"War Room" Notes Describe IT Chaos At Healthcare.gov

dcblogs writes "U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has released 175 pages of "War Room" notes — a collection of notes by federal officials dealing with the problems at Healthcare.gov. They start Oct. 1, the launch day. The War Room notes catalog IT problems — dashboards weren't showing data, servers didn't have the right production data, third party systems weren't connecting to verify data, a key contractor had trouble logging on, and there wasn't enough server capacity to handle the traffic, or enough people on the help desks to answer calls. To top it off, some personnel needed for the effort were furloughed because of the shutdown. Volunteers were needed to work weekends, but there were bureaucratic complications."

Comments

Furloughed workers

[unixcrab]

Funny that a Republican would be pointing that out :P

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Add something meaningful. This wasn't because of Republicans. This entire fiasco is Government Bureaucracy screwing things up. It's that same kind of bureaucracy that just needs to go away. You can have regulations without bureaucracy.

Re:Furloughed workers

[gandhi_2]

The government employs too many people. We borrow money from China to employ them. Sad as it is, it is too expensive. Federal employees in particular are pretty expensive.

Here's the crazy part. The US Government can simply take more money from taxpayers, then borrow 40 cents from China for every dollar, and they will make ACA succeed by brute-force. They will simply out-spend the problem, using other people's money.

They don't have to show a profit. They don't have to prove efficiency. They don't have to prove competency. They will simply take what they want from other people until it works.

Imagine Stalin's purges if he had made everyone use a website... his communism would have barely purged 10% of Ingushetia before being overwhelmed.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Saethan]

Wasn't it just a few weeks ago democrats were hitching on to the idea that republicans were misguided because even under a government shutdown, healthcare is considered essential and would not lose funding? Pick a stance, guys.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the party that kept sending bills to the senate while the Dems said only "NO, NO, NO! We'd rather have a mandated shutdown!"?

Re:Furloughed workers

[CohibaVancouver]

The problem with bureaucracy is that in many cases they are required to award contracts to the lowest bidder - If they don't, and word gets out, the media slams them. Sometimes the lowest bidder isn't always the best option....

Re:Furloughed workers

[MrMarket]

Add something meaningful.

Go-live fiascos like this are quite common in the private sector. Large corporate bureaucracies can be just as bad, if not worse, than government. The difference is that this particular SNAFU is getting dissected in the press. It's a great opportunity to learn about the complexities involved when deploying large, complex, federated systems. I guarantee you there are people in the private sector pushing these articles to their corp. IT as a way to shame CIOs and CEOs into cutting the red tape, procurement hurdles, fiefdoms, and archaic development methodologies in their own organizations. If you want something meaningful from this event, learn from it rather than pointing fingers at "The Government." These are problems in most large organizations.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah because if just those furloghed workers had been allowed to come in for 8 days then none of this would've happened.

Or maybe if Obama and Reid had actually negotiated with the House on a bill instead of saying "Hell No, give us the mon-ay because we run 2/3rds of government" none of this would've happened.

The Republicans stood up for their constituency. GOOD FOR THEM.

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

You guys are so funny. If a Republican gets into office, and wants to expand government programs because he's a "compassionate conservative", you slam him for spending too much money. Afterall, conservatives can't bash big spending Democrats when "Republicans do it too".

So now a faction of the Republican party gains a few seats, and you bash them for being the example of small-government, budget-conscience conservatives you keep claiming you are looking for in a "loyal opposition party".

So, what is the truth? Do you want Republicans that spend like liberal Democrats, or do you want Republicans that spend like conservative Republicans?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

No idea how stupid stuff like this gets marked insightful. Employs too many people? compared to what?

borrow money from China to employ them? are you serious?

we are borrowing money to pay for tax cuts to the rich.

we are borrowing money to pay for social security/medicare.

we are borrowing money to pay for farm subsidies.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It takes two to tango, and the Democrats were saying no to Republican proposals with equal vigor.

The childlike games played just to prevent spending cuts is embarrassing and shameful.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

"The government employs too many people. We borrow money from China to employ them."

In the 1990s you didn't. You simply had a high enough tax rate to cover the bills and run a bit of a surplus that could be used to pay down the accumulated debt. Then the tax rate was cut on the theory that this would stimulate the entire economy. Instead it seems to have spectacularly enhanced incomes at the upper end. Although an unpopular solution, letting those tax cuts expire is one way to solve the budget problem.

The deficit problem you describe exists largely because the political decision was made to take in less revenue and spend more on programs, because "deficits don't matter", in the hopes that starving government of funds will eventually lead to lower costs, somehow. Unfortunately the people making these decisions have the will to cut revenue, but apparently not the corresponding expenses. The results are predictable. It is an artificial crisis that has been created by doing one thing and not doing the complement to it. The solution is to follow through with cuts that should have been made a decade ago or to reverse the revenue decline.

I agree that the government employs too many people for current revenue, but if you actually want to make cuts that matter, you should be looking at big-ticket government employment, such as spending more than any other country in the world on the military. Sad as it is, these federal employees and the gear they use are pretty expensive too. Perhaps fewer aircraft carriers would be worthwhile to consider, for example.

Re:Furloughed workers

[DoofusOfDeath]

As a former DoD software developer, let's review your comments.

The government employs too many people. We borrow money from China to employ them.

According to the best source of info I could easily find, federal salaries made up just 13.8% of the federal budget as of 2005.

You also neglect some important questions:

• Do we have too many federal employees for the scope of government? I.e., is the problem their efficiency, or the mission?
• If federal employees are getting less done than you'd like, is it because they're lazy/stupid/etc., could part of that be due to the insane set of regulations with which they're required to comply?

Sad as it is, it is too expensive. Federal employees in particular are pretty expensive.

Expensive compared to what? If they don't have to show a profit, etc., then can you objectively demonstrate that they're getting less done than a (potentially) lower-priced contractor?

Also, you fail to mention that there's a very open debate about if / when contractors are a better deal for the government than are civil servants. Partisan thinktanks have no problem making sweeping statements, but organizations specifically charged with reporting truthfully find that there's not enough data.

I hope you're also not going to compare the average salary of all public sector works vs. all private sector workers. Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.

They don't have to show a profit. They don't have to prove efficiency. They don't have to prove competency. They will simply take what they want from other people until it works.

As opposed to what contractors do? Good grief man, have you ever seen what private sector contractors do? I've seen plenty of silliness and inefficiency in civil servants, but I've seen countless times contractors milking / drawing out contracts, while often getting less done than the civil servants with whom they collaborate.

I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You're so frustrated with the negative examples you've seen of civil servants, that you simply assume the private sector is more efficient. And (2), you're confusing your complaints regarding the breadth and intrusiveness of the government's self-granted scope, with the quality of work being done by civil servants.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Add something meaningful.

Go-live fiascos like this are quite common in the private sector. Large corporate bureaucracies can be just as bad, if not worse, than government. The difference is that this particular SNAFU is getting dissected in the press. It's a great opportunity to learn about the complexities involved when deploying large, complex, federated systems. I guarantee you there are people in the private sector pushing these articles to their corp. IT as a way to shame CIOs and CEOs into cutting the red tape, procurement hurdles, fiefdoms, and archaic development methodologies in their own organizations. If you want something meaningful from this event, learn from it rather than pointing fingers at "The Government." These are problems in most large organizations.

This times a million. How many Oracle rollouts went disastrously wrong in private industry that it was obvious even to the casual observer (despite corporate NDAs) and yet here we have a bigger project than most, that was actually live on the date that it was supposed to be (despite capacity issues and some lingering bugs) but of course the fact that it wasn't perfect is proof that the government can't do anything right. If this same project were corporate, it would have gone live in 2015, still had only half the features it was supposed to, and bonuses would still be rained upon the CEO/CIO's heads. There's your "free market efficiency".

Re:Furloughed workers

[Mr D from 63]

All I know is that this furloughed worker debate is meaningless in the context of this article unless someone actually believes that the website would have worked properly if they had those 3 more weeks.

Re:Furloughed workers

[laffer1]

To be fair, healthcare.gov was clearly behind schedule and they released what they had. I don't think the government shutdown caused the problem. It may have made it worse because they had a few less people working on it.

Server capacity issues mean they didn't perform load testing or underestimated demand. Of course, the code wasn't done so it's hard to test.

A small team could have written that website in the time allotted without issues provided the specs didn't change. The cost of the site and the number of people involved is insane and demonstrates the consultants took them for a ride.

I bet it was cheap, inexperienced developers who had no clue how to build a scalable site.

Re:Furloughed workers

[somersault]

So ... I repeat my wife's question: do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

Isn't it an opt-in system? So don't opt-in. I thought the point was that there are a lot of people who can't afford any healthcare. Those are the people that Obamacare is aimed at. Slightly chaotic healthcare is better than no healthcare.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the party that kept sending bills to the senate while the Dems said only "NO, NO, NO! We'd rather have a mandated shutdown!"?

Right, so one party holds up the "pay this month's rent bill" because they changed their mind and want a puppy with it.
Then they send over "pay the rent for the kid's bedroom and dog food", "turn the heat back on and dog crate", "pay water bill and puppy".

When the second party says, "no", can the first really claim "You WANT us to get evicted!!!1" ?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Rich0]

The US Government can simply take more money from taxpayers, then borrow 40 cents from China for every dollar, and they will make ACA succeed by brute-force.

Uh, isn't that basically just socialism, plus the fact that people want more than what they can afford? They could just spend less on healthcare and get the same result without the borrowing. However, the whole point of socialism is to take money from people who have money and to spend it on people who don't. If you don't like that then the solution is to just let people who can't afford insurance die, which most would not consider an acceptable solution.

The problem with healthcare is that everybody wants to paint it like some black-and-white simple problem with a simple solution, when in reality it is about 500 problems lumped into one big mess. There are lots of issues that drive up costs. There are lots of issues that discourage preventative care. There are lots of issues with who gets cared for. There are lots of administrative issues with paying a fair price for the work that gets done. There are lots of issues with trying to figure out what the best way to take care of a sick person actually is.

Everybody like to just pick one thing and point out a simple solution to it. Just let ERs turn away the indigent and now hospitals are solvent (just be sure to budget more money for the morgue, both for those who can't afford care and also for those who left their wallets at home when they keeled over). Just set the reimbursement rate for a particular treatment at $10 and now it doesn't cost much to pay for it (ignore the fact that nobody will provide the treatment any longer). Let the market freely set prices (and ignore the fact that consumers have little ability to shop around while unconscious). Every complicated problem has a simple solution that won't work...

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

Yes, I agree. Look at my sig below for an idea of what I would rather have at this point.

But that isn't the point of criticizing Republicans who want to limit the federal government.

Re:Furloughed workers

[njnnja]

Although these problems are bound to occur in any large organization, their impact is disproportionately large when a monopolist power screws up. In areas where there is competition, people at least have alternatives (even if they aren't ideal). When Apple launched a broken maps app, people used Google maps on safari until Google released their own app. Windows 8 sucks? Buy a Mac, an iPad, or Galaxy Tab. But for a federal government fail, the alternative is to, what, move to Canada?

But both conservatives and liberals can take away valid arguments from this; liberals can say that in order to get government to do all the things that we (for certain definitions of "we") want then we have to be willing to spend the money to do it right, and conservatives can say that having the government run (for certain definitions of "run") something creates a single point of failure and should therefore be avoided.

Re:Furloughed workers

[MrMarket]

do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

Congrats you baited me. The Government is not in charge of your healthcare any more than the SEC is in charge of your stock portfolio. ACA created a regulated market for private insurance. The person deciding whether or not you get surgery is a medical director at a *private* insurance company. Not a government official. If anything, ACA made it harder for insurance companies to deny coverage for certain types of care. This Republican talking point is way over-played and not based on facts.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Albanach]

So ... I repeat my wife's question: do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

Does your wife really think that insurance companies don't make errors with billing, coding or paying the bills?

Next time you're in your doctor's office, ask them how much effort it is to work with the various insurance companies. Should you be in a hospital, ask the doctor how much time is lost in disputing the necessity of treatment with insurance companies, or how many patients opt for less than optimal treatment because an insurance company bureaucrat interprets a rule differently from other staff at the very same firm.

Re:Furloughed workers

[_Sharp'r_]

The problem with your analysis is that you have the facts wrong.

If you look at a chart of revenue and spending in constant dollars, you'll see that after the 1998 tax cuts, revenue increased until the dot.com bust in 2000. Revenue was down until the 2001 & 2003 Bush tax cuts, after which it increased until the housing bubble burst in 2007/08. Tha major tax cuts in the era you're talking about weren't followed by revenue decreases in the years right after they took effect. Revenue right now is about average for the last 15 years, down a bit because it follows the state of the economy and the economy overall is still down. Minor changes in tax rates don't affect revenue that much. Annual revenue is UP about a trillion dollars since 1980, so it's not like we've suddenly had less revenue than ever before.

Spending is the the obvious issue. Since 1980, spending is up $1.8 Trillion (still constant, i.e. inflation adjusted dollars). Since 2000, it's up over a Trillion dollars.

Bottom line, revenue is way up. Spending is just way, way more up. Revenue has gone in the desired direction. The issue is that Spending has gone in the wrong direction if we want to solve anything related to debt and deficits.

