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Title: Day 25 - The Obamacare Death March
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Published: Oct 25, 2013
Author: nolu chan
Post Date: 2013-10-25 17:31:12 by nolu chan
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Views: 2435
Comments: 2
Day 25 - The Obamacare Death March October 25, 2013 Death rattles continue to issue from Obamacare as it shambles along the road to doom like a walker in The Walking Dead. Having proclaimed that the website was ready to roll out according to schedule on October 1st, and then proclaiming glitches that were being fixed as they spoke, and proclaiming the system was working better every day, it was announced on Friday that the Titanic disaster would be patched up and refloated by the end of November. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/11/obamacare-website-glitches_n_4083675.html Reuters | Posted: 10/11/2013 6:59 am EDT That is so October 11th. It must be fixed by mid-November for millions to enroll in time. Now, the vast majority of the issues will be resolved and system enabled by the end of November. A newly released iPhone can attract 9 million buyers in the first weekend with no mandate required, but we will have to wait to see if Obamacare can generate that level of customer desire. http://www.roonte.com/www/healthcaregov-likely-broken-until-key-thanksgiving-deadline http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/oct/25/health-care-site-needs-dozens-of-fixes/ http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2022121941_healthcaresitefixesxml.html Consultant: Most health-care website glitches could be fixed by end of November Jeffrey Zients, a management consultant brought in by the White House to assess the extent of problems with the HealthCare.gov site, said his review found issues across the entire system. http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2013/10/government_pledges_to_fix_heal.html One must wonder how much time will be required to fix the problems, or to create a workable design and build it, and how much time will be required or devoted to testing... or will the public be used as participants in the testing phase of another system rushed out the door? Harkening back to the initial disastrous release, the New York Times gave a review of the administration propaganda that described "a shiny new Web site that was elegantly designed, simple to use and ready for what officials hoped would eventually be a flood of customers on Oct. 1." And then there is the mess that program coders cannot correct. Sometimes the rule of garbage in, garbage out applies. HealthCare.gov pricing feature can be off the mark (CBS News) CBS News has uncovered a serious pricing problem with HealthCare.gov. It stems from the Obama administration's efforts to improve its health care website. A new online feature can dramatically underestimate the cost of insurance. The administration announced it would provide a new "shop and browse" feature Sunday, but it's not giving consumers the real picture. In some cases, people could end up paying double of what they see on the website, CBS News' Jan Crawford reported Wednesday on "CBS This Morning." As President Obama promises to fix HealthCare.gov, his administration is touting what it calls "improvements" in design, specifically a feature that allows you to "See Plans Now." White House press secretary Jay Carney has said, "Americans across the country can type in their zip code and shop and browse." But CBS News has learned the new "shop and browse" feature often comes with the wrong price tags. Industry analysts point to how the website lumps people only into two broad categories: "49 or under" and "50 or older." Jonathan Wu is co-founder of Valuepenguin.com, a consumer finance website focusing on the impact of health care reform. His company has built a tool that provides quotes for plans on the federal exchange. He said it's "incredibly misleading for people that are trying to get a sense of what they're paying." Prices for everyone in the 49-or-under group are based on what a 27-year-old would pay. In the 50-or-older group, prices are based on what a 50-year-old would pay. CBS News ran the numbers for a 48-year-old in Charlotte, N.C., ineligible for subsidies. According to HealthCare.gov, she would pay $231 a month, but the actual plan on Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina's website costs $360, more than 50 percent higher. The difference: Blue Cross and Blue Shield requests your birthday before providing more accurate estimates. The numbers for older Americans are even more striking. A 62-year-old in Charlotte looking for the same basic plan would get a price estimate on the government website of $394. The actual price is $634. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said the government added the "shop and browse" feature to provide "estimates of premiums without tax credits." Chini Krishnan is the chief executive officer of GetInsured.com. His company helped design California's new health-care-exchange website. It requires people to enter their birthdays to get a real price quote. Krishnan said, "It's important that the users have a proper, trustworthy, honest brand experience when they interact with HealthCare.gov, and I think providing accurate prices is an integral component of that." Industry executives CBS News spoke with could not believe the government is providing these estimates, which they said were useless and could easily mislead consumers. They also said that the website repeatedly states the actual prices could be lower, but it makes no mention that they could be higher. And then there is Kathleen Sebelius, on the Healthcare Crisis Campaign trail and too busy to testify to Congress. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZkXsgdKCs8 Statement on Oct 24, 2013 And just who pays for the Sebelius pay check? Or, perhaps, her bonus check for outstanding performance. Published October 25, 2013 While President Obama's tech team hunkers down to try fixing the ailing HealthCare.gov website, a cadre of the president's closest advisers are closely following the crisis script -- by hitting the campaign trail. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, instead of testifying at a hearing on Thursday, visited an ObamaCare call center in Phoenix where she also rebuffed Republican calls for her resignation. "The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don't work for, and who do not want this program to work in the first place," she said. On Friday, Sebelius was visiting San Antonio and Austin. Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn questioned why she was there. "If she's still confused about who exactly she works for and if she hasn't come ready to answer questions about why hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on a botched product, she might as well not visit," he said in a statement. The visits are part of a multi-city tour by White House officials and Cabinet secretaries to "directly reach uninsured Americans." They are hitting up cities with high rates of uninsured, where they will encourage people to sign up. [snip] Here is a propitious moment to note the misleading nature of Obamacare propaganda statistics and its claims of enrollment. Even those dismal claims have been inflated by including those who have signed up for expanded Medicaid, which is the greater share of the enrollees. http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/state/many-obamacare-enrollees-in-ny-go-to-medicaid-20131024 In all, 13,313 New Yorkers have enrolled for health coverage with one of the 16 private insurance carriers participating. While the state has begun giving carriers overall numbers, insurance industry officials cautioned that few of the 13,313 have actually gone through the final process with the companies to become officially enrolled. