Nobody could have anticipated that Insurance Companies would deceive people
Look... it was knowable that millions of people would get letters from insurers saying
a) their insurance was canceled due to the ACA, and
b) that there was a plan available costing far more than they had been paying
Of fucking COURSE insurers would do that, because they like money and have no interest in promoting the benefits of the ACA.
So, knowing that millions of people would be informed (by their insurer) that Obamacare tripled their insurance premiums, we did X to prevent the predictable effect of that predictable event.
In this case, X was nothing.
It was known that millions of people would receive very alarming letters.
Nothing (sufficient or useful) was done about it in advance.
Of course it is the Republicans fault to a degree. If it were not for the Republicans the ACA would have been amended every two weeks... changes would have been made.
For instance, the government might have required insurers to include a government information sheet along with all such cancellation letters explaining that people did not have to accept whatever alternative their insurer offered, and even directing them to a working website to get better, cheaper coverage.
And it is fine to say it is the Republicans fault. Almost everything is. But the fact remains that the whole cancellation thing, and the attendant "you can keep your plan" thing, are to some degree stupid self-inflicted wounds.
And the whole quasi-religious sophistry about how if you twist stuff around enough "we" are revealed to have done everything right and described everything with 100% accuracy, and it is the fault of the recipients of cancellation letters for not being expert about the ACA, and for having poor coverage in the first place, is embarrassing.
Who the hell do you think has most of these substandard joke insurance plans that are being canceled? Rich people?
Blaming people who could not afford quality insurance for not being born experts on the ACA is as far from a progressive value as a thing can be.
(This does not apply to the small number of crazy liars who want to be on TV to lie about their canceled coverage. But again... that is a largely self-inflicted wound. How did it come to be that Republicans would get first crack at spinning what was known in advance would be millions of cancellations???)
There is nothing to be particularly proud of in the ACA roll-out.
The ACA is wonderful. The handling of its roll-out has been poor.
Someday, some people will realize that when TV is all about how you suck that is your fault, because most of the job is for TV to not b all about how you suck.
That is the JOB.
We have not done that JOB very well on the ACA.
Does anyone think they are high-fiving each other in HHS and the WH over the awesomeness of the ACA roll-out???
A fuck-up is a fuck-up. One admits to such things and moves on... or one rationalizes until the end of time about how it was awesome.
Of the two, the first one tends to yield better results.