Re:Furloughed workers

[night_flyer]

healthcare.gov was opened to the public Oct 1st, the gov't shutdown started Oct 1st... anyone blaming furloughs for its problems is being disingenuous at best... and the gov't had 3 YEARS to get the site up and running

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Happened to me.

In 1981 I received SSI benefits because my father was disabled.
In 2012 I received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying they had overpaid me in 1981 and I owed them money.
After over 30 years!
I sent letter after letter, with the appropriate appeal form. They ignored all of them.
Just kept sending increasingly threatening letters. By the way, they were sending the letters to an address I ahve not lived at for over 30 years. Even though they have my current address.
I called, they could not help. Eventually someone was able to change the address.
They then sent a wage garnishment to my employer.
I called, reached a person who said 'fine, we'll reverse this'. But they didn't actually tell anyone.
So my employer deducted it from my wages. How embarrassing is that? They said I had to work it out with SSA.
And after that, the IRS deducted it from my tax refund. They too said I had to work it out with SSA.
Then I get a letter from the SSA saying 'we have recalculated your benefits and we owe you money'.
They sent me a check for over double what the had garnished from me.

No doubt i will get another letter in the future telling me I owe them money

Re:Furloughed workers

[T.E.D.]

You mean the party that kept sending bills to the senate ...

...without making any attempt whatsoever to make those bills something that could pass in said senate?

Yeah, them.

Note that the Senate during this time also sent a bill to the house. By all accounts, it was a bill that would have passed in the house with flying colors, and the POTUS would have signed. It would also have represented a tremendous victory for Republicans, cutting food stamps by 4 billion dollars, and all sorts of other assorted (IHMO evil) cuts to the poor that Republicans were wanting. In the Bush era a Republican house would have jumped right on this.

The house's Republican leadership wouldn't bring it up for a vote. In fact, they changed their own rules specifically to prevent anyone from being able to bring this passable bill up on the House floor. Why not take a big legislative victory? Because the Republicans in the House don't care about legislative victories. They wanted to shut the government down. Simple as that.

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

I don't have a problem with someone posting a small comment as an AC to preserve modding in general articles.

But I will agree that the AC had a long post with "insider knowledge" that is beyond appropriate.

If you have detailed knowledge of a story, choose to either mod or comment.

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

So ... I repeat my wife's question: do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

Does your wife really think that insurance companies don't make errors with billing, coding or paying the bills?

Next time you're in your doctor's office, ask them how much effort it is to work with the various insurance companies.

Ask them which is worse - the insurance companies or Medicare?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you have to pay a penalty.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

As a rational private citizen, not on the government payroll, lets review your comments.

According to the best source of info I could easily find [answers.com], federal salaries made up just 13.8% of the federal budget as of 2005.

According to the best source of info I could easily find [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/42921], federal workers are paid too much.

"Overall, the federal government paid 16 percent more in total compensation than it would have if average compensation had been comparable with that in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.

You also neglect some important questions:

        Is the scope of the federal government too large ? I.e., have they destroyed freedom to create a nanny state ?
        If federal employees are getting less done than you'd like, is it because they have 0 accountability to the public ? Could part of that be due to the fact that they take money from citizens with a gun to their head, and have no incentive to work faster or smarter or at lower cost ?

Expensive compared to what? If they don't have to show a profit, etc., then can you objectively demonstrate that they're getting less done than a (potentially) lower-priced contractor?

Expensive compared to the private sector, by 16% each, after accounting for all factors, according to the CBO. As for how much they get done, the answer is, nothing. They get nothing done, because, government employees do not contribute to productivity. They are all administrative overhead to an otherwise productive private sector.

Also, you fail to mention that there's a very open debate about if / when contractors are a better deal for the government than are civil servants. Partisan thinktanks have no problem making sweeping statements, but organizations specifically charged with reporting truthfully find that there's not enough data.

Well, it'd be nice if contractors were used, but the fact of the matter is, the bulk of the work for healthcare.gov was handed to the administrations cronies.

I hope you're also not going to compare the average salary of all public sector works vs. all private sector workers. Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.

The CBOs data suggests you are just flat out wrong concerning this statement.

As opposed to what contractors do? Good grief man, have you ever seen what private sector contractors do? I've seen plenty of silliness and inefficiency in civil servants, but I've seen countless times contractors milking / drawing out contracts, while often getting less done than the civil servants with whom they collaborate.

So the federal government does not behave responsbily with tax payers money and fails to properly manage its contractors. Agreed.

I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You're so frustrated with the negative examples you've seen of civil servants, that you simply assume the private sector is more efficient. And (2), you're confusing your complaints regarding the breadth and intrusiveness of the government's self-granted scope, with the quality of work being done by civil servants.

I suspect you have two basic problems. (1) You derive your income as a contractor, who is all too happy to keep milking the taxpayers and the federal government while not delivering anything of any real value, in any sane amount of time, in any satisfactory level of quality. And (2), you're confusing the justification of your own actions with actions that are truly just.

Re:Furloughed workers

[taiwanjohn]

Simple solution: Just say, "My username is _____, I'm just posting as AC to preserve mod points."

Re:Furloughed workers

[Enry]

So ... I repeat my wife's question: do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

They're not in charge of your healthcare. They're in charge of making sure you get healthcare from a qualified insurance company and have the ability to discuss your medical needs with a qualified doctor.

Re:Furloughed workers

[somersault]

Do you mean taxes, or potential lack of health care?

Having to pay more taxes is a fair enough point I suppose, though I consider it quite a selfish one. If your government cut back to less than a trillion dollars of military spending per year (that might sound like an exaggerated joke number, but it's not..) then you could potentially have lower taxes as well as nice things like national healthcare. Maybe you consider that military spending an investment in the future of the oil market, I don't know..

If the penalty is potentially having no healthcare.. then like I said, it's no worse than definitely having no health care.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Kelbear]

My son turned 1 year old 2 weeks ago. We're STILL dealing with incorrect billing issues from his birth.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Above]

Please try again. This time plot revenue and spending as a percentage of GDP. I'll save you some time, go here to see it.

You are correct that spending is up, even as a percentage of GDP. The budget should be reviewed, as some of the causes are cyclical (the recession) and will "self solve" as the economy improves, while others are structural issues, like devoting an ever larger chunk of the budget to military and war expenditures over the past decade.

But it's just as important to realize that as a percentage of GDP revenue is down. Those tax cuts mean the government is taking in a smaller percentage of economic output. So when inflation drives up the cost of guns/tanks/healthcare/office space/contractors for the government there isn't a corresponding increase in revenue to off set it, because we've chosen to end taxes on a number of things that get inflated (like the wealthiest 1%'s salaries).

Your bottom line is wrong. Revenue is up in dollar amount, but down as a percentage of the economy. Spending is up by both measures. Revenue has not kept pace with economic growth. To solve the debt and deficits we must both lower spending and raise tax revenue, ideally by closing loopholes and credits, rather than raising the marginal rates.

Re:Furloughed workers

[NatasRevol]

Who the fuck cares?

Mod points aren't actual things.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Kelbear]

Wait, what "compassionate conservatism" have you seen bashed on this site? Not calling you out here, I just really can't think of a politician pushing compassionate conservatism since Obama got elected, and certainly not on a platform loud enough to have been discussed on /.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually read the CBO document? I have read it and it says the exact opposite of what you believe it to say. As an example, you said:

...Because for the most part, the government doesn't hire people to do low-skilled work. For example, at the military sites that I've been at, things like building cleaning, etc. was mostly done by private contractors.

The CBOs data suggests you are just flat out wrong concerning this statement.

The CBO report says, and I quote: "Both high and low wages tend to be less prevalent in the federal government than in the private sector, so the range between those wages—the dispersion of wages— tends to be narrower for federal employees." The report that you reference also states that employees with less than a high school diploma are overpaid compared to their private counterparts by 21%, while doctoral-level employees are underpaid by 23%.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure the military is our biggest spending item. Especially over the last 30 years that has seen our debt go from $1T to $16T.

Ironically, every Republican president since 1980 has at least doubled the national debt.

Reagan - from $1T to $3T
Bush Sr - from $3T to $6T
Bush Jr - from $5T to $11T

But somehow Democrats are the tax & spend party. Which is actually fiscally responsible from a government point of view.

Re:Furloughed workers

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

In areas where there is competition, people at least have alternatives (even if they aren't ideal).

In a competitive race to the bottom, all alternatives are equally unacceptable. Competition alone can not and will not magically make things better or even make them tolerable. There is little difference between a monopolists poor service and the poor services of an entire industry.

Re:Furloughed workers

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

If you look at a chart of revenue and spending in constant dollars, you'll see that after the 1998 tax cuts, revenue increased until the dot.com bust in 2000. Revenue was down until the 2001 & 2003 Bush tax cuts, after which it increased until the housing bubble burst in 2007/08. Tha major tax cuts in the era you're talking about weren't followed by revenue decreases in the years right after they took effect.

Translation: The government cut taxes and relied on the capital gains windfalls from speculative bubbles to fund itself. This went about as well as you would expect.

Re:Furloughed workers

[gsslay]

"put it to you this way: you've seen how things work here. Do you really want the same people deciding whether or not your mother can have surgery?"

Oh if only everything was a simple as the private sector!

"Have they paid us lots of money in the past? Can they afford to give us a lot of money now? No? No surgery for mother then. Next case!"

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Put the difference in a money market account or something and don't touch it. Periodically spend the interest on beer.

Re:Furloughed workers

[dosilegecko]

Except in most private corporations, the roll out of a huge program like this would not be something that was forced upon the citizens of a whole country while also seizing control of 1/6 of its economy. You DO see a difference here between that a the new roll out and something optional right? Right?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Metrol]

The Government is not in charge of your healthcare any more than the SEC is in charge of your stock portfolio.

Oh really? So, the SEC will fine me for not being invested in a minimum government approved set of funds, that I may or may not need? Will the SEC shut down funds that are not diversified in the manner in which the government has determined must be put in place in order to further finance other investors that don't have as much to invest?

ACA created a regulated market for private insurance

All private insurance was already heavily regulated! All the ACA did was create thousands of new government jobs and rake in half a billion dollars in new lobbying by the insurance companies... that you had best be buying a product from or have the IRS forcibly take those funds from you. Hooray freedom!

If anything, ACA made it harder for insurance companies to deny coverage for certain types of care.

That could have been handled in a 10 page bill. If this had anything at all to do with actually taking care of people, a bill focused on chronic illness would have seen bipartisan support, and cost a wee bit less than the additional trillion a year this beast is putting on to our debt.

Re:Furloughed workers

[bhlowe]

That is true, but in this instance, this was a no-bid contract. And for hundreds of millions of dollars (do you realize how many programmer hours that buys?!) this is a fiasco. Just wait until it starts working and healthy working people realize how much they're going to have to spend to subsidize all the lower-income and non-workers. This is going to be a spectacular disaster.

Re:Furloughed workers

[ColdWetDog]

And it just might be even more complicated than both of you think. Yes, the insurance company is a private corporation, but it is following book loads of rules promulgated by the Federal Government. Yes, for all practical purposes, the Government is in charge of your healthcare.

Yes, the ACA made it harder for the insurance companies to do some things, like drop you for pre existing conditions, but the insurance companies recieved lots of carrots for that particular stick. The big failing of the ACA, IMHO, is that it did not come down hard enough on the insurance companies - they are the big winners in all of this.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words you don't realize that as a healthy person you already subsidize the uninsured. Hospitals have to charge insured people so much in part because they have to cover the costs of all the people that have to treat who don't have insurance. So imagine if those people did have insurance! Of course you're going to have to help them pay for their insurance since the net affect is probably pretty minimal on a healthy person with insurance.

Re:Furloughed workers

[edibobb]

net effect

Re:Furloughed workers

[blackraven14250]

How is allowing (not requiring - they don't have to participate in the exchanges) insurance companies around the country to compete in a marketplace seizing control of a full sixth of the economy?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Lumpy]

Actually you will get police at your door arresting you for fraud, how dare you cash that check they send you.

Re:Furloughed workers

[LifesABeach]

It's a hell of a friday. My first thought was, "how's that Out Sourcing working for you Mr. President?" There are smart asses, and grand parents running e-commerce sites more complex than the ACA. When it comes to insurance web sites, the successful business model is: 1. get some kind of name, phone, and address. 2. get credit card information, or get ready to send a bill through snail mail. 3. suggest today's special and give a list of "others." Side note here, it's always better to put something in the hands of a client than nothing. 4. remember to say, "thank you" and move on to the next client. Let customer service verify, and call back, to get data right. You already have their money, now it's time to be a hero to the client. The American people paid $88 million for what one can get done via CraigsList at about $50 an hour, and have it up and running in about 30 days. Go figure.

Of course firing the CIO(?) or COO(?) at Medicare, and that choke point evaporated, was a telling event.

Re:Furloughed workers

[somersault]

I did do a Google search, and this is what I was found.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Dan667]

I'd take the government managing healthcare (and they are doing it fairly well and better than the private sector for Medicaid) than a private health insurance company death panel deciding it is too costly to keep me alive. And that is happening to people today for relatively reasonable cancer and other treatments.

