Sebelius Apologizes for Health Site’s Malfunctions

New York Times ^ | October 30, 2013 | ROBERT PEAR

[lbryce]

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, apologized Wednesday for the frustration that millions of Americans have experienced while trying to shop for insurance on the HealthCare.gov website, even as she defended the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama’s health care law and tried to explain the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of individual insurance policies.

Ms. Sebelius, fighting for her political life at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said she was “as frustrated and angry as anyone with the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov.”

Ms. Sebelius said she was ultimately responsible for “this debacle,” including the website’s problems. But she said that a government contractor, Verizon’s Terremark unit, was responsible for outages that disrupted the website on Sunday and again on Tuesday.

Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the committee, said: “Over the months leading up to the Oct. 1 launch, the secretary and her colleagues repeatedly looked us in the eye and testified that everything was on track. Despite the numerous red flags and lack of testing, they assured us that all systems were a go. But something happened along the way. Either those officials did not know how bad the situation was, or they did not disclose it.”

Moreover, Mr. Upton said: “There are millions of Americans coast to coast who no doubt believed the president’s repeated promise that if they liked their plan, they’d be able to keep it. They are now receiving termination notices.”

[TigersEye]

Ms. Sebelius said she was ultimately responsible for “this debacle,” including the website’s problems. But she said that a government contractor, Verizon’s Terremark unit, was responsible for outages that disrupted the website on Sunday and again on Tuesday.

"I take responsibility but I'm blaming someone else." - Kathleen Sebiquious

Typical liberal idea of accountability.

[Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America]

The '0bama ladies' use their 'protected class' as a shield just like their boss does. Why was Susan Rice sent out to lie on television about Benghazi? Because she's BLACK and FEMALE! She's got the two-fer 'protected class' shields, making it impossible to hold her accountable, just like her boss.

Accountability will NEVER return to DC unless and until people ACCEPT being called 'racist, sexist, homophobic, etc' and MARCH FORWARD ANYWAY. This is about saving America, damn it!

[SpaceBar]

She came across more like “Little Miss Not-So-Bright”.

Hannity played a soundbite of her testimony, and I heard her say "subsidiary", and I'd swear she was drunk.

[GOPJ]

OK, it cost a half BILLION dollars... but she said she was sorry... bygones are bygones, right? /s

[xzins]

The dirty little secret that Fox and others are not revealing is that THIS is the reason they did not want the individual mandate and the business mandate to hit at the same time. They wanted this one a year before the election, and the wanted the other to be 2 years before the 16 presidential.

Why?

Because they do THE SAME THING.

The individual mandate requires individuals to get AN APPROVED PLAN. (You can’t keep your plan, no matter what it says.)

The Business mandate does virtually the same. Only APPROVED PLANS are acceptable. Any plan that doesn’t meet the government standard will be disapproved or penalized. That is why Hobby Lobby and others are fighting. They don’t want that approved plan because it must have in it abortion and contraceptive coverage. I think they were told their penalty for non-compliance would be millions a day, iirc.

Many more millions than with the individual will have their medical insurance turned upside down, ripped away from them, and/or seriously increased in price. If you’re not fined, but have to increase your costs a huge amount, don’t you pass that on to the employee? Or to the customer? Many firms will simply not hire at all. Any employee receiving a subsidy will cause the firm to be fined. It’s just a tangled, chaotic mess.

That’s the truth. It’s in the law.

This is not being addressed by the media, including Fox. They truly believe they just have a “ventilation” time for people to bytch and moan, and then folks will forget about it. Then they’ll do it again after next year’s mid-terms. The employer mandate will be effective 1 Jan 2015, nearly 2 years before the presidential election.

[wmfights]

The Business mandate does virtually the same. Only APPROVED PLANS are acceptable. Any plan that doesn’t meet the government standard will be disapproved or penalized.

I had dinner last week with an executive from a property management company. We talked about obamacare and she explained that what they will be doing is dropping all health insurance coverage for employees and will give them a bonus that is equal to what they pay per person now minus the cost of the penalty they will be forced to pay because they employ more than 50 employees.

I have heard other executives express the same thing. As obamacare moves forward the days of employer provided healthcare are going to end. Business people don't have time for all the regulations and bureaucracy.

Xzins, you are absolutely right. They know darn well what's going to happen and that's why they only started with the smallest part of the market (individual plans).