A Chaos-Driven Path to Single Payer? Strong indications have emerged that this may be the plan.

Pajamas Media ^ | 01/08/2014 | Tom Blumer

[SeekAndFind]

Those who have resisted the idea that the HealthCare.gov web site and Obamacare in general may have been intentionally designed to create confusion and chaos ^[1] as a means for imposing a single-payer healthcare system on a currently unwilling populace are going to have a tough time explaining away yet another recently discovered “quirk.”

To be clear, I’m not claiming, as some have inferred from previous columns, that there is a widely orchestrated chaos-creation plan, or that any attempt to capitalize on the current bedlam to impose single-payer is destined to succeed. What I am saying is that the evidence supporting the idea that certain of Obamacare’s key players are determined to try continues to mount.

The latest “nobody’s this stupid and incompetent ^[2]” revelation is that Obamacare’s enrollment system ^[3] “lacks a way for consumers to quickly and easily update their coverage for the birth of a baby and other common life changes.”

Press reports indicate that it’s literally impossible to add a new child to an existing health plan once a person or household has enrolled. That’s not all. HealthCare.gov also cannot handle “marriage and divorce, a death in the family, a new job or a change in income, (or) even moving to a different community.”

No one should try to verify the existence of these problems on their own. That’s because the web site is such a security nightmare that outside IT experts have publicly stated that it’s too dangerous ^[4] for a user concerned about the privacy of their personal data (i.e., anyone with a brain) to use. As if that’s not enough, in late September ^[5], the chief information security officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “told congressional interviewers that she explicitly recommended denial of the website’s Authority to Operate.” She “was overruled by her superiors.”

As red flags for true intentions go, Obamacare’s inability to accommodate common life changes is an even stronger indicator than the failures previously identified.

As to security, I suppose it’s possible for designers to be so ignorant that they believe it’s something they can layer in later instead of following currently accepted protocols which call for baking it in ^[6] from the outset. As to the lack of progress ^[7] in building a system to process billions of dollars in subsidy payments to insurers, it’s theoretically but barely conceivable that the administration is telling the truth when it insists, in essence, that “we just haven’t been able to get to that.”

But HealthCare.gov’s life changes bust takes things to a whole new level. Has anyone, anywhere, ever built an interactive database which is unable to interact, i.e., to handle fundamental changes in key information once it has been entered? Who would even think of doing this? It’s overwhelmingly likely that a programming team would have to deliberately decide to exclude the ability to carry out such basic functions during the initial design process.
There is already a precedent showing that Obama’s people are not averse to removing key features from a system’s normal design. In 2008, his presidential campaign deliberately chose to ^[8] “manually disable the safeguards … in place to verify a person’s address and zip code with the cardholder’s bank.” This enabled unidentifed and unidentifiable small-dollar contributions from all over the world to pour into the campaign, likely to the tune of millions of dollars. From all appearances, as the press slept, the 2012 campaign did the same thing ^[9].

As the mountain of evidence supporting deliberately induced chaos piles up, the obvious question is: What’s their end game? I wish I knew, but what follows seems plausible.

Readers who follow the British press may have caught ^[10] the news that patients have been turned away from emergency rooms in Northern Virginia, while others who arrived for treatment of possibly serious medical conditions chose to walk away when presented with a requirement to pay or promise to pay several thousand dollars out of pocket because of uncertainties about the status of their coverage. (Unfortunately most of the U.S. establishment press appears to be so intimidated by this administration that it won’t dare relay such important developments.)

It’s reasonable to believe that situations such as these are occurring throughout the nation. The only question is their frequency.

It won’t be long before a few patients who have tried and failed to get treatment die or suffer serious, debilitating complications. Who will get blamed when this happens?

In cases where the unresponsive government is at fault — which I believe will be most of them — bureaucrats will bury or destroy the damning details and count on their reliable press apparatchiks and captive hospitals, other medical providers, and insurance companies to look the other way.

I suspect that the administration is lying in wait for high-visibility opportunities to pounce on any providers who fail to provide care to duly enrolled patients, and to pillory insurers who erroneously refuse to pay for customers’ life-saving treatments. Particularly tragic circumstances would give the single-payer crowd openings to say, “See? They can’t be trusted. Keeping the private sector involved was a mistake. The government has to control healthcare, or it won’t work.”