Re:Furloughed workers

[microbox]

Add something meaningful. This wasn't because of Republicans. This entire fiasco is Government Bureaucracy screwing things up. It's that same kind of bureaucracy that just needs to go away. You can have regulations without bureaucracy.

From the church of libertarianism: the all-powerful all-wasteful government. I'm sure you never were part of an audit of a government to work out how much waste/cruft there is, and compared the results to, say, a fortune 500. Nah... you just *know* your right.

I'm slightly libertarian myself, but as a true conservative, I respect the fact that I don't know enough about society to architect a solution, and thus favour incremental change. Getting "buraeucracy to go away", as you put it, is the type of arrogant liberal clap-trap you hear when some wide-eyed youth tells you about getting rid of capitalism.

In an unbelievably cynical move, the GOP is actively destroying government, and then complaining that it doesn't work, and "rebels" like yourself buy it. I'll be sitting on the fence until the conservative movement gets its act together, and start, you know, doing something productive.

Chris Christie 2016.

Re:Furloughed workers

[TheGratefulNet]

working people realize how much they're going to have to spend to subsidize all the lower-income and non-workers.

you mean, like retired people, those who were laid off and due to outsourcing, can't find jobs?

how about those that have been going to emergency rooms for treatment since there was no other way for them?

we have always been supporting those that can't support themselves.

but I guess that, to you, its ONLY about those that 'refuse' to support themselves.

go ahead and tell me about 'bootstappiness'. I bet you want to bring that up, don't you?

Re:Furloughed workers

[TheGratefulNet]

(cough) the website guys are NOT 'in charge of your healthcare'.

go back to watching faux news and stop commenting on stuff you have no idea about.

previous system: insurance companies decided if you lived or died. how could that EVER be better than what is currently being implemented?

but anyway, a website is not a doctor. nice distraction attempt, though.

Re:Furloughed workers

[TheGratefulNet]

If your government cut back to less than a trillion dollars of military spending per year (that might sound like an exaggerated joke number, but it's not..) then you could potentially have lower taxes as well as nice things like national healthcare

100x this.

we have overspent on 'guns and tanks and shit' at the expense of our own local welfare and well-being.

there are those of us who see this; but those who see it are never the ones who control the spending ;(

remove the military. almost entirely! and see what riches we have left to INVEST in our own people and standard of living.

it would spin your head.

Re:Furloughed workers

[photo pilot]

This fail has many parents. Fail 1 is the total inability of a large part of the USA population to consider ANY of the ways the entire rest of the civilized world runs their healthcare without collapsing into an epileptic fit screaming "OMFG commie pinko socialism death panel grandma waits years for a bandaid end of the word HELP" and then off to find an Ayn Rand poster to whack off to. Fail 2 is the desire of around half of the Board of Directors of this enterprise for this project to fail in the most spectacular way possible. You can't run CAT 6 cable around a building if half your bosses hate ethernet cables and try and cut them every night, let alone roll out something like this. Fail 3 is the usual political apointee level types ignoring all the worker bee feds who no doubht told them about 10,000 times this was going to be a disaster and who also prolly gave the "scum sucking contractor weasels" about 101 change orders and apparently cut their requested load test time by about 90%.

Re:Furloughed workers

[microbox]

Of course they are. But they're worse in the government, because a business, at least, has to eventually show a profit. A government can simply print more money or borrow to cover the shortfall.

Another AC making as if they are an authority on how government work actually gets done. Like you know from experience, and didn't just dream this nonsense up in the cellar of your imagination. Economists do try and understand these issues, and the actual amount of waste in government would surprise anyone who buys into the four-legs-good, government-bad narrative. Of course, those economists are just liberal elitists, and O'Reilly has better ratings anyway.

Once upon a time, conservatives actually had ideas, and listened to professors at universities, and, you know, had a clue about governing. Reagan was like that. He used to, for example, speak to the head of the EPA and ask questions like, "Why is there concern over the water?". Thatcher was the same. She grilled her science advisers, to make sure she herself understood important issues such as global warming. These people had brains. For the GOP, those days are long gone.

Re: Furloughed workers

[somersault]

Where in the world did yo get the information that the system is "slightly chaotic"?

If you'd read the post I was replying to, you might have understood the context of that statement. He was saying that the system (once it is working) would end up similar to that of the Social Security department - that the system would work overall, but occasionally people would screw up because they're not paying attention.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Culture20]

But it's just as important to realize that as a percentage of GDP revenue is down. Those tax cuts mean the government is taking in a smaller percentage of economic output.

Yes, reduction of revenue per point of GDP is what a tax cut is. Congratulations on discovering a tautology. What matters is whether GDP would be high enough with or without taxes (de)incentivizing growth to make the absolute value of revenue higher or lower. You don't spend "money in relation to GDP", you spend "money".

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yeah! well i just edited that page so that is now supports my side of the argument!

Re:Furloughed workers

[Culture20]

The American people paid $88 million for what one can get done via CraigsList at about $50 an hour

1) post personal medical information to Craigslist
2) ???
3) Affordable health insurance!

Re:Furloughed workers

[Dragonslicer]

... while also seizing control of 1/6 of its economy.

If health insurance is 1/6 of the United States' economy, I think we might have bigger problems.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Dragonslicer]

Go-live fiascos like this are quite common in the private sector.

What are you talking about? Every EA game launch has gone absolutely perfectly. They never have any problems on launch day.

Re:Furloughed workers

[microbox]

Do you want Republicans that spend like liberal Democrats,

If you go by history, democrats know how to balance the budget and bring deficits down. Conservatives have their own "economics" that says that tax cuts are free, and then are disconnected from their largess anyway, so the budget gets fscked up.

The problem with the tea party isn't that they want small government, but that they want to cut the parts of the government they don't want, which don't cost much anyway. The three biggest chunks of government are: military, social security, and medicare. Most of the tea-party supports the military largess, and they are on social security and medicare. So reform is a non-starter.

So the real reason people hate the tea party is that they think black-is-white, are will destroy the country to prove it.

Re:Furloughed workers

[StikyPad]

And for hundreds of millions of dollars (do you realize how many programmer hours that buys?!)

One, if you do it right.

Hey, if you can't beat 'em...

Re:Furloughed workers

[xombo]

Correct. It's mostly Medicaid.

Re:Furloughed workers

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm aware of that study, and of others, I believe including at least one from the OPM.

Also, the offsets you mentioned support my primary point, which is that it's not necessarily true that every job is more cheaply done by the private sector.

Re:Furloughed workers

[somersault]

I've only read about 5% of the way into that article and it's actually terrifying. Because he's right. He says what a lot of Slashdotters hint at, but he says it very clearly..

Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election?

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

I don't give a shit about republicans vs democrats, because both parties are obviously corrupt, and both are happy to continue infringing on their citizens' privacy, and continue their invasions of the rest of the world..

Fuck that. Really, fuck it. I used to be angry at America, but now I just feel bad for its citizens - a lot of whom will probably end up as refugees if things keep going like this.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Deadstick]

When someone begins a statement with "All I know is..." I consider it within my rights to interpret it literally.

Re:Furloughed workers

[bhlowe]

You can't see how this law will exacerbate outsourcing, downsizing, layoffs and massively increase the federal government? Retirees and the poor have had Medicaid and Medicare and still will... but Obamacare has done nothing to reduce the cost of healthcare such as tort reform to reduce malpractice insurance. And yes, Obamacare will make it that much harder to be an independent worker or small business owner.

Re:Furloughed workers

[naasking]

Oh really? So, the SEC will fine me for not being invested in a minimum government approved set of funds, that I may or may not need?

The difference is that you may not need funds, but you WILL need healthcare. You will, you just never know when. It's inevitable, unless you're somehow immortal.

Re:Furloughed workers

[sycodon]

Yeah...they'd rather just be moderating trolls.

Re:Furloughed workers

[ABEND]

So ... I repeat my wife's question: do you REALLY want these people in charge of your healthcare? I don't.

Does your wife really think that insurance companies don't make errors with billing, coding or paying the bills?

Next time you're in your doctor's office, ask them how much effort it is to work with the various insurance companies.

Ask them which is worse - the insurance companies or Medicare?

Yes. The insurance company haters should ask their medical providers this question. They will find that medical providers are encouraged to "over treat" patients in order to be reimbursed enough from Medicare to pay for a visit's "paperwork" costs.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

Yet, under one method my health insurance is good and affordable. Under the other scenario my insurance costs 259% more and has higher deductibles and out of pocket costs.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure the military is our biggest spending item.

Nope, not even close. Spending on social services ("entitlements" is what it is usually called) is far and away the largest expenditure and was expanding rapidly even before Obamacare which has caused a whole new level of fiscal pain.

Lots of sources show this and those sources who tend to support big gov frequently try to hide the fact that entitlements are the real spending culprit by dividing up the budget pie chart in ways which conceal the true total of all entitlement spending. Defense is about 18-20%. Social spending is something like 50-70%, depending on what you include and, as I mentioned earlier, is rapidly expanding whereas defense spending is not.

Ezra Klein at the WashPo is a pretty reliable Dem loyalist who provides a graph.

As the US population ages, spending on entitlements, if not reformed, will crush the US economically. The welfare state does not work in the long run. Eventually, the money used to buy votes will run out, leading to civil unrest and an authoritarian govt.

Reagan ... Bush ... But somehow Democrats are the tax & spend party.

The DP has been using tax dollars to buy votes for nearly a century. Everyone knows this. It is not a secret. DP media partisans throw a tantrum every time a pol or pundit mentions it.

If you want to play the partisan blame game, a chart from Jon Gabriel at Ricochet.com ( a Repub establishment mouthpiece site) is helpful. The chart actually makes Clinton look good because it doesn't provide the context, which is that the deficit increase under Clinton was slowed by the Repubs gaining control over Congress under Gringrich. It also ignores the fact that Reagan had to deal with a Dem congress which kept jacking up domestic spending as the cost of supporting Reagan's main priority which was winning the Cold War.

Do I really need to mention that spending on national defense is actually constitutional while spending on entitlements is not?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

I currently can afford health insurance that I buy individually. When my policy premium goes up 259% next year I won't be able to afford it.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Metrol]

but you WILL need healthcare

Yes. And I will need food and water, as well as shelter and clothing. In fact, those things are a far higher priority in my day to day survival than health care.

Is it now the job of the government to provide all things deemed essential?

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

That's a silly table. They just added in government departments, (like NASA and the State Department) until they could get the number over a trillion. After you find the link with google, it's imp;ortnat to process the information.

Re:Furloughed workers

[tlhIngan]

Go-live fiascos like this are quite common in the private sector.

Some are quite spectacular - go back a few years and see Apple's iPhone 3G launch where the vast majority of purchases could not use their phones because Apple's activation servers melted down from the immense load. (And it's not like Apple doesn't have the numbers of how many iPhone 3Gs they made...).

Or it seems any big video game launch because the DRM servers melted down...

This fail has many parents. Fail 1 is the total inability of a large part of the USA population to consider ANY of the ways the entire rest of the civilized world runs their healthcare without collapsing into an epileptic fit screaming "OMFG commie pinko socialism death panel grandma waits years for a bandaid end of the word HELP" and then off to find an Ayn Rand poster to whack off to.

There's even a DDoS tool created to take down HealthCare.gov by simply reloading the page over and over and over again...

Re:Furloughed workers

[mrchaotica]

They are required to award contracts to the lowest qualified bidder. It's the qualification process that's the problem...

Re:Furloughed workers

[somersault]

Even without those two, the figure is still well over a trillion. I wasn't actually implying that you should stop at getting it to a trillion either, I was just pointing out how ludicrous the current number is. Can you justify the amount of resources being plowed into your military? No country that would like to invade or destroy the US can actually afford to do so. More civilised countries have no reason to even consider attacking (yet). It's actually kind of scary how powerful and pervasive your military is, considering the blatant corruption and power hungry nature of your leadership. I just hope your servicemen and citizens have the balls to stand up against it if things start getting a bit too Third Reich. Or the whole world is fucked.

Re:Furloughed workers

[GodfatherofSoul]

Horseshit. The "website" is not a website. It gets really annoying listening to the uninitiated thinking they could churn out that system during their summer break. It's not a just a website. You've got all kinds of underlying systems like account validation, the interfaces with health insurers, the call center (which is a solid 'A' since I've had to call them about 3-4 times), etc. And, there was probably only a year and a half to build it. That doesn't excuse the massive problems, but don't think you're going to hire some javascript guru to roll it out on his lunch break.

Re:Furloughed workers

[mcgrew]

we are borrowing money to pay for tax cuts to the rich.

Correct.

we are borrowing money to pay for social security/medicare.

Incorrect. Social Security/Medicare is paid for by payroll taxes. The government has borrowed from SS/M to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

we are borrowing money to pay for farm subsidies.

No, you got it right the first time. If people like Romney paid the same percentage of their income in taxes I do we would not have a deficit.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Yet, under one method my health insurance is good and affordable. Under the other scenario my insurance costs 259% more and has higher deductibles and out of pocket costs.

The fact-checkers have been having a field day playing "gotcha" with the Fox News interviews with people claiming that their insurance will cost more under Obamacare. All they have to do is call the people up and ask them to describe their policy.

