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Healthcare.gov and the Gulf Between Planning and Reality
An anonymous reader writes in with this excerpt from Shirky.com. "The idea that 'failure is not an option' is a fantasy version of how non-engineers should motivate engineers. That sentiment was invented by a screenwriter, riffing on an after-the-fact observation about Apollo 13; no one said it at the time. (If you ever say it, wash your mouth out with soap. If anyone ever says it to you, run.) Even NASA's vaunted moonshot, so often referred to as the best of government innovation, tested with dozens of unmanned missions first, several of which failed outright. Failure is always an option. Engineers work as hard as they do because they understand the risk of failure. And for anything it might have meant in its screenplay version, here that sentiment means the opposite; the unnamed executives were saying 'Addressing the possibility of failure is not an option.' ... Healthcare.gov was unable to complete even a thousand enrollments a day at launch, and for weeks afterwards. As we now know, programmers, stakeholders, and testers all expressed reservations about Healthcare.gov's ability to do what it was supposed to do. Yet no one who understood the problems was able to tell the President. Worse, every senior political figure—every one—who could have bridged the gap between knowledgeable employees and the President decided not to. And so it was that, even on launch day, the President was allowed to make things worse for himself and his signature program by bragging about the already-failing site and inviting people to log in and use something that mostly wouldn't work. Whatever happens to government procurement or hiring (and we should all hope those things get better) a culture that prefers deluding the boss over delivering bad news isn't well equipped to try new things.'"
When a country, that has received the (temporary) blessings of a goodly portion of the world banks, is lifting off in a multi-decade experiment in keyesianism, and combine that with the residual WW2, "get her done" and "risks be damned" attitude, that kept bureaucracy and regulation in check, and add in a new blossoming impetus in the cold war ....and what you have is a perfect storm, to result in our rocket program.
Fast forward.
1. The cold war ended, and it broke the russians, and it put us in a pretty big hole as well, the blowback of which, we're still seeing.
2. The central banks still find us useful, but the original deal-with-the-devil (or devils) is now approaching 60 years old, and the central banks are now playing defense, positioning themselves within the transition to China.
3. The "get her done" and "risks be damned" attitude that kept bureaucracy-hell in check, are now fully replaced with idiocracy, which is very easily seen in corporations, but is far worse in the biggest corporation of all, The United States Federal Government, which has 4 million dependents, and another 12 million unofficial dependents, the weight of which is not merely creating a sag, but bellies are dragging. The warfare/welfare state and endless push for centralization, because a little bit helped us win a war or two, so multiplying centralization by a million times, will make this country a million times better, has been championed by democrats and republicans, taking turns providing warfare benefits to the banks, and welfare benefits to individuals, corporations, and anyone with hat in hand....
So in conclusion, I find your statement moronic, and perfectly symptomatic of the stage we have reached.
As soon as we decided that hospitals were legally required to give you health care if you walked into the emergency room we decided that health care is a human right. That debate is over. So now what do we do about it? You can either have the blood suckers feed off a system they're not paying into, or you can require they pay into it like every responsible adult has been doing for generations. The government is not requiring me to do ANYTHING really. They've created a new income tax (you're exempt if you have no income) and a corresponding tax break if you happen to buy health insurance. While it may be slimey it's perfectly within the normal business of government to enact income taxes and tax breaks. IMHO single payer or Medicare-for-all would've been a preferable option, but it wasn't politically viable, so we got this. It's not great, it's basically a big handout to the insurance companies. Have you watched their stock prices? They've shot up over the last few years. But at least the bums who were living off me in the form of higher premiums I was having to pay each year will now be paying in. And if someone was really sick and was unable to get health insurance at any price before now gets health coverage.. isn't that GOOD? My ex-wife couldn't get private health insurance. I know, because we tried. She had a clotting disorder but was generally a healthy and able-bodied person. But nope, can't buy health insurance. So unless her provider got her on a group plan, she was completely SOL. If more people like her, and even people who are not able-bodied can get some insurance now then that's awesome.
