First, apologies to my readers for the diversion from the usual fare, but I’ll point out that this entry is covered under the masthead in the category of “recent news” and there’s a relevant WUWT category.
Since like many of you, I’ve been forced to sign a document (at my radio station where I employed part-time) that confirms I’ve been given another document that advises me of my Obamacare rights, and of course being in tune to the news, I’ve been wondering if the claims about the Obamacare websites are as bad as claimed.
I read an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune “Sebelius visit fails to reassure as health care website glitches persist” that said:
Sebelius, who is making similar trips to cities across the country to spread the word about the website, told the audience of about 100 people that Healthcare.gov was “open for business.”
“Believe me, we had some early glitches,” said Sebelius, who was introduced by Rooney, a backer of the law. “But it’s getting better every day.”
So, I decided to find out myself. I went to http://healthcare.gov and chose my state, California. What follows is a record of what I actually got. I never made it past step 1:
Try it yourself: https://coveredca.com/shopandcompare/
NOTE: To be accurate, the website security certificate will work if the “www” is used as prefix, but not the link above sans www. By following the link from the Tribune article, with no other changes on my part, I ended up with the sans “www” connection, which they didn’t get a proper security certificate for. One wonders how many other “glitches” exist in basic security on these websites.
Even when you go in with the “www” there are problems. In Firefox I get this:
UPDATE: Reader Ben points out that it gets a failing grade from an SSL grading service, SSL Labs:
Source: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=coveredca.com
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Antony, a really vibrant debate, with many very interesting comments.
As a Englishman resident in England I fall under the auspices of the NHS, which after some decades of chronic underfunding now has a realistic income. Very necessary given the increasing advances of medical science with its growing ability to keep people going into their eight and ninth and even tenth decades, life that often needs continual access to expensive care and treatments. This tapestry of demand seems pretty well limitless, apart from the fact that the means to pay for it is far from infinite.
Complicating the situation here in the UK are those who arrive from overseas with the express intention of getting free treatment, free to them that is, but not free in reality for us who provide the funds. While the impact of this health tourism is uncertain, it is a burden which exacts a price, part of an escalating demand driven still further by the growth of people amongst the general population who make little or no effort to look after themselves.
Against this background you also have to bear in mind that historically the UK’s NHS also suffers from constantly shifting political aims, this has resulted in billions being wasted instigating changes that simply do not work. Regrettably it is impossible, or it seems that way, to get politicians and bureaucrats to recognise that if a person falls ill the best person to see is a doctor. An experienced general practitioner who can access whatever specialist help might be required. At no point in this scenario is there room of endless managerial oversight or political interference, never mind half baked theories about care being provided by half trained staff.
In truth any state run system of health care is a difficult venture, especially one that attempts to provide consistently high standards for everyone within realistic financial boundaries. Comparing the British experience might help in some ways, for although the system here is far from perfect, standards after all range from indifferent to outstanding, most people with an urgent problem can find help without having to factor in costs that bankrupt. The awkward element here being that there is a lottery element to that treatment as some hospitals fall well short of providing good care. A particular nastiness coming from the eagerness of certain political and trade union leaders to defend those responsible when such cases are highlighted.
From my perspective it does seem as if Mr Obama’s aims are honourable, a general system of health care available to everyone who needs it is a good thing, but the way it has been done in the US is simply ghastly. No massive change like this should be forced upon the taxpayer without the chance of having some solid input. Indeed nothing should be forced on the taxpayer by arrogant authority, alas Congress elected not to listen anymore than did the President. What you are left with is huge resentment amongst those who have to pay, understandable objections to a situation that seems to make most worse off, except those that care not who pays as long as it is not them.
Alexander Feht:
Thankyou for your post at October 14, 2013 at 3:41 am which says to me in total
My post you are answering is immediately above yours at October 14, 2013 at 3:05 am and this link jumps to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/13/my-obamacare-experience/#comment-1447377
My post made no mention of “compassion” be it “mandatory” or otherwise. I discussed universal provision of health care.
My post said
Your assertion of something I did not say, suggest or imply being “fasc1sm” is an additional and obvious example of such distortion.
The health care systems in the UK and France work very well. This is demonstrated by the facts that several countries have adopted variants of each, and no French or British government would overtly attempt to remove the country’s health care system because that would be political suicide.
The crux of my post was bolded and said
It would be helpful if you were to address either or both of those questions.
Richard
_Jim says:
October 13, 2013 at 11:15 am
============================
Jim – the FBI’s IT disaster is a non-starter in the incompetence stakes. Somewhere around half a billion dollars? Pah!