There were cheaper policies that didn't cover as much -- they had higher deductibles and out of pocket costs. People would find out, too late, that they had a $20,000 bill that their insurance didn't cover. Those policies won't qualify under Obamacare.

The Obamacare policies will cost more than some of the old policies. But they have lower out of pocket costs than the old policies.

People say, "I like my policy." That's a mistake. You don't know whether that policy is any good until you've gotten some big medical expenses, and you can see what it covers. And most people don't get big medical expenses very often.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

My wife works for the federal government (Social Security Admin). Not surprisingly, many of the folks there are big Obamacare supporters. All she has to do to "convert" them on the fly is ask, "put it to you this way: you've seen how things work here. Do you really want the same people deciding whether or not your mother can have surgery?" That gets them every time.

What's the alternative? Do you want these people deciding whether or not your mother can have surgery? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Nataline_Sarkisyan

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until it starts working and healthy working people realize how much they're going to have to spend to subsidize all the lower-income and non-workers.

Uh, realize this first - before this they were ALREADY subsidized. Just in stupidly inefficient and terrible ways.

They go to ER and wait till they are sick enough for ER to treat them. Guess who pays[1] for that? Not them, they don't have money. Guess how expensive that is compared to treating them earlier at a GP or not at ER stage at least?

Or they commit a crime to go to prison and get healthcare treatment or just to get food and shelter. Yes people actually do that. Go google it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/on-purposely-getting-arrested-to-get-life-saving-surgery/273282/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/nc-man-allegedly-robs-bank-health-care-jail/story?id=13887040
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/timothy-alsip-robs-bank-healthcare_n_3825492.html
Think about how expensive that is - getting the bank, cops, courts, prisons, hospitals and who knows who else involved.

Whether you like it or not if you pay taxes or insurance premiums you have already been paying for it. It's just been done in a very very inefficient and stupid way. Unless you wish to do mass euthanizations you are going to have to pay for it one way or another.

This "Frankenstein Monster" of Obamacare is not that efficient either but you can thank stupid selfish citizens like you and equally self-serving politicians for that who give voters like you what they want (which given rather polarized and conflicting wants creates mutated monsters like ObamaCare).

Careful - maybe one day 3rd world people like me who are smarter and cheaper than you will take YOUR jobs. Then you may realize you might need those subsidies after all. Or maybe you're one of the rich elites who don't have to worry about such "small problems".

The sad thing is the corrupt greedy politicians in my 3rd world country are trying to make our healthcare crappier- they've siphoned out billions of money so have to make up by cutting out stuff elsewhere.

[1] if you ever need ER treatment you also pay in ERs being less efficient, or even being closed down because of $$$. Google for: ERs closed down.

Re:Furloughed workers

[naasking]

Is it now the job of the government to provide all things deemed essential?

The government isn't providing healthcare, the government created a regulated market for healthcare, just like it regulates the food market.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Nobody is going to pay more than 5% of his income for health insurance. What's your problem?

There's also the question of how much your old policy would have paid when you got a big bill. A lot of those old policies had maximum payouts, high deductibles, and all kinds of exclusions. Somebody would go to a hospital and come home with $30,000 in bills that weren't paid by the insurance. Under Obamacare, the maximum out of pocket will be $8,500 for an individual.

Obamacare is actually Romneycare, which is a bad health plan. A single payer system would have been better. The Canadians pay half as much as we do. But Obama wouldn't stand up to the Republicans, so a Republican plan is what we got. It's better than what we had before.

Re:Furloughed workers

[DoofusOfDeath]

But for a federal government fail, the alternative is to, what, move to Canada?

Well, actually, Germany for me. I looked around, decided it was much better run, and decided to do what it will take to work and live there. I'll send you a postcard. Assuming the U.S. postal service is still functioning.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certainly glad **you're** here to tell me what I like or need in an insurance policy. As a male I, for one, appreciate supplementing birth control and look forward to the day I can activate my maternity care.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Penguinisto]

There were cheaper policies that didn't cover as much

Because, you know, enforced coverage of birth control supplies, pre-natal care and other maternity care will really come in handy for me and my wife (whose hysterectomy occurred in 2010...) But you know - no worries in being forced by IRS edict to pay for a massive increase in insurance premiums for coverage I literally do not need - all because some policy wonk thinks he knows better than I do about what I do and do not need for healthcare coverage.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Next time you're in your doctor's office, ask them how much effort it is to work with the various insurance companies. Should you be in a hospital, ask the doctor how much time is lost in disputing the necessity of treatment with insurance companies, or how many patients opt for less than optimal treatment because an insurance company bureaucrat interprets a rule differently from other staff at the very same firm.

I used to interview doctors and medical office managers about their office management and billing. One office manager told me that they had 6 full-time equivalent staff, and of those 6, 1 full-time equivalent person was working on the insurance billing. I heard that a lot -- about 1/6 or 15% of their staff time is spent on billing.

That is, you have a medical office staffer talking on the phone to an insurance company staffer, trying to figure out a bill. They're both getting paid for that time. And you're paying them.

I figured it out like this: For every $1.00 you pay the insurance company, the insurance company takes 20 cents for administrative costs, and passes the remaining 80 cents on to the doctor. The doctor's office spends 15 cents of that on administrative costs, and uses the remaining 65 cents on actually delivering health care.

In contrast, Medicare spends about 3 cents out of every $1.00 on administrative costs, and doctors told me that the cost and hassle of processing Medicare was much lower. That's why most doctors accept Medicare, even though it pays less.

65 cents sounds about right. The Canadian health care system spends about 65 cents to our dollar for the same outcomes.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Like Nataline Sarkisyan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Nataline_Sarkisyan

Michael Moore wouldn't be able to make those movies if the insurance companies didn't make it so easy for him.

Re:Furloughed workers

[fightinfilipino]

"Tort Reform" is a red herring foisted by insurance companies. reducing the ability for patients to protect themselves when medical practitioners screw up does nothing to reduce costs and does everything to undercut the little guy.

healthcare costs so much in the U.S. because primary and preventative care are lacking, and the "market" has emphasized high-cost hospital care and pharmaceuticals. in short, capitalistic greed is unchecked. sad, but unsurprising, really.

government is needed to step in and counter this trend. left to their own devices, the healthcare industry and pharmaceutical companies will just continue to jack up prices, while our population does little to increase overall health.

Re:Furloughed workers

[HungWeiLo]

Same here. The bills bouncing between doctor, hospital, insurance company, lab, x-ray technician, OBGYN are just comical.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Mr D from 63]

Ha! That is perfectly withing your rights!

Re:Furloughed workers

[tibman]

I'm sure your SO feels the same way about your Viagra.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

Stop telling me my good insurance is bad. It is better than anything I can get on the exchange. I'm sick and tired of ACA supporters living in denial of the fact that this law is hurting a lot of people.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

I don't need a fact checker or foxnews to tell me that this law destroyed my ability to get quality affordable healthcare. Wake up, idiot, and listen to what people directly affected by this law are saying rather than the people that are telling you how to think.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

Judging by the way things are going with the NSA, IRS, ACA, and NM anal cavity searches, the next Hitler or Stalin is us.

Re:Furloughed workers

[sumdumass]

Please explain this logic a little better for me. I am particulsrly stuck on the connection between already paying or already subsidizing the uninsure and the massive increases in costs because we are sybsidizing people who don't have insurance.

It seems to me that x+1 would be the same as 1+x and U*P is the same as P*U. That is after all what you are saying with the already subsidizing line. And this isn't even getting to the logic of spreading those subsidies out over more people should reduce the cost to any one person when it is spread between more people. It is as if thr average of 2+2 is now 6 or something.

So yes, i need some explaination to why basic math fails that line of reasoning. If we are already subdidising then, then subsidising them should be about the same.

Re:Furloughed workers

[operagost]

So your stance is the same as the President's: "I know I lied. I had to, so I could be reelected. You are too stupid to make your own health decisions."

Lots of people lost the insurance that was helping them treat their preexisting conditions, like cancer. The cancer treatment was what was important to them. They needed to stay alive this year, because it won't matter if they get free Crestor for their high LDL if they're dead from bladder cancer next week. It won't matter if they have pre and post-natal coverage if they're past menopause. This is what they're being forced to pay for, because some politicians decided "one size fits all, I know better that you proles" was perfectly reasonable.

Re:Furloughed workers

[operagost]

Cool story, bro.

If those incidents were really very common, don't you think Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama would be gleefully listing them off every day? News flash: there are bad, greedy people out there. Some work for insurance companies. And some work for the government.

Re:Furloughed workers

[coolmoose25]

Okay... I've had it with the "you should spend less money on the military" as the answer to the US problems, while talking about how we spend too much and tax too little... Let me guess. You're from Europe?

It takes a lot of hutzpah to say something like that when you've lived and slept under the blanket of security the US has provided to you for decades. Yes, perhaps we SHOULD spend less on the military - lets start by closing all US bases in Europe. Europeans are so much smarter than us, why would the US need bases there? After over 60 years since the end of WWII, can't Europe take care of itself?

Well, maybe not, considering the fact that you let the Balkans burn down while hurrumphing that "someone" should do something. It took Bill Clinton to bomb them into peace. And that was in your own back yard.

Again, I think you're right and have a point. Lets NOT deploy a missile shield in Europe. The Russians will be happy. And when Iran finally gets its nuke and can lob it in to Geneva... well no great loss, right?

We can learn from your outstanding economic wisdom. It's not like there are any problems with government spending in Europe... right? Oh, hold on... is Greece and France still in Europe, or is it just the Germans now?

So we are agreed... The US should go home. We'll let you all handle that whole IslamoFacism thing... and you can make sure China doesn't take over the world... and Putin will sell you all the gas you need... no worries there. Have fun... if you need us, just send an email to US@wedontgiveafrackanyore.com. We'll get back to you real soon.

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

I knew it was you. ;^)

Re:Furloughed workers

[I'm New Around Here]

My mistake. I should have included Medicaid in that question.

As to the AC, the end goal of Obamacare is single payer, which will be "Medicare/Medicaid for all". So the situation is still relevant.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Your charts show a definite revenue problem.

A rough rolling average (to flatten out the highs and troughs) shows flattish revenues over the last decade and a half. That is a terrible revenue picture, because flat in absolute dollars means we are sunk unless we take an axe to spending, oh, starting back in circa 2000.

Obviously we need to get both our revenues and spending back near the long term trends we were seeing at the close of the 20th century. It looks like the tax cuts you love put us on a decsively lower revenue trend.

As a percentage of GDP, we are below the long term average, even if we focus our eyes on the last three decades. So there is room to raise taxes. No, that will not solve the whole problem. But no good will come from pretending we do not have a revenue problem, when we do.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Magius_AR]

Incorrect. Social Security/Medicare is paid for by payroll taxes. The government has borrowed from SS/M to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

You are wrong. There are insufficient payroll tax inlays to cover the current (and future) cost of SS/Medicare. They have borrowed from the general fund to supplement the lack of funds from payroll. This is especially true during Obama's "payroll tax holiday stimulus". You lamebrains continue to treat a 12% tax on income as if it's some phantom non-existant expense rather than the major drain on our incomes that it is -- simply because it's apportioned. No wonder you think the programs are "free".

If people like Romney paid the same percentage of their income in taxes I do we would not have a deficit.

You could take all the income of the top .1% and you wouldn't address the deficit we have. We have a huge spending problem.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Magius_AR]

But it's just as important to realize that as a percentage of GDP revenue is down. Those tax cuts mean the government is taking in a smaller percentage of economic output. So when inflation drives up the cost of guns/tanks/healthcare/office space/contractors for the government there isn't a corresponding increase in revenue to off set it, because we've chosen to end taxes on a number of things that get inflated (like the wealthiest 1%'s salaries).

GDP is irrelevant. Use inflation-adjusted dollars for both revenue and spending and compare. I covered it here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4382673&cid=45267501

In summary, in inflation adjusted dollars over the course of a decade, revenue is at +10-30% and spending is at +50%. My best guess is that this chart being off is that is probably tries to focus on income tax revenue, ignoring all other inlays. But it is wrong.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

For me it's 165$ to 451$, and the coverage is slightly worse.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

The reason they cover contraception and maternity is because it's cheaper for the insurance company (and for you) to have a simple policy that covers everything than it is to write a policy customized exactly to your needs.

Suppose you could get a policy for you and your wife for $20,000 a year. Then you told the insurance company, "Wait, my wife had a hysterectomy, we don't need contraception and maternity benefits. how much will you charge me for a policy that's identical except it doesn't have contraception and maternity benefits?" They might tell you, "$19,900 a year." Or more likely, they'd tell you, "$20,000 a year." In other words, it would cost them just about as much (or more) to write a custom policy for you as it would to issue you a standard policy.

That's because, if they issue custom policies, they'd have to hire an army of clerks to make sure you were billing them for the right expenses and they were paying the right amount.

Medicare is a simple policy. You turn 65, you're eligible, and everybody pays the same premium. It covers all major conditions. You get sick, they pay your doctor 80% of their negotiated price, you pay the rest. The administrative costs of Medicare are about 3% of revenues.

Private insurance has more options. The administrative costs of private insurance are about 40% of revenues.

