Is Obamacare imploding?

Obamacare reeks incompetence:

Troubled Obamacare website wasn't tested until a week before launch

By Richard Pollock
Published October 18, 2013

Federal officials did not permit testing of the Obamacare healthcare.gov website or issue final system requirements until four to six days before its Oct. 1 launch, according to an individual with direct knowledge of the project.

The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the troubled Obamacare website project as suffering from top-level management disarray, changing systems requirements and recurring delays.

The root cause of the problems was a pivotal decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials to act as systems integrator, the central coordinator for the entire program. Usually this role is reserved for the prime information technology contractor.

As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said.

More here:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/troub...x News&utm_source=foxnews.com&utm_medium=feed

The bolded statement above is an absolute lie, typical of the Washington Examiner.

I've seen the master contract (large scale project implementation is my trade) and Aquilent is the System Integrator. Period. They've got a pretty good track record.

The front end of the system was written pretty well, but they skimped on UX (user experience). Unhelpful error messages was the first clue. Requiring numeric input but not telling the user is another rookie mistake.

The back end seems to have been a poorly managed job by the contracted subcontractor. They designed the system to scale to between 30,000 and 60,000 users, they got 250,000 on the first day and not surprisingly the system tanked.

The master contractor and the two main management subcontractors seem to have done an exceptionally poor job of change control, the art of saying "no". Way too much "feature creep".

The guy that wrote Linux (Linus Toravald) wrote their bug management system. It couldn't handle such a large project (a shame, just last year it was hyped to hell and back on Wall Street as The Next Big Thing).

Quite a few lessons learned.
 
ENROLL MAVEN

Tracking Obamacare enrollment

in the 50 states (and D.C.)


















Gold, Silver, Bronze (GSB) Plan Enrollment

17,862*


Administration GSB Plan Enrollment Goal by 03.31.14

7,066,000


Percent of GSB Plan Enrollment Goal Achieved

0.3%



Percent of Enrollment Period Elapsed

9.3%





*This is a running estimate of the number of people enrolled in paid Obamacare plans calculated using enrollment statistics reported by governmental entities. It is not a measure of web hits, user registrations, applications started, applications completed or any other pre-enrollment parameter, does not include enrollments in jurisdictions which have not yet reported enrollment statistics (except confirmed registrations in states on the federal exchange) and does not count new Medicaid enrollees.












Federal Exchange (36 States)

GSB Plan Enrollment: Unknown (74 Confirmed)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 3,923,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: Unknown



While the Administration has not yet released aggregate enrollment data for the 36 states on the federal exchange, government officials (or industry officials representing all insurers participating in the exchange) have reported enrollment figures for the following states:
















California

GSB Plan Enrollment: Unknown. 16,311 Apps Completed (10.08.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 1,300,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: Unknown


Connecticut

GSB Plan Enrollment: 1,897 (10.15.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 33,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 5.7%


Colorado

GSB Plan Enrollment: 305 (10.07.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 92,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.3%


District of Columbia

GSB Plan Enrollment: 89* (10.07.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 43,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.2%

*Policies Sold


Hawaii

GSB Plan Enrollment: 0 (10.16.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 9,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.0%






Kentucky

GSB Plan Enrollment: 7,142* (10.16.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 220,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 3.2%

*Estimate based on 13,734 reported GSB plan + Medicaid enrollees and 48% Medicaid eligibility among uninsured.






Massachusetts

GSB Plan Enrollment: Unknown

Administration Enrollment Goal: 250,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: Unknown






Maryland

GSB Plan Enrollment: 807* (10.10.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 150,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.5%

*Estimate based on 1,121 reported GSB plan + Medicaid enrollees and 28% Medicaid eligibility among uninsured.






Minnesota

GSB Plan Enrollment: 1,300 (10.14.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 67,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 1.9%






Nevada

GSB Plan Enrollment: 806 (10.10.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 115,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.7%






New York

GSB Plan Enrollment: Unknown. 40,000 Apps Completed [10.08.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 218,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: Unknown






Oregon

GSB Plan Enrollment: 0 (10.14.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 237,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.0%






Rhode Island

GSB Plan Enrollment: 2,000 (10.14.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 12,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 16.7%




Vermont

GSB Plan Enrollment: 442* (10.15.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 57,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.8%

*Estimate based on 631reported GSB plan + Medicaid enrollees and 30% Medicaid eligibility among uninsured.








Washington

GSB Plan Enrollment: 3,000 (10.14.13)

Administration Enrollment Goal: 340,000

Percent of Goal Achieved: 0.9%
 
Obamacare Is Winning in Kentucky, Thanks to Steve Beshear

by Jonathan Miller Oct 17, 2013 5:45 AM EDT

Kentucky, a bastion of anti-government ire, is the top state for Obamacare enrollment. Jonathan Miller on the governor responsible for the unlikely red-state enthusiasm.


