How to Get Republicans to Support the Affordable Care Act

[Crackpot]

It is a fundamentally flawed comparison any way you look at it. It OT serves as a method for those that don't like the policy to pat themselves on the back without having to think about it

[oldr_n_wsr]

If you say so.
I say it should not have taken as long to launch the ACA website and have it functional in about the same amount of time it took to defeat the Germans and the Japanese.

[Scooter]

It's been almost 12 years and you still haven't managed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, so three years to achieve a functional ACA website is a tremendous success by comparison.

Now explain in specific detail why this statement has any less validity than what you just posted.

[MajGenl.Meade]

oldr - a hint.

Agree with Scooter. Compared to the Afghanistan endeavour the ACA website is a triumph. Thank him for validating the use of your comparison of warfare to computer programming.

[oldr_n_wsr]

All it does is support my opinion that todays government can do very little, and what it does "achive" takes much more time and much more money than it should with piss poor results.

ETA
And by "todays government" I don't just mean the current crop of Reps, Sens, Pres, and Justices, I'm go back 10 years at least.

[Big RR]

"Today's" government? Hell, it took us nearly three times as long to lose in Vietnam (after we were all in) as it took to win in WW2. But it took us a lot less time to win in Gulf War 1. And it took a lot more time to get recognition of civil rights of all people, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's apples and oranges.

True, bitterly divided governments get less done, and what they do get finished takes a lot more time than it should, but then it took the US government around 80 years to end slavery, and even 4 years after the secession and during the fighting of the civil war, while the size of the US was greatly increased (a la the Louisiana Purchase) in a fairly short time, even with a divided government and after a bitterly contested election which went to ballot after ballot in the House. One needs to look at the entire picture to understand.

True, we deserve a usable website, and it's getting there; but I've never seen website launches go off without a hitch, and I've never really seen good computer support even in commercial enterprises that dump tons of money into it (I once worked for one of the biggest companies in the world and computer support was horrible).

[oldr_n_wsr]

Three years to roll out this website in the age of "everyone has a website" is beyond bad.
Granted, it's complexity is a factor, but I think the people in charge are incompetent. I would expect to be fired (I would offer my resignation if I wasn't fired) if I were in charge of this website and it took this long, and cost this much and didn't work as it should have by Oct 1.

When I have time and the desire I will post how I woudl have done things and the time lines.

[rubato]

If you say so.
I say it should not have taken as long to launch the ACA website and have it functional in about the same amount of time it took to defeat the Germans and the Japanese.

Planning for the mobilization for WW II began more than 10 years before Pearl Harbor, the White House took control of a large percentage of American industry including regulating wages and prices, allocating raw materials, shutting down production of things not deemed necessary for the war effort, many consumer goods were rationed, 8 million people were drafted and forced into military service*, the war was the complete focus of all efforts of the whole country,. It is a jackass analogy. It reveals nothing except that when we are fighting for our lives and focus everything we have on something we achieve more. And in this case the process is still ongoing. We'll see where we are in a few months.

It is clear that no one here has had to use "enterprise software" like SAP because if you had you would see how this kind of fuckup is more typical than not even when a great deal more is spent on it.


yrs,
rubato

* out of 133M total.

.

[oldr_n_wsr]

So three years and $600+ million for a lame website is acceptable to you.

ok

[Lord Jim]

Ahem...

If I were advising a Democratic candidate in a tough re-election battle for the House or Senate, here's what I would tell them to do:

Put some distance between yourself and the current ACA law as well as this increasingly unpopular administration. Make some proposals to improve the law;...

stick to something short and simple:

"I fully agree that there are serious problems with some aspects of the current law, which is why I have parted company with the Administration, and support X Y and Z to help fix these problems. And I'm just as unhappy about the misleading way much of this was promoted as you are."




There is no truth to the rumor that I am working as a consultant to the Landrieu campaign...

[rubato]

So three years and $600+ million for a lame website is acceptable to you.

ok

So doing nothing to improve health care while we are the worst in the G-20 is acceptable to you.



yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

So three years and $600+ million for a lame website is acceptable to you.

ok

So doing nothing to improve health care while we are the worst in the G-20 is acceptable to you.



yrs,
rubato

Didn't say that. I am saying that the website, after three years, should have been up and running with very few glitches. And it should have cost much less. How many more people could have been helped or have their premiums/deductables reduced if they only spent, lets say $100 million on a website that should have cost even less than that to design/implement.

I do believe that there should be affordable healthcare available to all. Sadly, the way this was designed and rolled out was/is a mess and cost way too much just to implement.

[rubato]

All minor and temporary problems. Trivial compared to the problem which is being solved.

Trivial criticisms which avoid the substance.


