Good Glitches
Paul Krugman, NYT
So, very early reports are that Obamacare exchanges are, as expected, having some technical glitches on the first day — maybe even a bit worse than expected, because it appears that volume has been much bigger than predicted.
Here’s what you need to know: this is good, not bad, news for the program. The glitches will get fixed; remember the calamitous rollout of Medicare Part D? What matters is whether enough people — especially, of course, young, heal thy people — actually do sign up for insurance. If they do, health reform will be a success, and will become irreversible.
The big fear has been that a combination of ignorance and misinformation would keep people away, that they wouldn’t sign up either because they didn’t know that insurance was now available, or because Republicans had convinced them that the program was the spawn of the devil, or something. Lots of people logging on and signing up on the very first day — a day when the Kamikaze Kongress is dominating the headlines — is an early indication that it’s going to be fine, that plenty of people will sign up for the first year of health reform.
(More here.)
So, very early reports are that Obamacare exchanges are, as expected, having some technical glitches on the first day — maybe even a bit worse than expected, because it appears that volume has been much bigger than predicted.
Here’s what you need to know: this is good, not bad, news for the program. The glitches will get fixed; remember the calamitous rollout of Medicare Part D? What matters is whether enough people — especially, of course, young, heal thy people — actually do sign up for insurance. If they do, health reform will be a success, and will become irreversible.
The big fear has been that a combination of ignorance and misinformation would keep people away, that they wouldn’t sign up either because they didn’t know that insurance was now available, or because Republicans had convinced them that the program was the spawn of the devil, or something. Lots of people logging on and signing up on the very first day — a day when the Kamikaze Kongress is dominating the headlines — is an early indication that it’s going to be fine, that plenty of people will sign up for the first year of health reform.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
3 Comments:
I have to hand it to Krugman, this article is possibly the best example of the left blindly following and making excuses for their great leader. I would love to read what Krugman would have to say if the GOP forced through major legislation that started out so poorly.
Did you read thE article? Krugman didmention Medicare part D which passed on a party line vote. It also started out poorly. Did the Dems shut down the govt to try to repeal Part D? HCA will be a success
When I heard the various news report of the first day, I had two thoughts :
#1. How many of these callers were trying to sabotage the system by causing an overload or obtain information to complain about the system ?
#2. Leigh Pomeroy's March 01, 2010 commentary :
Minnesota appliance rebate application system overwhelmed ... as predicted
A month and a half ago I predicted to my state legislators that the application process for the Minnesota Trade-in and Save Appliance Program would be a mess. Well, that prediction is playing out right now as I wait for the online application servers to stop crashing and for the phone lines to stop telling me that all circuits are busy, please call back later.
This is hardly surprising. When you're running state government with the express purpose of destroying it, as Mr. Pawlenty is, what else would you expect?
Energy Star is a good thing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Republicans like to refer to Max Bauchus's warning of "trainwreck" without acknowledging that he was speaking not about the goals of the legislation, but instead that people were unaware of program and questioning if sufficient resources were available for the implementation ... Bauchus's comments were one month after Congress refused HHS's request for additional funding for awareness and implementation.
Yes, this seems to be similar to the Part D intro ... and taxpayers who were the first to use any of the "free" online services to prepare their income taxes also experienced these start-up problems ... but in the end, just like Leigh said "Energy Star is a good thing" and Part-D participants say about that program, in short time more and more people will be saying "ObamaCare is a Good Thing."
Post a Comment
<< Home