Remember just last week when president Obama told us that he was not stupid enough to go around telling folks how easy the Obamacare website would be to use and how well it would do its job had he known that it was likely to fail? According to the latest news from the Washington Post, it turns out that Obama actually is that stupid.
Here is an excerpt from the Post's article:
The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess how the federal online health insurance enrollment system was developing, according to a newly disclosed document, and in late March received a clear warning that its Oct. 1 launch was fraught with risks.
The analysis by McKinsey & Co. foreshadowed many of the problems that have dogged HealthCare.gov since its rollout, including the facts that the call-in centers would not work properly if the online system was malfunctioning and that insufficient testing would make it difficult to fix problems after the launch. The report was provided to The Washington Post by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
This risk assessment, which was encapsulated in a 14-slide presentation, was delivered to senior White House and Department of Health and Human Services officials in four briefings between March 28 and April 8, the committee said. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Marilyn Tavenner, then acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); and White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park attended a session about the report on April 4 at HHS headquarters. Obama health policy adviser Jeanne Lambrew and then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Mark Childress received a briefing April 8 at the White House.
So six months (SIX MONTHS!!!!) before the rollout of the Obamacare website, the head of the Medicare Center which was developing the site, the Secretary of HHS who was in overall charge of the program, the White House CTO who was in charge of supervising the website development for Obama and the top people on the White House staff were told by McKinsey of the potential for disaster with the rollout. What in the world did these people do in response? Are we to believe that not a single one of them told the president that one of our nation's pre-eminent consulting firms was predicting disaster for the website? To paraphrase Obama, these people are not stupid enough to do that; nor do they each have a death wish for their careers. Remember, the White House is telling us that Obama had monthly, then weekly and then daily meetings about the status of the roll out before it happened. In meeting after meeting, supposedly not one of these folks told the president that the site would not work? Who would possibly believe that?
It is truly hard to comprehend why Obama knowingly promised that the website would be so wonderful when he knew it was unlikely to work. Nevertheless, is it even harder to believe that somehow he just did not know. Did he sit through these meetings but was too disinterested to listen? Did Obama think that if he said the site would work, then, of course, it would? Is it possible that Obama was too stupid to understand the ramifications of what he was being told?
In the future, anything of this importance ought to be put on a teleprompter by the White House staff. Obama could then read it aloud as if he were delivering a speech. At least that way, he might remember what he was being told.
One last note here: today's disclosure of the McKinsey report should provide the last nail in the coffin for Sebelius. If she is not fired, Congress should consider her impeachment. What she has done is unforgivable.
Here is an excerpt from the Post's article:
The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess how the federal online health insurance enrollment system was developing, according to a newly disclosed document, and in late March received a clear warning that its Oct. 1 launch was fraught with risks.
The analysis by McKinsey & Co. foreshadowed many of the problems that have dogged HealthCare.gov since its rollout, including the facts that the call-in centers would not work properly if the online system was malfunctioning and that insufficient testing would make it difficult to fix problems after the launch. The report was provided to The Washington Post by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
This risk assessment, which was encapsulated in a 14-slide presentation, was delivered to senior White House and Department of Health and Human Services officials in four briefings between March 28 and April 8, the committee said. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Marilyn Tavenner, then acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); and White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park attended a session about the report on April 4 at HHS headquarters. Obama health policy adviser Jeanne Lambrew and then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Mark Childress received a briefing April 8 at the White House.
So six months (SIX MONTHS!!!!) before the rollout of the Obamacare website, the head of the Medicare Center which was developing the site, the Secretary of HHS who was in overall charge of the program, the White House CTO who was in charge of supervising the website development for Obama and the top people on the White House staff were told by McKinsey of the potential for disaster with the rollout. What in the world did these people do in response? Are we to believe that not a single one of them told the president that one of our nation's pre-eminent consulting firms was predicting disaster for the website? To paraphrase Obama, these people are not stupid enough to do that; nor do they each have a death wish for their careers. Remember, the White House is telling us that Obama had monthly, then weekly and then daily meetings about the status of the roll out before it happened. In meeting after meeting, supposedly not one of these folks told the president that the site would not work? Who would possibly believe that?
It is truly hard to comprehend why Obama knowingly promised that the website would be so wonderful when he knew it was unlikely to work. Nevertheless, is it even harder to believe that somehow he just did not know. Did he sit through these meetings but was too disinterested to listen? Did Obama think that if he said the site would work, then, of course, it would? Is it possible that Obama was too stupid to understand the ramifications of what he was being told?
In the future, anything of this importance ought to be put on a teleprompter by the White House staff. Obama could then read it aloud as if he were delivering a speech. At least that way, he might remember what he was being told.
One last note here: today's disclosure of the McKinsey report should provide the last nail in the coffin for Sebelius. If she is not fired, Congress should consider her impeachment. What she has done is unforgivable.
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