Politics in my old Kentucky home has, for centuries, been awash in irreconcilable contradictions.

We stuck with the Union in favor of our favorite son, Lincoln, but then joined in common cause with the Confederacy after the Civil War had ended. A century later, we boasted some of the nation’s most progressive civil rights laws; yet, to this date, we still feature many of America’s most segregated societies. And while Kentucky’s been one of the largest beneficiaries of the New Deal/Great Society welfare state, the dominant strain in our politics remains a fierce anti-government, anti-tax worldview.

Kentucky’s perplexing and hypocritical aversion to big government has been exploited brilliantly by our senior senator Mitch McConnell, who’s capitalized on our cultural resentment of elite interference to transform the Bluegrass State into a deep-red citadel in federal elections. More recently, our junior senator Rand Paul catapulted McConnell’s vision much further than Mitch intended, placing Kentucky in the crosshairs of the Tea Party revolution. But while these two political icons and their surrogates clash over the depth of government slashing, they’ve been steadfastly united behind one common vision: the defeat, and, more recently, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

It’s no coincidence then that Obamacare is beginning to expose the political fault line that divides the two Kentuckys. The GOP’s effective—and quite misleading—messaging plays into the anti-establishment populace’s greatest fears about out-of-control outside interference: the myth of a government-run-health-care system, engineered by a President with socialist tendencies (and whose skin pigmentation and exotic name frankly heighten popular anxiety in some of the nation’s least educated counties). And yet, when you wade through the propaganda and understand the law’s true impact, Kentucky needs the Affordable Care Act…desperately. It’s a state consistently ranked near the bottom of nearly every national health survey, where one out of every six citizens remains uninsured.

With our long-standing tradition of timid politicians fearful of incurring the wrath of the anti-government mobs, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see Kentucky join much of Red America and reject both Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to the working poor, as well as its option of establishing a state-run health benefit exchange to provide affordable health care to the remaining uninsured.

But in a delicious irony, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul’s home state may ultimately serve as the proving ground of Obamacare’s success. That’s due to the political chutzpah of one man: Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear.

Over the past several months, Beshear used his broad executive powers to bypass resistance from the GOP-controlled state Senate to ensure that the Commonwealth is the only Southern state that both expanded its Medicaid rolls and opened up a health benefit exchange, providing access to affordable health care to our more than 640,000 uninsured citizens. And while the federal launch of the program has been plagued with technical difficulties, Kentucky’s experience has been exemplary: In its first day, 10,766 applications for health coverage were initiated, 6,909 completed and 2,989 families were enrolled. Obama himself bragged that Kentucky led the nation with its glitch-minimized performance.

It would be hyperbolic to crown Steve Beshear as a profile in courage. The Governor’s second and final term expires in two years, and he’s made clear that this is his last political hurrah. However, Beshear is keenly interested in the political prospects of his son Andy—the betting favorite in the 2015 race for Attorney General—and he understands that even a tangential connection to the unpopular Obama carries a heavy political burden. Furthermore, the Governor isn’t quietly going about the business of administering the new law: Beshear has been gleefully poking the eye of the Tea Party beast — and its subservient U.S. Senators—and channeling Harry Truman in the national media circuit: In a recent New York Times op-ed, Beshear crowed: “[T]o those more worried about political power than Kentucky’s families, I say, ‘Get over it’…and get out of the way so I can help my people. Here in Kentucky, we cannot afford to waste another day or another life.”

The issue indeed is quite personal to the Governor. As he explained to me this week, “[These] are not political decisions. They are moral decisions…Taking these steps will mean that, for the first time, every single Kentuckian will have access to affordable health care. Over the next generation, this will change the course of Kentucky’s history.”

Some full disclosure: I ran against Beshear in the 2007 gubernatorial primary, dropped out and endorsed him; and then he punished me by appointing me as his Finance Secretary during the worst global financial calamity of our lifetime. But it was in the midst of that crisis that I was able to take true measure of the man. The Great Recession denied Beshear’s dream of enacting resource-intensive, transformative educational programs to lift the Commonwealth out of its competitive ditch, while his proposals to create new revenue were thwarted until very recently by the spread of MHV (the McConnell Hyperpartisanship Virus) from Washington to Frankfort.

So now, a Governor who has thus far failed to pass his signature policy initiative—to expand gaming at Kentucky race tracks in order to fund educational progress—has gone all-in on Obamacare. Bringing affordable health care to hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians could prove to be Beshear’s enduring legacy for the Bluegrass State.

Beshear’s moxie, moreover, could produce an even a broader political impact. Some wags have speculated that the Governor’s outspoken support of Obamacare could help McConnell politically, by weakening his 2014 Senate challenger, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who’s been careful to distance herself from the President and his health care law. Indeed, McConnell and Paul have pounced on Beshear’s advocacy, writing a rare joint op-ed entitled “Kentuckians Not Buying Obamacare.”

