Obamacare wins? See you in 2014

[Riddick]

Triumphant President Takes Victory Lap Over Huge Obamacare Success
Aides might as well have hung a large "mission accomplished" banner over Obama's head. Truly surreal.
Full Story

[voguy]

And I have to believe that with as much as you can cry foul that Hannity may have pulled a slight of hand, how do we know Reporter Eric Stern is any more honest. Could he have found (on purpose) people with the same name to discredit Hannity?

I'm not supporting Hannity, only pointing out that in this age of viral media, there is evidence that both sides play this game.

[Riddick]

Obamacare Program Upgrade Available!

Responding to widespread criticism regarding its health care website, the federal government today unveiled its new, improved Obamacare program, which allows Americans to purchase health insurance after installing a software bundle contained on 35 floppy disks.

“I have heard the complaints about the existing website, and I can assure you that with this revised system, finding the right health care option for you and your family is as easy as loading 35 floppy disks sequentially into your disk drive and following the onscreen prompts,” President Obama told reporters this morning, explaining that the nearly three dozen 3.5-inch diskettes contain all the data needed for individuals to enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace, while noting that the updated Obamacare software is mouse-compatible and requires a 386 Pentium processor with at least 8 MB of system RAM to function properly.

“Just fire up MS-DOS, enter ‘A:\>dir *.exe’ into the command line, and then follow the instructions to install the Obamacare batch files—it should only take four or five hours at the most. You can press F1 for help if you run into any problems. And be sure your monitor’s screen resolution is at 320 x 200 or it might not display properly.”

Obama added that the federal government hopes to have a six–CD-ROM version of the program available by 2016.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-im ... lop,34294/

Related:
President Obama Vows to Fix Health Care Signup Problems

[Cherry Kelly]

I don't watch Hannity, or any other tv talk shows -- but do know people who have lost the current med ins, etc.

Now the floppy disc bit - funny!

DID laugh the other day -- reading news on internet - WH spokesman - says O administration may have to delay individual mandates. Then read about O calling Verizon for possible help.

You know looking back - House changed to instead of defunding, asking a delay and it was turned down -- and NOW oh gee Dems are talking delay. Go figure.

[kbot]

little update -- supposedly across USA 40,000 now have signed up -- while 45,000,000 have lost current insurance.

and that counts several cut to 28-29 hours, plus insurance companies literally closing off in some areas.....

ohh ya -- so much for the lies.....

And this is the problem with living in (or developing a social agenda) in a vacuum.

Obama and the Left in general thought (naively) that businesses would "allow" their employees that currently have insurance to keep their insurance. They also took as a given that companies that had a number of employees that would require the company to now purchase insurance would keep that level of personnel.

Of course, we've all seen how this has worked itself out - massive loss in hours, jobs or insurance coverage.

Can't tell me that this isn't a push towards nationalized healthcare. I don't have an advanced-level degree from an Ivy-League school and I managed to figure this one out long ago......

[kbot]

Obamacare Program Upgrade Available!

Responding to widespread criticism regarding its health care website, the federal government today unveiled its new, improved Obamacare program, which allows Americans to purchase health insurance after installing a software bundle contained on 35 floppy disks.

“I have heard the complaints about the existing website, and I can assure you that with this revised system, finding the right health care option for you and your family is as easy as loading 35 floppy disks sequentially into your disk drive and following the onscreen prompts,” President Obama told reporters this morning, explaining that the nearly three dozen 3.5-inch diskettes contain all the data needed for individuals to enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace, while noting that the updated Obamacare software is mouse-compatible and requires a 386 Pentium processor with at least 8 MB of system RAM to function properly.

“Just fire up MS-DOS, enter ‘A:\>dir *.exe’ into the command line, and then follow the instructions to install the Obamacare batch files—it should only take four or five hours at the most. You can press F1 for help if you run into any problems. And be sure your monitor’s screen resolution is at 320 x 200 or it might not display properly.”

Obama added that the federal government hopes to have a six–CD-ROM version of the program available by 2016.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-im ... lop,34294/

Related:
President Obama Vows to Fix Health Care Signup Problems

I'm surprised he went with the diskettes and not the big-boy floppies......

[Riddick]

I don't watch Hannity, or any other tv talk shows -- but do know people who have lost the current med ins, etc.

You know 'em, others know 'em, the reports are coming out citing major adverse impacts due to the rollout FOR any number of folks - yet at the same time, there's a notion now coming from any number of the law's proponents any stories of woes besetting people due to Obamacare are factually unreliable - by such reasoning, logic dictates if one news host's guests have it wrong it's safe to say they're all talking out of their hats and can thus be ignored.

