I don't think it's funny.
"Software error, traffic snarl health sign-ups" by Robert Pear | New York Times April 01, 2014
My byline is David S. Joachim, and that article is a stunted piece of s***.
AmeriKan media having its own glitches.
WASHINGTON — A frenzied last-minute scramble to sign up for health insurance overloaded phone lines and temporarily overwhelmed the website of the federal marketplace Monday, as hundreds of thousands of people around the country raced to beat the deadline to obtain coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Administration officials, stepping up the push for enrollment in the final hours, said they were confident they would reach their original goal of having 7 million people sign up for private health plans through federal and state exchanges.
I won't believe them, and that kind of ruins the "joke."
But the end of the open enrollment period, which began six months ago with the disastrous debut of the federal website, starts a new phase expected to be defined by the economics of health insurance as well as by politics.
Related:
"Although the sign-up functions were disabled, other parts of the site were functioning normally, Mr. Albright said. That included the Data Services Hub, which verifies data entered by consumers against federal databases at agencies including the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration."
Let the ca$h grab begin! Just don't get disabled!
Though HealthCare.gov, the federal website, performed markedly better Monday than on the day it opened, many consumers still struggled to enroll.
It's enough to make one cry.
The site unexpectedly stopped taking applications for several hours early Monday because of a software problem discovered during scheduled maintenance overnight, said Aaron Albright, a spokesman at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency running the site.
SIGH!
For at least an hour at midday, the site again thwarted people trying to create accounts so they could buy insurance online.
“We are experiencing record volume on HealthCare.gov, with 3 million visits as of 8 p.m. and approximately 125,000 concurrent users at the peak” on Monday, Albright said. He added that as of 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, “we had received 1 million calls to the call center.”
At the White House, Jay Carney, the press secretary, said the number of people signing up for health care would be “significantly above 6 million,” and he reminded journalists of the predictions of doom when HealthCare.gov crashed last fall.
Carney said he did not have “any concrete numbers” to show how many people had paid premiums, as required to activate coverage.
He is a shit-shoveling propagandist of the nth degree. I'm surprised his tongue doesn't turn to sand.
In a television interview with KWTV in Oklahoma, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said reports from insurers indicated that “somewhere between 80, 85, some say as high as 90 percent, have paid so far.”
$ee where the governments concerns lie?
Officials in Washington said they were delighted to see pictures of long lines of people trying to obtain insurance. The demand, they said, vindicated President Obama’s approach to health policy — and the bill passed four years ago without support from a single Republican....
This absolutely stinking and rank-rot propaganda is making me sick.
Though the open enrollment period was coming to an end, the same could not be said for the political fight over the law. White House officials and their allies said they were planning a big effort to make sure newly insured Americans turn out and vote in this year’s midterm elections and they cited the health care law in fund-raising appeals to supporters.
Related:
"As of now, Democrats don't want to be talking about it. That's why they are focusing on economic issues such as minimum wage and equal pay for women. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is a member of Senate Democratic leadership, said people aren't focused on Obamacare."
Whatever, NYT!
Jolly Sinks Democrats' House Hopes
They really didn't have any anyway.
“The narrative around Obamacare is changing,” said Jon Carson, executive director of Organizing for Action, a grass-roots group that grew out of Obama’s 2012 campaign organization. “Now that 6 million Americans have signed up for coverage, you can feel the wind being taken out of our opponents’ sails.”
It's hot fart mi$t like that filling them up!
Related: A Politically Poisonous President
Hey, WHATEVER, NYT!
Republican critics of the law showed no signs of relenting and bemoaned what they called a deadline day disaster. “Millions of Americans are facing higher premiums, canceled plans, and the loss of doctors and hospitals they liked,” said the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
See: The Grimes Against Mitch McConnell
The last-minute surge created a wide range of emotions among consumers, from happiness and satisfaction at having insurance for the first time to frustration at being unable to get answers or assistance, or affordable coverage.
You don't have it yet, and for some reason this was scrubbed from the web:
"Signing up for health insurance does not seal the deal. People still have to pay their premiums to be officially insured."
And the program that takes payments can't communicate with the insurer!
In Miami, Judy McKinley, 58, sought help at an enrollment event and was pleased to line up coverage. McKinley said she had worked for her husband’s financial services company until he died. “I have no job, no insurance, and no income, and I need a mammogram,” she said. “The relief that I’m walking away with is worth the headache that I have.”
Related: This Post is Tit
But for Crisdelin Calduch, 26, who works part time as an assistant manager at a Dollar Tree store in Cutler Bay, south of Miami, the premium — $160 a month — was too high.
Happening all across the country, and not funny.
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But don't let the glitches get in the way of sunny propaganda from the administration:
"Health care sign-up nearing administration goal; Nearly 7 million enroll in plans, early data say" by Alex Wayne | Bloomberg News March 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — The first yearly sign-up period for the new federal health program will close Monday, with early data suggesting that the administration may be near its original enrollment goal of 7 million people....
The health care program has been under continual attack from Republican foes and faced a setback when the Supreme Court allowed states to limit Medicaid expansion, an important part of the plan. Technical flaws in the program’s website made it unusable for more than a month....
