Ezra Klein: Five thoughts on the Obamacare disaster

Five thoughts on the Obamacare disaster

By Ezra Klein, Published: October 14 WaPost

1. So far, the Affordable Care Act's launch has been a failure. Not "troubled." Not "glitchy." A failure. But "so far" only encompasses 14 days. The hard question is whether the launch will still be floundering on day 30, and on day 45. As Sarah Kliff noted, Medicare Part D was, at this point in its launch, also considered a disaster."When online shopping for prescription drug programs launched back in 2005, things went so badly that the federal government didn't even get off the ground until three weeks after its scheduled launch." Today, Medicare Part D is broadly considered a success. But Medicare Part D had something the Affordable Care Act doesn't: An opposition party that decided to be constructive. The federal health-care law's not going to get much help from the Republican Party...............

2. Are there problems behind the problems? In the weeks leading up to the launch I heard some very ugly things about how the system was performing when transferring data to insurers -- a necessary step if people are actually going to get insurance. I tried hard to pin the rumors down, but I could never quite nail the story, and there was a wall of official denials from the Obama administration. It was just testing, they said. They were fixing the bugs day by day.................


3. What didn't the White House know and when didn't they know it? In the weeks leading up to the launch I heard some very ugly things about how the system was performing when transferring data to insurers -- a necessary step if people are actually going to get insurance. I tried hard to pin the rumors down, but I could never quite nail the story, and there was a wall of official denials from the Obama administration. It was just testing, they said. They were fixing the bugs day by day..............

4. One thing has gone abundantly right for the Affordable Care Act: The Republican Party. Their decision to shut down the government on the exact day the health-care law launched was a miracle for the White House. If Republicans had simply passed a clean-CR on Oct. 1 these last few weeks would've been nothing -- nothing at all -- save for coverage of the health-care law's disaster. Instead the law has been knocked off the front page by coverage of the Republican Party's disaster....................

5. This isn't about politics. A lot of liberals will be angry over this post. A lot of conservatives will be happy about it. But it's important to see the Affordable Care Act as something more than a pawn in the political wars: It's a real law that real people are desperately, nervously, urgently trying to access. And so far, the Obama administration has failed them....................more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/14/five-thoughts-on-the-obamacare-disaster/?tid=pm_pop