Beyond even possession of seriously strained credibility, further suggestion has been made plenty of people now asserting the PPACA is off to a very bad start are themselves very bad people, so much as many of those seeing it as a train wreck have all along hoped that's exactly what it would be, in their completely callous disregard of the uninsured poor and those with pre-existing conditions...

Furthermore, so what if the website's not up to the task just now? That's not to say any problems with it can't be fixed, along with anything else as time goes on - and insofar that applies to any aspect of the law, supporters see no relevant argument can be made for its total repeal - ESPECIALLY in the absence of any viable alternative.

'Course, in the event the PPACA ultimately turns out unworkable, you can be sure it'll be anything BUT the crafter's fault. But hey, if at first you don't succeed, right? Back to the old drawing board and alla that? Like the GOP's EVER had anything resembling a plan. All they do is complain! With them it's all talk, no action, no universal coverage.

Don't like Obamacare? No prob. Single payer's the savior. Hillarycare will get it right. Come 2016, just agree to another Clinton administration along with a Democratic congress and everything'll be fine, just fine.

[Riddick]

No More Apologies: Why Obama Has to Get Mad About His Broken Obamacare Websites
Whenever a President of the U.S. stops believing his own spin, the people should take notice.
Link

[voguy]

Pretty soon Obamacare will be using duct tape and Popsicle sticks for E.D.

[Riddick]

Excerpted from
More Than a Website
Healthcare.gov is a disaster. Obamacare is just fine.
By Matthew Yglesias at slate.com:

• Three weeks after its launch, the healthcare.gov portal for the federal health care exchange still doesn’t work. Nobody can really say when it will work properly. For all the talk of “glitches,” there appear to be fundamental flaws in the site’s basic architecture, perhaps driven by poor incentives for government contractors and an overall flawed contracting process.
  ...
  Anyone who spoke to administration officials about the Affordable Care Act in August or September can tell you that they spoke very proudly about their forthcoming Web product. Hopes were high that the site itself would be not only a practical way for people to sign up, but actually a key selling point for the law—because it would deliver a customer service experience above the generally low standard set by private health insurance.
  
  This talk seemed plausible, since it was a rare situation in politics where nobody had any incentive to lie. If the website proved to be a disaster in October, then having spun it as a triumph back in September would only make the administration look foolish in retrospect.
  
  And now it does look foolish. The product doesn’t work, and for whatever reason, key people didn’t know it didn’t work. That’s a mess, and it fundamentally undermines assurances that the current “tech surge” will lead to major rapid improvements.
  
  Conversely, having been foiled in their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act by shutting down the government, conservatives are now engaged in a campaign of hilarious overreach to pronounce an entire legislative framework doomed on the grounds of poor Web infrastructure.
  ...
  The massive failure of healthcare.gov is a story that’s gotten much more coverage than the 10 percent drop in Oregon’s uninsurance rate within two weeks of the program’s launch. Things moved unusually quickly in Oregon because the state’s Medicaid system is set up to auto-enroll many people in a way that the vast majority of other states aren’t.
  
  But large Medicaid expansions are rolling forward in most states, and more and more Republican governors are embracing this aspect of the program. Monday’s most important health care story wasn’t the president’s speech about the website; it was John Kasich’s maneuver to extend Medicaid coverage to 275,000 Ohioans over the objections of his fellow Republicans in the state legislature.
  
  The right was hoping for a massive backlash to Obamacare. What it’s found instead is massive frustration with the difficulty signing up for it. Fox News columnist Sally Kohn wrote on Monday about her problems with New York state’s site, and her pleasant surprise when she did manage to make the site work and found out how much money she’ll be saving under the new law. Nor is the law causing employers to limit workers’ hours as conservatives told us it would.
  
  The basic fact of the matter is that countries all around the world have been running social safety net programs since long before there was any such thing as a government website. You can apply for Obamacare coverage by phone, you can do it in person, and you can do it by mail. Even if the website literally never works, that won’t make the program unworkable any more than the absence of a great website made Medicare unworkable in the 1960s and ’70s.
  ...
  Conservatives who once confidently predicted a massive public revolt are now reduced to complaining that many of the people eager for benefits are having an unduly hard time signing up. Relative to the highest hopes of the White House, that’s a real failure. Relative to the disaster the right has been predicting, it’s a smashing success.

[voguy]

Obamacare fine? Damn! Best laugh I've had all year. I guess that proves the old phrase if you repeat a lie enough, people think it's the truth.

[Riddick]

Anyone else find it interesting how in his article Mr. Matthew Yglesias asserts Obamacare isn't causing a shift to part-time? He cites an article of his own with a chart posted by Michael R. Strain on Twitter as evidence. Never mind neither explains where the chart came from OR what "employed part time for economic reasons" means (which I've since come to understand from this article describes part timers who'd sooner be full-time).