A large portion of a populace conditioned by a half-century or more of “business is evil, government is good” in the education system might buy it.

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Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/single-payer-chaos/

URLs in this post:

[1] to create confusion and chaos: http://pjmedia.com/blog/obamacare-chaos-strategy/

[2] nobody’s this stupid and incompetent: http://pjmedia.com/blog/nobodys-this-stupid-and-incompetent/

[3] Obamacare’s enrollment system: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2014/01/03/ap-healthcaregov-cant-handle-any-common-life-changes-running-fairly-smoo

[4] it’s too dangerous: http://freebeacon.com/expert-healthcare-gov-security-risks-even-worse-after-fix/

[5] in late September: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/12/21/ap-nyt-and-politico-ignore-healthcaregov-serious-high-risk-findings-secu

[6] which call for baking it in: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101225308

[7] the lack of progress: http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/364342/administration-official-obamacare-payment-systems-still-need-be-built-jim

[8] deliberately chose to: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-obama-campaigns-credit-card-crack-up/?singlepage=true

[9] did the same thing: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/04/02/top-obama-bundler-accused-of-fraud-obama-campaign-disables-credit-card-verification-system-again/

[10] may have caught: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532869/They-no-idea-insurance-active-not-At-Virginia-hospitals-Obamacare-confusion-reigns-frustrated-patients-walk-out.html

[Blood of Tyrants]

Unfortunately, the rest of us have to pay, also.

[Responsibility2nd]

((((Resist. At all costs, resist.)))))

I was in converstation with a FReeper the other day who had signed up for FUBOCare. We were on that thread about that Virginia hopsital that was sending away patients from the ER who “might” have FUBOCare, but because the FUBOCare could not be verified; they were denied treatment.

He was optimistic that his provider and his coverage would be fine with no glitches.

It was all I could do to be nice to him and not wish he would get FUBO’d. Was he just naive, or just nutz?

Time will tell.

[KarlInOhio]

I don't think the website failure was part of the overall plan. The website was just a typical "give the overpriced, no-bid contract to friends" government action. The fiscal unsustainability was supposed to drive every insurance company out of the medical insurance business over the next few years leaving government control as the "only" solution, with the final debate being between a 100% solution like Canada or a 95% one like the UK where it is still legal to get treatment outside of the NHS.

If they were competent, the website would have been like the witch's gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel - beautiful, tasty and just tempting you to come in and get shoved into the oven of socialized medicine. But fortunately they (#$%*(#( that up, warning the country that the whole program was bad.

[Lou L]

It won’t be long before a few patients who have tried and failed to get treatment die or suffer serious, debilitating complications. Who will get blamed when this happens?

If it's never really reported, does a patient really die?

Obituaries will unfortunately never say, "cause of death: Obamacare!"

[Rich21IE]

No doubt in my mind that Single Payer will be the next step and it will doubtless be ushered in by Hilary sometime after her instalation in 2016.

[Cyber Liberty]

Particularly tragic circumstances would give the single-payer crowd openings to say, “See? They can’t be trusted. Keeping the private sector involved was a mistake. The government has to control healthcare, or it won’t work.”

Well Duh. The Regressives have been saying this for decades.

[The Great RJ]

The policy cancellations, raising prices for insurance and inflated deductibles will all be blamed on those dirty greedy insurance companies and the only way to save healthcare is to kill off private health insurance and let the benevolent government run it. Whether this was the intention of Obamcare or not this will be the solution offered when Obamacare collapses in 2014.

However I think at least some of the American people have figured out that all the trouble with Obamcare is that it was based on total lies with the President himself blatantly and knowingly lying to the American people about keeping their policies and doctors. The ignorant and the press will buy the government will fix things story, but I think that most people now understand that Obama is a liar and cannot be trusted about anything related to health insurance.

[JimRed]

Is it 1776 yet?

[DaveA37]

My guess is that a single payer system has been the target all along. With the complete failure and train wreck termed “odumbocare”, its just about time to pull the lever and switch over. Something like a “bait and switch” plan.

[Fledermaus]

Rush and Levin have been saying this for years.

It “should” backfire after all the government bungling and money wasting in that people will laugh at the idea of the government in total charge of the system.

But I forget we live with morons.

[21twelve]

Should have just gone with Hillary Care in the first place. Timing should be about right for obamacare to go under the bus and Hillary to rescue us.