A la carte health care plans were fashionable in big corporations a few years ago, but they didn't save any money so they don't do it any more. They failed in the marketplace.

Re:Furloughed workers

[TemporalBeing]

Pretty sure the military is our biggest spending item. Especially over the last 30 years that has seen our debt go from $1T to $16T.

Ironically, every Republican president since 1980 has at least doubled the national debt.

Reagan - from $1T to $3T Bush Sr - from $3T to $6T Bush Jr - from $5T to $11T

But somehow Democrats are the tax & spend party. Which is actually fiscally responsible from a government point of view.

Sources please. From what I am aware, Obama entered office with around $8T in debt, not $11T. Even so, don't look at the timeline (1980 to 2008) or the amounts. You also conveniently skipped Clinton who had a full Republican congress nearly his entire 8 years in office.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Unordained]

I'm so sorry that, at some point (Reagan,) we made the decision that humans should be taken care of, no matter what. We're not animals, after all. It's a dog-eat-dog world, but for %^@* sake, let's compete for wealth and such, not for basic survival. We mandated that hospitals treat any and all, and then they spread the costs around.

When we did so, and discovered that people in fact aren't all self-reliant future-predicting money-saving accident-preventing weather-controlling disease-resistant beings, and that we were having to cover costs at a later stage and greater expense than really necessary, yeah. We decided to push back a little, and ask people to contribute up-front to their statistically likely healthcare costs, for which we're all (one way or another) on the hook for.

This is, if anything, more of a personal-responsibility push than before, which I would have expected conservatives to favor. We have a safety net (you'll get healthcare no matter what) but by golly, we're tired of moochers. If you can pay, then pay. There are some things you can control about your health -- but there are an awful lot you can't, and for you to claim you know you won't need certain care is fairly ridiculous. Cancer? Car accident? Plague outbreak? You don't have enough data, nor enough of an immediate feedback loop, to plan properly for those eventualities. And unless you're willing to be left to rot and die on the side of the road, I don't accept your claim of self-reliance. It's all fine and good until bad shit happens.

Sure, your policy covers some gender-based services you clearly won't use, for the sake of simplicity, so we can compare plans and make informed decisions. The actual cost to you of having insurance coverage for services you know you won't need is really quite low, because it's spread across everyone, and you're getting benefits that others won't use. This isn't a savings plan, you're not paying into a silo, it's insurance. Same thing with paying taxes to pay, in general, for care for the poor. It's not a silo, it's an insurance plan for all citizens, even you, in the eventuality that your best-laid-plans fail and you wind up on the street.

You're not paying for services you won't need, you're paying to be part of an insurance pool with thousands of other people who will all have different issues, and you're all sharing the cost. It's different.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Me Me Me Me!!!!!

If you want to force me to pay for someone else, then sack-up and raise my taxes for that purpose - Medicare/Medicaid already exist for this exact function. Don't hide it behind "healthcare" and then systematically damage everyone's quality of healthcare in the process (which this little law will indeed do...)

Obama didn't sack-up and raise taxes for health care because, after extensive discussions with the Republicans, he concluded that the Republicans would never agree to it. He therefore had to lie and call it something else. The alternative was even worse http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1312793 In state after state, Republican legislatures won't pay taxes for Medicaid, and the conservative Democrats aren't much better. What do you think "Taxed Enough Already" means?

A lot of liberal Democrats thought that if Obama stood up and fought the Republicans, he could have gotten a single-payer system like Canada. Too bad. The Canadian system costs about half as much for about the same outcomes. So you're going to have to pay twice as much, in premiums and taxes, for a ridiculous Republican-designed system. Too bad.

Otherwise, your first sentence shows an idiotic, greedy, and rapacious attitude towards things that are quite simply not yours.

Adam Smith said that those who have received a greater benefit from society have an obligation to contribute a proportionally greater part of their income to the costs of running that society -- in other words, progressive taxation. You benefited from society. Now pay up. I'm sorry you're not convinced that it's the right thing to do. But it's the law.

Re:Furloughed workers

[sumdumass]

High costs of healthcare is largely due to government involvement in healthcare. It is the single largest factor involved when you look at it.

In 1965, medicare was born and shortly after, the US government attempted to use HMO's to reduce costs. Part of this costs reduction was specifically what you mentioned as in refusing to pay for anything preventative and focusing on actual claims and damages or as you put it, capitalistic greed. The HMO act in the early to mid 70's allowed HMOs to do the same as was a specific attempt at the government to control the medicare costs that seemed to surpass the most liberal estimates. The Federal government divided the country into several economic groups and would only pay a average of the costs for a procedure in each group. What this meant was that if something costs $100 to do profitably at an urban provider and some rural provider who doesn't have the same overhead can do it for $40, the government would only pay $70 which might be below the urban provider's costs. So the medical industry jacks up it's costs in order to get the $100 after the average and the HMO's have a fit. The US government steps in and says if you are offering discounts, then the costs before discount is what they will use for the averaging. So now the government and the HMO's and PPOs get steep discounts to outrageous costing structures designed to satisfy the save money mandate without the recipients receiving less. This problem is further exacerbated by medicare and medicaid now paying only a portion of the average which induces the prices to go up again.

Now, all this was done by well meaning people, generally the same people who were pushing for single payer anyways. People like Ted Kennedy who has stepped up to rescue the health care system time and time again while all along avoiding the fact that the problems people complain about are the results of the last time he saved it.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those hands off people who think the government has no roles in medical care or insurance (which for some reason people cannot distinguish between the two), but the government stepping in is what caused the biggest run up of medical costs in US history and this advent will be no different. The government will not be the answer unless it is willing to seriously look at the problem and people like you who only look at part of the problem will only make it worse.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Penguinisto]

I'm so sorry that, at some point (Reagan,) we made the decision that humans should be taken care of, no matter what.

...that would probably explain why I mentioned Medicaid/Medicare... a lot.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Penguinisto]

Obama didn't sack-up and raise taxes for health care because, after extensive discussions with the Republicans, he concluded that the Republicans would never agree to it. He therefore had to lie and call it something else.

Wrong, because in 2009 (when this monstrosity was introduced) his party had majority control over both houses of Congress - or did you happen to forget that?

So either Obama's administration and supporters either acted out of incompetence, or out of sheer political cowardice... you pick.

Adam Smith said that those who have received a greater benefit from society have an obligation to contribute a proportionally greater part of their income to the costs of running that society -- in other words, progressive taxation.

1) A fixed percentage of income across the board *is* progressive taxation. 10% of one million dollars' income is a hell of a lot larger in absolute dollars than 10% of ten dollars' income. Instead, we end up with regressive taxation, which punishes success and actually rewards failure.

2) Charity and moral obligation are acts of grace, not of enforcement. This is only part of Smith's flaw here.

3) Benefits I've received from society were/are already paid-for, multiple times over - not only in monetary terms, but by a demonstrated oath and life-endangering risks taken to help directly defend the US Constitution from threats both foreign and domestic. Now where are the societal contributions from the largely able-bodied who have done no such thing, continue to milk the system, and yet demand more? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Lookit - I have zero problems with helping the truly helpless. I have even less problem with pitching in to give a hand up instead of a handout.

However, I am very willing to wager that the definition of 'helpless' has expanded so damned much, that the majority of those on public assistance today are perfectly capable of working for their physical needs if they had no other option. Instead, they found a way to avoid it entirely, and to do so at my (and others') expense.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Stop telling me my good insurance is bad. It is better than anything I can get on the exchange. I'm sick and tired of ACA supporters living in denial of the fact that this law is hurting a lot of people.

I don't know what your policy is, but here's an insurance professional who actually tracked down stories like yours on Fox News of people who complained that they would be paying more under Obamacare for insurance they don't need. It turned out that they would actually be paying less under the ACA. Unless you know a lot about health insurance, and you've compared the policies, you don't know that it's better than you can get on the exchanges. Since the low-income policies are heavily subsidized, it's unlikely you could do better with an unsubsidized policy than a subsidized policy.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sean_hannity_on_obamacare/
Friday, Oct 18, 2013
Inside the Fox News lie machine: I fact-checked Sean Hannity on Obamacare
UPDATE I re-reported a Fox News segment on Obamacare -- it was appallingly easy to see how it misleads the audience
By Eric Stern
“Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.” Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.

As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on....

I called Robbie and Tina Robison from Franklin, Tenn. Robbie is self-employed as a Christian youth motivational speaker. (You can see his work here.) On Hannity, the couple said that they, too, were recently notified that their Blue Cross policy would be expiring for lack of ACA compliance. They told Hannity that the replacement plans Blue Cross was offering would come with a rate increase of 50 percent or even 75 percent, and that the new offerings would contain all sorts of benefits they don’t need, like maternity care, pediatric care, prenatal care and so forth. Their kids are grown and moved out, so why should they be forced to pay extra for a health plan with superfluous features?

When I spoke to Robbie, he said he and Tina have been paying a little over $800 a month for their plan, about $10,000 a year. And the ACA-compliant policy that will cost 50-75 percent more? They said this information was related to them by their insurance agent.

Had they shopped on the exchange yet, I asked? No, Tina said, nor would they. They oppose Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. Fair enough, but they should know that I found a plan for them for, at most, $3,700 a year, 63 percent less than their current bill. It might cover things that they don’t need, but so does every insurance policy.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

I don't need a fact checker or foxnews to tell me that this law destroyed my ability to get quality affordable healthcare. Wake up, idiot, and listen to what people directly affected by this law are saying rather than the people that are telling you how to think.

There's only one way to answer you. I'm going to have to commit copyright infringement.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sean_hannity_on_obamacare/
Friday, Oct 18, 2013
Inside the Fox News lie machine: I fact-checked Sean Hannity on Obamacare
I re-reported a Fox News segment on Obamacare -- it was appallingly easy to see how it misleads the audience
By Eric Stern

I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.” Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.

As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on.

“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.

But none of it smelled right to me. Nothing these folks were saying jibed with the basic facts of the Affordable Care Act as I understand them. I understand them fairly well; I have worked as a senior adviser to a governor and helped him deal with the new federal rules.

I decided to hit the pavement. I tracked down Hannity’s guests, one by one, and did my own telephone interviews with them.

First I spoke with Paul Cox of Leicester, N.C. He and his wife Michelle had lamented to Hannity that because of Obamacare, they can’t grow their construction business and they have kept their employees below a certain number of hours, so that they are part-timers.

Obamacare has no effect on businesses with 49 employees or less. But in our brief conversation on the phone, Paul revealed that he has only four employees. Why the cutback on his workforce? “Well,” he said, “I haven’t been forced to do so, it’s just that I’ve chosen to do so. I have to deal with increased costs.” What costs? And how, I asked him, is any of it due to Obamacare? There was a long pause, after which he said he’d call me back. He never did.

There is only one Obamacare requirement that applies to a company of this size: workers must be notified of the existence of the “healthcare.gov” website, the insurance exchange. That’s all.

Next I called Allison Denijs. She’d told Hannity that she pays over $13,000 a year in premiums. Like the other guests, she said she had recently gotten a letter from Blue Cross saying that her policy was being terminated and a new, ACA-compliant policy would take its place. She says this shows that Obama lied when he promised Americans that we could keep our existing policies.

Allison’s husband left his job a few years ago, one with benefits at a big company, to start his own business. Since then they’ve been buying insurance on the open market, and are now paying around $1,100 a month for a policy with a $2,500 deductible per family member, with hefty annual premium hikes. One of their two children is not covered under the policy. She has a preexisting condition that would require purchasing additional coverage for $600 a month, which would bring the family’s grand total to around $20,000 a year.

I asked Allison if she’d shopped on the exchange, to see what a plan might cost under the new law

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

Can I have some of what you're smoking? How did you get to the planet you're living on? My insurance will increase from 165$ to 451$ with a 500$ higher deductible, and a higher yearly cap on out of pocket expenses. It's the same insurance company. It is the only company that offers exchange insurance in my county. On ehealthinsurance.com I have 101 choices for insurance that starts this year, on the exchange I have 9 choices for insurance that starts next year. What part of that do you not understand? I don't care what foxnews says. I don't care what fact checkers say. They are wrong. If I want a high deductible plan, bronze level, the premium is 255$, my current insurance is better than the platinum level plans available.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

So your stance is the same as the President's: "I know I lied. I had to, so I could be reelected.

I didn't lie. I didn't vote for Obama or support him. I supported a single-payer system, which would cost half as much for the same coverage. And your choice of any doctor in the country.

You are too stupid to make your own health decisions."

That's true.

Lots of people lost the insurance that was helping them treat their preexisting conditions, like cancer.

Name one.

(Here's the fact-checking story BTW. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sean_hannity_on_obamacare/ )

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

I don't know the specifics of where you live or what your insurance policy is.

If your insurance company is telling you that you have to pay more for worse insurance after the ACA, then you should talk to somebody who knows a lot about health insurance, who isn't making money out of you, and who can give you objective advice about how to get insurance cheaper.

If you can't find anybody else, ask Eric Stern. https://twitter.com/_ericstern He was able to show people in your situation how to save thousands of dollars a year.

