My must read of the day is "For Obamacare, it’s finally showtime," in Politico:
Sure, there were some new rules and benefits over the last few years, but that was just a warmup. Starting today, all of the big pieces of the Affordable Care Act — the biggest domestic achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency and one of the most far-reaching changes in American social policy in decades — go into effect. And Americans will start to see, for better or worse, how the law really works. […]
But it’s only going to be accepted as a "big deal," as Obama put it before the holidays, if the rest of America decides it was worth the trouble. The Affordable Care Act has already survived a series of near-death experiences, from the rocky passage to the Supreme Court challenge in 2012 to that enormous self-inflicted wound known as the Healthcare.gov rollout.
Now, it has a whole new series of hurdles it has to clear […]
Obamacare supporters and the president and his team can bask for just a moment in the glow of their long-sought goal finally becoming law — but only for a moment. The ACA’s Perils of Pauline debut is going to continue.
All of the big effects of Obamacare began yesterday. It is a huge moment for the law and a big moment for liberalism. This is after all "one of the most far-reaching changes in American social policy in decades." It embodies liberal ideas and policies, and if it fails it will be a significant indictment on liberalism – something that has been recognized by those on the left.
Its problems are seemingly just beginning, and there have been more than enough to date.
I disagree with the assertion that the Affordable Care Act "survived" the Healthcare.gov rollout. On the contrary, it remains the root cause of many problems.
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that insurers did not have time to process all of the applications received through the exchanges in order for everyone to have coverage on Jan. 1. This is an enrollment problem that began as a result of a nonfunctioning website.
The problems with the site haven't simply been an inconvenience for consumers; it has caused significant problems for insurance companies and made it increasingly difficult for them to do their jobs.
Because they made mistakes and rolled out the website when it wasn’t working (despite having the authority to determine the rollout date), the administration had to make extensions to try and compensate for the problems people initially encountered when trying to enroll through Healthcare.gov – so they pushed back the December enrollment date (twice) in order to give people more time to enroll. The catch now is that insurance companies are saying they don’t have enough time to process payments and get everyone covered by Jan.1.
That is a problem that arose out of the failings of the website.
You can’t change a narrative when the problems aren’t done, and each problem is a ripple. People do not see them as separate issues, and they shouldn’t. They all mold together and constantly compound to create the egregious disaster that has been the Obamacare rollout.