Posted on 10/18/2013 8:25:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
I can't believe I'm writing this sentence, but Obamacare's exchanges appear to somehow be more deeply corrupted and broken than previously known. If there were words more impactful than "meltdown" and "trainwreck," I'd use them. Instead, I'll simply present the facts as they continue to come to light. USA Today:
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....Recent changes have made the exchanges easier to use, but they still require clearing the computer's cache several times, stopping a pop-up blocker, talking to people via Web chat who suggest waiting until the server is not busy, opening links in new windows and clicking on every available possibility on a page in the hopes of not receiving an error message. With those changes, it took one hour to navigate the HealthCare.gov enrollment process Wednesday. Those steps shouldn't be necessary, experts said..."The application could be fundamentally flawed," said Jeff Kim, president of CDNetworks, a content-delivery network. "They may be using 1990s technology in 2.0 world." Outsiders acknowledged they can't see the whole system, but they said they feared HHS built a system that will need an expensive overhaul that would cause more headaches for people trying to buy insurance.
The problems are so deeply entrenched that the federal exchanges' week-two enrollments do not appear to have improved at all over the first week's feeble stats. Expert Bob Laszewski:
There was no progress for the new federal health insurance exchange's information technology and enrollment challenges in its second week. At the end of week two of the Obamacare launch, health plans were generally seeing no more enrollments per day then they saw in the first week. As troubling, the backroom issues plaguing the connection between health insurers and the federal government had not been resolved and there is no indication from the feds when they will have these things cleared up. My sense is that the feds, based upon the number of enrollments they have sent to the insurance companies, enrolled about 10,000 people in the first week (about 5,000 single and family contracts) and another 10,000 people in the second week in the 36 states using the federal exchange...Most states running their own exchanges aren't doing a whole lot better.
One of those states is Maryland. I noted at Hot Air this week that Maryland's strongly pro-Obamacare governor was forced to admit that his state's exchange likely won't be functioning for at least another 4-6 weeks. Mary Katharine Ham followed up on this point, explaining why Maryland's big whiff should be profoundly worrying to the Obama administration:
This is the state that’s a perennial leader in the number of health care mandates it places on businesses and consumers, and has the army of health regulatory bodies to match. Even when the administration delayed important rules to prevent them becoming election fodder, Maryland forged ahead without. Formed by state legislation in early 2011, the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Board met at least once a month starting in June 2011 to plan the build. The board, ironically, has a thorough and functioning website of its own. A calendar of events lists more than 200 meetings of exchange officials, working, business, and community groups about the exchanges over the last two years...Jonathan Cohn, a health care reporter at The New Republic and an Obamacare supporter, declared in 2011, “none are moving as quickly, or effectively, to follow through on the law as Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.” ... If there was ever a state that was, in good faith, trying hard to get an exchange operational, Maryland was it. And, yet, Maryland produced a disaster that may not be fixed in time to prevent the “death spiral.”
Be sure to read the entire piece for bonus comments from both Obama and O'Malley, prematurely congratulating themselves on Obamacare -- which they've argued is a testament to the virtues of expansive government. Oops. Meanwhile, the "death spiral" concept is really important to this entire discussion. Megan McArdle explains it well in her indispensable Bloomberg piece, but the idea is straightforward: Because the exchanges are so dysfunctional, only the most motivated consumers are likely to tough it out and work really hard to enroll. These people, for obvious reasons, tend to be sicker, older folks with pre-existing conditions. So if they flood into the market --while young and healthy people do not (thus off-setting the others) -- insurance companies will have no choice but to jack up rates on everyone to compensate for their new, unusually costly, enrollees. This, in turn, will drive younger, healthier consumers to exit the market, making the problem worse. Unless Obamacare gets its act together very soon, and manages to get millions of "young invincibles" to voluntarily overpay for coverage (rather than pay the cheap penalty tax), the entire insurance market breaks down. As Laszewski's analysis demonstrates, the sign-up rate is pathetically low -- so much so that HHS is now denying that they ever had monthly enrollment goals in the first place. Yuval Levin, a conservative healthcare wonk, has written a lengthy and important piece at National Review, based on numerous discussions with Obamacare and insurance officials. Behind the scenes, chaos and "restrained panic" reigns:
If the problems now plaguing the system are not resolved by mid-November and the flow of enrollments at that point looks like it does now, the prospects for the first year of the exchanges will be in very grave jeopardy. Some large advertising and outreach campaigns are also geared to that crucial six-week period around Thanksgiving and Christmas, so if the sites are not functional, all of that might not happen—or else might be wasted. If that’s what the late fall looks like, the administration might need to consider what one of the people I spoke with described as “unthinkable options” regarding the first year of the exchanges...The tone of the CMS officials who spoke with me was a kind of restrained panic. Among the insurance company officials (who, I should stress again, work in the Washington offices of some large insurers, and so are basically policy people and lobbyists), there was much less restraint. The insurers are very, very worried about the viability of the exchange system..And they believe, as the CMS officials I spoke with do, that all of these problems will not be addressed immediately. No one wants to say how long it might take, and no one would share with me what estimates they might be getting from their contractors (whom they no longer trust anyway), but there has so far been relatively little progress and it seems like everyone involved is preparing for a process that will take months, not weeks.
