. The GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee announced Thursday night it would hold a hearing next week on the rollout of the law and called on HHS to “voluntarily” make officials available after the secretary’s staff said she couldn’t come. Ms Peters, the HHS spokeswoman, said the department intended to be “responsive” to the request.

There is some good news- Obamacare will be creating jobs- fixing the screw-ups Obamacare creates:

Scott & White Health Plan in Temple, Texas, has received 25 enrollees from the federally run exchange so far. “There are some missing data elements that are requiring a lot of research on our part,” said Allan Einboden, the health plan’s chief executive. “If we’d received 5,000 and they all had to be worked, that’s a lot of extra administrative costs,” said Mr. Einboden, who said he expects the problems to be fixed.

The deep-rooted trouble with Obamacare could actually jeopardize lives:

Tara Seidenberg, a 48-year-old paralegal from suburban Houston with multiple sclerosis, says she is likely to put up with all kinds of hurdles to buy coverage. After days of failed attempts to sign up on healthcare.gov, she is taking a break to wait for the glitches to resolve. She takes medications that cost $4,600 a month and her current coverage won’t be available next year. “I’m pretty much guaranteed to try it again,” Ms. Seidenberg said.

A reminder of the promises:

You can keep your doctor
You can keep your plan
Your health care premiums will go down 3000%

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoV0NeHNklk[/youtube]

And this beauty from Nancy Pelosi:

“And everybody will have lower rates, better quality care and better access.”

As this the smoke from this clusterfrak dissipates, expect a lot more liberal memory loss as suffered here by poor Nancy :

“I don’t remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium…”

pelosi dont remember

You could die trying to sign up. Hey, that’s one way to control costs!

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Stupid becomes exceptional in Mr. O’Bama’s world. Exceptional in the sense of an extraordinary ability to screw things up. Any one in the private sector who awarded a large contract without getting bids would be fired. I suppose the Canadian Firm then contracted to Mr. O’Bama’s nut-case buddies in Acorn to administer the outdated software they probably bought from some other of Mr. O’Bama interests for a 5000% markup. You can’t make this stuff up. Everyone is watching the dominos fall so intently they don’t notice the hand grenade at the end line.

That Canadian firm was kicked out of 2 Canadian provinces for screwing up the information systems of their Medicare. Typical government procedure. Wrong personnel at exorbitant prices. The efficiency of the Post Office with the bedside manner of the IRS. The result is a total flop.

Dr. John, don’t you find it interesting how the leftists will parrot over and over and over again how much smarter they are than us knuckledragging neanderthal conservatives – yet they actually believed that a socialist government bureaucracy would be so much more efficient than for profit insurance companies that everyone’s premiums would go down, AND you’d get to keep your doctor and plan if you liked them?

If someone wants to stupidly make their own life more miserable, I would feel sorry for them, but only as long as their insanity did not endanger me, my family, my friends and my country. I am sure you have seen the DailyKos idiots starting up the petition to have the GOP House members arrested for sedition – for merely opposing obamacare.

Should make everyone even more wary of leftist demands for more gun control. Leftists cannot ever be trusted to do anything except destroy liberty and enslave the masses.

Having failed to halt the Affordable Care Act at the legislative level, in the Supreme Court, and then by way of shutting down the government unless their demands were met, opponents are now putting all of their energy into an already ongoing campaign of propaganda and sabotage. Generation Opportunity’s Koch funded $5.04 million ad campaign is only one example of the sort of tactics that they’ll stoop to.

Generation Opportunity’s advertising message is designed for and directed at young, healthy people. In plain language, it’s this: You don’t really need health insurance. It’s expensive, so don’t buy it. Instead, simply pay the fine, which is much cheaper.

Obviously as a young person you’ll never get seriously ill, nor will you ever run up hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in medical bills owing to serious injuries. Nor will your wife or kids. Really, this sort of thing never happens. Besides, even if it did, tax payer dollars or the inflation of other, more responsible peoples’ insurance premiums will cover all your costs.

That’s certainly a mature, socially responsible message. I wonder how that would work in the sort of purely free market insurance system people like the Koch’s advocate? Do you suppose carriers would be able to provide affordable premiums, if they encouraged only the higher risk portion of the population to buy insurance, and told everyone else to stay away?

@oil guy from Alberta, #2:

The efficiency of the Post Office with the bedside manner of the IRS.

The U.S. Postal Service is among the most efficient and reliable delivery systems in the world. I’ll rely on it before its private sector competitors any day of the week. Whenever I have an option, I do. The U.S.P.S. doesn’t routinely leave valuable packages sitting exposed on my doorstep in the rain.

@Greg: Its imploding

@Greg: Exceptional!

@oil guy from Alberta, #6:

Its imploding.

If it’s really so badly flawed that it’s doomed to collapse on it’s own, why is there any need for the Koch brothers to spend $5.04 million on an advertising campaign that has no other purpose than to discourage people from participating in it?

@Greg: The U.S.P.S. doesn’t routinely leave valuable packages sitting exposed on my doorstep in the rain.

