American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/10/kathleen_sebelius_blamed_by_republicans_for_healthcare_gov_problems_gop.html

wouldn't mind seeing her go tbh

They think they got a substantial assist from the president’s Monday speech, where his fellow Americans were asked to remember that Obamacare was “not just a website,” and given the phone numbers to call if the pages didn’t load. All that was missing, snarked Republican Study Committee chairman Rep. Steve Scalise, “was an offer for free T-shirts to the first 100 callers.”

lol signing up for something BY PHONE?!?!

Is there any reason why they couldn't just extend open enrollment? If the congress actually wasn't awful, I mean.

its my understanding the the administration can postpone all the dates and whatnot if they deem it nesdisary, no congressional approval required

oh yeah this is pretty bad

Government officials and contractors ran a test to see whether the web portal could handle traffic from tens of thousands of users simultaneously, and the site crashed after a simulation in which only a few hundred tried to log on at the same time, according to the Post.

Sources close to the project told the Post that key testing of the website didn't take place until the week before the official launch. As late as Sept. 26, the sources said, no test had been carried out to determine whether a user could complete the enrollment process from beginning to end.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-obamacare-site-failed-test-just-before-launch

more polling http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/22/the-morning-plum-outside-the-conservative-bubble-gop-sustains-epic-damage

GOP manufactures crisis, overloads government worker and management resources, government looks bad. both sides bad

naw i dont think you can hang this one on the republicans sry

Well, the implementation was definitely rushed, and the problems hushed down, and I would guess that has a lot to do with the crazy state of government these days, and fear of the lies the right-wing media would spin out of it. But even so, it is still the dems fault.

NPR story this morning said that HHS & CMS (Medicare) had asked for more money to set up the exchanges years ago and that Congress(Republicans in House) blocked that; and so HHS had to hunt around within their own budget.

they spent $300m dollars to build that website! not enough money was not the problem

or $100m or $600m depending on sources, regardless they threw comical amounts of money at this thing

Maybe. Also, though, I think this issue re the selection of the contractors is making the rounds again:

The purchase of one of these contractors, Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), by UnitedHealth Group, a major healthcare conglomerate, has sparked concerns about a potentially uneven playing field.

QSSI, a Maryland-based contractor, in January won a large contract to build a federal data services hub to help run the complex federal health insurance exchange.

It will be working with several other contractors, including CGI Federal, Inc., to create the technological architecture for the exchange.

The quiet nature of the transaction, which was not disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has fueled suspicion among industry insiders that UnitedHealth Group may be gaining an advantage for its subsidiary, UnitedHealthcare.

UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition has caught the attention of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee. He has expressed alarm over what he calls a lack of transparency in setting up a national insurance marketplace covering more than 30 states.

He asked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in an Oct. 19 letter for a full account of contractors hired to set up the national exchange and a list of administration officials who signed off on those awards.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/265659-conflict-of-interests-concerns-raised-as-obama-races-to-implement-health-reform#ixzz2iSgZMKoj

That's from 2012 btw

the recent shutdown cost the government $24B. just to make a point. the fed could've spent $10B developing and advertising the shit out of the ACA site and that wouldn't be half what ted cruz's little shutdown stunt cost

sure but the idea that they didnt have enough money is just obvs buck passing by faceless bureaucrats

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/obama-reid_n_4136996.html

obama and reid decided not to cave, and then didn't.

x-post

According to a database put together by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group, QSSI has received $68.3 million to work on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. That's behind only CGI Federal and Serco, which is tasked with processing insurance applications on the exchange. In 2011 and 2012, QSSI spent $6.4 million on lobbying and made $3.6 million in political contributions, according to the Sunlight Foundation.

Stanley Nachimson, a consultant on healthcare claims technology, said that regardless of which firms are at fault for the problems, the underlying cause is the same. “The real issue with the system appears to be that there wasn't a lot of testing for the site to see how it operated, not only under normal or expected loads, but under heavy loads,” Nachimson said.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20131021/BLOG/310219996/qssi-also-had-role-in-glitch-prone-marketplace-rollout-report

seems like maybe they just couldve used a few more months to finish up

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXMSzY2CQAE4rOr.png

bros for life

the fed plan was to help each state set up an exchange iirc. there'd be no fed exchange at all if GOP governors hadn't opted out. if apple stores sabotaged apple hq the way red states do the federal government people would get fired, but what are you gonna do

that was... entirely predictable tho

doesn't make GOP sabotage any more excusable. imagine the dems shutting down the government instead of letting bush invade iraq. there'd be showtrials

lmao

Charlie:

This e-mail is to officially advise you that your presence at my husband's memorial services will be unacceptable. I have watched over the years, as Bill had, your transparent attempts to manipulate the political arena. I don't want my husband's memorial service to be another opportunity for that and I will not tolerate anyone turning this into a platform for political gain.

Please honor my family's request.

Sincerely,

Beverly Young

Widow of Congressman Bill Young

Charlie Crist

wait did the carcetti joke sail past all of you sheeples heads come on

http://brandynbold.com/gifs/oh%20snap/wee-bey-noo.gif

lol

From the polling article:

This is emerging as another case — along with immigration and social issues – where the very fact that individual House Republicans live in safe districts, insulated from the currents of national opinion, is actively setting back the party’s efforts to broaden its national appeal. This dynamic is reinforced by the closed conservative information feedback loop, where a great majority of the American people are imagined to have mobilized enthusiastically behind the shutdown crusade, and are clamoring for a continued commitment to more scorched earth tactics against Obamacare.

that was... entirely predictable tho

― lag∞n, 22. oktober 2013 18:13 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, spot on, and I guess the administration chose to ignore this since the alternative - admitting the site couldn't be done in time - seemed worse. The whole roll-out of ACA has been ugly on both sides (though not equal amounts of ugly, obviously), but for my money, if the result is affordable health care, then it was worth it.

