It is both amazing and, in another way, not amazing, but there is a good chance that the health care exchanges that are supposed to be providing health care to individuals and small businesses under Obamacare aren’t going to be ready on time.
According to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday:
“Government officials have missed several deadlines in setting up new health-insurance exchanges for small businesses and consumers—a key part of the federal health overhaul—and there is a risk they won't be ready to open on time in October, Congress's watchdog arm said.
The Government Accountability Office said federal and state health officials still have major work to complete, offering its most cautious comments to date about the Obama administration's ability to bring the centerpiece of its signature law to fruition.
‘Whether [the government's] contingency planning will assure the timely and smooth implementation of the exchanges by October 2013 cannot yet be determined,’ said the GAO in twin reports to be released Wednesday.”
It is amazing to me that there are these problems. Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act, was passed three years ago. What have they been doing for three years? If the Affordable Care Act is supposed to be Barack Obama’s signature program, the passing of which is to secure his place in history, why are things so far behind? Hasn’t he been paying attention? If something was my legacy, I’d make darn sure it was going to work.
In his commencement address at The Ohio State University, President Obama told the graduates about the ability of government to do good. And yet, here is a chance for him to show that, and it doesn’t look like it is going to happen.
I am not a big fan of government programs in certain areas or in the federal government doing things that it doesn’t need to do. I don’t think the federal government is good at doing things in many of these areas. But I am still surprised at how badly this program is being implemented. It’s not like they are trying to do it in year or even two years. They have already had three years, and they will have three and one-half years by the time October 1 rolls around.
If time is a problem, why didn’t they start earlier? If getting the bureaucrats to do their job is the problem, why isn’t the President doing whatever is necessary to get things done?
According to The Wall Street Journal:
“Enroll America, an administration-backed nonprofit group, opened its ‘Get Covered America’ campaign Tuesday. ‘We are at a place where…78% of the uninsured aren't even aware of what's coming their way,’ said Anne Filipic, the group's president.”
Why do 78% of the uninsured not know “what’s coming their way”? What has the Administration been doing? The President likes to give speeches. Why hasn’t he been giving speeches about this?
One final point: If the implementation of Obamacare fails, in whole or in part, the President’s supporters will say it is the Republicans’ fault. The Republicans have put up roadblocks, they will say. The Republicans convinced states not to participate in the exchanges, etc., etc. I am sorry, but that doesn’t work. Of course, the Republicans don’t like Obamacare. If the Democrats thought anything else was going to happen, they were kidding themselves. If states decided not to build their own exchanges so late that now there isn’t enough time for the federal government to do it, then the federal government needed to set the deadlines earlier, and not extend them.
The President says (admits-?) says that there will be “glitches and bumps” in the implementation of Obamacare. It appears that may be an understatement. In any case, how many of those “glitches and bumps” could have been avoided if the Administration had done a better job than it apparently has so far in implementing the President’s biggest program?
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