# What is your ongoing opinion of the Affordable Care Act? (Title Edited) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 17, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561 "2013-01-17T23:21:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 33
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/642 "2013-10-24T14:14:21Z")
They wouldn’t tell the media what kind of progress was being made. Plenty of people knew the site was going to crash on Oct. 1. Neither the media nor Congress was informed. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/643 "2013-10-24T14:36:53Z")
And that’s a “national security secret”, is it? Once again, it sounds like pretty much every other major website launch. Nobody announces that their brand new website has a better-than-average chance of crashing or hanging, even if you and the rest of the industry think so. You do your best to get it running up to the launch, and then you fix the problems as they arise. See: everything Microsoft has ever done. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/644 "2013-10-24T14:43:37Z")
Microsoft delays releases when things are so screwed up they don’t even function. Comparing what’s going on with [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) to your typical tech snafu, as if it’s just Windows Vista or something, is giving the administration way too much benefit of the doubt. It’s broken in almost every facet, as if it was written and then never tested. They can’t even get the EDI transmissions right, and that’s a pretty old and reliable technology. BTW, love how they report 500,000 signups, while insurance companies report that they’ve only gotten a few hundred actual applications. Love even more how some people here claim the website isn’t the health care law. Problem wi th that is that the website is the only way people can get health care. The Washington Post tried to enroll people over the phone and found that the reps were waiting on the comupter systems to work. So, no [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov), no insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/645 "2013-10-24T21:59:16Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then the entire mainstream press must be engaged in silly political sniping now. I don’t know why today would be any different. There may have been a glorious past when the media only published well-vetted, scrupulously fair articles, but that certainly isn’t today (left and right). Controversy sells - and reporting on it sells more. There are legitimate stories about the web-site failures, but “what did the President know and when did he know it” registers about 51 on a list of 50 things that are important about the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/646 "2013-10-24T22:02:43Z")
I was able to complete my application today. Haven’t purchased a policy yet, still a problem verifying my income. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/647 "2013-10-25T00:54:49Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > There are legitimate stories about the web-site failures, but “what did the President know and when did he know it” registers about 51 on a list of 50 things that are important about the issue. You’re right. It’s not important at all. The buck stops with him. If he didn’t know, he should have found out. Contrary to popular belief, he is not a victim of incompetent underlings. ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/648 "2013-10-25T01:58:14Z")
So basically, the best you have on him right now is, “There was a website launch with problems under his presidency.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/649 "2013-10-25T03:26:03Z")
What more does one need? And this is not the first time, or the second time, or even the fifth time, that he’s supposedly been failed by his subordinates. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/650 "2013-10-25T03:34:08Z")
I’ll go with you though for a bit, Randolph. If the problems don’t get fixed, and this whole thing ends up being a bit snafu, what would be the best way to hold our government accountable for its failures? What should voters do? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/651 "2013-10-25T03:52:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’ll go with you though for a bit, Randolph. If the problems don’t get fixed, and this whole thing ends up being a bit snafu, what would be the best way to hold our government accountable for its failures? What should voters do? Throw the geeks out! ---
**Author:** ![Randolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Randolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randolph)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/652 "2013-10-25T03:55:01Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’ll go with you though for a bit, Randolph. If the problems don’t get fixed, and this whole thing ends up being a bit snafu, what would be the best way to hold our government accountable for its failures? What should voters do? Take current events into consideration during the next elections. Build their positions through evidence and soul-searching, having the maturity and emotional resilience to handle the evolution of those positions, no matter the existing proclamations and alliances, no matter how painful. To not begin any sentences with “I’m right because…” To grow freely. I don’t expect you to understand. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/653 "2013-10-25T03:57:17Z")
Sounds like you’re falling back on nuance to avoid ever holding the government accountable for anything. And thus democracy dies, replaced by an uncontrollable bureaucracy. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/654 "2013-10-25T05:05:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then the entire mainstream press must be engaged in silly political sniping now. It is. > **[Richmond Times-Dispatch Fabricates Obamacare Changes To Frame Law As A Failure](https://www.mediamatters.org/barack-obama/richmond-times-dispatch-fabricates-obamacare-changes-frame-law-failure)** > [@adaher](#): > > Actually, what they want is the truth. The administration just now has promised to be transparent about what’s going on. Why they acted as if it was a national security secret prior to this is anyone’s guess. If the launch had been successful there is no one that would had seen a need to pump up the talking point that it was a “secret”. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/655 "2013-10-25T05:09:36Z")
If it was going well, they wouldn’t have kept so mum about it. Or seen the need to protect the President from the bad news. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/656 "2013-10-25T05:33:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Sounds like you’re falling back on nuance to avoid ever holding the government accountable for anything. > > And thus democracy dies, replaced by an uncontrollable bureaucracy. Nah, what is dying is the overreach and extremism from the followers of the tea party that never seem to wonder how likely it is that they will look like straw graspers that had no perspective to history. Looking at history it is interesting that many Republicans (Even Eisenhower) back then told Kennedy how nuts it was to go to the moon and one of their best pieces of evidence why it was foolish was the repeated failures of the rockets that were supposed to launch the men of the Mercury and Gemini program. If they had lived in those days I guess the perfect world for the critics would had been to defund NASA and impeach Kennedy for his dereliction of duty for not being a rocket scientist. Like before, I expect the technical problems to be solved and see many people that have their freedoms limited by a feudalistic irrational health care “system” get more freedoms and opportunities, better than just going to the moon I think. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/657 "2013-10-25T05:37:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > If it was going well, they wouldn’t have kept so mum about it. Or seen the need to protect the President from the bad news. Missing the point as usual, if it was going well it would still had been a “secret”, regardless of the bragging if it had been successful. