The federal Obamacare Exchange is closed today for repairs. Anyone who tries to get on that site just gets a message that announces the temporary shutdown while the programming is corrected.
What does this tell us?
1. First of all, the shutdown is coming after less than a week of "operation" of the exchanges. During that time, the number of complaints about the failure of the exchanges to function properly were extremely high. Washington spent about a billion dollars developing these exchanges, and all it got was a flawed system that fails to function. The clear lesson is that developing websites is not something that the federal government does very well. Simply put, Washington screwed this up royally. Remember, the feds have had three years to put the exchanges together. There is no excuse for these exchanges failing to work.
2. Right now, the government claims that it is unable to tell us how many, if any, people have signed up for insurance using the exchanges. Think about that. Can you imagine that Amazon cannot tell you how many of any item it sold on its site yesterday? No way. Can you imagine that any internet based retailer is unable to tell us how many items it sold for the last month? No way. But the federal government which only sells insurance policies on the exchanges says that it does not know how many policies have been sold so far. And let's be clear: the feds cannot even approximate the number of policies sold; they have no idea at all how many have been purchased. This is not a glitch in the programming of the sort that president Obama spoke on the day the exchanges opened. This is a failure of the website to provide the most basic information that anyone selling the insurance would need. It is further proof that the exchanges were completely botched by the feds.
3. We don't know how many people have given up trying to use the exchanges, but it has to be a lot. Who knows, maybe the federal government will try to fix up the statistics the way they do with unemployment. As you must know, people who want to work but who have no job do not count as unemployed if they have "given up" looking for work. That classification of folks as having given up is the reason why the unemployment rate is in the mid 7% range rather than the actual 13% or so who really have no jobs. The feds could decide that anyone who has given up trying to use the exchange will no longer be classified as "uninsured". In that way, the numbers of the uninsured could fall without having to bother with pesky details like actually getting them insurance. Hey, it works when you lower unemployment without actually getting people jobs. Why not use it on insurance?
4. Maybe it is time for Obama to announce that he has decided that in view of the mess at the exchanges, he is going to delay the start of Obamacare's individual mandate for a year. He could blame the failure of the exchanges and say that he was not negotiating with the Republicans. My guess is that the House GOP would accept that move and would even legislate to confirm the delay. That would pave the way for the passage of the continuing resolution and the end of the government shutdown. In a strange way, it would make it a good thing that the federal government has been so incompetent in dealing with the exchanges.
What does this tell us?
1. First of all, the shutdown is coming after less than a week of "operation" of the exchanges. During that time, the number of complaints about the failure of the exchanges to function properly were extremely high. Washington spent about a billion dollars developing these exchanges, and all it got was a flawed system that fails to function. The clear lesson is that developing websites is not something that the federal government does very well. Simply put, Washington screwed this up royally. Remember, the feds have had three years to put the exchanges together. There is no excuse for these exchanges failing to work.
2. Right now, the government claims that it is unable to tell us how many, if any, people have signed up for insurance using the exchanges. Think about that. Can you imagine that Amazon cannot tell you how many of any item it sold on its site yesterday? No way. Can you imagine that any internet based retailer is unable to tell us how many items it sold for the last month? No way. But the federal government which only sells insurance policies on the exchanges says that it does not know how many policies have been sold so far. And let's be clear: the feds cannot even approximate the number of policies sold; they have no idea at all how many have been purchased. This is not a glitch in the programming of the sort that president Obama spoke on the day the exchanges opened. This is a failure of the website to provide the most basic information that anyone selling the insurance would need. It is further proof that the exchanges were completely botched by the feds.
3. We don't know how many people have given up trying to use the exchanges, but it has to be a lot. Who knows, maybe the federal government will try to fix up the statistics the way they do with unemployment. As you must know, people who want to work but who have no job do not count as unemployed if they have "given up" looking for work. That classification of folks as having given up is the reason why the unemployment rate is in the mid 7% range rather than the actual 13% or so who really have no jobs. The feds could decide that anyone who has given up trying to use the exchange will no longer be classified as "uninsured". In that way, the numbers of the uninsured could fall without having to bother with pesky details like actually getting them insurance. Hey, it works when you lower unemployment without actually getting people jobs. Why not use it on insurance?
4. Maybe it is time for Obama to announce that he has decided that in view of the mess at the exchanges, he is going to delay the start of Obamacare's individual mandate for a year. He could blame the failure of the exchanges and say that he was not negotiating with the Republicans. My guess is that the House GOP would accept that move and would even legislate to confirm the delay. That would pave the way for the passage of the continuing resolution and the end of the government shutdown. In a strange way, it would make it a good thing that the federal government has been so incompetent in dealing with the exchanges.
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