Levin's sources (all Obamacare supporters, by the way) say that, paradoxically, the tiny trickle of enrollees is actually something of a blessing in disguise. Why? The back-end connectivity issues are so terrible, that an avalanche of "successful" sign-ups could cripple that part of the system. "Trainwreck" doesn't even suffice. And all this, despite three-and-a-half years of lead time (most of which the administration frittered away for political reasons), and a mammoth tech budget -- which tripled, and still resulted in failure. How the hell is Kathleen Sebelius' job secure? Finally, on the subject of rank political concerns, a new Politico report is as jaw-dropping as anything else mentioned in this post:
Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts.
Having already punted reams of key regulations past the election -- making the timeline for a relatively seamless launch all but impossible -- the administration decided against seeking certain outside expert assistance to develop Obamacare's exchanges because...they were afraid that Republicans might find out how badly things were going. So they kept it all in-house, hush-hush, beyond the reach of GOP investigators, and, you know, the public -- a large portion of which would be relying on these sites for their healthcare. Allahpundit encapsulates things well: "Between this and the fact that HHS deliberately hid the price of insurance behind a reg wall on Healthcare.gov to reduce 'rate shock,' the grand takeaway about the website’s failure is that O and his team made it much worse than it needed to be because they were terrified of transparency. And the reason they were terrified of transparency...is because they know they’ve delivered a bad product." This crosses the line from gross, mind-blowing incompetence to corrupt, myopic malpractice. I'll leave you with Alan Colmes (!) calling for a one-year delay of the whole enchillada. Bear in mind that this segment aired before any of the above information became public:
Alan Colmes: The Implementation of Obamacare has been Terrible ... Have a Delay on It
Sure, they've royally screwed up the entire website beyond all comprehension via a combination of ineptitude, arrogance and corruption -- but the program itself will be great! Good luck with that argument. Tick tock, Mr. President. Were Republicans right about delaying the big government mess you've created? Or are you going to forge ahead to save face, harming millions of people in the process?
cause gubbermint hacks know just as much about IT as they do about health care...
Good summary but please don’t use impactful.