Here's the Kaiser subsidy calculator. http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

Who said I was eligible for subsidies? My income happens to be too low. I am involved with a startup, and my income is low right now because I am living off the initial capital loan, while everything else goes into the business. If I want subsidized insurance I have to enroll in medicaid. I bet you didn't realize that if your income is too low your only option for subsidized insurance is medicaid. I wouldn't touch that crap with a 10 foot pole.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

I don't know what would happen in that situation.

I recommend you talk to someone who is not affiliated with your insurance company who knows a lot about insurance. There might be a way for you to save a lot of money.

There were a lot of people who were eligible for benefits under ACA and didn't realize it.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Bartles]

What are these benefits you speak of? Do you mean subsidies? The ACA doesn't offer benefits. It just forces people to buy insurance with a federal government middle man and more rules added to the mix.

Re:Furloughed workers

[nbauman]

Here's an article that seems to say that people with low incomes can get subsidies to apply to commercial insurance, but it doesn't quite come out and say that.

I do agree with everyone who says that the ACA is needlessly complicated and that it's hard to get authoritative information on it. They seem to have said, "Yes, it is complicated, but we'll have a web site where people can figure it out." I don't defend Obama.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/some-canceled-insurance-policies-were-junk-insurance-targeted-by-law/2151587
Some canceled insurance policies were 'junk' targeted by law
Jodie Tillman, Times Staff Writer
Friday, November 8, 2013 6:03pm

Recent days have made it clear that millions of Americans who bought health insurance on the individual market can't do what President Barack Obama said they could: keep their current health plan if they like it.

But some of those now-lamented plans weren't even what most people would consider insurance.

Known as "mini-meds'' or "junk insurance,'' these products often are little more than discount cards that can leave unknowing consumers with huge medical debt. Even a policy expert from the conservative Heritage Foundation, no fan of the Affordable Care Act, says they aren't worth keeping....

Indeed, Michael didn't know they qualify for a tax credit until a Times reporter entered his information into an online subsidy calculator on ehealth, a Web-based broker licensed to sell products through the federal marketplace. It estimated their credit at nearly $10,000 a year — enough to buy affordable insurance for both Palins.

"That'd be great," said Michael Palin.

Said McDonough, the Harvard professor: "Many of these people who think they are losers turn out to be winners."

Re:Furloughed workers

[_Sharp'r_]

So, what you're stating is that inflation adjusted dollars (in the chart I linked to) don't adjust for inflation? Hmmm... seems you may have misread something. As Magius confirms below, revenue and spending are both up, spending is up more. You can blame that on war spending or hookers and blow for Obama's special family friends, either way, still have to reign it in to fix the deficit/debt.

As for your other point, using % of GDP is basically useless. GDP varies based on the state of the economy, so the exact same level of spending from year to year will be a varying percentage of GDP. Also, government spending is counted as part of standard GDP. What kind of comparison is that for showing if it's increased or not? It's primary use is to try and disguise real money increases as not being as bad, because the economy has also grown.

Now if you wanted to use spending in constant dollars per capita, that might be somewhat useful, as you can argue at least some things cost more with more people (things like national defense don't really change much, but some others do). Even with that, you'd have to argue that at 10-12% population change since 2000 needed a 50%+ increase in spending. So that's a tough argument to make...

Re:Furloughed workers

[_Sharp'r_]

Revenue is about the same per capita over an extended period of time. It will go up and down with economic conditions, and economic conditions are still a bit down lately, so revenue will be as well until that has turned around. Studies have been done showing that despite historical tax rate changes, revenue generally stays in a similar range. You can cut taxes and increase growth a little, or you can raise certain taxes and divert resources to avoidance and paperwork, but it's really not that big of an impact. You have to have economic activity in order to tax it, unless we're going to switch to a model of confiscating based on saved wealth directly.

Government spending, on the other hand, has significantly increased. You can blame the war/terrorism funding, or the bailouts, or the wasteful spending to cronies of those in power, or increase entitlements for an aging population, but you can't deny that it's increased significantly, no matter how you want to measure it.

So the only really serious conversation to have about fixing debt/deficit issues is what you want to cut in terms of spending. If we could get the right-wing to agree to cut defense/anti-terrorism spending and the left-wing to cut environmental/wealth transfer boondoggles, and/or slightly increase the age for retirement for SS/Medicare, or cut the useless ACA, or whatever, even if overall only by 5-10% around current spending levels year-over-year it could be solved pretty quickly.

But there doesn't seem to be much interest in that sort of thing. People are more interested in trying to score political points.

Re:Furloughed workers

[_Sharp'r_]

If you go by history, democrats know how to balance the budget and bring deficits down.

Please name the last year in which Democrats controlled Congress (The folks who make the ultimate funding decisions) and managed to balance the budget and reduce the deficit?

Oops, has never happened, has it? Only time we've even come close in recent memory was when the Republicans "shut the government down" in opposition to Clinton and they negotiated a somewhat reasonable budget. Hint: Clinton's suggested budgets were much higher than what got passed by Congress.

Re:Furloughed workers

[_Sharp'r_]

Here's a useful chart covering spending and revenue with who controlled what. People like to talk about Presidential "spending", but the reality is that Congress can spend anything they want without the President (supermajority), but the President can't spend a dime without Congress.

Reagan asked for less spending than Congress ever gave him. Clinton asked for more spending than Congress ever gave him.

Re: Furloughed workers

[ceriphim]

You twat. First off, regressive taxation punishes failure and rewards success, you got it backwards. Secondly, as someone who has been unemployed the past three months for the first time since I was 12 years old (I'm 33), I've also paid for my benefits many times over. You know what though? If I wasn't married and my wife didn't work, I would be fucked. Have you tried to live on CA unemployment? Even at the maximum possible payout, it's barely subsistence living. Get some perspective before you spout off like an ignorant child.

Re: Furloughed workers

[petsounds]

During the first dot com bomb I lived on CA unemployment for about 6 months. If memory serves, my payment checks were about 75% of my previous income, which I don't really remember, but I think it was $60-70k at the time. Barely subsistence living? I mean granted I was living in a rent controlled apartment (back before the apartment owner lobbyists fucked everyone over and got the state legislature to get rid of rent control), but still, that's a completely reasonable middle-class salary. You must have been living pretty high on the hog before you became unemployed, so maybe there is a payout limit I never hit back then, but don't act like the payout is minimum wage.

Re: Furloughed workers

[ceriphim]

Living "high on the hog" is a relative term in San Diego. In any case, CA unemployment caps out at $450 a week (that's pre-tax, post-tax it's $360). For those who are mathematically challenged, that's $11.25 an hour before tax, $9 an hour after tax. Luckily I had savings, planned conservatively, and am married - otherwise I'd have lost a lot more than just my pride when my position was eliminated as a "reduction in force".

Re: Furloughed workers

[petsounds]

They must've changed the unemployment caps in the last few years then. Sorry to hear about your difficulties, and hope you get back on the horse soon.

Re: Furloughed workers

[ceriphim]

That's gracious of you, and it's appreciated.

Re:Furloughed workers

[bgalbrecht]

If I want subsidized insurance I have to enroll in medicaid. I bet you didn't realize that if your income is too low your only option for subsidized insurance is medicaid. I wouldn't touch that crap with a 10 foot pole.

What do you think Medicaid is? Under Obamacare, it's that exchange insurance policy with a subsidy. You'll be paying your portion of the premium to the insurance company and the government pays the rest. You don't have to take the bronze plan in order to get the subsidy, either.

Re:Furloughed workers

[HornWumpus]

If I send you a bill will you pay that too?

Why didn't you tell A to fuck themselves?

Re:Furloughed workers

[spectrumlogic]

Really? This is little more than a weak rendition of the "death panel" ploy. Do you actually believe someone you trust more (or have more control over) will magically be "in charge of your healthcare" if this current plan fails? Would you prefer facing a corporate "death panel"? This specious question could only be effective in the vacuum of uninformed debate.

Re: Furloughed workers

[MrMarket]

Governments pay every Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Above]

Tax revenues are always a percentage of GDP. Because of that, GDP is absolutely relevant.

In a nation that is not tied to a monitory standard (like gold), the government controls the inflation rate. Thus the rate of inflation and the rate of GDP growth are not the same.

Re:Furloughed workers

[RespekMyAthorati]

Damn straight!

A what about those federal highways that I'll never drive on? Why should I pay for those?
And what about those federal buildings in Washington? I've never even been there.
And what about those multi-billion dollar spacecraft? I don't even know how to drive one.

Re:Furloughed workers

[euroq]

It specifically says "NASA, defense-related" not "NASA". Same with the others. And FYI, the NASA and State Departments are minuscule. It's important to process the information after you find it.

Re:Furloughed workers

[intermodal]

Both parties bear the responsibility of that one, unixcrab.

Re:Furloughed workers

[intermodal]

On the positive end, you may be dead before they figure it out.

Re:Furloughed workers

[Magius_AR]

Tax revenues are always a percentage of GDP. Because of that, GDP is absolutely relevant.

No it isn't, because GDP is a constant in that equation (namely, if you're using "revenue as % of GDP", you're also using "spending as % of GDP"). GDP hence does not matter because the end result is the same when the GDP component drops out.

If you absolutely must use GDP, you'll see the same result: higher spending and higher revenue:

2014 US GDP: 15.7 trillion
2014 federal budget: 3.8 trillion
2014 revenue projections: 3 trillion

2014 spending/GDP: 24% of GDP
2014 revenue/GDP: 19% of GDP

2002 US GDP: 10.6 trillion
2002 federal budget: 2 trillion
2002 revenue: 1.85 trillion

2002 spending/GDP: 19% of GDP
2002 revenue/GDP: 17% of GDP

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[Thanshin]

"aliens' aliens" ... is us, right?

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[PontifexMaximus]

Seriously? You really think 4 deaths because of the WH not doing it's job is a 'conspiracy theory'? You think if it was YOUR family murdered by Islamic terrorists that you'd call it a conspiracy theory? You, my friend, are the reason why this country is so screwed. You think the important things are trivial while you rant and rave about how 'outrageous' it is that the Redskins name is still being used.

Get your priorities straight before you start frothing at the mouth about conspiracy theories. Moron.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[clickclickdrone]

Not necessarily. There are more than two countries in the world.

That'll come as a shock to many Americans who think the globe is divided into 'America' and 'Them'.

A better title for this post should have been...

[bogaboga]

"War Room" Notes Describe IT Chaos At Healthcare.gov

"Third World characteristics describe War Room deliberations at Healthcare.gov."

After all, had this happened in some far away land, we'd be congratulating ourselves for "not being them", right? And how we, being the "first world", are better at implementation, with "checks" and "balances" at every step.

A strange game

[Gothmolly]

The only winning move is not to play.

Lowest bidder wins...

[Ashenkase]

But ends up costing multiple times more in the end.

Re:Lowest bidder wins...

[Anonymous Coward]

But ends up costing multiple times more in the end.

Yes, as opposed to buying something like Oracle, where the highest bidder wins, and also ends up costing multiple times in the end.

Re:Lowest bidder wins...

[flanders123]

Lowest bidder, or only bidder?

This is an honest question...If you Google "who bid on healthcare.gov" several seemingly right-leaning sites say there was only one bid and it was won by Ms Obama's crony CGI.

Reuters and others say there were 4 total bids, although I cannot find who those other 3 bidders are or what their bids were. And the end of that article states "No other IT contractors have come forward to say they, too, bid on the contract to build Healthcare.gov."

So honest question: which is it? As the project sponsor (taxpayer) I'd like to know. As an IT Professional that runs web projects (in the private sector) I would get fired for not getting competing bids on a project with budgets order of magnitude less than this.

Despite the failures of

[cookYourDog]

Vietnam, Iraq, the postal service, the NSA Utah data center, the response to hurricane Katrina, prohibition, no child left behind, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, shuttle Columbia, the great society, Japanese internment camps, Guantanamo, the F35 program, the war on terror, Fannie Mae, Amtrak, Railhead, Teton dam, Fair Housing act, TIDE, Social Security, the Bay of Pigs, Olmsted dam, Mariner 1, Iran-Iraq war, Solyndra, and IRS modernization...

...they were bound to get healthcare.gov right.

Re:Despite the failures of

[tekrat]

You forgot how troops were sent into the Iraq war without body armor, and the families of soldiers had to take up collections of donations to buy body armor for their sons and daughters because the military wouldn't supply it to the troops. That's our federal government right there.

Re:Despite the failures of

[adolf]

You forgot how we didn't have troops in body armor during our first invasion of Iraq. You might have also forgot that we didn't armor HMMWVs back then, either.

Security?

[Mr D from 63]

Who feels confident that cyber-security protocols can be effectively managed under these conditions?

you are full of it, stop

[luis_a_espinal]

You mean the party that kept sending bills to the senate while the Dems said only "NO, NO, NO! We'd rather have a mandated shutdown!"?

You mean

1. bills meant to defund or stop the implementation of something that is already a law?
2. The Party that right now is blocking the LGBT protection bill in the House?
3. The party who still cannot comprehend why *WE* fucking loss elections in Virginia????
4. Who still does not get why the Tealiban lost just a couple of days ago in Alabama????
5. The party who still caters to the likes who think in terms of "legitimate rape"???
6. The party who still has prominent members who cannot bring themselves to say Obama is a US-born citizen?
7. The party who still caters to the likes who think everyone that voted Democrat is a moocher looking for a hand-out?