The court should have struck it down, but Roberts reversed course at the last hour (what did the NSA have on him?).
Republicans Sunday questioned the credibility of the administration’s latest numbers.
It is not just Republicans questioning the veracity of this administration; it is the entire world. Pick your issue.
‘‘I think they’re cooking the books on this,’’ said Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.’’
No doubt.
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Nationally, the White House said it will accept enrollment from anyone who began the process before the deadline, which means final data may not be available for weeks. The government also will accept paper applications until April 7 and take as much time as necessary to handle unfinished cases on healthcare.gov.
Those who do not sign up face a fine of as much as 1 percent of their yearly income.
The percentage of younger people who enroll is also important because they are expected to use fewer medical services than older people. The more young and healthy people insurers cover, the less risk they face, reducing future premium increases.
Related: Obummer For Youth
‘‘The president of WellPoint, which is one of the big national insurance companies, said a couple of weeks ago that the sign-ups are getting younger by the day,’’ said Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine. ‘‘In other words, younger people, not surprisingly, are the last people to sign up,’’ King said on “Fox News Sunday.’’
Too busy playing video games?
The 6 million figure announced by the administration last week reflects only people who selected a plan using the exchanges, not those who have paid their first premium to their insurer — the final step required to complete enrollment.
While Republicans have pressed for the number who have paid premiums, government officials have said it is not available because a system to automatically transfer data between the government and insurers is not finished.
Meaning those premium payments may have bought you nothing because the insurer can't communicate with the application software.
***********
As an indication of the types of problems consumers are encountering, health insurance customers in rural areas have found that their premiums have risen since passage of the law, the Associated Press reported.
See:
Obummercare Driving Me Crazy
Wishing You a Healthy Valentine's Day
Not exactly, ladies!
Bill Fales, who runs a ranch in western Colorado, said he saw his premiums jump 50 percent. The cost of outpatient services in the area are twice as high as the state average.
‘‘We’ve gone from letting the insurance companies use a preexisting medical condition to jack up rates to having a preexisting zip code being the reason health insurance is unaffordable,’’ Fales said. ‘‘It’s just wrong.’’
They can still jack-up rates for pre-existing conditions thanks to the dictator's waivers.
Health care has always been more expensive in far-flung communities, where there are fewer doctors and hospitals. But the rural-urban cost divide has been exacerbated by the new law, consumer advocates said.
Wasn't Obummercare supposed to fix that?
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Also see: Obamacare misses the target
Breaks your heart:
"A simple test appears very good at ruling out heart attacks in people who go to emergency rooms with chest pain, a big public health issue and worry for patients. Chest pain sends about 15 million people to emergency rooms in the United States and Europe each year, and it usually turns out to be due to anxiety, indigestion, or other less-serious problems than a heart attack."
I've had more than enough.
Time for a check-up:
"Congress passes bill to stop cut to Medicare doctors" by Andrew Taylor | Associated Press April 01, 2014
WASHINGTON — With just hours to spare, Congress stepped Monday to finalize legislation to prevent doctors who treat Medicare patients from being hit with a 24 percent cut in their payments from the government.
The Senate’s 64-to-35 vote sends a measure to delay the cuts for a year to President Obama, who is expected to quickly sign it. The House passed the measure last week....
The temporary ‘‘patch’’ passed the House on Thursday, but only after top leaders in both parties engineered a voice vote when it became clear they were having difficulty mustering the two-thirds vote required to advance it under expedited procedures....
So it is a bill that really shouldn't have passed, huh?
There is widespread agreement on bipartisan legislation to redesign the payment formula, but there is no agreement on how to pay....
Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, promised to keep pressing ahead with a long-term solution, proposing to use savings from the troop drawdown in Afghanistan to pay the cost.
The final withdrawal that isn't? Another "peace" dividend?
Republicans and most budget analysts say such savings are phony and are demanding at least some of the money to come from cuts to Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
‘‘Paying for this through [war savings] is the mother of all gimmicks,’’ said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.
‘‘We just don’t have the votes right now to fix this problem for good,’’ said majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, who negotiated the measure with House Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio. ‘‘For the millions of elderly Americans and their doctors this fix is good news. It means the promise of accessible, quality health care to our nation’s seniors is being honored for another year.’’
They bought you another year -- while the Pentagon got three-plu$!
"The deal buoyed Wall Street investors. Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, concluded that as a result overall Pentagon spending will remain relatively the same for the next several years before it begins to grow once again, at about 2.5 percent per year."
I'm feeling better already!
The heavily lobbied measure blends $16 billion to address Medicare physicians’ payments with about $5 billion more for a variety of other expiring health care provisions, such as higher Medicare payments to rural hospitals and for ambulance rides in rural areas.
Manufacturers of certain drugs to treat kidney disease catch a break, as do dialysis providers and the state of California, which receives increases in Medicare physician fees in 14 counties.
Time for me to take one.
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Also see: Republicans should break ranks on immigration reform
Related: Democrats Dick Around on Immigration