No, Greg, the PO just sometimes throws away our mail!

*Matteo Morelli of Warwick has been indicted for throwing away over 1,000 pieces of USMail.
If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
http://eastgreenwich.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/mail-carrier-charged-with-throwing-away-1000-piece-of-mail
*A Lexington, Kentucy mail carrier is accused of throwing away mail in a dumpster and now he’s out of a job.
The postal service says the carrier was caught in the act by customers.
http://www.wlky.com/Mail-Carrier-Fired-After-Allegedly-Throwing-Mail-in-Dumpster/-/9366718/9784410/-/ku8cefz/-/index.html#ixzz2i6yOAcsK
*A Daily Kos diarist asks:
Am I the only person who didn’t know that the Post Office can just throw your mail away? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/06/04/738955/-Apparently-the-Post-Office-Can-Throw-Your-Mail-Away-w-Poll#
*Federal authorities are conducting an investigation after 10 Investigates captured video of a postal carrier throwing away mail in a dumpster.
The video showed the postal worker looking around, before he slid the dumpster door shut, returned to his postal van and drove off.
The dumpster is located just a few feet from 10TV by the main post office, located on Twin Rivers Drive, in Ohio.
http://www.topix.com/forum/columbus/TVB85Q9KFKBVCC34F
All these cases since Obama took office.
This one is personal and older:
*Years ago, when subscribing to magazines was really popular, our mailman kept our magazines.
Turned out we were NOT the only ones!
He was NOT fired, only moved to a non-delivery part of the Post Office.

WHAT DO WE GOT THERE ?
CANADIAN, UNIONS CO,TAKE CONTRACT OF WEBSITE FOR OBAMACARE, AMERICAN UNIONS, TOGETHER
SAME PEOPLE, OBAMACARE, DEAL BILLIONS,
OBAMA AND MAFIA COUP, RICH MAFIA NOW,
RICH OBAMA NOW,
THE OBAMACARE IS ONLY THE COVER OF A GIGANTIC MONEY TAKE OVER , TED CRUZ, SPOKE 20 HOURS,
AND MIKE LEE , RAND PAUL, MARCO RUBIO, ALL VERY SUSPICIOUS OF OBAMACARE ,
THEY TRY TO DEFUND IT, OBAMA FREAKE OUT AFRAID THEY WOULD SCREW HIS PLAN A HEIST OF THE CENTURY, HE SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT TO COVER THE STING STILL IN PROGRESS, THE POSTER AND BARRICADES WHERE PREVIOUSLY PREPARED,FOR THE PLAN,
THE REPUBLICAN GIVE OBAMA AN UNLIMIT EXPANSE FOR A SHORT TIME, ARE THEY IN THE COUP? DON’T THINK SO ????
THE DEAL WITH CANADIAN AND AMERICAN MAFIA IS CONCLUDE, REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT, THE MONEY COME AND LEAVE
NOW BUSINESS AS USUAL, NOTHING HAPPEN, THE OBAMACARE WILL MELT DOWN TO NOTHING, BECAUSE OF COMPUTER?????
WHO ELSE IS IN THE COUP? ERIC HOLDER, MAYBE HE HAS EXPERIENCE IN WEAPON STING,
WHO ELSE HARRY REID? NANCY PELOSI? MAYBE.

YOU CAN ADD SOME OR REMOVE SOME

My folks AND I have been victims of USPS employees throwing out our mail.
I put “OK to leave on front porch” on my orders delivered by private enterprises. Good record of delivery from non government, ROI motivated commercial operations. I AM very nice to our USPS mail carriers though since it must be troubling to mostly delivery crap.

Greggie, I thought you lefties were all about the “environment” and going green. I guess not since you support that bottomless pit known as the USPS.

Think about it: all your bills can be paperless (going green, you know) and you can pay them on line, including credit cards, house payments, utilities, etc. Snail mail is no longer used to communicate. Email is as it is instant. Packages are better tracked by UPS.

Can you name one function that the USPS provides that could not be done away with? All I ever get in my mail box is junk mail and campaign donation requests. That and the occasional Wal-Mart flyer. And for that the USPS is billions of $$ in debt.

The U.S.P.S. doesn’t routinely leave valuable packages sitting exposed on my doorstep in the rain.

Provided they don’t lose them or crush them in shipping.

@Greg:

But it is perfectly ok that the Obama admin is spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns to fool people into going to the obamacare exchanges…which don’t work…after spending $634 million on a Canadian software firm (not stimulating the US economy that way, eh?) that was fired by the Canadian government for being incompetent?

How socially responsible is it to lie (keep your doctor and insurance if you like them, premiums will go down by $2500 per family, your taxes won’t go up…then arguing obamacare is legal as a tax) to force a program on people, and in so doing screwing up the health insurance that most people already had?