Cop this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Connecting_for_Health
While the Daily Mail announced on 22 September 2011 that “£12bn NHS computer system is scrapped…”,
Since then, another £ 3 billions has been spent decommissioning the system. So this has cost the UK taxpayer some £15 billion, i.e. c$22.5 billion. Beyond incompetence into realms unknown. Indeed, successive UK governments have a cast iron record in large scale IT systems disasters.
From the “All your money is ours” Department.
You know what is the weird thing for a Limey looking in on the USA these days? You have the first European style Leftie running the show, and despite all the evidence from here that the Left destroy economies, society and the political process (viz. the EU) – you elected one such, and he’s doing the same.
WTF says:
October 13, 2013 at 6:37 am
commieBob says:
October 13, 2013 at 6:16 am
As far as the “excellent (but not perfect) system” goes well I just experienced 41 hours in emergency in that excellent system where I was left writhing in pain for 8 hours (4 in the public waiting room) before anyone seriously took a look at me. After a multitude of tests and 8 hours waiting for a bed that never materialized (at the end of the 41 hours) I was well enough to get up and leave. The only way I was going back was unconscious in an ambulance. Don’t even get me going on Nurse Ratchet at the front ER desk.
That mirrors my own experience with British NHS A&E a couple of years ago. A few days before Christmas I had a fall in the street on ice on a Friday and broke an arm. I got home ( a short distance) my wife phoned for an ambulance to get me to hospital. Road conditions were not good so she was not happy to drive and anyway both cars were ice bound. An hour later no ambulance, called again “No chance of an ambulance for a least two hours! Sent a paramedic, which was fine. He tried to get an ambulance, same result. He drove me to hospital himself. I was left sitting in casualty department, beside a rubber door, with outside air temperature around -10ºC ( ~14ºF). Three hours later (i.e. 5 hours after breaking my arm) I was sent for X-rays and saw a Junior Doctor an hour later. He put a temporary splint on it and told me “Come back on Monday!”
Insurance of all types is a fraud. In pure form it would cover any loss. The board rooms are driven by dividends and profit, thus real insurance does not exist. In your life time add up all the insurance paid out against your loss. Insurance preys on the fear of a loss and all the sheeple get in line to pay. Obamacare will go down the drain as a failure as very few will sign up.
Similarly, look at all the citizens who never file with the IRS. Look at how badly the government maintains our public roads as an example of a dysfunctional government. Look at all the failed agencies that suck our economy dry with no real benefit. Federal insurance is not going to work, never has because there is no incentive to. Too much money being controlled by greed.
The best cure to our failed politics is to replace them all and quit paying taxes. No pain, no gain. Recall that a hand full of patriots made this country.
Just to echo Richardscourtnay’s endorsement of cynical scientist: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/13/my-obamacare-experience/#comment-1447287
By far the best comment.
Everyone has horror stories of poor health care, be it at the hands of the NHS or in the US. I have my own of the NHS, but I have to say, when push comes to shove they do look after you. It’s not to say it couldn’t be better but my god I would much rather this system than none at all. At least once I did get treatment, it was thorough and effective and on two occasions probably saved my life. I can think of numerous ways it could be improved and I know what the stumbling blocks are (having friends that work in the NHS). People who say that it does not work are simply and quite self-evidently wrong.
“According to a new study just out from the prestigious Journal of Patient Safety, four times as many people die from preventable medical errors than we thought, as many as 440,000 a year.”
-Forbes
Amazing how trauma patients survive, yet in general the horror stories abound from hospital stays.
@cynical_scientist:
There can be microcosms of efficiency in government, but centrally planned economies have always failed. Why? It’s not because of operational efficiency, or lack thereof — it’s because of the inefficient allocation of resources. The Soviets were very good at making things they didn’t need, and they failed to make enough of what they did. It doesn’t matter that they made shoes efficiently when it was bread that people needed.
In a free-market (note: I didn’t say “capitalist”) economy, those who make things adjust their output to match demand — if they don’t, then either competitors overtake them, or they go broke with a large stockpile of unwanted goods, which may or may not have been made with exceeding efficiency.
Here’s a quick example: Doctors have a huge paperwork burden. In true American free-market style, there exist firms that will do much of the paperwork on behalf of doctors, and they do it very efficiently. So, very good — the paperwork burden produces employment! Yet, its not free. So the medical consumer ultimately pays for this paperwork burden, which is done very efficiently, but yields no net benefit to the consumer.
So, let’s take the canonical example of the heroic single mother (leaving aside any discussion of how heroic it is to not have planned and provided for the well-being of your children before reproducing). She is paying a portion of every dollar she spends on medical care on behalf of her children for a bunch of paperwork processing, yet the net benefit of that to her is zero. How much happier would she be if her medical expenses were cut by that amount and she could spend that money on a tutor for Johnny, who has failing grades because his mother is forced to leave his education in the hands of one-size-fits-all state schools? Yet she can’t, because that cost is bundled into her doctor’s fees (or her insurance premiums, as the case may be). So a tutor, who could produce value for this mother remains without a client, whereas a bunch of clerks have jobs doing busy-work very efficiently.
