… because the White House won’t stop watering down its definition of success.
The standard of success for the Affordable Care Act keeps getting weaker.
Whether in enrollment numbers, federal savings, or the workings of its website, the White House has repeatedly lowered the bar for the law when it has missed expectations, replacing initial standards with ones that are lower, squishier, or nonexistent.
Just a few months ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said success would entail covering 7 million people this year. Now, the White House has disowned that standard for enrollment—and it hasn’t come up with a new one.
President Obama touted HealthCare.gov, the main portal to shop for coverage, as the “Amazon” or “Expedia” of health insurance. Now the administration is calling it a win for the site to be “functional for the vast majority of users,” and even that standard has been watered down since its debut.
And when the law passed, it was expected to reduce the federal deficit by about $210 billion over a decade. Now the projected savings are about half that, largely because one big program proved unworkable.
At this point, the White House’s definition of success seems to basically boil down to “not failure”—a standard that falls far short for a law that used up so much political capital and was sold with such grand promises.
At this point, when asked to define success for 2014, White House officials often answer by noting that the worst-case scenario for the health care law is unlikely to happen. But that “non-failure” standard falls far short of the high expectations Democrats once had for the law, and of the promises they made to sell it.
“They are masters at moving the goalposts, and they have done that a lot. They’ll move the goalposts again,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist and former Congressional Budget Office director who now leads the American Action Forum.
More at National Journal
It’s here. It’s working. It will save the life of a family member or friend of yours. Stop being a douche and deal with it, lol!
@This one: How will it do that any better than what was before?
We started with 30 million uninsured and that is how it will finalize. 30 million uninsured.
Lest we start to think Obama might trade in his favorite fallacy of logic (the straw man fallacy) for his moving the goalposts fallacy, recall how he ”slayed” that imaginary Republican straw man during his press conference in August….
During that press conference there was Obama alleging that GOP opposition to Obamacare is based on a desire to deny sick and poor people healthcare.
Oh, my!
This suggestion is petulant, slanderous, unpresidential, and entirely predictable coming from Obama……or any of his useful idiots.
He conveniently forgot that Republicans offered to codify the employer mandate delay in legislation, and that he threatened to veto it.
No fallacy but Obama lied saying that Republicans have no plans to replace Obamacare.
That’s been false for years.
He reiterated his theory that Republicans oppose Obamacare because they want to block health services for 30 million Americans.
Another straw man!
Three points:
(1) The American people oppose Obamacare. Their elected officials represent them.
(2) The CBO says that it’s Obamacare that leaves 30 million Americans uninsured, in spite of its heavy regulations, harmful provisions, and exorbitant expense. OOPS!
(3) Obama’s doing all the above because smearing opponents is easier than addressing the implosion of his law.
He will pivot away completely if we let him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-august-9-2013-news-conference-at-the-white-house/2013/08/09/5a6c21e8-011c-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/07/17/wh-well-veto-a-bill-delaying-the-employer-mandate-which-weve-already-done-on-our-own/
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Media-s-Republicans-Have-No-Obamacare-Replacement-Myth
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/07/25/cbsnyt-poll-obamacare-very-unpopular-n1648062
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weeklystandard.com%2Fblogs%2Fcbo-uninsured-under-obamacare-never-falls-below-30-million_733740.html&ei=fWAFUsrPCbe24APTlYDABw&usg=AFQjCNGN8Os11zo6lsbooTr6n0HhIAGzEQ&sig2=oRaW2WDdvp1henzm4xDatA&bvm=bv.50500085,d.dmg
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/08/08/report-family-insurance-in-jeopardy-thanks-to-obamacare-n1659651
@This one:
Yeah adding millions to Medicaid is really going to work..
Clueless again you are.
@This one:
yeah right. Did you actually read the law? I am nervous because my 49 year old brother who has MS and only has use of one arm who lives in an old folks home has NO productive life. He is ripe for being given that pain pill and pushed in the corner to die. He is in jeopardy of losing his health care because he cannot pay for his health care, costs a lot of money to maintain him medically (he even has to be lifted to the toilet). This so called health care which is really a way for the government to gain control of everyone is also a way to purge the species. The less older people, especially those with medical issues, the less costs for medical. Check out Great Britain. In 2012 over 135,000 eldery died because they were either denied health care or by the time they could get care, they were dead.
check out the healthcare. gov site on facebook. You will read a lot of stories, and they are scary. -AND just wait until the employer mandate kicks in. It is calculated over 100 million people will lose their insurance (not 100 million policies but 100 million people).
And in closing before the obamadeathcare law, there were 30 million people without health care insurance. It is stated that after it kicks in, there will be 30 million without health care insurance. – food for thought.
@drjohn: Well, doc, be fair… the law achieved 30 million uninsured (still) AND an additional $2.1 trillion to the debt.
@Bill: That’s a good point.
@This one:
I think it’s worthwhile to again point out the tolerance of FA despite the churlish behavior of some commenters.
do you gas the terminally ill like hitler gased the Jew’s in this program?
@MOS-8541:
I think John Holdren and Ezkiel Emanuel wanted something along those lines….
Ah!
The ”uninsured.”
Originally there were 20, then 30 and finally as many as 42 million of them.
Now you don’t hear a word about them from the Left.
Funny that.
Were they all imaginary?