Don’t expect anyone to take a leftist seriously complaining about oppositional tactics after all the years of outrageous oppositional tactics exhibited by leftists. (General Betrayus, anyone?) Where is your outrage about “deeming” obamacare passed? Where is your outrage about Obama having OMB grant members of Congress a de facto exemption from obamacare by forcing taxpayers to cover only gold plans for Congress and staffers, while propagandizing that the bronze plans (with much higher deductibles than people had on previous insurance before obamacare) are “affordable” for the taxpaying masses? Where is your outrage when Reid and Obama are quoted as saying that obamacare is only the first step towards the ultimate goal of socialist health care, while at the same time denying in larger venues that obamacare is not a step in forcing socialist healthcare upon our republic?

There is nothing wrong or unethical about anyone who opposes this socialist scam putting out ads warning people about the dangers of obamacare – pointing out how much more expensive it is for a much less effective product. Obamacare is an even more egregious Ponzi scheme than social security, and even more Marxist than the progressive income tax system. Hell, there are news articles in California actually advising people to earn LESS money so they can qualify for obamacare subsidies! How on earth is obamacare supposed to work as designed by the socialists if people are being told to make less money in order to be subsidized for this trainwreck? How would obamacare ever come close to being financially feasible if no one is paying for it without being subsidized? Do you even realize how insane that is?

An anti-Affordable Care Act ad put out by Generation Opportunity, funded by the Koch brothers. The target audience for this particular ad is young women. Apparently they believe most young women have IQs somewhere around 80.

By the way, a few actual facts, from Forbes: Average Cost Of Obamacare ‘Silver’ Plan – $328 Per Month.

That’s for an uninsured individual.

The annual deductibles for the Silver Plan range from a low of $1,500 to a high of $5,000. The average annual deductible for the Silver Plan is $2,500.

The Bronze Plan is cheaper, but, as would be expected, the annual deductibles are higher. The lowest is $2,000 and the highest $6,350. The average Bronze Plan annual deductible is $5,150.

Greg,

Your comment about Forbes is disingenuous at best. Obfuscating at worst

The date of the article is 9/29/2013. The first two paragraphs are as follows

That amount – $328 per month – is the national average for the mid-tier “silver” premium based on HHS calculations for approved plans in 48 states. The challenge, of course, is that like all of healthcare itself, your mileage will vary.

Both individual and family insurance rates will vary dramatically based on a host of variables. Those variables – age, marital status, geographic location and income – will each have a significant impact on the final monthly amount

The last phrase in the second paragraph says it all – significant impact on the final monthly amount.

I can categorically state that the price of beer throughout the word is at least 1 unit of currency where beer is sold.

While this is true, it is also misleading.

So my follow up questions to you are as follows

1 – Have you logged into the Obamacare website – as required by law (isn’t ?) – and created and received your new insurance ?

2 – Does the fact that the administration spent a 1/2 billion dollars on this bother you in the slightest ?

3 – What does the fact that people spend money on advertising schemes calling the web site a heaping pile of fecal matter have to do with anything ?

People can spend their money as they see fit – whether they have liberal, conservative or agnostic views. No one should give a toss if private individuals do that.

However, public money by government departments are the business of the citizenry/

If citizens do not hold their government accountable, then the citizen is failing to do their civic duty.

WOW I LIKE THAT,AMERICANS come and learn those words and keep it as sacred among your treasures,
you people have a job to do, get off your ass and start now, it’s getting late,
AMERICA belong to the people, and work on keeping it safe,
YOU ALL OWE IT TO your AMERICA, WHICH PAID YOUR FREEDOM WITH THE BLOOD OF HER BRAVES,

@Greg:

come on. you need to read the healthcare.gov page on facebook. There are people that are stating their deductibles are in the $12,000 to $14,000 range. Granted one man had a pre-existing coverage (they promised to cover it they never promised to pay for it). There are articles where obama supporters (or recently were obama supporters) that have had their premiums escalate exponentially. One man over $10,000.

I thought at first the deductible was to be $2500 but found out it was a LIE. I should have known. People are finding they cannot afford the so call affordable care and are opting out and going to pay the fine. Now IF the bill passes where the IRS can garnish your wages, they are all SOL.

After saying all of this, this has NOTHING to do with health care. it is all about making the American people being forced into a one-payer system CONTROLLED by the government. Read the history on hitler. hitler was elected by the people. he was adulated and revered. Then he slowly but surely started taking control and taking away the rights of the people. One of the first thing he did was to force the people into a one-payer health system. The other thing he did was to take away guns. Of course barry and his band of communist czars are trying to do this, but the people are fighting back.

As an aside, there are only two leaders (using that term loosely) that had symbols – hitler and obama.

enchanted
absolutely, and they are both dangerous,except one is dead althow stll dangerous because a mad as him seek the same control, he read about him and want to try the same in AMERICA,
HE HAD, HE IS, HE WILL DO MANY HURTS AND CAUSE MANY PROBLEM BEFORE HE TOO IS ELIMINATE,
BOTH HAVE A SICK MAD MIND TO DEAL WITH THEIR FEAR WAS TO CONTROL TO THE MAXIMUM.
AND GATHER FOLLOWERS BY USING THE MONEY COMMING FROM THE PEOPLE COMPLYING WITH HIS ORDER AS GOOD CITIZENS, UNAWARE THEY HAD ELECTED A MAD PROFETEER ,
AND DANGEROUS PERSON, SEEKING TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY,

@enchanted, #19:

If at some point it’s clearly demonstrated that the Affordable Care Act has is inflating premiums beyond their historical rate of increase while simultaneously driving up deductibles, there should be very little difficulty convincing voters that the Act should be either altered or repealed.

