This is his signature legislative achievement, affecting 17% of the entire US economy. If he doesn’t have time for that, then he better get his priorities straight.
He doesn’t need any expertise in anything to listen to someone who tells him that software isn’t ready to launch. But if he doesn’t have the expertise to hire people who will tell him this when he needs to hear it, then he has no business being president.
I’m a bit fuzzy on the technique there, John. What methods do you apply to determine who is likely to tell you what you need to hear, and who is not? Firm handshake? Steady eye contact, a preference for Old Spice? You have this expertise, perhaps you will share some of the basic techniques?
I interview the person, review and verify what’s on his resume, and talk to previous managers. But most importantly, I’ve made it clear that I reward, rather than punish, that type of behavior.
It has worked quite well for me-- I’ve hired lots of PMs over the years.
(Anything beyond that, and you’re going to have pay my usual consulting fee.)
When you say it worked “quite well”, is that the same as saying “failure rate zero”?
That’s not the measure. The measure is no project failed that we didn’t have enough advance warning about so as not to create problems like the one we are discussing here. I never had to go to the company president and say “I didn’t know about these catastrophic problems until after the product was launched”. Had I done that, I would expect to be around too long.
Well, if you say so, you say so. After all, what would I know? Once agreed to pay an auto mechanic $140 to pack my muffler bearings and align the torsion valves. Turns out, my brother in law would do it for $75.
Why does it matter if John Mace, me, you, or the guy down the street knows or doesn’t know these things? This is what Obama is paid $400k per year to do on our behalf.
If you hire a guy to paint your house, and he buys paint that was of inferior quality, who is to blame? Is is fair for him to quiz you on “how am I supposed to know a reputable paint salesman when I see one”?
Of course not. You paid the guy $X and in return you want a freshly painted house. It’s his job to deliver you a freshly painted house. Period. If he has labor, supply, or permit problems, then that is his problem and up to him to figure it out. If he doesn’t, he won’t stay in business.
How does that translate to Obama? He did a piss poor job with this rollout. Impeachment is not a constitutional option for doing a bad job; it’s only for high crimes and misdemeanors. But can’t we still agree that he did a piss poor job on this?
I didn’t say so, you said so. It was just 4 posts up.
How about as a start assembling a team that actually has a track record in doing so and the requisite expertise to actually pull it off? The opposite of what the Obama team did, in other words. Here, give this a read, it was already provided once:
He put in place a team that had virtually no chance of success, who hadn’t the experience or expertise to even recognize what a royal screw-up they were launching. You want a better chance at effectively managing vendors? Good executives hire people who know how to do so when they don’t have that specific know-how, then they manage the shit out of that team, getting regular updates and seeing evidence of real, documented results. Again, the opposite of what Obama did.
I could come up with at least this strong a reason why every president had no business being president. FDR’s main job he was being paid for, in 1941, was managing our likely entry into the war. So the warnings concerning imminent attack not being sufficiently heeded at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines would become his fault, because he didn’t make sure reliable people got back to him on the measures being taken to scramble aircraft and put ships to sea. But condemning Roosevelt this way would be absurd because head of state is not a management position; it’s a governance position.
Taking about bad governance, what about the governors and legislators who are leaving large quantifies of money on the table due to not accepting the medicaid expansion? To recap, they could get the medicaid expansion for free for three years, and then 90 percent paid for after that. Looked from the standpoint of the economic development policies of every state, where they bribe companies, and even non-profits, to locate in their state, these are dream numbers that only an incompetent would fail to grab. As a result, hospitals in GOP states will go bankrupt due to the federal subsidy for uncompensated care being slashed because, with medicaid expansion, it is no longer needed.
With apologies to the ghost of Steve Allen, this is the start of something big:
http://www.reflector.com/news/vidant-closing-pungo-hospital-2150983
If you want to make the case about other people not having adequate experience to cover certain events, why don’t you start a thread about them and see how it works out? Besides, whether or not anyone else was not up to the task isn’t really an argument about what Obama should or should not have done.
Plus, there is a huge difference between preventing something that no one really knows is going to happen or not, and rolling out a website in support of your signature piece of legislation. The latter is a known quantity, with dozens of models out there to act as guides. Preventing a sneak attack on the US before the invention of radar… not so much.
And then the apps still have to go through the same computer system that doesn’t work.
Which is why the number of people applying is so small, despite the supposed availability of other options.
Six months from now, the story will be told. And most likely, forgotten. If this thing works, the millions of people who have affordable insurance for the first time are going to be very forgiving. A long with many others relieved of the various burdens imposed by a system that values profit over people. We should be embarrassed that nations with nowhere near our money and power take care of their people better than we do, we should be positively ashamed that we let it go on as long as we have.
Perhaps Romney would have done a better job, that’s possible. But Romney would not have tried.
And if we say a better job could have been done, then aren’t we saying that which is broken can be fixed? Heck, the way some of you talk, it was easy-peasy Japanesey, how could Obama have screwed up such an simple task? If its that simple, then it can be fixed. There are people in this very thread could have managed it over a long lunch, a pity Obama didn’t ask.
Did you notice that bit Hannity did? When people first started connecting in fits and starts, he wanted to do a show about how terrible it all was, how bitterly disappointed were the people who signed on. He had to lie, he had to bring on people who’s stories were fabrications, easily debunked.
If this thing is so bad, how come he had to lie? Shouldn’t bitterly angry people have been thick upon the ground, shouldn’t it have been easy to find people to tell the awful truth? A small data point, perhaps, but telling. This thing can work, and if and when it does, who will care how clumsily it was born? Americans can be very generous in forgiving the guy who wins.
That’s just the thing, the disappointment won’t come until people actually see how much they have to pay. Hannity jumped the gun, but don’t worry, many who are already experiencing sticker shock are reacting.
“I supported the law until I found out I’d be paying for it!”
Oh he jumped the gun! I see, yes, that makes perfect sense, he couldn’t find six who fit his needs, so he made shit up. Uh huh. But now there are “many”, you tell us. So what’s stopping him from doing it now? Its not like he has any shame. Or integrity.
Anyway, I’ve missed all those stories about the “many”. But you must have them at your very fingertips, otherwise you wouldn’t…oh, wait. Nevermind. My random memory was a bit more random than usual.
You haven’t heard about the cancer patient who can’t find a plan that lets her see all he doctors? That kinda sucks.
I could go all snarky on you, and ask how you know this. How you are able to see into the future, but I won’t. Instead…
I agree, as I said much earlier in this thread, that the true test is going to be what people’s experiences are in or about the summer of '14. I’m not convinced, as you are, that it will be mostly positive. But we’ll see. There are lots of variables, and I think anyone who says he can predict what will happen is talking about what the way he wishes things to rather than the way he knows they will.
Haven’t actually heard about it from you either. You in too much of a hurry to offer a cite? Some place you urgently need to be?
By any chance, do you mean this cancer patient, as featured in the Wall Street Journal?
I appreciate that, John, not everybody realizes how sensitive and vulnerable I am.
But as a staunch non-partisan, you most likely don’t get the hive-mind memo, so you wouldn’t know. Obamacare isn’t expected to be great. Aiming for mediocre, to start with, head towards single payer, which remains our actual goal bwah ha ha etc.
Can’t really be all that great as long as we have to cut the insurance companies in for a slice of the pie. Their profit is a built in inefficiency, that money is better spent on better health care.
I’m not supposed to tell you this, since you are not one with Landroo. So, don’t let on, OK?