I see that the Wall Street Journal has observed the same thing about the HHS status report on Healthcare.gov that I did yesterday:
For instance, the progress report reveals that the website is functioning more than 90% of the time—excluding periods when it is shut down for maintenance. HHS won’t say how often that is or for how long. Why not simply proclaim that it works 100% of the time, as long as you don’t count the times when it doesn’t?
HHS touts other measures of progress—four times as much of this, doubled capacity of that—without revealing the original base. They’ve fixed those 400 bugs but won’t say what they are or how many there are in total. Such statistical ploys are like a business claiming its revenues are twice as high as the last quarter’s, in order to avoid saying if it’s profitable.
It focuses on how hard they’ve worked (inputs) rather than how much of the task has been accomplished (outputs). Whether driving 100 miles is a substantial accomplishment or not depends on the trip. If the trip is 10,000 miles, you’ve barely begun. If it’s 10 miles, you’re lost.
The status report is a political document. It’s clearly intended to convince supporters of what good boys you are rather than informing people on the status of Healthcare.gov. Sadly, however poorly the site functions the PPACA’s supporters will tout its accomplishments and however well it functions its opponents will proclaim it a failure. Where you sit continues to be where you stand.
Every liberal program is a success as long as you spend more this year than last and have plans to spend more in the future. I believe they hold the record in digging holes and filling them up again–good for employment.
“Sadly, however poorly the site functions the PPACA’s supporters will tout its accomplishments…”
MSNBC is delusional and proclaiming victory.
“…and however well it functions its opponents will proclaim it a failure.”
How do you know? It hasn’t functioned well yet. And to the degree it has functioned at all, it is so far short of advertised expectations, and more importantly, necessary underlying economic assumptions, as to be laughable. Even I didn’t think they could lay an egg this rotten.
There isn’t even agreement on a date on which we’ll be able to determine whether the PPACA is a success or a failure. Proposed dates include October 1 (debut), December 1 (Mission Accomplished Day), December 15 (the day when insureds will need to have enrolled to be covered by January 1), January 1 (the day by which individuals are required to be covered), March 15 (the day by which insureds will need to have enrolled to be covered by the April 1 end of open enrollment), April 1.
There’s a pretty good argument that we’ll know on November 4, 2014.
Some of its supporters seem to think that the mere idea of the PPACA is sufficient to declare victory.
The December 15th deadline has been extended to December 23. Of course once a law is “settled,” it can’t be changed. I guess, though, that mustn’t apply to the the president, as the PPACA is on a lazy Susan of change, simply on demand by the WH.
The beauty of Obamacare in one long-winded, hilarious paragraph.
“There’s a pretty good argument that we’ll know on November 4, 2014.”
At least I’m chuckling…..
I’m not sure the value of pushing chessmen around to various potentially definitional threshold dates, and I’d even cut Obamacare proponents some slack on date certainty or rigidity, even though it was they who brought it on themselves for pure political gain and the election.
However, this is so FUBAR that the multiple layers of issues – not just a portion of a website – that no date in the next three years has a chance in hell. Enrollment composition assumptions, insurance and income verification issues, Medicaid and penalty taking opt outs, wildly low cost to consumer estimates, marginal (cost benefit) reduction in uninsured, doctor opt outs – short and long term – standard of care compromises, security and fraud issues…….I could go on; how long does this site stay open at night?
We totally screwed the system to reduce the uninsured by 20MM?? (maybe) Enron-esque.
Then there is this from Sara Kliff at Wonkblog:
One wonders how many people won’t call their insurer and will find themselves without coverage when they try to use medical services early next year.