While there are anecdotal reports claiming $12,000 or $14,000 deductibles, so far I haven’t seen any verifiable examples. If these actually exist and the situations are really as it’s suggested they are, would we not expect to see them thrust into the public spotlight along with all of the specific details? I would expect republicans to be covering them in great detail on the floor of the House. If they’re real, why isn’t this happening?

@Greg: are you allan colmes ?

Greg,

Wow! I am gobsmacked to say the least in your response about people’s actual cost for ACA once they enrol.

A couple of points … Any onewho enrols can ONLY provide anecdotal data as to the cost of the ACA plan and the cost

The Forbes article was… anecdotal data……

The only non-Anecdotal data for you would be your details after YOU enrolled into ACA in your state ?

So I will ask – Have you done so ? And what is the comparison to the insurance that you had prior — if any ?

Of course, I expect to NOT answer my direct question stating the information is personal and therefore private.

I presume Greg has an exemption since he works for the propaganda office in the current administration.

the media declare GOPS looser, what medias, a bunch of trolls libs, AFRAID OF THE TED CRUZ GROUP,
good that FOXNEWS is separated from them,
its OBAMA who shut down the GOVERNMENT HIM ALONE AND HE HAD PLANNED IT BEFORE,
AS ONE OF THE UNION TOLD US, YOU DO NOT SUDDENLY COME OUT WITH THOSE SIGNS, YOU NEED SOME TO MAKE THEM SPECIFICLY FOR THAT SHUTDOWN AHEAD OF TIME,
THE PEOPLE DO NOT BELIEVE THOSE MEDIAS,
YOU DO NOT HEAR THOSE LIES AT FOXNEWS,
THEY HAMMER TED CRUZ, BRING IT ON , HE CAN TAKE YOU ALL LIARS,

Greg, as all leftists, will continue to dismiss anything that does not support his ideological magical thinking proclivities. How ironic that he uses the ‘anecdotal’ card to try refuting actual instances of negative impacts of obamacare, while previously parroting the NEED for socialist healthcare because of anecdotal claims about poor people who couldn’t get health care.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/10/09/college-grad-says-obamacare-has-raped-my-future-in-viral-letter/#.UlXKBkG2UsE.twitter

Ashley Dionne, 26, posted the now-viral letter to conservative radio host Dennis Prager’s Facebook page earlier this week. She explains how she graduated from the University of Michigan in 2009, at which point she was told she was “too educated and wouldn’t stay” at low-paying jobs. Dionne writes that she has a series of medical conditions, and the Obamacare system pushes her out of a system that favors the non-working poor.

“I have asthma, ulcers, and mild cerebral palsy. Obamacare takes my monthly rate from $75 a month for full coverage on my “Young Adult Plan,” to $319 a month. After $6,000 in deductibles, of course,” Dionne wrote in the Facebook post. “Liberals claimed this law would help the poor. I am the poor, the working poor, and I can’t afford to support myself, let alone older generations and people not willing to work at all.”

That last statement distills the essence of why leftists must be stopped. They do not care that their insane collectivist policies actually have the opposite effect of what they claim to want. You see, without a permanent and ever enlarging class of the hopeless poor, leftists cannot garner more political power. Leftists despise individualism and self-reliance for two reasons. First, the leaders of the left cannot abide a self-reliant populace, because if you do not need your government welfare/crack, then you don’t need to vote for leftists. Secondly, the lazy and jealous leftists can’t stand individual success, because they are envious of anyone who is more successful than the leftist.

Greg – from Forbes (but dated 14 October 2013)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/14/obamacares-website-is-crashing-because-it-doesnt-want-you-to-know-health-plans-true-costs/

“Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. “But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said.” Why was it delayed? “An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.”

So the government KNEW the obamacare premiums were going to be so much higher that sticker shock would make people pull back from this socialist nightmare – so they tried to sugarcoat this poison by hiding (nee LYING about) the true costs with the smokescreen of subsidies…as if subsidies appear magically from the sky out of a leprechaun’s never-ending pot of gold, rather than having to be taken from people in the form of higher taxes.

And the sheer mindboggling incompentency of the people forcing us into obamacare is almost incomprehensible. From the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-the-obamacare-implosion-is-worse-than-you-think/2013/10/14/7efa4e74-34d7-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html

The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the Web site got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something.

It appears virtually no one is buying Obamacare. While administration officials brag about how many visitors the site is getting, they refuse to divulge how many people actually signed up. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked that directly by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” “Fully enrolled?” Sebelius stuttered. “I can’t tell you. Because I don’t know.” That is a frightening admission of incompetence. If the Obama administration can’t even track how many people signed up, how on earth is it going to verify whether those people are eligible for subsidies? How will it protect against fraud?

