FM75, on 2013-November-08, 21:56, said:
No "The buck stops here." from Obama. You probably won't hear him admit that he lied, either.
From Bloomberg News:
"Yet, administration officials knew by June 2010 that as many as 10 million people with individual insurance probably would be thrown off existing plans. The cancellations are a result of provisions in the act, which Obama signed into law in March 2010, that say policies that fail to offer benefits such as prescription drug coverage and free preventive care can't be sold after this year even if they're [sic] cheaper."
No "My bad", 3 months after signing the bill, or for that matter 3 years later.
Also from Bloomberg:
"Obama's pledge that individuals would be able to keep their coverage and their doctors was a central selling point of his health-care overhaul, aimed at calming consumers concerned that they would be forced to give up policies and doctors they liked as the program expanded coverage to many of the nation's 48 million uninsured."
The administration had set a target of 800,000 Obamacare enrollments for the first two months. Speaking to a Senate panel on Nov. 6, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the initial enrollment for the first month of the program, which will be announced by the administration next week, will be "very low," though she declined to provide specific figures.
OK - Let's do the math.
First let's assume that they could meet their target of 800,000 for first 2 months. That is 400,000 / month. So the 10 million that they knew they had lied about would take 25 months to get through the system. So Jan 2016 - I guess on average half of them will get one full year of tax penalties in addition to losing their coverage.
Now let's do the math on the 48 million. At 400,000 per month, it will only take 10 YEARS to get them signed up.
Give me a break. Everybody who voted/signed this into law should go back to grade school.
Your conclusion is a non sequitur - how would a return to grade school by voters and the president alter the facts you present? What is your gripe? Do you believe that people who work in low-paying industries that do not provide healthcare should not have health insurance? Do you think that allowing young and healthy citizens to bypass health insurance, thereby creating a pool of unhealthier and more costly candidates, is the proper model for risk taking of healthcare insurance? Do you think health insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage for pre-exisiting health conditions?
What you are griping about is the implementation of the law. If you have a gripe about the law, you should post facts that support that claim. I think everyone will agree that the implementation has been a fiasco - but I and millions more are unwilling to lay that turkey solely at the feet of the President.
I do know this: if your figures are correct, the initial concept was for 8 million per month capacity to enroll - but much of the success of the ACA relied on state exchanges being set up. What almost no one considers is the S.C. decision that states could opt out, which the politically red states mostly did, which created a huge influx of additional applicants for whom the federal health exchange had to provide. How many of those 8 million were turned away by their own state's failure to incorporate a state health exchange?
Should the federal government been ready for this after the SC decision. I think so. But I also think Obama has repeatedly and consistently failed to grasp the degree of anger and degree of ideological faith held by his opponents. He does not seem to grasp that his most ardent opponents have as much rationality as a rabid dog.
This, IMO, has always been Obama's big mistake - assuming some degree of rationality by his most ardent opponents. I do not think this president could ever imagine the degree of consistent and concerted effort to derail and dismantle the ACA that has occurred, that entire sections of the country would refuse to cooperate.
In a sense, the strategy to be as uncooperative as possible has worked as it has made implementation of the ACA a nightmare for the federal government. This is a multiple failure caused by: a law that allowed a loophole for states, the SC decision, red states opting out, poor preparedness by the federal government, and a concerted effort to derail implementation.
Who holds the most blame? It is always the guy in the hot seat, isn't it?