New Health Law Frustrates Many in Middle Class - NYTimes.com

New Health Law Frustrates Many in Middle Class - NYTimes.com:

The more I read about the failings of ObamaCare, not the website mess which can be fixed, but the underlying framework, the more I'm convinced it will fail. It is enormously complex with the net effect being higher costs for too many middle class people.

Perhaps it was constructed as an interim step destined to fail so that insurance companies would not suddenly fail. Was it designed with a small likelihood of success in an attempt to make single-payer a last resort option, which is what Obama, Dean, Shumlin and other liberal Democrats obviously prefer.

The political calculus in all this is fascinating to watch as it unfolds. The Democrats have a lot to lose in the 2014 election. The Republicans have a lot to gain, but being against ObamaCare is not by itself a winning strategy. They must come forth unified with a better plan. That should coalesce and be heavily promoted beginning in April with a solid strategy for implementation on the national level.

Without a viable plan they will fail to win the electorate. For me, any viable plan must include cost control. That means rationing and convincing providers and patients to accept it, a tall order.

"...An analysis by The New York Times shows the cost of premiums for people who just miss qualifying for subsidies varies widely across the country and rises rapidly for people in their 50s and 60s. In some places, prices can quickly approach 20 percent of a person’s income..."

The Republicans need to focus on fixing ObamaCare by strongly and truthfully promoting a rational solution. They  must win a majority in the Senate and retain control of the House with majorities to override potential vetoes by Obama in 2015 and 2016.

Single payer will not easily be accepted because trust in 'big government' is at an historic low, even among Democrats. The folks are unlikely to believe that they can pull off a single-payer plan.

I wonder if they're up to the task?


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2013 Atlantic hurricane season wrap-up: least active in 30 years

2013 Atlantic hurricane season wrap-up: least active in 30 years:

Oops, the experts really missed this forecast. Most likely they are wrong about global warming, too. This failure reveals the inherent weakness of climate and weather modeling.

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Review & Outlook: Escape From ObamaCare - WSJ.com

Review & Outlook: Escape From ObamaCare - WSJ.com

"The Affordable Care Act appears to be misfiring in every imaginable way, and Democrats are having second thoughts about serving as human shields for White House ineptitude. If they really want to make amends, they'll join Republicans in trying to repair some of the damage they caused."

The chaos that is ObamaCare is the direct result of failed leadership from TeamObama. Rep. Pelosi and Senator Reid have not stepped into the breach to repair the damage that their policies have caused. This failure is far more than a troubled website. It's the result of tinkering ineffectively with America's healthcare system and negatively affecting the lives and destroying the trust of Americans. This is a very big deal because it's so personal.

The real problem to be solved is the cost of America's healthcare and how to reduce it. This problem receives scant political attention.

This is an opportunity for Republicans to seize the advantage. I will watch keenly to see if they have a viable alternative.

Mr. Blow at the NY Times sums up the TeamObama catastrophe here.

Himmelstein Shumlin and Vermont Single Payer | Single Payer Action

In case you missed it...

Himmelstein Shumlin and Vermont Single Payer | Single Payer Action: "“No, no,” Himmelstein said. “I’m actually just saying what’s true. And that is, you can have a publicly financed program, and as Deb [Richter] said, it won’t be single payer. It will be enormous progress. But let’s not confuse it with single payer because you will give up much of the advantage of the single payer program.”
“Let me just say, I agree with you,” Shumlin told Himmelstein. “But I’m going to try to get the waivers to get everybody [in Vermont] in the pool — everybody. I want everybody in the pool.”"

“That of course will take an act of Congress,” Himmelstein answered.

“That’s right,” Shumlin said. “But if you help me get rid of those Tea Party nuts in 2014, I’ll get it done.”

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How Healthcare.gov Doomed Itself By Screwing Startups | TechCrunch

The severity of the problems with the ACA Exchanges puts big government inefficiency on display. This piece argues that the nimble startup private sector may well have been in a better position to build and operate these exchanges.

Nevertheless, I suspect the most severe problems are to be found in the backend, connecting the various government legacy systems. Perhaps the exchanges are fatally flawed by the wrong systems architecture.

The fact that the CIA will spend $600 million with Amazon Web Services should be seen as a signal that big systems and big data may best be handled by smart people who can leap ahead of legacy systems many of which were designed in the last century

How Healthcare.gov Doomed Itself By Screwing Startups | TechCrunch: "These types of solutions will be entirely absent from California and New York. Ironically, the president’s chief technology officer, Todd Park, often espouses the principle of “Joy’s Law,” named for legendary founder of Sun Microsystems, Bill Joy, which states that “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people in the world work for somebody else.” 

For a year, Park has been reorganizing the entire federal IT system to put data in the hands of private developers, rather than have government websites be the central hub. It is bizarre that the president’s signature initiative would ignore its own principles."