Computer experts say the problems with the site are not because of heavy traffic but are the result of structural flaws in system architecture. It is going to take months to rebuild it. That raises a question: If the federal government can’t manage a simple Web site, how on earth is it going to manage the health care of millions of Americans?

If enough Americans don’t join the exchanges, Obamacare collapses. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the administration needs at least 7 million people to join the exchanges for Obamacare to be financially viable. While the administration won’t reveal sign-up rates, London’s Daily Mail reported that total sign-ups in the first week were just 51,000 people. If accurate, that would mean they have just 6,949,000 more to go to break even.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the sheer incompetency of the left were to bring down their socialist Tower of Babylon? From USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/17/health-exchange-week-three-start-over/2995989/

WASHINGTON — The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology that may require constant fixes and updates for the next six months and the eventual overhaul of the entire system, technology experts told USA TODAY. The site could be perfect, but if the systems from which it draws data are not up to speed, it doesn’t matter, said John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace, a cloud computer service provider. “It is a core problem in the sense of it’s fundamental to this thing actually working, but it’s not necessarily a problem that the people who wrote HealthCare.gov can get to,” Engates said. “Even if they had a perfect system, it still won’t work.”

Yes – these are certainly the geniuses we should all want running a national socialist health care system, right? I mean, really?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obamacare-woes-widen-as-insurers-get-wrong-data-2013-10-18

Emerging errors include duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, missing data fields and suspect eligibility determinations, say executives at more than a dozen health plans. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Nebraska said it had to hire temporary workers to contact new customers directly to resolve inaccuracies in submissions.

Because, you know we don’t really need accurate information to be provided in order to get appropriate medical care, right? Right leg, left arm – doesn’t really matter which needs to be amputated, right? Oh, wait, you aren’t Mr. Johnson?

I challenge any leftist to answer if they have gone onto the exchange and actually enrolled into a plan to prove they are paying less – as Obama promised when he propagandized this National Socialist health care.

Can anyone honestly say they would accept this level of poor performance and criminal incompetence from any other company with which they do business? Doctors performing this dangerously would be sued, lose privileges at hospitals and have medical licenses revoked. Why on earth should we be accepting this from politicians – or listening to leftwing hacks make excuses and tell us we should be trying to help fix the minor glitches, rather than repealing the entire disaster and starting from scratch on healthcare reform?

Can any of you honestly say you would tolerate such poor performance from any other commercial endeavor? Car salesman? Realtor? Plumber? Printer? Accountant?

Obamacare delenda est.

@John Hardesty, #23:

A couple of points … Any onewho enrols can ONLY provide anecdotal data as to the cost of the ACA plan and the cost

There’s no need for evidence to remain anecdotal. Anyone who enrolls under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and is upset about the amount of their monthly premium and annual deductible could easily present themselves to their republican Congressional representative to be used as a real-life example. I’m certain their representatives would be more than happy to assist them in proving their claims. Actual people presenting actual evidence of outrageous rates and deductibles should have no difficulty at all getting their full attention.

If the “evidence” remains purely anecdotal, there’s only one reasonable explanation for it: The claims aren’t true.

@Pete, #26:

Greg, as all leftists, will continue to dismiss anything that does not support his ideological magical thinking proclivities.

I’ll dismiss any such claims that haven’t been fully verified—particularly when evidence should be readily available to people who are strongly motivated to see them publicly verified. If they don’t come forth with it, it’s because the evidence simply isn’t there.

I challenge any leftist to answer if they have gone onto the exchange and actually enrolled into a plan to prove they are paying less – as Obama promised when he propagandized this National Socialist health care.

Perhaps those on the right need a refresher course in debate and logic. It isn’t up to those unwilling to automatically accept unlikely claims to prove such claims aren’t true. If someone insists that the moon is made of cheese, that doesn’t automatically become accepted fact until I prove otherwise.

GREG
PETE IS VERY CREDIBLE, AND HAS NO NEED TO PROVE HIS WORDS,
WE BELIEVE WHAT HE SAIS

@Greg:

Right, Greg…so the multiple block quotes and web site references I presented have no relevance at all to the “debate”, right? Thanks for proving the point I made regarding leftists ignoring data right in front of them, as they prefer instead to believe in fairy tales and wishful thinking that supports progressive insanity.

Don’t let actual proof disturb your bizarre worldview. Don’t let the demonstrated incompetence and abject failure of this National Socialist government scam upset your rotting apple cart.

I notice that you fail to address a single one of the actual points presented that show the disaster of obamcare.

I also notice you ignore every single challenge regarding your personal experience in enrolling in the obamacare exchange, despite repeated postings from multiple posters wanting to know how you fared on the exchange.

You aren’t fooling anybody here with your amateur debate tactics, especially when you perform them so poorly. Your silence on your pathetic attempt at refutation of valid points is deafening. Just because you dismiss them (without even reading them, most likely) doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. Or are you going to make the claim that the CBS Washington affiliate, Forbes, Marketwatch and USA Today are all conservative Tea Party propaganda shills dedicated to the destruction of obamacare?