Point being that moving private health care to government ran is a disaster. As pointed out, the FDA is ran by big pharma and insurance. Now imagine them all in bed together with your money. Trust factor = zero
richardscourtney says:
October 14, 2013 at 3:05 am
And if most Americans don’t want universal health care then why keep making the modifications to what they have?
It is politicians of the left that keep trying to make modifications. Politicians meddle with private companies to require various coverage thus driving up price or passing laws that saying hospital are required to treat folks even if they cannot pay again driving up prices. It is politicians coupled with activist not the people making the modification.
I guess the progressives were right. We do not need any death panels. Obamacare will kill all the uninsured before anyone gets to decide who lives and dies.
Blade says yesterday at 8:06pm,
“Sorry but that’s that’s utterly ridiculous Tony. This was the textbook definition of arm-twisting and dead-of-night shenanigans. This was the infamous bill that “needed to be passed to see what was in it”. It barely eeked its way through a liberal Congress which was then punished by being wiped out in the following election, indicating massive voter disapproval…”
_________________________________________________________________________
please do tell us why Romney didn’t get elected to repeal and replace it? Why are GOP poll numbers so bad now?
Not that anybody is that likely to emerge from this crazed mess like a rose…
http://www.gallup.com/tag/US+Government+Shutdown.aspx
Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low
Falls 10 percentage points from September’s 38%
October 9, 2013
As the government shutdown continues, the GOP’s favorable rating is now 28%, the lowest Gallup has measured for either party in its trend since 1992. The Democratic Party’s favorability of 43% is down slightly from last month.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/10/20903624-nbcwsj-poll-shutdown-debate-damages-gop
Obama – with a 47 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable rating – also is the most popular political figure or institution in the poll, surpassing the Democratic Party (39 percent favorable/40 percent unfavorable); Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (14 percent favorable/28 percent unfavorable); Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (18 percent favorable/32 percent unfavorable); and House Speaker John Boehner (17 percent favorable/42 percent unfavorable).
At the bottom of the list are the Tea Party (21 percent favorable/47 percent unfavorable) and the Republican Party (24 percent favorable/53 percent unfavorable) – their lowest favorable numbers in the history of the poll.
mkelly:
Sincere thanks for your answer to one of my questions which you provide in your post at October 14, 2013 at 5:50 am.
For clarification, and I stress NOT to ‘put words in your mouth’, can I infer from your answer that there is a political battle between those who want universal health care in the US and those who don’t with approximately equal numbers of people supporting each position?
If the bulk population wanted universal health care then adoption of a system which is known to work would seem sensible. Alternatively, if the bulk of the population don’t want it then there would seem to be little reason for politicians to advance it (assuming there is no corruption). But if the support for the political objectives – for and against – are about the same then the most that those who want it can obtain is progressive modifications to what exists?
Have I understood you correctly or not?
Again, thankyou for the thoughtful answer you have already given me.
Richard
Hi I can confirm exactly the same errors Anthony achieved even from the UK following his step by step by step guide
Its REALLY incompetent to allow these sort of errors live.
I look after a small external facing site and basic testing should stop this.
the https symbol is important as it makes it impossible for hackers to spoof the website address.
This should be no where near live.
Did you know, Ed, that the poll you cite of Republican Party Favorability was based on 20% of the respondents being government workers?
Why would anybody put poll numbers our like that unless they had a political agenda to foist on the rest of us?
To those who support Obamacare, I say this: Do your thing: be captive to the system if you want. But it is a violation of my personal freedoms to force me to participate. I don’t need no stinkin’ doctors and their drugs.
And yes, the Supreme Court maintained it was Constitutional–as a TAX! And the tax is what I will pay because I have no choice in the matter.
But I REFUSE to buy a policy and participate in a “healthcare” system that puts the burden of payment on my kids and their kids.
It’s just morally WRONG! And somehow a bunch of people here think it is!
Amazing!
(It will require 2.7 million “”Young Invincibles” (those aged 18 to 34) to sign up in Obamacare–each paying from $180 to $200 a month–to make this wealth-redistribution mess fly. Good luck with that. Of course, that’s the same age group that’s supposed to somehow retire $16.7 Trillion in debt their “wise” seniors have run up. I can’t begin to register my disgust.)
The foreign computer hackers had best steer clear of this site for now, or their systems could be seriously compromised. At least it did not ask for fund transfers to Nigeria, yet.