CGI Technologies & Solutions Contributions to Federal Candidates 2012
House
Total to Democrats: $32,000
Total to Republicans: $48,000
Recipient Total
Bachus, Spencer (R-AL) $2,000
Barber, Ron (D-AZ) $2,000
Biggert, Judy (R-IL) $1,000
Brooks, Mo (R-AL) $2,000
Carter, John (R-TX) $1,000
Chandler, Ben (D-KY) $1,000
Clyburn, James E (D-SC) $3,500
Cole, Tom (R-OK) $5,000
Conaway, Mike (R-TX) $1,000
Connolly, Gerry (D-VA) $6,000
Cummings, Elijah E (D-MD) $3,000
Ducheny, Denise Moreno (D-CA) $5,000
Emerson, Jo Ann (R-MO) $1,000
Giffords, Gabrielle (D-AZ) $1,000
Granger, Kay (R-TX) $3,000
Griffith, Morgan (R-VA) $1,000
Hunter, Duncan D (R-CA) $1,000
Issa, Darrell (R-CA) $2,000
King, Pete (R-NY) $1,000
Lungren, Dan (R-CA) $1,000
Matsui, Doris O (D-CA) $1,000
McCaul, Michael (R-TX) $1,000
McKeon, Buck (R-CA) $1,000
Moran, Jim (D-VA) $5,500
Pallone, Frank Jr (D-NJ) $1,000
Pitts, Joe (R-PA) $1,000
Roby, Martha (R-AL) $2,000
Rogers, Hal (R-KY) $2,000
Rogers, Mike (R-MI) $1,000
Rogers, Mike D (R-AL) $1,000
Ruppersberger, Dutch (D-MD) $1,000
Schweikert, David (R-AZ) $3,000
Scott, Tim (R-SC) $2,000
Shimkus, John M (R-IL) $1,000
Smith, Adam (D-WA) $1,000
Stark, Pete (D-CA) $1,000
Turner, Michael R (R-OH) $1,000
Wilson, Joe (R-SC) $1,000
Wittman, Rob (R-VA) $1,000
Wolf, Frank R (R-VA) $6,000
Yoder, Kevin (R-KS) $2,000
Senate
Total to Democrats: $29,500
Total to Republicans: $19,000
Recipient Total
Allen, George (R-VA) $2,500
Baucus, Max (D-MT) $1,000
Brown, Scott (R-MA) $1,000
Brown, Sherrod (D-OH) $2,000
Cardin, Ben (D-MD) $1,000
Carmona, Richard (D-AZ) $1,000
Carper, Tom (D-DE) $5,500
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) $1,000
Collins, Susan M (R-ME) $3,000
DeMint, Jim (R-SC) $1,000
Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA) $1,000
Flake, Jeff (R-AZ) $1,000
Gillibrand, Kirsten (D-NY) $1,000
Graham, Lindsey (R-SC) $2,000
Hagan, Kay R (D-NC) $1,000
Harkin, Tom (D-IA) $1,000
Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT) $1,000
Inhofe, James M (R-OK) $4,500
Johnson, Tim (D-SD) $1,000
Kaine, Tim (D-VA) $2,500
McCaskill, Claire (D-MO) $1,000
Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) $1,000
Portman, Rob (R-OH) $1,000
Pryor, Mark (D-AR) $4,000
Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH) $1,000
Warner, Mark (D-VA) $2,500
Webb, James (D-VA) $2,000
Wicker, Roger (R-MS) $1,000
Based on data released by the FEC on March 25, 2013.
PACS
CGI Technologies & Solutions Expenditures 2012
Top Vendors/Recipients
Rank Vendor/Recipient Total Expenditures
1 Republican Governors Assn $22,500
2 Democratic Governors Assn $20,000
3 Kasich for Ohio $11,544
4 Together PAC $10,000
5 Texans For Joe Straus $6,000
5 Gerry Connolly for Congress $6,000
5 Friends for Frank Wolf $6,000
8 Moran For Congress $5,500
8 Carper For Senate $5,500
10 Friends Of Bill Bolling $5,000
10 Republican Party Of Louisiana $5,000
10 Denise Moreno Ducheny For Congress $5,000
10 Forward Together PAC $5,000
10 Defend America PAC $5,000
10 A Better Missouri With Governor Jay Nixon $5,000
10 Democratic State Central Cmte/California $5,000
10 Cole For Congress $5,000
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out that the ten year old technology in the federal system wasn’t spec’d that way by the federal government.
Hopefully the paper punch cards the program is written on are kept in a safe place.
I will be, drinking hard liqueur and smoking cigarettes is more healthy than going on a Obamacare heath plan.
And there is already charges that they used copyrighted code without permission.
In other words, they didn’t know how to write something, so they used someone else’s they downloaded illegally
Windows NT?......................
Now is the time for Republicans to strike.
IMMIGRATION IS OFF THE TABLE UNTIL AFTER THE 2016 ELECTION.
OBAMACARE IS NUMBER 1 PRIORITY.
Visual BASIC.................
Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts."
BUMP
It’ll be even worse once it is fixed. It was designed to destroy our present insurance and medical system and then collapse. Due to the incompetence of Obama and his people, it is collapsing early.
FAIL 2.0
Gembase and Microfocus Cobol
Yeah, but where did the money go? We figured we would get crap because that is what you get from progressives. But who got the money?
Laugh, if you will. It is a trojan horse, functioning exactly as intended. It is the reason a brave few on Capital Hill risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to stop it.
Inside knowledge. They would not allow insurance companies to even have hard copy of specs. Doomed to failure.
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