General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Weirdly, the people complaining about the healthcare website not working after three weeks... [View all]BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)Contrary to your belief, I'm not trying to defend the glitches of Healthcare.gov, and I repeat, I'm not saying that it doesn't need some major fixing, but Healthcare.gov is only a small part of the PPACA. It is NOT the PPACA. The PPACA is not a website. It is law. We need to keep that first and foremost in mind so that we don't conflate the two and confuse ourselves.
Also, let's not forget that this is another Republican manufactured crisis. Republican obstructionism both on the federal and state level is the major reason why the federal exchange is suffering these glitches.
To explain:
The refusal by Teabagger congressmen in the House to give the HHS more funding when they were asked, helped to cause this "major fail", as you call it, as well as the miscalculation by the Admin that, despite Republican heated rhetoric, Republican-controlled states wouldn't refuse free money. They did, with the result that they also refused to open their own exchanges, forcing their constituents to flock to Healthcare.gov.
The federal exchange site failures was a concerted effort and were created by Republicans on federal and state level, lack of funding, and lack of time to properly alpha and beta test the site before roll out. Unified Republican obstructionism on federal and state level (refusal to provide more money, refusal to open exchanges or accept Medicaid money), the presidential elections (to see if Romney would win and people would elect a Republican Senate and would eventually repeal the law), and awaiting the SCOTUS decision all worked against the PPACA's website roll out. Due to this wholly Republican scheme on both federal and state levels, the smooth roll out failed.
Let's also not forget that the PPACA is only 3 1/2 years old and for most of that time, up until a few months before Healthcare.gov was rolled out, the PPACA sat in limbo and they ultimately ran out of time. DUer poster, ehrnst, posted about it here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3900533
So it was playing politics by the Republicans that had set the stage for the federal exchange meltdown. Read what Jay Angoff, who formerly ran the health exchange program for the Department of Health and Human Services, says about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/22/239197047/how-politics-set-the-stage-for-the-obamacare-website-meltdown
So no, I'm not "retailing talking points". I'm trying to bring clarity to this issue by stating the facts that happened behind the scenes as reported by people in the know, and to stop DUers from conflating Healthcare.gov and the PPACA, even though, according to your response, you staunchly believe they are one and the same.