ObamaCare - A Third World Experience?

[pspr]

With time-running out before the major provisions of President Obama’s health care law are set to be implemented, the official tasked with making sure the law’s key insurance exchanges are up and running is already lowering expectations.

“The time for debating about the size of text on the screen or the color or is it a world-class user experience, that’s what we used to talk about two years ago,” Henry Chao, an official at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services who is overseeing the technology of the exchanges said at a recent conference. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.”

Chao also described himself as “nervous.” His comments, which came at a policy meeting of insurance industry lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, were first reported by CQ Health Beat and picked up by Avik Roy at Forbes.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2525132

 

[Mercor]

Obama is offering 2 year free subsidies to States to join the obamacare exchanges.

Obama is forcing companies over 50 employees to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Obama is offering 50% health cost subsidy for companies between 25 and 50 employees to buy into the new healthcare system.

These are all bribes to try to get maximum enrollment as possible.
They will then claim acceptance and success through participation in Obamacare.

But all the free stuff ends in 2016, so when these States drop out and the companies drop out the decline will be blamed on the new President.

 

[pspr]

A good reason to let this monstrosity blow up now.

 

[pspr]

All through the Obama years, backers of the Affordable Care Act have lifted their spirits with a consistent refrain: Just you wait.

Someday, the law's backers insisted, Obamacare will make the transition from a divisive idea to a widely popular one, from a program that many people still find confusing and scary to a familiar and comforting part of American life.

This weekend, which marks the third anniversary of the law’s passage, one thing remains clear: Someday has not yet arrived, and may not for a long time.

Even as the pitched ideological and legal battles have faded, a huge raft of complicated and potentially crippling practical challenges remain, raising questions about whether Obamacare ultimately will work and whether it will become the Rushmore-size achievement that President Barack Obama hopes for.

Even the law’s most enthusiastic backers concede the path forward is difficult.

“Sure, things aren’t going to be perfectly efficient the first day,” said Jay Angoff, a health care consultant who formerly ran the federal exchange office and who still remains optimistic that kinks will be worked out.

Here are five challenges that still confront the Affordable Care Act, even three years after it became the law of the land:

The money chase

The federal role in building the health insurance exchanges is bigger than expected — and money wasn’t set aside.

The Obama administration didn’t expect 33 states to refuse to build their own health insurance exchanges. When it asked Congress for another $1 billion for implementation, including money for the feds to build exchanges, the Republicans did not cut a check — and Democrats didn’t push much. The IRS didn’t have better luck asking for another $360 million for work on Obamacare tax provisions.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/obamacare-challenges-linger-89205.html#ixzz2OI8BpLLu