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/658 "2013-10-25T17:30:13Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Microsoft delays releases when things are so screwed up they don’t even function. Comparing what’s going on with [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov) to your typical tech snafu, as if it’s just Windows Vista or something, is giving the administration way too much benefit of the doubt. It’s broken in almost every facet, as if it was written and then never tested. They can’t even get the EDI transmissions right, and that’s a pretty old and reliable technology. Yeah, Microsoft has held back that RT OS that has been such a huge success. And they never had any problems with XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8. Or even 8.1. And if the web site was as broken as you are saying, how is it that people are actually able to use it successfully at all? They are you know. Daily. > [@adaher](#): > > BTW, love how they report 500,000 signups, while insurance companies report that they’ve only gotten a few hundred actual applications. > > Love even more how some people here claim the website isn’t the health care law. Problem wi th that is that the website is the only way people can get health care. The Washington Post tried to enroll people over the phone and found that the reps were waiting on the comupter systems to work. > > So, no [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov), no insurance. First off, they haven’t reported that there are 500,000 signups for insurance. They have said that they had almost 500,000 people use the site and go through the sign up process. Some people will pick their insurance right away and finish off the process. But the smart ones will check each of the various options before actually deciding which one to pay for. (Using the estimator, I found over 30 plans here in Ohio. If I needed to use the program I would certainly be comparing them closely before picking one.) That will take time. Of course, the really smart ones are waiting a couple months before trying the web site, since version 1.0 of any software is not usually bug-free. Second, again, people are successfully using the phone lines to get insurance. So your claim that if the website is down, the program is a flop has no real basis in reality. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/659 "2013-10-25T21:49:46Z")
This is why I don’t bother to ask for cites. Your assertion that people can successfully sign up over the phone is completely wrong: > **[‘No, you cannot do that’: Trying to buy Obamacare over the phone](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/10/23/no-you-cannot-do-that-trying-to-buy-obamacare-over-the-phone/?variant=bacbca59707f74b0)** > > "The only thing we can do is submit an application for you," one call-center representative told me. "We can't purchase anything for you." Taking politicians’ word on things is never wise. Now the system CAN work without the site, but it still takes massive processing power to get 7 million people signed up by Mar. 31. What, do you think the phone people just take down your name and look up the person in a dozen databases, and determine their eligibility using manual arithmetic? Because without a functioning computer system, that’s what those barely trained reps would have to do. And right now, there’s no functioning computer system. You act as if only the front end is broken, but the front end is the least of the problems. God help them if they actually get the front end working without fixing the back end. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/660 "2013-10-25T21:52:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > This is why I don’t bother to ask for cites. Your assertion that people can successfully sign up over the phone is completely wrong: > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/23/no-you-cannot-do-that-trying-to-buy-obamacare-over-the-phone/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/23/no-you-cannot-do-that-trying-to-buy-obamacare-over-the-phone/) > > Taking politicians’ word on things is never wise. > > Now the system CAN work without the site, but it still takes massive processing power to get 7 million people signed up by Mar. 31. What, do you think the phone people just take down your name and look up the person in a dozen databases, and determine their eligibility using manual arithmetic? Because without a functioning computer system, that’s what those barely trained reps would have to do. And right now, there’s no functioning computer system. > > You act as if only the front end is broken, but the front end is the least of the problems. God help them if they actually get the front end working without fixing the back end. More: [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-glitches-paper-phone-applications-98872.html?hp=t1\_3](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-glitches-paper-phone-applications-98872.html?hp=t1_3) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561/661 "2013-10-25T21:56:46Z")
This is actually very important, so: > [@](#): > > There are essentially three steps involved in buying coverage through the marketplace. The first is filling out an application that includes information about where you live, how much you earn and who is in your family. That part the call center does have the ability to help out with. > > The second is eligibility verification: [Healthcare.Gov](http://Healthcare.Gov) needs to double-check that the shopper is the person they say they are, that they live in the right state and that have reported their income accurately. A computer system does this part; a call-center agent cannot. > > The last step is enrollment: picking a specific plan and paying the first month’s premium. That payment goes to the insurance plan of the shopper’s choosing, not to [HealthCare.Gov](http://HealthCare.Gov), which helps explain why the call center cannot accept shoppers’ payments. > > “I pulled your application up, and it wouldn’t allow me at this time to get past the point you were at as far as enrollment,” the third call-center agent I spoke to said. He was the only call-center agent I spoke with who thought I would be able to do this at some point in the future. > > “Once we get the system errors and technical issues resolved, we’ll be able to help you with enrollment,” he said. “Currently we are not, because of technical issues.” So as you can see, the exchanges do not actually work. It’s not just the website. And from Terr’s link: > [@](#): > > With the supposedly state-of-the-art $600 million [HealthCare.gov](http://HealthCare.gov) portal malfunctioning, President Barack Obama is urging Americans to go ahead and try to get health coverage by mailing in a paper application, calling the helpline or seeking help from one of the trained “assisters.” > > But the truth is those applications — on paper or by phone — have to get entered into the same lousy website that is causing the problems in the first place. And the people processing the paper and calls don’t have any cyber secret passage to duck around that. They too have to deal with all the frustrations of [HealthCare.gov](http://HealthCare.gov) — full-time. > > Read more: [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-glitches-paper-phone-applications-98872.html#ixzz2im1Etaew](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-glitches-paper-phone-applications-98872.html#ixzz2im1Etaew) I’d say that settles that. No working [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov), no way for people to get insurance on the federal exchange. And AGAIN the administration hasn’t the foggiest notion what is going on, since they are acting as if people can just do it by phone or in person if they can’t do it on the site. So again, never take these guys’ word for anything. They have a really horrible track record. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=32) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-ongoing-opinion-of-the-affordable-care-act-title-edited/647561.md?page=34)