On a New Jersey Islet, Twilight of the Landline - NYTimes.com

The inevitable is upon us. POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) is nearly dead

As George Gilder predicted in 1995 in his book Telecosm, the copper telephone network must/will die because of the dual drivers of rapid technological advances and the 'socialist' morass of subsidies and regulatory overburden that ruled the copper network fostering Universal Service in the U.S during the last 70+ years.

Gilder had this to say:

"The fact is that the universality of telephones is crucial to their usefulness; yet universal service using current technology is totally uneconomical and impractical. Snow and ice are the least of it. The basic problem is the architecture of the system, with a separate pair of lines, on average two miles long, devoted exclusively to each user. It simply does not pay to lay, entrench, string, protect, test and maintain miles of copper wire pairs, each dedicated to one household that uses them on average some 15 or 20 minutes a day."

...the idea persists that wireless telephony is an expensive supplement to the existing copper colossus rather than a deadly rival of it. The installed base of
twisted-pair wire still appears to many to be a barrier to entry for new competitors in the local loop, rather than a barrier to RBOC entry into modern communications markets.
The conventional wisdom sees the electromagnetic spectrum as a scarce resource. Few believe that it will soon emerge as a cheaper and better alternative to the local loop, in the same way that microwave emerged as a cheaper and better substitute for copper long-distance wires. 

The death throes will be played out in many locales typified by this example in Mantoloking, NJ.

On a New Jersey Islet, Twilight of the Landline - NYTimes.com: "Verizon’s move on this sliver of land is a look into the not-too-distant future, a foreshadowing of nearly all telephone service across the United States. The traditional landline is not expected to last the decade in a country where nearly 40 percent of households use only wireless phones. Even now, less than 10 percent of households have only a landline phone, according to government data that counts cable-based phone service in that category."

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From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal - NYTimes.com

This story in the NY Times, normally a strong supporter of this Administration, reveals that the the health portal rollout was and is a colossal failure. Meanwhile, TeamObama has obviously been lying to the American people about it, if we are to believe this story.

Having been associated with complex information technology systems over the years, I am not surprised.  This one is even more fragile because users are not trained in its use and had high expectations because of experience with other complex website that work.  This situation was made doubly worse because Administration officials failed to tell the truth and properly set expectations.

Thank God our military software systems are normally thoroughly tested before deployment and work as they should.

This mess is a direct result of the politics surrounding ObamaCare and the fact that so many people disapprove of it. The roll-out failure is sure to further drag down its popularity and rightly so.

Will it be soon that top Administration officials will be fired? I think it's likely that Secretary Sibelius will lose her job.

From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal - NYTimes.com: "Interviews with two dozen contractors, current and former government officials, insurance executives and consumer advocates, as well as an examination of confidential administration documents, point to a series of missteps — financial, technical and managerial — that led to the troubles."

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European utilities: How to lose half a trillion euros | The Economist

A fascinating story about the combined effects of government policy and renewable electricity technology in Europe. Good intentions and massive subsidies have produced very high electricity consumer prices and decimated the finances of the electric utilities. The future seems even more uncertain as the consequences of these policies are destroying wealth with no demonstrable environmental benefit.

Are the same consequences in store for America?

European utilities: How to lose half a trillion euros | The Economist: "Those goals are now harder to achieve. Renewable energy has grabbed a growing share of the market, pushed wholesale prices down and succeeded in its goal of driving down the price of new technologies. But the subsidy cost also has been large, the environmental gains non-existent so far and the damage done to today’s utilities much greater than expected. Europe in general and Germany in particular see themselves as pioneers of low-carbon energy. If they are genuinely to be so, they will need to design a much better electricity system that rewards low-carbon energy without reducing reliability and imposing undue and unnecessary costs."

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Breaking News: House Republicans Discuss Plan for Short-Term Increase in Debt Ceiling - dusher@gmail.com - Gmail

Seems the logjam will break. I suspected Congressman Ryan was up to something because he had been so quiet in this recent wrangling. Also, no mention of the ACA in this.


Breaking News: House Republicans Discuss Plan for Short-Term Increase in Debt Ceiling - dusher@gmail.com - Gmail:

 "House Republicans gathered Thursday morning to discuss a plan to lift the government’s statutory borrowing limit temporarily to allow for negotiations on a package of deficit reduction and tax reform proposals that could lead to a reopening of the government and an end to the threat of government default."

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Paul Ryan: Here's How We Can End This Stalemate - WSJ.com

Congressman Ryan's opinion piece suggests that budget negotiations are essential and some common ground may exist among Republicans and Democrats. And he makes no mention of the Affordable Care Act.

Paul Ryan: Here's How We Can End This Stalemate - WSJ.com:

"Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office predicts discretionary spending—that is, everything except entitlement programs and debt payments—will grow by $202 billion, or roughly 17%. Meanwhile, mandatory spending—which mostly consists of funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will grow by $1.6 trillion, or roughly 79%. The 2011 Budget Control Act largely ignored entitlement spending. But that is the nation's biggest challenge."

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