Claiming that there isn’t data out there while ignoring the fact that the Feds refuse to provide any data coupled with Sebelius actually stating she doesn’t know how many successfully enrolled – and she is the person in charge of the obamacare exchanges – is a weak circular argument.

Obamacare delenda est.

@Greg:

So, using your own words:

Perhaps those on the right need a refresher course in debate and logic. It isn’t up to those unwilling to automatically accept unlikely claims to prove such claims aren’t true. If someone insists that the moon is made of cheese, that doesn’t automatically become accepted fact until I prove otherwise.

So, using this philosophy we can stop passing pointless laws prohibiting regular light bulbs and restricting fossil fuel usage, right? Since there is no proof – and much evidence to the contrary now – that rising CO2 levels from human activity are the cause of global warming.

Reality and consistency. Concepts foreign to leftists.

@Pete: @Pete: alan……i mean greg ….hello greg ……you out there?

I guess we’ll just have to wait until a few months have passed. By then it should be much easier to determine who was correct about Obamacare and who wasn’t. It’s very unlikely that it will be destroyed before then. Eventually it will stand, fall, or be modified based on actual performance. I expect modifications.

OBAMA doesn’t call obamacare that name ,
he change the name to market place,
now speaking on FOX,
NOW THEY CAN APPLY BY PHONE, OR IN PERSON,

@Greg:

A few MONTHS? How many more stories like the following do you need to see this must be completely repealed and actual health care reform that doesn’t harm those already with insurance to help those who don’t have it?

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/thousands-get-health-insurance-cancellation-notices-8C11417913#

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/why-obama-should-be-freaked-out-over-obamacare-20131021

The administration refuses to say how many people have enrolled through the federal exchange, the key metric for determining how well the online service is working in states that didn’t set up their own exchanges. There are two possible explanations for the Obama administration’s unconscionable lack of transparency. Their process is so screwed up that they don’t have the data, which would be embarrassing. Or they have the data – and it’s embarrassing.

And even MSNBC knows the White House is lying to them: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/21/ap-pace-obama-administration-lying-about-enrollment-numbers

According to AP reporter Julia Pace – interviewed on MSNBC and quoted here from a Breitbart article on the interview only because the MSNBC hotlink is not functioning:

The enrollment figures, they say ‘Oh reporters you’re just obsessed with this enrollment figure.’ Well, that’s because enrollment figures are the only things that will tell us if [ObamaCare] is going to work. …

Part of what’s been so frustrating about this as a reporter is that we know that they have these numbers. It’s not as if they have to wait for some tech person off in some far off place to send them the data. They’re getting these numbers in. And that’s what’s been so frustrating.

So why are they hiding the numbers, Greg? Obamacare, like any other pyramid scheme, cannot work if you don’t have a sufficient number of patsies coming in and paying money in without taking money out. What person in their right mind is going to pay the exhorbitant obamacare premiums (taxes) when they are healthy and furthermore do not have (under Obamanomics) spare money to pay increased health insurance costs with significantly increased annual deductibles before the more expensive insurance even kicks in?

Again, from the National Journal Site: http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/why-obama-should-be-freaked-out-over-obamacare-20131021

The foundational problem with ObamaCare is that is relies on people making economically irrational decisions. Namely, young and healthy individuals, who consume very little health care, have to be convinced to buy insurance to subsidize new coverage mandates for older, less healthy consumers. If the young and healthy don’t buy coverage, the premiums for everyone else will skyrocket.

Greg, even CBS news is admitted that Obama hasa credibility problem – http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/10/21/CBS-Obama-Headed-Toward-Credibility-Death-Spiral-Over-Obamacare

Greg – if you have a shred of decency you have to consider all the very valid criticisms of this fantastically horrible law:

1- Obama clearly lied – or was absolutely criminally incompetent in making the claims about keeping one’s doctor and health insurance under obamacare.

2- Obama clearly lied or was stupendously clueless about the costs of obamacare. Forbes is reporting an average increase of 99% for men and 62% for women across the nation.

3- Sebelius had THREE YEARS to put together the obamacare website, which any honest analysis would show has been a disaster on the level of the Titanic.

4- Hundreds of thousands of people in multiple states are having their previous insurance plans cancelled because they do not include unnecessary and unwanted coverage items that the politicians allowed lobbyists to put in as mandatory coverage, thus raising the cost of insurance, not decreasing as Obama repeatedly stated would happen. Honestly, Greg, do you really believe that men and post-menopausal women should be forced to pay insurance premiums to provide maternity care that they absolutely will not use?

Greg – obamacare is a semi-polished turd of breathtaking governmental incompetence beyond the bureacratic nightmare seen in the movie Brazil. It is literally destroying previously working health insurance and endangering the medical system in this country for no purpose other than to give leftist do-gooders something else over which to feel undeservedly smug for thinking they have “helped” the poor….and giving leftist political thugs more control over our lives.

There are far better ways to “fix” problems in medical care than this insanity.