How Reid and Obama didn't blink.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2013/10/healthcare_gov_problems_what_5_million_lines_of_code_really_means.html

x-post to both postings of the Huffpost thing on Reid & Obama:

Notice there's no "we will need revenues," it's "Harry and Nancy". Plus Paul Ryan being his usual obnoxious self with the offer, and Obama liking it

The next morning, nevertheless, he took the basic outline of the negotiations to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell and top presidential adviser Dan Pfeiffer. The three of them briefed the president at around 11 am. Obama considered it a good faith offer but not one he could accept. After federal workers had been forced off the job, it would be particularly cruel to find a resolution to the shutdown in the form of decreasing their pensions. Moreover, he was concerned about any trade of permanent entitlement reform for temporary spending bumps. Even if he did like the offer, however, he couldn't sell a package like that to congressional Democrats unless it included a revenue increase.

"Harry and Nancy will need revenues," Obama told Boehner during a call on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 11. He added that he wouldn't send a counteroffer -- after all, his principle was not to negotiate -- but he'd look at any revamped ideas that the speaker had.

Nothing ever came.

x-post to both postings of the Huffpost thing on Reid & Obama:

you are so polite :)

even townhall (!) is starting to get what's going on

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/conncarroll/2013/10/22/how-much-damage-did-the-defunders-do-n1729819

lol classic Beltway twaddle:

When a recent Manhattan fund-raiser for the Virginia candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe wound down and most of the donors had left the host’s swanky meatpacking district loft, President Bill Clinton stuck around.

Only a handful of guests (“And none of the really important ones,” according to one attendee) remained, but Mr. Clinton continued to shake hands and pose for photos. He greeted the waiters and joked with stragglers that he would meet them at a nearby bar.

This spring, as guests gathered around a big table inside a grand Washington home at a fund-raising dinner for Mr. McAuliffe, Mr. Clinton noticed the hosts’ bored young son on a sofa. The former president plopped down and the two played on an iPad together.

The behavior wasn’t anything unusual for Mr. Clinton, who has always been known as a gregarious party guest. But for some Democratic donors — accustomed to what some see as the aloof indifference of President Obama — experiencing the full embrace of the Clintons in fund-raising mode comes as something of a revelation.

Mr. Obama has rewarded his top backers with coveted diplomatic posts like London and Tokyo, but he does not expend much personal energy when it comes to stroking donors: More than a dozen Obama supporters interviewed for this article described the president as an introvert who views big-dollar fund-raising as an unappealing, if necessary, chore. If the situation were a movie, one donor said, it would be titled: “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

It's really annoying me that the media is ignoring/downplaying the fact that you can sign up over the phone (or by mail? Who knows lol check out this listicle)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vndm3MjJbSo

ronan has a show?

stroking donors

ronan has a show?

― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, October 23, 2013 3:26 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just starting

i didn't know one could be so smug so young it's sort of impressive

Eugene Robinson pitches his voice at "Democratic weenie" levels.

Oh fun, right-wingers salivating over a chance to crticize salon's Joan Walsh in response to the Joan Walsh of Salon piece that criticizes Ezra Klein's health care rollout coverage (and Ezra's response)

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/23/Ezra-Klein-Responds

ignore the grammar issues there

brzezinski jr's body language before sinatra jr speaks is hmmmm

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115272/obamacare-and-republicans-relationship-gets-more-complicated

Generally, holding a hearing demanding to know why a new program isn’t functioning better implies that…you want it to function. Until now, Republicans have managed to oppose Obamacare totally, to undermine its implementation left and right while casting symbolic votes for repeal and, just recently, engaging in an immensely costly charade to press for the “defunding” of the law.

But now that the law is actually going into effect, seizing on its deficiencies takes on a different aspect: It means, at some basic level, accepting the goals of the law as worth achieving. Now, Republicans will say that by highlighting implementation flaws they are simply exposing its inherent unworkability, but I’m not sure that pose will hold up in their new mode of inspector general. Administration officials will come in for questioning and Republicans will demand to know: How many people are signing up for coverage? When will the site be working better? What are you doing to fix it? Unspoken in all of those questions is something that Republicans have simply shut out of their assault on Obamacare until now: That there are people out there, millions of them, who do not have coverage and will be helped by the law if it can be made to function properly.

Along similar lines: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/the_amazing_politics_of_healthcare_gov_failure/

That will help immunize it from legislative mischief. But it’ll also put legions of Republicans in the same position Ellmers found herself in on Tuesday — forced to confront the reality that the law only isn’t working for people whose states begged off the project, or undermined it intentionally. Many people living in those states will know that things would be better if only their elected leaders would just make their peace with Obamacare and make their own constituents’ lives better by implementing it.

there was a discussion about people who fell through the cracks in obamacare in the states that didnt extend medicare on npr this morning. kinda breezed through the fact that the governors of those states are intentionally fucking over these millions of people and refusing to accept basically free money for politics.

politics wise, npr is basically cnn with a world music soundtrack