Eugene Robinson: Plenty of Time to Fix Obamacare---So everyone can take a deep breath and calm down.

[kpete]

Plenty of Time to Fix Obamacare
Eugene Robinson
...........

The sense of urgency surrounding the program is palpable—and largely artificial. The Obama administration royally screwed up the launch, no question about it. But there’s time to get it right. Plenty of time.

The real deadline for creating a sleek, seamless, customer-friendly website allowing people to buy insurance through the federal exchanges isn’t three weeks or even three months. It’s three years and change—the time President Obama has left in office.

The Affordable Care Act will remain the law unless its opponents win veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress. With the GOP’s approval numbers essentially down to friends and family, a landslide victory in next year’s midterm election seems unlikely, to say the least. This means that as long as Obama is around, his eponymous health care reforms will be around, too.

So everyone can take a deep breath and calm down. The state exchanges are working fine. The first task with the federal website is to make sure the flow of information to and from insurance companies is reliable and accurate. This whole scheme doesn’t work unless insurers know whom they are insuring.


The Rest:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/plenty_of_time_to_fix_obamacare_20131101

[B2G]

1. There isn't 'plenty of time'

for those who've had their policies cancelled and want to purchase new plans so they are covered on Jan 1.

[onlyadream]

3. Can't these people call? Nt

[B2G]

4. My sister called 2 weeks ago

They took all of her information and said she'd be receiving something in the mail in 'a couple of weeks'.

Nothing yet. She hasn't even seen her plan choices...no idea how long after that it will take to actually enroll. She's getting a little nervous.

[JaneyVee]

5. Telephone, paper.

Personally, if I'm spending a couple of hundred a month on something I would want to talk to a live person about it.

[onlyadream]

2. I think this was predictable

Anyone in the tech field knows that there's always glitches, even after beta testing. In fact, in the real world, products are often pushed out the door and shipped when not ready.

I knew the website would have glitches and be overwhelmed. I was surprised they didn't roll it out slowly, maybe going by the first letter of your last name.

The way that this aspect of the ACA is being attacked is ridiculous. If it was twenty years ago, we'd be calling and sending in forms. Big deal.

[VanillaRhapsody]

7. EXACTLY!

This was the only way to truly Beta test it....

During Beta testing...customers help find the glitches....those glitches caused other glitches...and right this minute they are being debugged...

Look at how they rolled out Gmail years ago, when you had to get an invite to join. That went on for a very long time before it was open to anyone to join. That's how they were beta testing on a grand scale...and they controlled how fast it grew.

In the case of ACA...you could't JUST roll out one piece at a time...or to one group of people at a time. Govt doesn't work like that or with the same constraints as the public sector.

[RC]

6. The problem IS the insurance and the insurance companies.

That has not changed with the Affordable Care Act. It is still insurance. We are just starting to see the new ways we will be screwed, all over again, under the new rules.
We need to get this useless, for profit, parasitic, middlemen out of the path between us, the patients, and our doctors. They do nothing to improve or provide medical care. They do nothing to contain the ever rising cost of medical care in this country. In fact, every penny not used for health care, increases the cost of that health care. Every other civilized country has some form of Single Payer. Their people have at least basic medical service, just for being there, just for showing up to be treated. In these countries, Health care is a Right. In this country your health, your very life, is still based on the profits of a unneeded middleman.

[VanillaRhapsody]

8. Excuse me but...

the ONLY way to Single Payer in this country....with so much of the population having strong trepidation against it...is to give them a taste....ACA

Running it into the ground in it's infancy is not going to achieve the over-all goal to get the American people to expect to get decent Healthcare at all! Going to have to win over a large swath of those people who have been brainwashed to fear anything Govt run.

[RC]

9. I keep hearing that, but don't believe it.

We were given the ACA as somehow the only choice and any attempt at the public option or better yet, Single Payer were forcibly put down, and/or ignored by those doing the deciding of what we would be getting. You know, the same congress critters with 6 health insurance lobbyist each, that were helping to write the legislation. That was in no way democracy in action.

[onlyadream]

11. Without the public option the ACA will be in trouble

I know many are being helped by it and I'm truly happy about that, but I know first hand that some will not like the rates they received from the exchange. If the percent in this group is large enough, voters may turn the other way, and have the law repealed. Instead of moving forward toward a public option and then to single payer, we'll all be back to where we started.

[RC]

13. It is still shaking out.

But I don't have much hope the average person will gain much, if anything. The health insurance companies are already coming up with ways to game the system,

[adirondacker]

16. That is what I fear as well. Once the insurance companies get the business, they're not going to

want to let go and will sink millions into the pockets of "elected" officials to make sure it doesn't happen.

Call me a pessimist on this one (I worked for a major medical insurance company in my youth). I hope I'm wrong.

[VanillaRhapsody]

17. So you are rooting for it to fail...good to know...

There is NO path to Single Payer now but through ACA...period. If it fails you will not see Single Payer in your lifetime or your children's. It took 50 yrs just to get Health Insurance reformed.

[RC]

21. No I am not root for it to fail.

The ACA is a stop gap, a road block to Single Payer. That is its intent. As long as we have a for profit health insurance system of health care, we will never have Single Payer. At best, ACA will not be much better that what we had. The health insurance companies are already exploiting loopholes. Only this time there are more people to profit from.

[onlyadream]

10. It's all a big mess

I know people who work in doctor offices and its common to over bill, double bill, etc. More than once when I received the statement of benefits for dental, I would see work listed that wasn't done! I saw this from three different dentists. I wonder if this is how they make ends meet.

But, yes, the middle man, for profit insurance needs to go. And another thing that needs to go is how insurance is tied to employers. It's bad enough to be laid off, but getting the COBRA bill is enough to make one want to throw themselves in the river. I'm saying that assuming the ACA will somehow be lower than COBRA, but I really don't know if that will happen.

I had a nice chat with a lady from Canada, this was right after my husband was laid off, and I was telling her what we were going though. She was shocked. She knew Americans had it bad, but she didn't know the extent. I also got a chance to ask her about her "death panels" and the long waiting periods, which, she said, was all a big lie. She gave me several examples from her life, and all I could think was how did Canada get to this level of sanity while we head toward a cliff?

[RC]

12. I used to date a Canadian, who lived in Winnipeg.

So I have a good idea of the differences between our systems. she could not believe we would put up with what we have for health care down here. That killed any idea of her moving down here.

[VanillaRhapsody]

19. You will not get the Confederates to accept Single Payer at this time...

not at least until they get a taste of the ACA. It is what we have to work with...You don't have to like it. But it is not going away.

[VanillaRhapsody]

20. Lots of people know the difference without dating a Canadian.

[RC]

22. Do you?

Which would you rather have? Our system of private insurance backed health Care, or the Canadian system?

[VanillaRhapsody]

23. Yes I do...and i have never dated a Canadian.

[RC]

24. Well, good on you!

[VanillaRhapsody]

18. NO you don't it is not even in effect yet....

[Johonny]

14. How do you fix anything when the Republicans have no intention of fixing it

they plan to run in 2014 on the ACA scare yet again.

[bhikkhu]

15. Yes, and the world did function before the internet, after all

I mailed in my application last week. No big deal.