Train Wreck Proceeds as Expected
As the shutdown persists, ObamaCare’s problems also continue.
The fight began with ObamaCare, and it led to 17% of the government shutting down. The House GOP offered a deal Thursday night to raise the debt ceiling for six weeks but without reopening government. Senate Republicans are pursuing a three-month increase. Barack Obama still refuses to budge until Republicans completely cave.
Meanwhile, the problems with ObamaCare’s public rollout continue to stack up as the program closes its second official week in operation. On the technical front, insurance companies are receiving incomplete applications, bad data and unusable files from the mere 51,000 enrollees who somehow managed to sign up on the ObamaCare exchanges in the first week. Government computer contractors with a three-year head start and at least $500 million failed to design a system that could effectively communicate with private insurance companies. Now insurers will have to clean up the data on their end, leading to a backlog of applications and possible delays in coverage.
In other news, the Better Business Bureau raised a red flag about the potential for mass fraud with ObamaCare. The ridiculous complexity of the law and the dysfunction of the online system present myriad opportunities for scammers who thrive on confusion and misinformation. One popular tactic already in effect is identity thieves posing as insurance representatives offering customers a short cut to signing on by getting them to turn over their Social Security and bank account information. And since the system was never properly tested, there’s no telling what kinds of security holes hackers will exploit.
Finally, those who do manage to sign up, get their insurance and avoid being robbed in the process, face significantly higher costs than promised. Even government actuaries found that ObamaCare will increase health care spending by at least $621 billion over the next 10 years. Despite the snake oil that Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats were selling us in 2009, there’s no way health care will cost less when more people are added to the insurance rolls and forced to buy more expensive plans.