Anyway, whilst Matt and his friends would claim the numbers don't lie, there well may also be reason to believe we once again have data being cherrypicked to lend credence to a supposition - Excerpted from "Beware the Strange Data in the September Jobs Report" at moneymorning.com:

• September Jobs Report: Twisted Numbers
  
  According to Zero Hedge's analysis of the full-time and part-time numbers, "the US work force saw the rotation of some 594K part-time workers into a whopping 691K full-time jobs, in addition to adding over 100K net new jobs in the month."
  
  Here's what they mean: The August household survey reported 116,208,000 persons employed full time and 27,999,000 persons employed part time. The September survey reported 116,899,000 persons employed full time, and 27,405,000 persons employed part time, changes of 691,000 and 594,000 respectively.
  
  That seems impossible - and makes the jobs numbers even more unreliable than they already were.
  
  Also, under Bureau of Labor Statistics definitions, "full time" employment does not necessarily mean a 40-hour-a-week job with benefits. Instead, it simply means that a person usually works more than 35 hours a week, regardless of the number of jobs they work.
  
  Zero Hedge suggests the strange data could be a response to July's outsized growth in part-time jobs as a portion of the total jobs created. As Money Morning and others pointed out with the July numbers, only 35% of the jobs reported as created were full-time.
  
  At the time, massive growth in part-time employment was attributed to employer fears surrounding Obamacare, which requires employers with more than 50 full-time employees to purchase insurance for them or face fines.
  
  The jobs report makes it seem as though a large number of erstwhile part-time jobs have somehow become full-time - which is why we took a closer look at where these full-time jobs came from...
  
  It's Only Temporary
  
  The top industry gainers for September were government (22,000 jobs), retail (20,000 jobs), transportation and warehousing (23,000 jobs), and administrative support services (24,000 jobs). Together, they account for around 60% of the new jobs created.
  
  On their own, these seem like sound categories for growth - although we have to wonder why state governments were increasing their payrolls amid all the worry about shutdown. (The federal government shed some jobs.)
  
  Retail might indicate some consumer resurgence, with about 20,000 new jobs added. The two largest gainers were in food and beverage stores and a vague category called "general merchandise stores."
  
  "Transportation and warehousing" could have been a bright spot in the jobs report if it meant increased freight traffic. Sadly, almost all of the job growth came from transit and passenger ground travel: buses, trains, and taxis.
  
  But it's the last category that should worry you the most.
  
  The increase in "administrative services" comes almost entirely from temporary employees. Hiring a temp means that an organization has more work than it can immediately handle, but also has an uncertain outlook. Furthermore, temps are usually hired on a term basis and can hardly be considered full-time employees, even if they work a 40-hour week.
  
  Part time America seems to be alive and well.

Related:
ObamaCare Pushes Low-Wage Workweek To Record Low

[Riddick]

"It was kind of a rough day today. A friend of mine was given six months by his doctor — not to live, to sign up for Obamacare... The president spoke today regarding the Obamacare website glitches. He said he's bringing in 'the best and the brightest' to solve the problem. Why didn't he bring in the best and the brightest in the first place? See, this is typical Washington. They only bring in the best and the brightest as a last resort."
- Jay Leno

"President Obama is urging Americans who are having trouble with the Obamacare website to sign up for healthcare by calling a 1-800 number. The number is 1-800-we-didn't-think-this-through."
- Conan O'Brian

"Things got screwed up with the healthcare website. So you can wait for them to get the site fixed or you can enroll in medical school, graduate, and then just take care of yourself, which would probably be faster... You can also enroll over the phone. The call goes like this: 'Hello and welcome to Healthcare.gov, the place where you can learn about signing up for affordable healthcare. Right now there are 8 million people ahead of you in line. Your estimated wait time is forever'... It would be ironic to die while waiting on hold for health insurance, right?"
- Jimmy Kimmel

"Folks so critical of the ACA. Really? It's not like they had a half billion dollars and 3 years to set up the website! This stuff is hard!"
- Dana Carvey

"You may have noticed that all the Nigerian email scammers have become a lot less active lately. They all have been hired to run the Obamacare website."
- Sen. Ted Cruz speaking to constituents in Texas

[Doka]

Thousands Of Consumers Get Insurance Cancellation Notices Due To Health Law Changes


Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories ... rance.aspx

Whoa! These folks can not be "Happy Campers", in a lot of cases they are going to be charged a lot more for a lot less. How much is the "Camels Back" going to take?

[kbot]

Pretty soon Obamacare will be using duct tape and Popsicle sticks for E.D.

Wonder if there will be any complaints about the mark-up for those items?