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would rightfully get them primaried in the next election?
And therein lies the problem. Primary elections are the "true" election in most Congressional districts (Democrat and Republican), thanks to gerrymandering. Primary elections are universally low turnout affairs that are dominated by the true believers, the types that get all of their news from MSNBC or Fox, who are least inclined to seek accommodation with the other side. The consequence of this is that we end up with hyper-partisan hacks that don't even represent the mainstream of their gerrymandered district, much less the country as a whole.
I'm not blaming the GOP, the exact same thing happens in gerrymandered blue districts. Nancy Pelosi doesn't represent the mainstream of the Democratic party, much less the United States, yet she is the voice of the Democrats in the house.
I don't know what the solution is. Some will argue that we need a third party, but that's no guarantee of a different result. Indeed, it makes it possible for the same hyper-partisan hacks to win as before, only now they'll have won with 40% of the vote instead of 50.1%. My hometown (Binghamton, NY) ended up with a left-wing asshole as Mayor, who won two three-way elections, and pushed his asinine left-wing agenda despite 60% of the city voting against him. (Hint for Matthew Ryan if your egotistical self finds this post with a Google search: People don't vote for Mayor to make statements about the Iraq War, they vote for him to fix the fucking potholes, keep the parks clean, and to try and attract employers to the area)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Had people all worked into a frenzy that power plants and other equipment wouldn't work on 1/1/00.
Things wouldn't have worked if they didn't fix them. That's like saying there's all this frenzy about vaccines. [sarcam] I mean polio and measles aren't that bad since no one I know is affected by them. [/sarcasm]. The problem is that when something works well and avoids a disaster some people think it wasn't necessary. For many years, FEMA did a good job at disaster recovery until Katrina hit. Then the country saw the effects of a poorly run government agency and why putting someone competent in charge matters.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Boss has no idea.
At least for big public projects, there is a solution: prediction markets. If plenty of low level people know a project is seriously off track, the prediction market will reflect that fact. All public spending proposals should have explicit goals and be tested in prediction markets before they are funded, and if the market consensus is that the proposal will fail, then it should be either modified or abandoned.
Mr. Slippery has it right. The US doesn't have much of a left these days. It has a right (D) and a more extreme right (R). To wit, who do I vote for if I want the law upheld, no one above the law, none of this Too Big To Fail or Too Big To Jail, and those Wall Street thieves and destroyers of our prosperity brought to justice? And who do I vote for if I want sanity, facts, and truth on unpleasant matters, not propaganda? Maybe healthcare can help increase the sanity level. But on the whole, not Obama, and definitely not Romney. Maybe Elizabeth Warren?
If you want peace, prepare for war. If you want to avoid Climate Change, prepare for it. But no, we can't even arrive at a consensus that Climate Change is real and not liberal scientist propaganda, and that if we make no changes it will get very bad for everyone. Many aren't hard changes to make, and are good to do even if there is no climate change problem. Like, with electric cars. I don't know about you, but I don't like breathing exhaust fumes. Maybe we should work on batteries more before making the big switch, that's a valid debate to have. But as to the motors themselves, there is no question that electric motors are far, far superior to internal combustion engines. Then there are traffic lights. Who could possibly not want traffic lights to get some brains and cut the amount of time we all spend sitting at the red light? But people fight such ideas anyway. It's almost like we're deliberately making life harder for ourselves because we're bored or something.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
And you know what else was in the law? The timeline for the individual and the employer mandate.
I'm still wondering how Obama has been able to put those off legally, even with executive order?? That doesn't seem right and I wonder why no one has sued for this...I would think anyone planning for this law to be in full effect according to the dates of the law would have standing on this.
I think this would be a good time to test the boundaries and maybe define more what exact powers the President has with Executive Order. It needs to be seriously reigned in IMHO in general.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........