That party you mean???

This is not to say the Dems are blameless, but for fuck's sake, stop saying the GOP is the party that keeps sending bills to the senate. That's fucking bullshit, and you know it.

Truly yours, a life-long Republican tired of seeing a sea of stupid beasts more interested in destruction, confederate-flag waving, secession, creationism, birtherism, social-medieval conservatism-barbarism and just blatant mental anachronisms than on making things work with the other half of the population who does not agree with everything they say...

... (or maybe I'm just a RINO according to the ideological purists that more and more resemble the Khmer Rouge in their fight for doctrine's purity. I can live with that label.)

Re:you are full of it, stop

[Kelbear]

This was a very interesting debate on this very issue:
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/801-the-gop-must-seize-the-center-or-die

The classical concept of the Republican platform has broad appeal. It's why I had registered as a Republican all those years ago, but my registration doesn't guarantee my vote, the GOP doesn't offer many opportunities to vote for those kinds of ideals anymore. The GOP needs to find those ideals again to recover the popular vote, but it looks like things are going to have to get worse for the party before it learns how to get better.

Re:you are full of it, stop

[Metrol]

bills meant to defund or stop the implementation of something that is already a law?

Well, yeah. That's the exact job of the House of Reps. Please refer to the constitution for any further guidance on this matter.

Re:you are full of it, stop

[dfenstrate]

You're not a RINO, you're a leftist. Anyone who makes claim to being a disillusioned 'life-long republican' is likely full of sh*t, especially if such claim follows a litany of cherry-picked, overblown complaints straight out of the Alinsky playbook for mocking opponents.

Re:you are full of it, stop

[Metrol]

Seeing as how my original comment has gone from -2 flamebait to +3 informative in less than an hour, I felt I should better explain this statement. First off, I wasn't fully accurate about the constitution stating the House has the exclusive power of the purse. It seems this is more historical precedence than stated fact. Please refer to the following FAQ that explains this better than I could.

Furthermore, because a program exists does not automatically assume that it will be fully funded. Even the military has to have approval for its funds every year, and it's not just a law but a constitutional requirement. The power to not fund a project is an important check on power that legislature has. It didn't just vanish because proponents of the ACA wanted to make this a talking point.

Not only is it perfectly legitimate to remove funding from a program, it would be dishonest for representatives of people who want to see a program abolished to not try to do this very thing. Representing constituents is what they are all supposed to be doing.

The funny part in all this is that initially the Republican proposal was to fund everything except the ACA. Then they backed down to delaying it for one year. Then they backed down to just forcing federal employees to make use of the exchanges instead of what they have today. Before this is all done, I'll bet there's going to be plenty of Democrats who wish they'd gone with that delay for a year deal.

I'd still love to see Harry Reid and all the folks that voted this on us to have to actually use it themselves. Apparently they're too good for that.

Re:you are full of it, stop

[dfenstrate]

I'm a lifelong democrat, but then i realized the more democrats win elections, the more they ruin the country.

Re:you are full of it, stop

[luis_a_espinal]

You're not a RINO, you're a leftist. Anyone who makes claim to being a disillusioned 'life-long republican' is likely full of sh*t, especially if such claim follows a litany of cherry-picked, overblown complaints straight out of the Alinsky playbook for mocking opponents.

Typical Marxist-like response. Only you know the true dogma. All hail the fuck out of you.

Underfunded

[lwriemen8809]

CBO estimated ACA would require $10B. Congress approved $1B. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-not-take-victory-lap-on-obamacare.html?m=1

Re:Underfunded

[Tony Isaac]

And Facebook operated for 6 years on $500 million.
Twitter operated for 5 years on $360 million.
LinkedIn has spent $200 million.
Spotify has spent $288 million.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/obamacare-healthcare-gov-website-cost/

all wrong

[slashmydots]

That's all fluff and deflecting the real problem. They hired idiot contractors who suck at their job and were just there to make everything overpriced and make a fortune for the company owner. THAT is the real problem.

Proper criticism

[onyxruby]

The thing is that things are now working the way they should be. That is were now criticizing the web site, the process, the contracts and learning lessons. This is how government is supposed to work. The republicans are going to town with criticizing the many faults of the website - which is perfectly fair and what they should have done to begin with. The Republicans never should have held the American public hostage to try and kill the ACA and they did tremendous damage to the economy by shutting down the government.

The Democrats meanwhile should be held accountable for an absolutely atrocious website and project that never would have passed even the most basic of reviews in the private world. The Republican criticisms of the website are pretty much well founded from what I have seen. If the Democrats had reached out to the private sector instead of designing the thing by political committee it could have been built to a much higher standard.

I'm not taking sides on this argument, what I am doing is saying that all government across the political spectrum should be held to this level of scrutiny and accountability. The long standing methods of bidding out government work have led to nothing but rampant fraud and inefficiencies that could never work anywhere except the federal government. Reform is needed, and if this website finally causes reform of government bidding and projects than it will have done more good than it ever meant too.

So in otherwords...

[cjjjer]

Just like most large scale web deployments where there is instant user base of millions...

Lesson to all business side folks

[Andover Chick]

I work at a major bank. This sort of non-sense has peaked in recent years at big organizations. One would have thought the business side would have become more IT savvy in the past couple of decades. Instead, they still think a magic wand can be waved in the USA or India which will cause a computer system to emerge. Perhaps the business side users are peddled such fantasy by Infosys, Tata, EDS, CGI, CSC, etc. But more likely it's business users who refuse to work collaboratively with IT. They think because they got a bunch of low cost Indian or American programmers, usually with one dimensional skills sets, whacking away at the keyboard that a quality system will emerge. Instead, they get crap. It's like a parade ground crowed with marchers who have no coordinated direction. There's no orchestration, no appreciation for logistics, and not sense of engineering. If an engineer tells the business side something cannot get done, then they replace the engineer with someone who'll tell what they want to hear. The best analogy is Hitler working with his generals in WWII. He thought flags on the battle maps could be moved around like a paste-it board, not concept of logistics. And when a general told Hitler his plans were imbecilic, then the general was shot. Thankfully for humanity Hitler's idiocy destroyed the Third Reich. What else will the business users destroy?

Re: Lesson to all business side folks

[lwriemen8809]

Technical side gets plenty of blame. Where are the software metrics that can give a rough estimate on how much effort a project should take? Not easily available, because most of the software world resists FPA.) Where are the reusable domains? Non-existent, because most of the software developers want to stay at the 3GL level.

Re:Lesson to all business side folks

[Andover Chick]

You're right about the pre-1943 campaign choices Hitler made. Splitting of forces and then fixating on Stalingrad, even as his generals pleaded to retreat, was his most spectacular campaign blunder. But he did interfere with the Battle of Kursk in 1943 when Manstein wanted to hold the Donetz bain. Also, he meddled in other ways, especially in development projects. He wanted the ME 262 to be a Schnellbomber attack aircraft, which delayed the project. He used the V2 overwhelmingly against England when he should have used against various targets (i.e. Russia). He had a bizarre fixation on a giant tanks and massive artillery pieces, which diverted resources.

Re:Lesson to all business side folks

[Andover Chick]

Btw, apologies everyone from shifting the subject away from Healthcare.gov. It just that WWII is just such a great subject when it come to the consequences of mixing politicians with sci/tech...

3 guys in a garage fallacy!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"A small team could have written that website in the time allotted without issues provided the specs didn't change. The cost of the site and the number of people involved is insane and demonstrates the consultants took them for a ride.

I bet it was cheap, inexperienced developers who had no clue how to build a scalable site."

Nope..
a) specs change, all the time, particularly a big system. In this case, they're basically implementing state exchanges for those states that decided (some at the last minute) not to build their own.
b) Have you looked at the number of systems that needed to be interconnected here? This isn't some order fulfillment and shipping application all under control of one corporate entity. You need to fetch income data from IRS, validation data from SSA, etc. It's not like the government has some unified enterprise architecture with a central repository to get all this data from. Heck, I'll bet most of those interfaces don't even have current documentation.
c) Most companies building these kinds of systems don't have 30+ partners (i.e. states) actively trying to subvert the goals of the system (We don't like the ACA, and we're not going to do anything to help you build the exchange we decided not to build, leaving it for you).

And of course, because of the byzantine way in which the government procures services and stuff (driven by Congress, and largely to make sure the taxpayer doesn't get screwed), the work is divided up into multiple contracts, administered by multiple agencies, so there is ample opportunity for "throw it over the wall".

Yeah, if the US were run by King Jeff or Czar Michael or Czarina Meg, and they could issue a ukase to "make it so", of course your small team could do it. But that's not how the US works.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[Nimey]

Strawman and misdirection: OP said nothing about the Redskins; your point must be a poor one if you've got to lie about what the grandparent said.

Standard War Room activities

[z_gringo]

All that reads like pretty standard War Room activities for a launch of this size. There is a reason they chose the name "War Room" for these things. It is just a central location where issues are triaged, and it can be chaotic after a launch. This is an example of the press trying to make a big story out of something that isn't news by reporting on something that most people don't understand.

I would be more concerned by the lack of a war room than from war room chaos.

Re:Standard War Room activities

[mythosaz]

This, a thousand times this.

Other than a tiny bit of techno-political double-speak from the project manager in the Meeting Notes Template that gets copied to every new day's meeting notes, it reads pretty much like any large multi-departmental IT project that I've ever been involved in.

And, considering some idiot in Congress is going to read the meeting notes some day, the TPDS is understandable. The Jr. Senator from the Great State of Fly-Over needs to have it explained that CIRT is a "Tiger Team" -- or as us actual workers call it, "the smart guys who fix other people's fuckups."

Re:Standard War Room activities

[antdude]

My employer's department (20? people in total in the local office) has a tiny war room. It can only seat maybe five/5 people for the round table. Is that good or bad? I chuckled at it is even called a war room. :P

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was so important, then someone other than the new Ken Starr should be working on this - otherwise it comes across as a petty attempt at politics instead of an issue that people resonate with. Remember that 13 other Benghazi's happened under Bush's watch. But then again, Obama didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction, ending the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[clickclickdrone]

I'm sorry, I seemed to have gotten sidetracked there. What was your point again?

Dunno but good comeback. Win.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[Goldsmith]

This roll out is a great example of why meaningful oversight (and competent competition) is necessary in the government. If Issa had been doing this 6 months ago, the healthcare website may have worked. You don't need to like him, but in this case, putting the screws to contractors and government personnel is the right thing to do.

Personal responsibility

[microbox]

So, the SEC will fine me for not being invested in a minimum government approved set of funds,

OMG, you have to pay a fine for not being insured!!! I guess that fine will go towards the actuarial cost you are incurring to society for just existing, and expecting not to die on the side of the street if you fall over an break your leg.

So which is it? Should the government scrap you off the side of the road in case misfortune visits you. If so, should someone else pay, or should you? If you can't afford to pay, shouldn't you be forced to insurance yourself.

What's that zen mantra of conservationism again? "Personal responsibility". Only an ideologue can look at a black wall and say it is white.

Re:Personal responsibility

[Metrol]

So which is it? Should the government scrap you off the side of the road in case misfortune visits you. If so, should someone else pay, or should you? If you can't afford to pay, shouldn't you be forced to insurance yourself.

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive. Unfortunately, as we're now finding out, if a company isn't providing everything from birth control to chronic disease care as a complete package then that policy is no longer valid per the ACA. This is why 3.5 million folks who had policies that worked for them no longer do.

And yes, if you break your leg on the side of the street then you should accept the burden of that debt as a part of your existing in our society. All the better for you if you were insured. Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail. Ummm, kinda of like any other part of society I might add. Your leg will still get fixed, but you still owe for a service that was provided to you at some cost.

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped. Treat chronic illness differently then broken legs for example. Today we toss them all into one big pile, driving up costs on all. Allowed the market place set up a market place, instead of what we now have as conclusive proof that the government is not competent to provide, by allowing interstate sales of policies. The government didn't need to come in and set all this up... it could have gotten the hell out of the way years ago. Definitive guidelines across varying specialities as to what constitutes a valid law suit or not, where huge sums of money get sucked into lawyers pockets.

Ahh, but instead we got this debacle that every right thinking Democrat will be behind 100% regardless of what "should" have happened.

Ya know, it wasn't even a specific policy point that really bothered me about all this. It was how this thing was passed. Nobody read the damn thing! A bill that important couldn't reach across the aisle for a single vote from the other party. This massive 2,000 page beast that should have been hashed out in committee, which is the normal process, was instead rammed through using parliamentary trickery. How could any reasonable human being expect this was going to go well regardless of your political affiliations?

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies, or he was just another one in DC who didn't actually bother to read this bill. If this were a Republican it would be just as damning!

Re:Personal responsibility

[microbox]

If the issue was actually insurance like we issue for cars, then the costs would be trivial. There are really good reasons why this stuff is so expensive.

I think I'll trust an actuary to calculate the actual cost. Put in a reasonable mark-up, and you have: insurance. If the market is, well, efficient, then the mark-up will be reasonable. So let's apply those good-old liberal ideas of free markets, and let the magic happen.

Otherwise, the bill should be in the mail.

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem?

There were issues that could have been addressed by our government that could have actually helped.

