It is with considerable amusement that many of us in IT and related fields have watched the healthcare.gov comedic tragedy of bad planning, testing, and deployment. It is a Very Bad Thing, a model of how any software project, let alone a government-contracted one, should be run.
Having said that, I fear our focus is on the wrong Very Bad Thing. Yes, the web site is a Very Bad Thing. But web sites can be fixed.
The much greater Very Bad Thing is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. PPACA, a.k.a. ACA, a.k.a. “ObamaCare”). The best part about the web site being inaccessible is that it forestalled and complicated the implementation of the worst law in my memory, and one of the worst Supreme Court decisions since Dred Scott.
Proponents of this law are lying, probably to themselves, definitely to American citizens. Let’s not be naïve. The Obama administration isn’t stepping in to this market because of any desire to “fix a broken system,” as some put it. We had an un-broken system already. It could be improved, but it was already the best system on Earth in terms of its ability to allow personal choices, produce medical advances, and encourage and reward high quality researchers and practitioners. PPACA isn’t intended to fix anything; it is a play to take over a significant percentage of the American economy directly by the federal government.
Most disturbing to me is that PPACA puts the IRS in charge of enforcement of health insurance purchases (not health care per se.) Follow the money! Under PPACA we are all forced to buy a product. Some suggest PPACA is no different from automobile liability insurance, and they are completely wrong. First, auto coverage it is purely optional from a federal perspective. Not everyone needs to buy it in the first place (ask apartment dwellers in NYC), and second, even if you should buy it but don’t, and then drive uninsured, you will be dealt with in municipal or state civil or criminal court, not by the feds. PPACA federalizes this aspect of American commerce, and is, I think, the strongest move toward abject socialism this administration has made. PPACA is not mere legislation or regulation; it is takeover.
As Dave Ramsey says, “…And we all know how good the federal government is at handling money, right?!” PPACA will make health insurance more expensive for everyone; it has to for the numbers to work. Those of us who already have insurance will pay more (in fact most of us already are – I want the other half of my Flexible Spending Account back!), and those that didn’t have it will start paying (complete with very high deductibles on the lower-cost options.) There is no “free” option available to anyone with an earned income.
The worst part of this IRS involvement, though, is that the penalties included in the PPACA will be enforced without the constitutional protections of due process. As the enforcement arm of PPACA, and the IRS can seize property and garnishee wages without a court order. This was the tragic failing of the Supreme Court, re-casting the fines and fees in PPACA “taxes”, in order to make the Act constitutional. Shame on John Roberts! He should have struck it down for what it was, not amended it via legal opinion (not legislation!) to make it fit. I wonder if threats were made against his family to get him to write that opinion…? Cf. Dred Scott.
Shame, too, on the Democratic Party leaders, Representatives, and Senators who forced PPACA through all the way to the President’s desk. They should all be voted out at the earliest opportunity, and those who didn’t actually read the law, including then-Speaker Pelosi, should be fired immediately for rank incompetence to make law, and for putting the nation’s economy at such great risk because of that incompetence.
And shame on voting Americans who either ignored the facts or are incapable of doing the math, and yet supported this horrible mess in two consecutive elections!
Read the Act; it needs to be repealed, not reformed or “fixed.” The cancer is in the marrow of this Act. “Compromise” on any of these points is capitulation to a Very Bad Thing.
Republicans and thinking, voting Americans of all stripes, let’s work towards a “404 – Law Not Found” error!
Forget the Web Site; let’s 404 the Law!
It is with considerable amusement that many of us in IT and related fields have watched the healthcare.gov comedic tragedy of bad planning, testing, and deployment. It is a Very Bad Thing, a model of how any software project, let alone a government-contracted one, should be run.
Having said that, I fear our focus is on the wrong Very Bad Thing. Yes, the web site is a Very Bad Thing. But web sites can be fixed.
The much greater Very Bad Thing is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. PPACA, a.k.a. ACA, a.k.a. “ObamaCare”). The best part about the web site being inaccessible is that it forestalled and complicated the implementation of the worst law in my memory, and one of the worst Supreme Court decisions since Dred Scott.
Proponents of this law are lying, probably to themselves, definitely to American citizens. Let’s not be naïve. The Obama administration isn’t stepping in to this market because of any desire to “fix a broken system,” as some put it. We had an un-broken system already. It could be improved, but it was already the best system on Earth in terms of its ability to allow personal choices, produce medical advances, and encourage and reward high quality researchers and practitioners. PPACA isn’t intended to fix anything; it is a play to take over a significant percentage of the American economy directly by the federal government.
Most disturbing to me is that PPACA puts the IRS in charge of enforcement of health insurance purchases (not health care per se.) Follow the money! Under PPACA we are all forced to buy a product. Some suggest PPACA is no different from automobile liability insurance, and they are completely wrong. First, auto coverage it is purely optional from a federal perspective. Not everyone needs to buy it in the first place (ask apartment dwellers in NYC), and second, even if you should buy it but don’t, and then drive uninsured, you will be dealt with in municipal or state civil or criminal court, not by the feds. PPACA federalizes this aspect of American commerce, and is, I think, the strongest move toward abject socialism this administration has made. PPACA is not mere legislation or regulation; it is takeover.
As Dave Ramsey says, “…And we all know how good the federal government is at handling money, right?!” PPACA will make health insurance more expensive for everyone; it has to for the numbers to work. Those of us who already have insurance will pay more (in fact most of us already are – I want the other half of my Flexible Spending Account back!), and those that didn’t have it will start paying (complete with very high deductibles on the lower-cost options.) There is no “free” option available to anyone with an earned income.
The worst part of this IRS involvement, though, is that the penalties included in the PPACA will be enforced without the constitutional protections of due process. As the enforcement arm of PPACA, and the IRS can seize property and garnishee wages without a court order. This was the tragic failing of the Supreme Court, re-casting the fines and fees in PPACA “taxes”, in order to make the Act constitutional. Shame on John Roberts! He should have struck it down for what it was, not amended it via legal opinion (not legislation!) to make it fit. I wonder if threats were made against his family to get him to write that opinion…? Cf. Dred Scott.
Shame, too, on the Democratic Party leaders, Representatives, and Senators who forced PPACA through all the way to the President’s desk. They should all be voted out at the earliest opportunity, and those who didn’t actually read the law, including then-Speaker Pelosi, should be fired immediately for rank incompetence to make law, and for putting the nation’s economy at such great risk because of that incompetence.
And shame on voting Americans who either ignored the facts or are incapable of doing the math, and yet supported this horrible mess in two consecutive elections!
Read the Act; it needs to be repealed, not reformed or “fixed.” The cancer is in the marrow of this Act. “Compromise” on any of these points is capitulation to a Very Bad Thing.
Republicans and thinking, voting Americans of all stripes, let’s work towards a “404 – Law Not Found” error!