Obamacare delenda est.

@Pete, #35:

I’m withholding judgement until the program has been up and running for long enough to make an honest evaluation based on verifiable facts and figures. I certainly don’t expect a rational evaluation to be coming from the GOP or from right-leaning media sources at this early point. Recent events in Congress suggest that we can’t even depend on rational behavior.

There was a long period of time when republicans could have taken the initiative and put forward solutions to growing problems with the nation’s healthcare system. They didn’t, and a majority of Americans were very unhappy about it. That’s part of the reason republicans lost the House in 2006 after 12 consecutive years of republican control, and part of the reason that Obama was elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012.

Republicans obviously want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Their first response should have been to create a detailed alternative that credibly addressed all of the problems the Affordable Care Act attempts to deal with. It’s been over 3 years since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. Republicans still haven’t.

@Pete, #31:

So, using this philosophy we can stop passing pointless laws prohibiting regular light bulbs and restricting fossil fuel usage, right? Since there is no proof – and much evidence to the contrary now – that rising CO2 levels from human activity are the cause of global warming.

Reducing fossil fuel usage—particularly coal, which powers most of our electrical generating stations— isn’t exclusively about CO2 levels. Here are 25 photographs taken earlier today in China, showing what can happen when you don’t have clean air regulations enforced by a government agency such as the EPA.

Greg
AMERICA IS CLEAN COMPARE TO CHINA AND THOS NEIGHBORDS
SO TELL THEM TO CLEAN FIRST,
AND FOR HERE YOU JUST HAVE TO CLOSE THE BORDERS TIGHT
IT’S WORTH THE MONEY,

@Greg:

You are starting from a fundamentally flawed premise, Greg. Where, exactly, in the Constitution does the federal government have the power or the duty to provide healthcare for anyone? Just because leftists think it is a good idea doesn’t necessarily make it so. Frankly, the 2006 congressional races and Obama’s election had far more to do with LIVs being programmed by the media to be tired of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ridiculous undercurrent of racism that led too many uneducated morons to vote for someone because it was “cool” to vote for the first black president against a disasterous RINO like McCain.

You seem to live in a bubble where no one on the conservative side has offered any possible solutions for the problem of the rising cost of healthcare. Republicans have tried to get insurance portable across state lines (dems blocked it) which would have increased competition – which is the primary way to get prices lowered. Republicans tried to introduce tort reform, but as the trial ambulance chasers are the highest donors to democrats, they weren’t going to let that occur. Hell, Obama even promised there would be tort reform in obamacare in order to fool physician groups into believing socialist health care would be a good thing to support, but as he lies about everything there is, of course, absolutely no tort reform at all in obamacare. Heck, Bush even came up with the Medicare drug coverage idea (which I didn’t support, but he was a republican and he did get a law passed ostensibly to help people with high pharmaceutical costs) so this ridiculous idea that republicans haven’t tried to do anything about health care flies in the face of reality. You leftists don’t see any of the things republicans have tried to do because they work against the flawed concept of national socialist government takeover schemes for medical care.

What, praytell, is happening with obamacare that gives you any indication that the disaster that is happening before our eyes is going to be fixable? You keep saying, “Let’s wait and see how things progress and see if it doesn’t get better” is like a doctor seeing a patient hemorrhaging through a femoral artery saying, “Let’s wait and see if he can clot off that mildly glitched bleeding problem on his own….” And the inevitable push for full national socialist takeover of all medical care in the country which you leftists will attempt once obamacare is finally accepted as a complete failure is akin to the doctor prescribing leeches to the hemorrhaging patient.

Obamacare costs are much higher than the government tried to claim they would be.

Hundreds of thousands of people who had been assured repeatedly by Obama they would be able to keep their doctors and their insurance if they liked them are receiving cancellation letters because of obamacare requirements.

77% of the new jobs created thus far in 2013 have been part-time jobs due in large part to obamacare mandates for 30 hours a week mandating employer health insurance coverage. There are estimates that once obamacare is fully implemented it will result in the loss of at least another 2% of full time jobs in this country.

As I provided a link above, for obamacare to work, at least 7 million people – who pay into the system, not just relying on taxpayers providing subsidies – have to join the obamacare exchange. Who are the people who are going to dip into their pockets to pay extra for unwanted and unnecessary insurance coverage – while absorbing larger annual deductibles – so that other people can get subsidies to cover their cost of insurance? The Daily Mail in England has reported that thus far their sources are claiming only 51,000 people have actually enrolled. Again, using simple math, and accepting the estimates of the daily mail and assuming that the obamacare website comes back online and has no glitches, (unlikely given the NYT report of IT experts stating over 5 million lines of programming code have to be reviewed and fixed) for the estimated 45 million people obamacare was allegedly going to “help”- at a rate of 51,000/week for 52 weeks in a year means it will take almost 17 YEARS to get all these people enrolled in the system.