Yrs,
Rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

$600+ million is trivial?
Mllions of people being tossed off thier insurance and having to shop for new insurnace on a site that barely functions and has more security flaws than a house with no locks is trivial?

All you offer is a "just wait" attitude. Well there are real people out there who will miss the cutoff and not be insured come Jan 1. People who were insured. The limping website and the poorly planned implementation is causing the exact thing it was supposed to take care of.

But just wait.
OK
Wait til next year when all the businesses have to "sign up".

I don't know about you, but I demand more from my govenment. If this rollout is any indication, "less than mediocre" has become the new "good job". We should aspire to do, and be, better. From regular citizens to the highest levels of government. Sadly, our leaders (and I use that term very loosely) are failing in that department. Both repubs and dems and libs and conservs. The whole lot of them do nothing but pay lip service and only are there to get re-elected.

[Big RR]

oldr--Got a cite for that? Millions of people? While millions of people are insured, I think it would be safe to assume on the self insured would face being dropped (those getting insurance through their employers, e.g., would just get another policy offered to them by the employer), and of those, I would think the majority would be offered ACA compliant by their current insurer and not be forced to peruse the website for coverage unless they wanted to see what else was being offered. Sure there are some in that boat, but I doubt it's millions of people.

rubato--while the problem is temporary, it's far from minor or trivial, and a lot of changes in the roll out of the ACA have been made because of it. Someone apparently dropped the ball here, and the people deserve to know who did and why it happened, and how it is going to be corrected. Sure, it's trying to solve a major problem, but that doesn't make the website problems any less serious or annoying.

[oldr_n_wsr]

In the market for individually-purchased health insurance, more than 4.8 million Americans have received notices that their preexisting plans are soon to be illegal, and will be cancelled. Many more cancellation notices are imminent.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapotheca ... ellations/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/ ... mbers.html

[Big RR]

oldr--again, of those projected 4.8+ million, how many will just be cut loose by their insurers without being offered an ACA compliant policy by the same insurer without having to go to any website? I'd bet very few, insurers don't want to lose business.

[oldr_n_wsr]

oldr--again, of those projected 4.8+ million, how many will just be cut loose by their insurers without being offered an ACA compliant policy by the same insurer without having to go to any website? I'd bet very few, insurers don't want to lose business.

Haven't found a breakdown of that.
I would guess that most of those signing up for obamacare are those who had insurance and were canceled and not the newly insured.
people who had something (insurance) are more likely to want to continue having that insurance especially if they have some kind of ailment or are older and anticipating some kind of ailment.
And don't forget, if people go straight to an insurance company, they do not get any kind of subsidy they may be eligeable for. One can only get that by going through the website or phone in (aka the government).

Also I can't find a breakdown of how many who have signed up for obamacare (those getting insurance AND those funneled into medicare) were first time insured. It would be nice to see that data as those who were/are uninsured are who this whole thing was aimed at.

[Big RR]

My guess is most of those signing up for obamacare are those who are trying to get a better deal, whether they currently have insurance or are under threat of cancellation; others are looking for a chance to get affordable coverage for the first time. In any event, I would think most choose to look at the site, they are not forced to because of a notice of cancellation as the articles implied. Not that this excuses a problematic site--it definitely does not. But I do think it id important not to overreact and make unsupported claims on either side.

Thus far there have been some significant problems, but we have also seen people who either could not afford, or could barely afford, coverage getting it regardless of preexisting conditions, and IMHO that's a great achievement. Whether it will work on the long run remains to be seen, but there are problems and benefits thus far.

[rubato]

A few minor hiccups in the software are nothing compared to the problem which we need to address:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... -the-year/



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... -the-year/

Emily Oster’s graph of the year: Why is the U.S. falling behind in life expectancy?

By Wonkblog
December 26 at 12:00 pm

Time has its "Person of the Year." Amazon has its books of the year. Pretty Much Amazing has its mixtapes of the year. Buzzfeed has its insane-stories-from-Florida of the year. And Wonkblog, of course, has its graphs of the year. For 2013, we asked some of the year's most interesting, important and influential thinkers to name their favorite graph of the year — and why they chose it. Here's Emily Oster's.

Amidst all the focus on health insurance, I think it’s crucial not to lose focus on the fact that -- insurance or not -- the United States is lagging behind in health status. This chart -- from a broader report -- demonstrates not only how low our life expectancy is relative to other developed countries, but also how far we have fallen even in the last 30 years. Why are we not realizing the same gains that countries with comparable incomes are?

Emily Oster is an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School. Her book is "Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong."

When we benchmark our own performance to the other affluent countries we are doing horribly badly and it is long past time to try to correct it. But doing new things involves some difficulty and risk. You have to be able to make corrections and not just sit down and cry about how hard it all is no matter how many are trying to make us sicker, weaker, and poorer, to destroy us in a word.


yrss,
rubato