It was designed to fail. The law is already in place, in the form of the penalty for not signing up, to force everyone on to a single payer total government controlled system like the UK or Canada, which is what they wanted in the first place. Why do you think they put the IRS in charge?
shenanigans24 says: October 13, 2013 at 6:39 pm
“Americans have the most powerful country in the world because they don’t adopt the idiotic programs that are sinking the once great European countries.”
&
“What we can’t understand is why Europeans continue to trash what was once the most free, most powerful society the world has ever known.
– Ever heard of lobby-ism? In Brussels, Belgium, where you’ll find the core of EU, there are aprox. 2500 lobby organizations. Some of these have their head offices in Washington, D.C.. Well known is that many lobby organizations are engaged in corruption and unfortunately common among the US based ones. The number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. is larger then in Brussels. Huge economical interests are behind almost all of the lobby organizations. Exception: environmental organizations, even if they are rare nowadays. (Former/pseudo environmental organizations like Greenpeace and WWF are included among those with economical interests …) Figure it out …
“… we live in a democracy based on liberty where governments function is to only provide for the people what they want.”
– What world do you live in? In theory, yes. In practice, not any more … Lobby activities was once a beautiful idea, created to help politicians and bureaucrats in their work. Then economical interests found that it had huge potential and started to “invest” in their new playground. (and out with the bathwater went the siblings Liberty and Democracy …) Back in 1994, we had a referendum in Sweden regarding membership in EU. I voted yes, as the majority did. Today EU is something completely different and many people within EU don’t want it any more, including me, but the political and foremost the economical elite indeed do and they try to keep it at all costs …
“The system won’t work for the same reasons all socialist systems don’t work. First, they are inefficient, but because they have no competition they can continue to be inefficient and never innovate.
– No, that’s a myth! It’s mainly due to increasing administration and is not unique for socialistic (leftist) systems. This symptom are even found in the US! Less people like to do productive work … Administration are usually efficient (necessary) to certain extent, beyond that it’s a pure burden (with parasitic effects).
I know I make myself a target now, but a small fraction of the U.S. defense budget could fund a sensible health care system in the US, where everyone (legal citizens) are allowed to get cheap and efficient healthcare. This without any tax increases or any new one.
SasjaL says:
October 14, 2013 at 8:39 am
The US already spends far more on health care than on defense. Costs for both could be cut while maintaining or improving national security & health, but how not to do so are sequestration & Obamacare. Proposing & adopting budgets making hard choices is the right way, along with a few health care reforms that weren’t even considered, because Obamacare isn’t about the people’s health but governmental control over them.
This is only marginally thread- related, but is an example of gov’t dependency and computer error. The US just dodged a major bullet. The Food Stamp program shut down for around 24 hrs in 17 states due to a “glitch” while “testing” the system.
Panic and empty grocer’s shelves in the affected states were the instant results.
And yet, Calif’s Obamacare website gets touted in the mainstream/leftwing media as being exceptionally “well designed” and “efficient”.
By nearly all accounts, the federally run website in c.35 other states is many, many times worse.
Sebelius appeared on leftwing “comedian” (is there any other type?) Bill Maher’s TV show.
I didn’t see it, but there was a segment where Maher pulled out notebook computers for both Sebelius & himself, and Maher challenged Sebelius (I paraphrase):
“You try to enroll in Obamacare, while I download every video ever made, and let’s see who finishes first”.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/08/jon-stewart-accuses-kathleen-sebelius-of-lying-to-him-about-obamacare
milodonharlani says: October 14, 2013 at 8:48 am
“The US already spends far more on health care than on defense.”
– Agree on that, even if I didn’t claim otherwise! The defence budget for 2014 is 618 billion USD (according to US Economy). If the US defence (incl. CIA) cut their cost for activities outside US that are based on fictional reasons, billions of USD could be spent on far more valuable things within US … (Military issues are sometimes been used as an excuse to hide domestical problems for the public, practiced in several countries, even though I admit that it’s an efficient way to control unemployment …)
“… because Obamacare isn’t about the people’s health but governmental control over them.”
– It may be indirectly, yes, but in my comment I explained that politics have basically been hijacked by economical interests. Did you miss that?
“It’s not the healthy who need a doctor; it’s the sick.”
SasjaL says:
October 14, 2013 at 9:27 am
My point is that the US already spends more than it needs to on health care. We could have better care for 25% less just by enacting tort reform. So no need to transfer funds from the DoD to HHS.
I didn’t miss your comment on “economical interests”. It’s simply wrong. The intended longer-term impact of Obamacare on private insurance companies will be to drive them out of business. Whatever short-term gain they may receive from the manner in which the scheme was crafted, in end, they’ll be forced out of the medical insurance game.