Thousands of doctors across the country are receiving letters that “fire” them from being covered providers because the government is already working on ways to slash physician pay rates to cut costs. Let me give you an example of the total lack of economic reality inherent in obamacare. Do you remember the navigator pay estimates of $20-$48/hr? For a job with no educational requirements nor experience, and a 2 week training period to “learn” how to help people enroll in the exchange. Intensive care nurses working 12 hour shifts make between $15-$28/hr – based on location and experience. These are RNs, Greg, with a minimum 4 year nursing degree and additional years of training because RNs don’t just start straight out of nursing school in an ICU. How on earth does that make any economic sense, especially if your purported goal is to increase access to health care? Hell, with 14 years of education and training I had to become a neonatologist, and with an additional 12 years of post-training experience in NICU, my salary averages out to roughly $60/hr for a 45 hour work week – and I work a hell of a lot more than 45 hours a week. My plumber makes more than that.

Obamacare cannot work. It is literally impossible for this stupendously foolish law to do anything it was advertised to do. Rather than act like the proverbial grasshopper and assume that things will always work out simply because you want them to is a recipe for disasterous failure. The signs are all over the place telling us to turn back from this socialist nightmare, and they aren’t being put up just by Fox News and conservatives, as I have shown in multiple postings above.

You can keep burying your head in the sand and ignore all the points made above in this thread, but doing so will not protect your head from getting (figuratively) chopped off.

@Greg:

Weak dodge, Greg. The tangential point I was making about your ideologic-based hypocrisy that you so assiduously are avoiding is the recent research showing that in spite of rising atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 18 years (which is what the AGW cultists vehemently claimed their (faulty) computer models showed was THE cause of the alleged global warming) there has been a drop in average global temperatures.

Your non-sequitor response is trying to put up the ridiculous strawman argument that we climate kuffar want to breath polluted air and drink dirty water, which is a childishly inaccurate demonization of those of us basing our refutation of AGW insanity on actual science, rather than environmental cultism.

Ironically, you are posting a link to pollution associated with a leftist-controlled totalitarian state to justify the existence of an oppressive, non-science based governmental organization that is enacting policies that have the exact opposite effect from what is claimed to be an environmentally protective goal. Mercury in the new lightbulbs? The DDT fiasco? The increased pollution effect from use of ethanol fuels (because you have to burn more ethanol than gasoline to drive a specific distance, you know, right?) Just to name a few.

@Pete:
#39…….probably the most comprehensive post on the ACA I’ve ever read.

@Pete, #39:

Heck, Bush even came up with the Medicare drug coverage idea (which I didn’t support, but he was a republican and he did get a law passed ostensibly to help people with high pharmaceutical costs) so this ridiculous idea that republicans haven’t tried to do anything about health care flies in the face of reality.

That might not be the best example of republicans tackling a health care problem. The bill contained no mechanism to restrain the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs—which was the primary reason there was a need for prescription drug coverage in the first place—and included a provision that specifically forbade the government from bargaining for lower Medicare drug prices. Essentially, it was a gift to the pharmaceutical industry. They were given a huge market sector, allowed to charge what they wished, and guaranteed payment out of the taxpayers’ pockets.

How bad is it? This is from an article that appeared earlier this year in the Bangor Daily News:

“…Medicare pays more for pharmaceuticals than any large purchaser. It’s time to change that. Congress should use Medicare’s market power to achieve price concessions that will help make the Medicare drug benefit more affordable for the taxpayer.

“How much taxpayer money could be saved? Negotiating drug prices in Medicare could save up to $50 billion year after year without compromising care, according to economist Dean Baker. That equates to almost 60 percent of the entire sequester now in place.”

Medicare Part D (prescription drug coverage) went into effect in 2006. Over the nearly 8 years since, the no bargaining provision has probably transferred around $400 billion more than necessary to private sector interests.

What, praytell, is happening with obamacare that gives you any indication that the disaster that is happening before our eyes is going to be fixable?

Computer systems that aren’t working properly are generally fixable. You methodically isolate the problems and address them. That won’t happen overnight.

@Pete, #39:

Your non-sequitor response is trying to put up the ridiculous strawman argument that we climate kuffar want to breath polluted air and drink dirty water, which is a childishly inaccurate demonization of those of us basing our refutation of AGW insanity on actual science, rather than environmental cultism.

I’m not suggesting that’s what anyone wants. I’m suggesting that this is what can happen when those who focus on maximizing profits are allowed to operate without external restraints. There was a time when America was headed toward where China is now. I’m old enough to remember when parts of northwest Indiana occasionally looked like those photographs. This didn’t change because industry suddenly decided clean air and water were more important than maximizing profits. It happened because government, as the servant of the public and the advocate of the broader public interest, made it change. I approve of the results.

@Greg: Drove through Gary about 13 years ago on trip from South Bend to Chicago. I was shocked by it’s blighted condition. What’s it like today?

@Richard Wheeler, #44:

It’s still blighted, but the air is cleaner.

@Greg: i’m sure the people appreciate your sentiments

@obamarhhea, #46:

If you doubt the accuracy of my assessment, click here to view a few photographs. It’s very sad.

If payment is required then it’s not care you are receiving.