Dems Own Obamacare

Dems Own Obamacare
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/gop_shares_blame_for_obamacare_glitches/


"So I definitely don't think the president and his administration should be let off the hook for the very real problems that have plagued the program this month.

Nevertheless, it's worth noting that whatever their own responsibility for what's gone wrong, the White House shares responsibility with the Republicans who have spent three years actively attempting to undermine the law. I'm not talking about repeal votes, which (while silly after a while) were totally legitimate, or about running against the program in subsequent elections, which was again entirely fair. No, I'm talking about actions designed — usually openly — not to make the law work better in their view, but to make it harder for the law to work well."

This is just political malpractice. You don't pass a half assed law and expect your political enemies to fix it. The democrats created a non workable law and defended it against even delay up to and including a government shutdown.

Even though the president feels free to alter the law illegally, he can't come up with a enough fixes to make it work, so what are the republicans to do, lie in support as the dems do?

he republicans haven't campaigned to inform the young what a rotten deal they would get if they sign up. They have pointed out that health insurance is not of much use f there are no doctors, but that is becoming obvious.

They say we republicans have no solutions, what about Ben Carson's suggestion we give everyone a health savings account.

Oh, you don't like that because it doesn't empower big government?

"Passing on state-run exchanges: With over half the states refusing to set up their own marketplaces, the job of the federal government was much larger than originally envisioned. And this was clearly not done with good intentions: ask 100 Republicans whether they believe the states or the federal government does a better job running things, and at least 99 are going to say the states."

This is a strange admission.  Obviously, any federal program will be less efficient than any other way to do it, so why have them. The state exchange option was part of the law, so this is a legitimate course, and possibly only correct course. Again, the passers could have anticipated resistance, so what is the big surprise?


"Myths and lies: How many times since March 2010 has someone at the White House or a Democrat in Congress called over to HHS to ask about some crazy rumor that the press or a constituent was asking about? How much time was dedicated to figuring out what it was all about so that it could be properly refuted?"

Refuting the truth is even harder than suppressing lies. Joe wilson had it right, the president lies, and he is not good at it.

"Suppressing outreach: The administration knew that it had a major task in publicizing the rollout. What made that harder (and, presumably, distracted them from the critical task of making everything work smoothly) was a bizarre and perverse effort to undermine outreach: organizations such as the NFL were threatened if they helped to publicize the law, and an advertising campaign attempted to scare young people away from wanting to carry any health insurance."

the NFL might have not wanted to be seen to endorse ObamaCare since it is seen as a sure loser.  The NFL doesn't want to be seen as stupid. I believe the mainstream media is walking up to this as well, though many will be out of business before it sinks in.


"again this kind of question is definitely not intended to deflect the share of the responsibility that the president and his administration should take."

As Ronald Reagan would say: "There you go  again" (my delivery is not as refined so I will point out that this is really the intent despite the denial). The administration's share is 100%