traderdave wrote:Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.
Look, I voted for Obama twice (I also voted for Christie twice) but it is hard to get past the idea that ACA became law in March 2010. That means they had 3.5 years to get the website right and they still screwed it up badly. Surely you can understand how the shine on Obama's new Maserati might be dulled a bit by the fact that it can't get above 15 mph.
It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance. John Boehner is 100% wrong when he says that the website problems are a symbol of the failure of the ACA; the website is not the law, it is merely a conduit for implementing the law. You don't scrap the Maserati because it has a flat tire; you fix the flat and continue down the highway - hopefully at speed exceeding 15 mph.
Um, yes?
I can see why they are having political problems with it. But much of the problems are also made up or exaggerated.
And I'm sure you understand that the GOP has done everything they can to disable and destroy the law (it's a law, but they seem to not care about that fact). It's difficult to implement any law, let alone a complex one like this, when half the government is trying to make it fail. And when I say "try", I mean they have blatantly and publicly tried to scuttle the law. Web designers weren't even allowed to start working on the website until a short time before the launch. I DO believe Obama shares some of the blame, if for no other reason than he didn't do enough to try to sell the law and push back against the insanity. I honestly don't know enough about Sebelius' role in the problems to comment too much. Is it normal for the secretary of a department to be responsible for implementing all aspects of a law influencing that department? I honestly don't know how the nuts and bolts of a legislation's implementation works.
maybe I'm alone, but I think this is mostly an issue of optics. Sell the law better and the GOP couldn't have done what they did. Sell the law better and more people would understand there are multiple means to sign up even if the website is down. Sell the law better and people wouldn't be afraid of big gov coming to take their crappy insurance plans.
