Saturday, December 7, 2013

Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real": Obamacare Problems "Receding in the Rear-View Mirror"

In one of my blog entries yesterday entitled "Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real": Krugman Gets Delusional II" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/12/paul-krugman-obama-gets-real-krugman.html), I noted how Nobelist Krugman is now claiming that Obama is "finally sounding like the progressive many of his supporters thought they were backing in 2008." In this opinion piece  (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/opinion/krugman-obama-gets-real.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0) Krugman also made another "interesting" observation:

"HealthCare.gov is working much better, people are signing up in growing numbers, and the whole mess is already receding in the rear-view mirror."

Yup, HealthCare.gov is working much better. The website can now potentially handle 50,000 visitors at one time, but 15,000 of them are placed on a waiting queue. Moreover, it is estimated that back-end errors have affected approximately one-third of the people who have signed up for health plans since October 1, i.e. they might think that they have health care coverage, but they don't.

And whereas some 50,000 people may have succeed in obtaining health care packages via the Obamacare website, another 5 million people have had their health care insurance cancelled owing to enactment of the Affordable Care Act.

Furthermore, we are now learning that prior to the rollout of Obamacare, the president simply didn't bother meeting with his Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. As reported by Politico (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/the-zero-meeting-president-100767.html?ml=po_r):

"A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) analysis finds that from July 12, 2010, to Nov. 30, 2013, the president’s public schedule records zero one-on-one meetings between Obama and Sebelius. Equally shocking, over the same period, the president's calendar lists 277 private meetings with his other Cabinet secretaries (excluding full Cabinet meetings).

Given these startling findings, and the fact that the White House calendar did not reflect meetings prior to July 12, 2010, GAI researchers then performed a second analysis using another respected recorder of presidential activity, the POLITICO presidential calendar. The results: Just one April 21, 2010 entry was found listing a White House meeting between Obama and Sebelius—and even that was a joint meeting with then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner."

Yes, Obamacare is a disaster which is still playing out.

Krugman? Do you remember how he once wrote concerning Occupy Wall Street (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html):

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

And just where is Occupy Wall Street today?

Well, let's see where Obamacare is in another year. My guess is that its future will be no more sanguine than that of Occupy Wall Street, to which the president was also sympathetically disposed.

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