But they are buying Obamacare. Literally. And many, many more will, as uninsured Kentuckians learn more about their benefits during the program’s grassroots educational rollout, and as popular disgust grows with the shutdown and default tactics of Obamacare’s most vocal critics. So by the time of next November’s general election, McConnell’s most potent rhetorical weapon—an assault on Obamacare—may have lost much of its firepower.

Even more significantly, Beshear’s example could potentially shake up national politics, by paving a new, economically populist path for more red state politicians—particularly those who represent economically disadvantaged areas where the federal safety net serves as an integral thread in society’s fabric. Social wedge issues will always present a problem for progressives in places like Kentucky. But Steve Beshear’s healthy recipe might prove the elixir for the hype-fueled Tea Party brew that’s convinced many poor, rural Americans to vote against their own economic interests.

So in the end, the GOP’s successful messaging efforts to rebrand the Affordable Care Act as “Obamacare”—and stand unanimously for its defeat and then repeal—could provide an opening for Democrats to win elections in areas that have been solidly red for decades. And with Steve Beshear’s help, the monster that Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul helped to create might ultimately turn on its masters.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/17/obamacare-is-winning-in-kentucky-thanks-to-steve-beshear.html
 
Breaking Bad in Australia

Chemistry teacher gets cancer
Goes to hospital and is cured for free under medicare
goes back to teaching
 
White House Email: Hey, Look, Five People Have Signed Up for Obamacare!




By five, I mean, literally, five. Here’s an image from today’s email from the White House.

five-obamacare



http://cdn.pjmedia.com/tatler/files/2013/10/five-obamacare.jpg


From a communications perspective, this is a pretty stupid email. Everyone who has been paying attention knows that Healthcare.gov is a gigantic mess, and most people who have logged onto it have not been able to buy insurance through it. Everyone also knows that the White House and HHS have been hiding the ball on Obamacare’s enrollment numbers from the beginning. How may have enrolled? That’s for them to not really know and for you certainly not to find out.

So, in effect, the first hard number that the White House releases is five.

One of the five highlights another idiotic aspect of Obamacare.

five-obamacare2



It covers all sorts of stuff! If you can afford it.

Psst — nobody tell Daniel that Obamacare forces him to pay for services that he, as a man, could never possibly use! Unless he wants to get himself on the pill, anyway. Does the bronze plan cover sex changes?

The fact is, Daniel and all other Americans have been forced into the health insurance high-risk pool regardless of their age or health status. As a young man, Daniel is either getting subsidized through someone else’s policy and taxes, or he is subsidizing others by paying his own way. And the even better news is, Daniel now has to buy this insurance or face off against the IRS.

Awesome!
 
Six Stories of Obamacare Already Making a Difference

Families, small business owners and more who are finally getting health care thanks to the Affordable Care Act

By ROBIN MARTY

October 16, 2013 4:55 PM ET

Obamacare is a disaster! It's the worst thing to happen to the country since slavery! It will rape the future of our young people! It will cause wives to leave husbands and husbands to marry their dogs! OK, I made up the dog part – but all the others are, sadly, 100 percent real statements made by right-wing extremists in the last few weeks.

But despite the hand-wringing and rumor-mongering, and despite some gleefully reported website glitches, around 45,000 people across the country have already enrolled in the insurance program set up by the Affordable Care Act, with almost two months left until the December 15th deadline to be covered starting in January. (Open enrollment for this first year will be available even later, through March 15th.)

For those who have enrolled, many of whom were previously uninsured or were hit with massive co-pays, Obamacare is a total success. Here are just a few of their stories:

Phil Sherburne and Leia Bell
This Utah family will pay just $123 a month to cover their family of five, despite a shoulder issue that had left Sherburne unable to get insurance before the Affordable Care Act went into effect. According to Sherburne (who is also a small business owner), the multiple efforts it took to get onto the federal exchange website were well worth it. "It's a great deal. I'm thrilled to have coverage, period," he said to the Salt Lake Tribune. "Once I got onto the site it took about an hour, start to finish."

Kendall Brown
This Oklahoma City resident, who suffers from Crohn's Disease, has already benefited once from the Affordable Care Act, which allowed her to stay on her parents' health insurance through age 26. After that, she was unable to find affordable insurance – forcing her to forgo treatment because she couldn't afford the out-of-pocket expenses. She has now been able to enroll in the exchange, despite the pre-existing condition that previously caused her to be denied by every insurance company. In an open letter to Congress, Brown wrote, "f you defund Obamacare, or delay it even for one year, as you are debating today, then this will be my last letter to you. I will be dead before my 27th birthday."

