I haven’t had time to blog lately (and guess the others haven’t either), but this can’t pass without comment: As reported by the intrepid Sharyl Atkisson of CBS, in its first 24 hours, Obamacare had 4.7 million unique visitors and…six enrollments.
Within a few more days, they had…a few hundred enrollments. That’s why they haven’t been telling us the enrollment numbers. They need 7 million by March 1 (for some reason), and aren’t going to come close.
UPDATE: More complaints about Obamacare’s high cost, along the lines of “Most…are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We just didn’t realize that…we’d be the ones paying for it.”
Evidently, tens of millions of young people have been so mis-educated that they thought Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy would be paying for it. Or perhaps the Federal Reserve?
UPDATE: For South Park fans.
UPDATES:
- From The Federalist, The Obamacare Losers: “A 27-year-old in Austin, for example, could have bought a catastrophic plan for $59 a month before the ACA. On the exchange, the cheapest catastrophic plan is $153 a month.”
- America’s top hospitals don’t want Obamacare patients.
- In New York and New Jersey alone, hundreds of thousands lose their insurance due to Obamacare.
- Even left-wing media admit that Obama must have lied knowingly about how Obamacare would affect people.
UPDATE: Democrats, you will recall, created and passed Obamacare in a hideously divisive and arrogant fashion: shutting the GOP out of the legislative process; ridiculing critics’ predictions (that are now all coming true); implying that political opponents are racists, terrorists, etc.; railroading Obamacare through Congress on a mix of party-line votes, lies, and legislative twists that were even more constitutionally suspect than usual; and generally misbehaving in a manner to all-but-ensure a bad program with years of continuing opposition.
Via Ace, now Politico brings us the new lefty meme: that the opposition to Obamacare, which would be considered normal for American democracy in any other political era, is a GOP “conspiracy” that has “sabotaged” Obamacare. Welcome to the Brave New World.
I frankly can’t put much credence in the meaning of such numbers, even assuming they’re accurate at this stage.
Did only 6 enroll on the first day, and 248 total through the first three days, because that’s all that want insurance policies from ObamaMart, or did those numbers appear because that’s all that could get through that utterly dysfunctional front end and complete enrollment?
Radically different implications flow from those differing scenarios.
It’ll be much more interesting after that front end is fixed, or torn down and replaced (amazon.com could be asked to advise; medicare.gov could be used as a model), and there are no software impediments to getting to the actual enrollment step.
Eric Hines
Agree…..except that, either way, it’s a disastrous start. With the administration more or less trying to hide the facts.
And remember: Even when the web site is fixed, and even when millions are enrolling, most of them still won’t be enrolling because they want to. They will be enrolling because government passed a law, coercing them. I have no doubt that one day there will be tens of millions in Obamacare…because of coercion.
Not surprised here, anecdotally it was reported that the Delaware Exchange managed it’s first-week to enroll one self-employed male…their only successful enrollment the entire week.
– I don’t have kids, why an I required to have pediatric care included?
– I don’t have a wife, why an I required to have maternity care included?
– With these massive deductibles and co-pays, why am I buying insurance in the first-place?
The only difference between a politician and a mugger is the mugger actually has to risk being mano-a-mano to steal my money.
This whole ACA crapstorm arose in large part because of 15 or 30 or 45 million uninsured. We don’t know, apparently how many “uninsured” there are, but we were darned straight going to turn over every rock and get them “quality, affordable, health care” not affected by pre-conditions and not possible to cancel.
We never knew if the number of “uninsured” included non-citizens.
Now we have ACA and the regulations written by the Secretary of Health and Human Services has thrown or will throw 15 or 30 or 45 or 100 million insured off their plans (which, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period. Except you can’t.) because those plans do not include the bells and whistles added by ACA regulations and are therefore, null and void.
Meanwhile, unrevealed numbers of ACA “applicants” have been added to the Medicaid rolls where they will receive second class health care not reconfigured by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Apparently, people who can get free ACA insurance are either not interested in it or just waiting for the IRS to show up with a fine. When that happens, they will plead ignorance and scream racism, homophobia and victim abuse and they will be given amnesty, free medical insurance and instruction on how and where to vote for mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money. Also, the will get a platinum food stamp card.
One other point. The Demonizingrats have begun to scream about people who tried to use their health insurance under the “old, crooked scheme” and were cancelled. Right. What state insurance commission has let that happen? Insurance gets cancelled when you let it lapse from nonpayment. Insurance is guaranteed renewable. Not being able to keep up with rising rates is not a predatory scheme, it is a wake-up call.
Obambi says that you may be one of the lucky buyers whose bill is lowered by subsidies. Wow. Whose money is used for the subsidies? The government’s? The government does not have any money, it takes it from the people and pees it out to the point that it has to borrow 1/3 of what it pees out.
First we had a huge stimulus that didn’t stimulate and washed up in waves of laundered political donations, then we had cash for clunkers and now we have ACA bait and switch and an argument over what the meaning of “period” is as the FED diddles us to the tune of $85 million a month. And some small group of insiders is “earning” at least a one percent commission for shoveling that smoke and mirrors money around. I wonder who.
Hillary gave speeches to Goldman Sachs two times last week at a fee of $200,000 each. What did Goldman Sachs learn from the smartest woman in the world and what did she have to say that took her two sessions to say it? Is there something fishy going on?
Speaking of Government Run Healthcare, Is it fair that men who deliberately become infected with HIV are entitled to treatment at the expense taxpayers who make more responsible decisions?
Shamwow Obama is out there extolling the virtues of the ACA, but why don’t We the People have a reasonably readable guide to how to navigate and comply with the ACA?
Just ask any Medicare participant how readable, clear and stimulating the Medicare materials are. And, if you need further assistance, you can go to the Social Security office, take a number and sit in a line of chairs to talk with someone who will take a strong bureaucratic interest in your Medicare concerns and questions.
So, why don’t we have the same wonderful ACA infrastructure? Could it be that the ACA is just the overture to the great Single Payer Opera?
Wouldn’t it just be easier if the government moved in and nationalized all aspects of health care? Free everything. Free breast pumps, free viagra, free gyms, free diet plans, free organic foods, free designer water, free vitamins, free supplements, free liposuction, free condoms, free toenail fungus cure, free dandruff shampoo, free tattoo removal, free, free, free.
Bernanke can handle it.
I am in the unenviable position in that me and my partner (I am not used to saying Husband yet) are unemployed. I attempted to enroll in our exchange (in Washington state) online and was stopped because of our relationship status. Because we were in a domestic partnership, we had to file our taxes for the last two years as “filed separate with joint assets”. The website could not comprehend our marital status so we got an error. The next day, I called the customer service line to find out more. The rep had to speak to their supervisor who said that “glitch” is supposed to be corrected on Dec. 1. This was before it was announced that national site would be “fixed” by Nov. 30.
The Politico article reads like a Greek tragedy. Obamacare, destined to perform in great and shining service to humanity, is cut down to a fate worse than death by the overwhelming forces of evil at the hands of the GOP. I felt sick reading it.
Interestingly enough, the undertones of the article indicate that Politico feels the law is completely terrible. Does this mean we can strike common ground and repeal and replace the law? Probably not, because the article indicates they are clearly unable to reason.
Yeah. Well, at least they’re clear that the GOP was against Obamacare. They got that one thing, right.