Right, like an almost-single-payer system, like what works in most of the OECD. Instead, in an attempt to compromise, we get a regulated insurance market and a mandate, just like leading conservatives supported up until 2008.

What happened in 2008? Obama was elected, adopted the GOP healthcare plan, and was promptly labelled a tyrant by an apocalyptic cult. Just the opinion of a 20+ year GOP insider who knows a hell of a lot more about what happens on the hill than you do.

Now we know the president either lied outright about what would happen to existing policies

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it, so long as you've had the policy since before the ACA was passed. The fact that insurance companies are changing the policies and then trying to up-sell clients onto more expensive planes: who would have thunk it, that businesses would act this way. I agree that Obama shouldn't have used the language he did, because it is too easy to pick apart. But it is hardly the lie you WANT it to be.

Re:Personal responsibility

[Metrol]

And if you can't pay, and declare bankruptcy? Who pays then? You pretending this isn't a problem [cnbc.com]?

And are you pretending the ACA did anything to actually reduce costs are help resolve the problem you're talking about? Did you read the entire article you linked?

With millions buried under medical bills, more insured under the Affordable Care Act will not completely solve that problem, LaMontagne said. While the ACA's reforms will indeed give more people coverage, NerdWallet's data shows that millions of people with year-round, full coverage are still overwhelmed by medical bills, she said.

So, 1-2 trillion dollars that are going to be spent per year, and the very same broken legs are still going to be paid out of pocket. I love this stuff!

You _can_ keep your policy if you like it

Hmmm, I don't seem to recall the disclaimer on the end of that sentence when the president said it. I don't remember ANY wiggle room here. I think the President said this better than I could. Not sure where you'd pick any of this apart.

Instead, President Obama should have said something like, "You can keep your plan... comma insert disclaimer here".

As for this up-sell notion... the policies that got dropped were dropped due to them not offering all the stuff required by the ACA to be offered. These were policies that had existed prior to the ACA implementation. The white house knew many of the policies out there would no longer be allowed to be offered. They knew it when the President was out giving speeches that you would not lose your plan under any circumstances... "period". He was either completely ignorant of the fact, or was out and out fabricating lies. There is no in between.

Re:Personal responsibility

[microbox]

As for this up-sell notion... the policies that got dropped were dropped due to them not offering all the stuff required by the ACA to be offered.

The law states that policies are grandfathered in if there were agreed to before the ACA was passed.

The insurance companies are just taking advantage of people, as is their God given right in a capitalist economy.

And are you pretending the ACA did anything to actually reduce costs are help resolve the problem you're talking about?

Changing the subject is a sign of cognitive dissonance in action.

Re:Personal responsibility

[quantaman]

The thing is uninsured were already being treated and paid for, but they were doing it in emergency rooms so it was very inefficient and the insured were picking up the tab. A broken leg is one thing, but what if a young uninsured person gets cancer? It's very probable that they won't have the money to pay so what's your solution?

As for the passage, it was a specific Republican strategy to oppose any Democratic attempt at healthcare reform because passage, specifically bipartisan passage, would be seen as an accomplishment by Obama. Through consistent opposition they were able to make the bill highly unpopular and win more seats. But the cost was they ended up having almost no say on a major piece of legislation.

Re:Sounds like an MMO launch

[leuk_he]

Which makes me wonder. Why do managers insist on big bang launches. Why not some phasing in , so the problems can be handled, and when the big rush is coming, the bleeding edge problems are solved.

There are always problems in the release of a BIG system. take some time to solve them before letting it loose on the user.

In the MMO some of the best releases have a long public beta time, where in the last phase the beta is open, to get some decent load.

Monty Pytheon

[stackOVFL]

I got to the part where the gov shutdown took place. All the comments were of some form of "well the folks that ran that have been furloughed..." I found myself think of the opening credits to The Holy Grail: We apologies for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked." We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

The Bomb

[bussdriver]

Don't forget how Hitler split up his nuclear bomb team and isolated them from each other divided resources to foster "competition" in an effort to apply business think to science; as if everything works like the "free market."

Re:High Tax sycophants

[DocSavage64109]

It's called Reagonomics. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Issa is not legitimate

[bussdriver]

Anybody following that fanatic knows better than to trust him as a source without double checking (which one should do with any politician, especially those who are also lawyers.) It's illogical to claim it's can't be a crazy conspiracy theory simply because the "crisis" was horrific to somebody.

Embassy attacks and deaths happen; it's just the way things have been for decades, nothing new. Bush had dozens of them, Clinton had some big high profile ones, Reagan, Carter, etc. They don't usually kill higher-level officials in these attacks so that makes it a little different but it really don't matter a whole lot; those officials are no more important than the underlings we never remember... and we'd not remember this one if it wasn't exploited for political grandstanding (especially during a big campaign season.) More security may not have made a difference... in which case, we'd be in the same situation we are in today; people covering their asses with others demanding perfection and "accountability."

All congress does these days is grandstanding which is why their approval is so high... that is, higher than Castro but lower than Cancer in approval.

Red States Got What They Deserved

[Tablizer]

Although these problems are bound to occur in any large organization, their impact is disproportionately large when a monopolist power screws up.

Distributing the complexity to states would also help, as we have seen.

The authors of the bill assumed that most if not all states would build their own sites, shrinking the burden of the central fed site. States that did build their own are overall in better shape than states that let the feds handle their exchange.

The large federal site is largely due to GOP stubbornness and obstructionism. The red states got what they deserved.

And it's a big-ass irony for the alleged "states rights" GOP.

BOTH parties need a big spank on this. Toss the incumbents and zealots in the next election.

Re:Sounds like an MMO launch

[mythosaz]

Government projects often come with deadlines and mandates for availability.

If you're ahead of schedule, great.

If you're behind a Congressionally mandated deadline, you're screwed.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa

[I'm New Around Here]

Thanks. I hope I didn't sound too much like a dick.

.
I hope Ferris is doing better by the weekend. Maybe he should take a drive and get some fresh air.

Re:Easier to be an independent worker

[sumdumass]

10% or more of your yearly income is not a reasonable price. That is what the highest level of income the subsidies are supposed to compensate to if you qualify for them. Except that you won't get subsidies working independently because your income will reflect a lot more than just wages being your own business.

The way the law is written, any employer portion of coverage is not taxed to the employee. Or to put it more simple, the employer's contributions to health coverage does not count as income unless you are the employer then all your expense is considered income. Now, if that portion or any qualified health care expense exceeds either 7.5% or 14% of your income, then the portion in excess can be deducted but you have to itemize which may reduce other benefits as well.

not panic, but people fixing bugs

[cinnamon colbert]

jeezum, didn't *anyone* actually read the pdf files ?
I looked at em, and the majority are what you expect - people methodically going thru punch lists and bug reports and fixes
perfectly norma
but no, the media+obamahaters have to make a big deal of it
just once, I'd like one of you obamahaters to acknowlede a FACT
today, there are people who are much better off thanks to PPACA - teenagers with leukemia, people with pre existing conditions, etc

and as for all the media BS about canceled policys - its clear that most of those policys weren't what you wold call "health insurance" eg policys that pay 100 dollars a day if hospitalized...those are like matilda's dad the used car sales man policys

my modest proposal

[almechist]

The US Government can simply take more money from taxpayers, then borrow 40 cents from China for every dollar, and they will make ACA succeed by brute-force.

Uh, isn't that basically just socialism, plus the fact that people want more than what they can afford? They could just spend less on healthcare and get the same result without the borrowing. However, the whole point of socialism is to take money from people who have money and to spend it on people who don't. If you don't like that then the solution is to just let people who can't afford insurance die, which most would not consider an acceptable solution.

The problem with healthcare is that everybody wants to paint it like some black-and-white simple problem with a simple solution, when in reality it is about 500 problems lumped into one big mess. There are lots of issues that drive up costs. There are lots of issues that discourage preventative care. There are lots of issues with who gets cared for. There are lots of administrative issues with paying a fair price for the work that gets done. There are lots of issues with trying to figure out what the best way to take care of a sick person actually is.

Everybody like to just pick one thing and point out a simple solution to it. Just let ERs turn away the indigent and now hospitals are solvent (just be sure to budget more money for the morgue, both for those who can't afford care and also for those who left their wallets at home when they keeled over). Just set the reimbursement rate for a particular treatment at $10 and now it doesn't cost much to pay for it (ignore the fact that nobody will provide the treatment any longer). Let the market freely set prices (and ignore the fact that consumers have little ability to shop around while unconscious). Every complicated problem has a simple solution that won't work...

OK, here's my simple solution. Expand Medicare to cover everyone. Do it in increments, slowly adding younger and younger people, reducing the eligibility age by 10 every 2 years. Eventually - probably pretty soon, actually - you start adding people who haven't payed enough into the system to pay for their care, so you need an outside revenue source. I see one obvious option that doesn't involve a major tax increase or even a spending decrease, and which has many serendipitous side benefits as well: end the drug war and legalize and tax all recreational drugs, with the tax revenue earmarked specifically and exclusively for the new medicare.

There, problem solved!

Seriously, though, my answer to those raving against government bureaucrats running and ruining our health care system is simply to point to Medicare, which has been working fairly well for a long time, and is well liked by those who rely on it. There is no reason Medicare couldn't be expanded, eventually becoming the single-payer system we so badly need.

Re:my modest proposal

[Rich0]

I've thought the same thing. Medicare does need some work though:

1. It really needs to be comprehensive, without a patch-work of coverage for hospitalization vs preventative care vs drugs, supplemental insurance, etc.
2. The cost problem still needs work. Otherwise level of care will have to drop as all those people you plan to add to Medicare are already paying for it and just not getting benefits, so giving them benefits will cost a LOT of money. US healthcare costs are WAY higher than anywhere else.

But, sure, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded.

Re:Darrell 'Fraud' Issa (Cherry Picking?)

[Tablizer]

Interesting you bring up Issa's credibility. Here's an article suggesting Issa may be cherry-picking document releases to mislead:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/08/house-dem-accuses-issa-of-selectively-leaking-obamacare-documents

Do you REALLY want these people in charge of your

[bgalbrecht]

And this is this typical anti-Obamacare response based on misrepresentation of how Obamacare works. Obamacare is basically two things: a private insurance exchange that has specific rules about what is covered and a medicaid program that subsidizes the premiums. The only people who are deciding whether or not your mother can have surgery are employees of the insurance company your mother chooses. That's right, the so-called death panels are run by a bunch of private for-profit (or sometimes not-for-profit) insurance actuaries. And even those not-for-profit insurance companies don't do losses unless they want to go out of business.

Sure, some people signing up in the exchange might end up being told that they qualified for subsidies when they should have, and will have to refund some or all of their subsidies. But your definition of "routinely" is bogus. I'm quite sure that it doesn't mean, at least 50% of benefits are calculated incorrectly, probably something like .1%-.3% are calculated incorrectly. If you have a hundred thousand SSA beneficiaries with incorrect benefits, it sounds like a huge problem, but when it's put in the perspective of .2% of 55 million recipients, it doesn't have the same impact.

Even though healthcare.gov is a government program, most of the development work was not done by government employees, it was done by a bunch of government contractors following the requirements of a bunch of political appointees who were in over their heads. People like your wife's coworkers aren't the ones setting up these systems, they're not the cause of the initial fiasco, they're not the ones on the death march to fix the problems. They're just shuffling the paperwork once the process is set up. And the paperwork they're shuffling has nothing to do with medical decisions whatsoever, it's just deciding whether somebody is going to have to pay full price for their insurance or if the government is subsidizing it.

I probably should have posted this anonymously like you did so I could mod you down, because your post isn't insightful at all. If Obamacare was a national healthcare system like the UK NIH you might have had a valid point, but it's not, and the Department of Health and Human Services is not in charge of your healthcare beyond requiring that any health insurance sold in the exchanges has to provide coverage for specific procedures and have specific out of pocket maximums. They're not even responsible for the insurance companies cancelling the existing policies that don't meet their requirements for the exchanges.

Oh, come now

[dfenstrate]

I don't have to 'know the true dogma' to call out a probable liar. If you're not a liar, the line you used has been widely employed by liars, making it a self-defeating thing to say. See Seminar Caller.

Re:Oh, come now

[luis_a_espinal]

I don't have to 'know the true dogma' to call out a probable liar. If you're not a liar, the line you used has been widely employed by liars, making it a self-defeating thing to say. See Seminar Caller.

So, let me see, either I'm a probable liar (as you claimed now), or I'm a definite leftist (as you originally stated.) Either way you have not given any proof of it other than making the claim (as Colbert once said "I cannot prove it, but I can say it.")

And you do need to know the "dogma", for you are using something to measure my alleged leftiness (and/or ability to lie.)

the line you used has been widely employed by liars, making it a self-defeating thing to say. See Seminar Caller. [wikipedia.org]

And this is a perfect example of circular reasoning and guilt-by-association. You took a general form of speech (yes, general) that I happen to use, and because it matched something described in wikipedia, and voila, guilty!!!

What's next, a "No True Scottsman" claim? I'm not going to debate you on whether I'm a liar or a leftie or a false-RINO, or, I dunno, a Klingon. Whatever the fuck gives you comfort and mental stability in that political corner of yours.