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/medicaid-could-be-the-next-headache-for-obamacare-98760.html “People are getting a little confused,” Nolan said. A federal Medicaid spokeswoman said the Obama administration has delivered a basic snapshot of the Medicaid-eligible population to help states get a sense of the numbers so they can plan. But that so-called flat file includes only names and addresses, not nearly the level of data state Medicaid programs need to process applications. Under Obamacare, millions of low-income uninsured people are expected to enroll in Medicaid, which will be expanded significantly in about half the states on Jan. 1. Plus, the health law’s enrollment push is expected to bring out of the woodwork people who are currently eligible but haven’t already signed up for Medicaid. Early data from states running their own enrollment systems are reporting tens of thousands of new Medicaid enrollees so far this month, a potential indicator of strong interest. http://nypost.com/2013/10/24/obamacare-puts-more-nyers-into-medicaid/ Other states had an even more lopsided Medicaid-private insurance mix. In Washington state and Minnesota, 90 percent of new enrollees signed up for Medicaid, not regular insurance. The rush to acquire a Medicaid card came as the federal government raised the income limit to $23,550 for a family of four. Before the change, the maximum a family could earn in New York and still qualify was $18,330. Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) said uninsured residents who intended to buy into private plans realized when they entered their incomes that they had hit the jackpot and could get free Medicaid. The feds are picking up 100 percent of the cost of new Medicaid enrollees in the first three years of the program, tapering down to 90 percent by 2020. And, of course, there are the political consequences following in the wake of the Obamacare Death March. By Carl Cameron The Affordable Care Act’s rocky rollout has put Democrats and the White House back on defense -- allowing Republicans who were deeply divided over, and under fire for, the partial government shutdown to unite and focus on the failures of HealthCare.gov. Not coincidentally, a handful of Democrats up for re-election next year in swing and red states have broken ranks with the Obama administration. New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen sent a letter to the president demanding an extension of the deadline to sign up, and almost immediately was joined by Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mary Pryor of Arkansas. None of them was willing to delay or even negotiate ObamaCare a few weeks ago, in the heat of the budget impasse. Pryor is perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat in the country. Conservative super PACs like the Club for Growth are pounding him. One such ad growls: "We know Mark Pryor supports ObamaCare but lately he's gotten even more extreme.” Pryor voted against any delays in ObamaCare during the partial shutdown; he also voted against a Republican attempt to force members of Congress and other government officials onto the ObamaCare exchanges without extra subsidies. Two other Democrats who are not even up for re-election -- Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and moderate West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin -- have also broken ranks with the White House to back a delay. Manchin is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation with Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia to delay the individual mandate by a year. There is ample evidence suggesting Republicans were blamed in the polls for the partial government shutdown, but the refusal to negotiate by the White House and congressional Democrats coupled with the ObamaCare launch debacle have eclipsed much of that. "You look at the 17 days of the shutdown and compare that to how many days we’re gonna be watching these critical ObamCare rollout stories -- something tells me the critical stories about ObamaCare rollout are going to last a lot longer than 17 days," University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato said. He said 2014 will be worse for Democrats and the administration. "That sixth-year election tends to unite the opposition because there are so many vulnerable spots for the incumbent president’s party, that's what brings them back together. There's nothing like the smell of victory in a lot of different places to pull a coalition together," Sabato said. [snip] 
Obamacare Website Glitches Must Be Fixed By Mid-November For Millions To Enroll In Time: Experts
Healthcare.gov is going to be broken until the end of November, says Jeff Zients, a consultant brought in to fix the beleaguered federal health insurance e-commerce website. On a press conference call, Zients finally acknowledged wide-spread enrollment problems, estimating that only 3 in 10 users have been able to sign up and complete an application (or a measly 700,000 total).
Health site fixes expected to take until end of Nov.
It will take a lot of work, but "HealthCare.gov is fixable," said Zients. The vast majority of the issues will be resolved by the end of November, he asserted, and there will be many fewer errors. He stopped short of saying the problems will go away completely.
Originally published October 25, 2013 at 11:44 AM
Page modified October 25, 2013 at 11:48 AM Government officials are pledging the troubled federal health insurance website will be fixed by the end of November.
October 23, 2013 7:56 AM
Sebelius - 'I Don't Work For' People Who Want Me To Resign
Published on Oct 25, 2013 Obama team hits the road to promote health law as site struggles
FoxNews.com (CBS News) The disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov may have another serious problem: A CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance. And if that trend continues, there's concern there won't be enough healthy people buying health insurance for the system to work.
In the first three weeks of the “Obamacare” enrollment, 23,717 New Yorkers who went to a new state website to enroll for insurance ended up being steered to join Medicaid because their incomes were low enough to qualify.
Nolan said some people managed to sign up on the flawed HealthCare.gov website only to be told to reach out to their local Medicaid agencies to finalize enrollment. But the local Medicaid offices can’t confirm anything because the applications haven’t been transferred.
“The early signs are not good. It’s the taxpayers picking up the tab for Medicaid,” said Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), a member of the state Senate Health Committee. “If more young people don’t enroll in the program, ObamaCare is going to implode.”
ObamaCare rollout casts cloud over 2014 Dems, despite GOP’s budget fight bruises
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Published October 25, 2013
FoxNews.com
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