Rakesh Rikhi
For Rikhi, who owns a Bay Area auto-repair shop, the $500 a month that he is saving when it comes to covering his family through the state exchange will mean more money to invest in his small business. Even better, that investment will likely assist his employees in purchasing their own health insurance. "Now that he knows his potential saving, Rikhi says he can't wait to sign up and looks forward to feeling relief from the financial pain of skyrocketing insurance costs," reports the local NBC affiliate.

Butch Matthews
If Rikhi's savings sound good, then Matthews' return must be twice as impressive. The self-avowed Arkansas Republican and retiree admits he became an Obamacare convert after learning he will save $13,000 a year under a new plan that has no monthly premiums. "I would tell [people badmouthing Obamacare] to learn more about it before they start talking bad about it," he told ThinkProgress. "Be more informed, get more information, take your time and study and not just go by just what you hear on one side or the other. Actually check the facts on it."

Andrew Stryker
A Los Angeles freelancer who has been on COBRA health insurance so he won't have any gap in coverage, Stryker expects his monthly premiums to dip to $300 a month from the current $600. "Obviously three hours is a long time to wait, but it will save me over $6,000," he told Sarah Kliff at The Washington Post. "For that, I would have waited all day."

Katie Klabusich
Klabusich, a self-employed writer and activist, says she had been plagued by a chronic sinus infection that she was unable to treat due to her previous insurance plan. "There were periods in my 20's where my health insurance cost more than my rent," she wrote in a blog post, where she went on to praise her new, low monthly premium under the low-deductible health care plan she purchased on the New York state exchange, which will allow her to finally treat a myriad of medical issues she'd mostly tried to ignore. "IN TEN WEEKS . . . I get to see a doctor and start whatever course of treatment is the best option, not the one I can attempt to afford. That is my new reality. Thank you, ACA," Klabusich wrote.

These people, some with bigger reasons to be thankful than others, join many others who are celebrating finally becoming insured after being turned down for having cancer, arthritis, endometriosis, blindness, amputation or other devastating illnesses for which having affordable health care isn't just a convenience, but a matter of survival.

In fact, there are large numbers of people that will benefit from Obamacare, from those with increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer who will now get plans that make it mandatory to allow preventive genetic testing, to working-class and middle-class adults and children who will now be covered under an expansion of Medicaid, providing even more uninsured with a new chance to finally get coverage. To the program's defenders, it's clear that these successes should more than outweigh a few frozen screens during the application process.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...dy-making-a-difference-20131016#ixzz2i6gO7Z4y
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
 
Just wait until you see your new premiums, dumb ass! All up, with some exceptions including New York, but the rest of the country suffers....
 
Just wait until you see your new premiums, dumb ass! All up, with some exceptions including New York, but the rest of the country suffers....

18 days of the initial roll out and you're an expert already?
Step away from the GOP and TeaOP websites and tv for a moment and let a month go by before parroting.
 
And if it doesn't?

B-co will hope you don't remember what he says.

He's long prophesized dooooooom 'n glooooooooooom.

Let's just say his pronogistication powers are slightly below the gold standard of Nostradumbass himself, Vetteman (McCain wins a landslide in 2008!)
 
Gallup: Number of Americans Who Will Refuse To Join Obamacare And Instead Pay Individual Mandate Fine Jumps To 34%, Up 9 Points Since Last Month…




No doubt a reaction to the train wreck rollout.


PRINCETON, NJ — Although federal and state health insurance exchanges opened on Oct. 1, 71% of Americans who lack health insurance — the primary target group for the exchanges — say they are “not too familiar” or “not familiar at all” with them, little changed from last month. At the same time, 28% of uninsured Americans say they are very or somewhat familiar with the exchanges, up slightly from 25% last month.

… A key to making the Affordable Care Act work as designed is for all Americans to carry health insurance. To ensure this happens, the law stipulates that Americans are subject to fines if they do not have health insurance. When Gallup reminds uninsured Americans of this requirement and asks what they are most likely to do, 56% say they plan to get insurance, while 34% say they are more likely to pay the fine.

In September, Gallup found a slightly larger margin in favor of getting insurance than is the case now, 65% to 25%.
 
Former Obama Official Warns Americans Opposed To Obamacare: “Back Off”…




Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.

Via Newsbusters:


It was enough to make a conservative yearn for the good old Bush-era days of “Dissent Is Patriotic” . . .

For there on Morning Joe today was former Obama official Melody Barnes, warning Americans to “back off” their Reagan-inspired opposition to big government in general and Obamacare in particular. Instead, instructed Barnes, Americans should focus on making Obamacare work.
 

Do you really think, the federal government, our government, can do this without going over budget? You really think that? That workers on the federal level, while spending endless tax payer money, give a rat's ass how much they spend or how far over budget they are on varoius projects? The fact that their website cost, $600 million (or whatever the real number is, I doubt anyone really knows) puts it all into perspective.
 
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