Incompetence

Incompetence. That is the only way to describe the Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act (commonly called “Obamacare” by both proponents and detractors).

Obamacare was passed by the narrowest of margins – by both houses of Congress – and signed into law in early 2010.  Moreover, the November 2010 elections (held very shortly after Obamacare was signed into law) dramatically revealed how controversial the law is: Republicans gained 63 seats in the House, 6 seats in the Senate, and 680 seats in state legislatures. 

Accordingly, President Obama knew that Obamacare had to be implemented almost flawlessly. Congress knew it too and gave the Obama administration three years to roll out healthcare.gov, the most visible aspect of Obamacare. In light of of the importance of the issue, incompetence is the only word to describe the Obama administration’s failure to have the project headed by anyone with prior experience creating a large website or starting a business.

Predictably, and as every recent poll reflects, Obamacare (including healthcare.gov) is a disaster.

First, the healthcare.gov website does not work.

• The website crashes every time Sec. Sebelius attempts to demonstrate it.

• The excuse that the website is experiencing unexpectedly high volume is pathetic. The website, which the Obama Administration expected to receive 55,000 concurrent users, was built to handle no more than 1,100 concurrent users. That’s right – the website was built to handle 2% of the expected load.

Second, the law was passed based upon a bald-faced lie: “We will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period.”

• The Obama administration knew that millions of people would lose their insurance before President Obama made his promise.

• Millions of individual policies have already been canceled because of Obamacare.

• Tens of millions of employer policies are expected to be canceled before November 2014.

Third, President Obama had an excellent opportunity to avoid the disaster currently unfolding.  Just a month ago, the Republican party threatened to shut down the government unless Obamacare was delayed.  The Obama administration had already been told that healthcare.gov would not be ready.  All the President had to do was accept a delay and use the delay to fix the problems.  This would have been a win/win for the President (time to fix healthcare.gov and an opportunity blame Republicans for the delay).   Incredibly, the President risked a government shut down in order to inflict Obamacare on America.

Elections have consequences. We, the people, elected President Obama. Now, millions of people – with many millions more to come – are facing the consequences.