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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gopal panicker: “this is lunacy…the Obama gang were very sophisticated in using the internet to raise funds..why cant they get these computer programs right..?”
That was still private enterprise. The campaign didn’t have to follow government procurement procedures, and pay off constituencies with who got the contract.
JohnM.
The NHS has a budget of £96billion that is £1600 per person. To that can be added the money people pay for eye tests, glasses, prescriptions, chiropodists and dental treatment which probably takes it to £100billion. It is grossly inefficient, look at Mid-Staffs and the previous Labour health secretary’s attempt at a cover up! We have had the botched IT which cost £2billion and is still sucking in money to pay for agreed contracts despite being cancelled. I prolapsed two lumbar discs three years ago, I paid a chiropractor privately so I could drive the 320 mile round trip to my god-daughters wedding, the NHS took five months to arrange an MRI scan, by the time I had the appointment the discs had almost gone back to normal.
Your comment about NHS dentistry is interesting, because I am an NHS dentist. I computerised my practice in 1991, hospitals still rely on paper records over 20 years later.
Eustace Cranch
I totally agree with you, but there has to be some provision in society to protect those who cannot help themselves. This provision should not be extended though to those who WILL NOT help themselves. Communism has failed in every single country it has been tried in. In our country left of centre governments have without fail, reduced the country to poverty. I don’t think your Democrats are as far to the left as our Labour party, but Obama is certainly not doing you any favours!
Afraid to correct basic errors in your post.
Goodbye Anthony. I am the one who pushed you to science pages, you can thank me later.
REPLY: What errors? the site doesn’t work as advertised, and what’s with the multiple personalities here? I count 4 now. – Anthony
I just tried to sign up and took about 3 minutes. I think there may be an iq problem at play here.
REPLY: You mean IT problem, as indicated by the certificate failures. Why not show us your proof of sign up? – Anthony
SasjaL:
Just as in the rest of Europe, Sweden has imported a vast burden into it’s country and social care provision.
It worked while the majority contributed, but when so many who have never given and having no intention of EVER doing so are taking out of the pot, it will surely end in tears.
P Sheraton: “Obviously, spending TRILLIONS on war is so much better than trying to provide a minimum of decent healthcare and education.”
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost is estimated at a bit over one trillion dollars, which is a lot. The loss of the World Trade Centers and the people in it cost our economy just short of a Trillion dollars…and we were getting hit in a major way (albeit not that major) every year. You can still debate the true value or the rectitude, but at least get that part right.
As for decent education, we spend plenty…we just spend it poorly.
The Oregon site was working well weeks ago. i found many options cheaper than what I pay now, and for the first time, they won’t be excluding my pre-existing conditions.
I used to have insurance though a Dutch company, which paid 100% of medical expenses out of your home country. Most people with long term illnesses will go home to be treated on their national healthcare program. i thought, fine, if I have a serious issue I’ll go to Holland, or Australia, or anywhere but here.
the Dutch caught on and would not renew the policy for Americans.
SasjaL
I don’t think there is an easy answer to healthcare, the problem with health insurance is that for someone such as yourself with asthma, they would either exclude payment of any claim due to asthma or you would have to pay a sky high premium. The one good thing that paying for a healthcare system through taxes, is that doesn’t happen, but the efficiency of a privately run health service is not there either and neither is politicians using it as a political football. I am not going to pretend I know the answer, because I don’t.
The US is populated with the genetic makeup of a self-reliant class of people who didn’t like being told what to do so they boarded a rickety ship and landed here. Then the next few generations didn’t like being told what to do except those that thought it was okay being told what to do. Those people left, leaving the independent minded revolutionaries to populate the country in independent style. Then every generation after that moved west because THEY did not like being told what to do by the previous generation who didn’t like being told what to do who came from a hardy stock of people who didn’t like being told what to do. Our Civil War was fought because BOTH sides didn’t like being told what to do by the other side (that slavery was wrong was a secondary issue and yes that boggles the mind yet hammers home my point).
So now we have Obamacare. Doesn’t matter whether it works or not, or whether it is right or wrong. He is now King George and we don’t like being told what to do. If the country chooses to split over this, I will be standing on the side that doesn’t like being told what to do.
Here is a great article about Obamacare. It is a welfare system that is a much better deal for the poor than for the rest of us. Older people also get a much better deal than do the young. I hope all those youngsters that famously voted en masse for Obama are happy now:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/25/double-down-obamacare-will-increase-avg-individual-market-insurance-premiums-by-99-for-men-62-for-women/
Obamacare was designed to be a train wreck that will fail and destroy the private-sector health insurance industry, with the final agenda of implementing a single payer healthcare system.
Prior to US Government’s involvement in healthcare in 1964 with Medicare/Medicaid, total healthcare costs were only about 5% of GDP. The year after government’s intrusion, healthcare costs increased rapidly, until now healthcare account for a whopping 17% of GDP.
I’m sure that by the time Obamacare implodes, that number will be over 20%, with plummeting quality and quantity.
I live in Japan that has a single-payer system. I pay $15,000/yr for my family of 3 and the care is abysmal, long waits, poor quality; beautiful hospitals though– at least you wait hours and hours and hours in style…
My impression is that the people ObamaCare is intended to benefit have to enroll on-line, or by arranging a personal application, like everyone else.
Are these not the same people who find it an unreasonable burden to obtain a voter ID?
Gdn, did you take out of that amount the armed forced wages that have to be paid anyway? the munitions that have to be used because they are timed? (the USA made a lot of money selling the UK older munitions including cruise missiles that were getting near their decommission time!) really the best reply the the world trade atrocity would be to level Saudi and Iran , that treatment worked well on Lybia back when we had real leaders! The Obamacare trojan horse was never about healthcare any more than the AGW scam was about climate, the sad fact is half the people who do vote are stupid and fall for the unicorn tales, I fear we have to ride this train wreck in the western world in to disaster and make the best of it! Lets face it if the UK can spend 6 years fighting socialism and then vote in a socialist government and toss out Churchill who was much loved then anything is possible! Perhaps the only answer is to give homeowners who pay income tax and don’t work for any form of government an extra vote!
The failure of the ACA website shows that the current government shutdown is a deliberate attempt by the Obama Administration and Senator Harry Reid to hurt Americans for political advantage. It’s clear that due to website failures and the resulting lack of sign ups that the individual mandate in ACA must be postponed, yet it is the refusal of the Administration and Senate to negotiate on that mandate that is the putative reason for the shutdown and the resulting lack of Federal services. The shutdown could end today if the Democrats acknowledged that the website isn’t working and that the individual mandate needed to be postponed for 6 months or a year. It was obvious months ago that the government wasn’t going to meet its own ACA deadlines, and yet the political games over the budget were played. I am disgusted with President Obama, because this shutdown was completely unnecessary and utterly his own doing. His failure to take responsibility in meeting his own deadlines and in continuing to push a plan that needs some obvious delays/fixes is reprehensible. It’s the same way with CO2-all about control and politics, and not really about the issues or facts.
Seems to me the Affordable Care Act as enacted by Congress, signed by the President, and affirmed by Supreme Court differs in several respects from the “Affordable Care Act” implemented by the Obama administration. As implemented some groups are clearly more subject to Insurance purchase mandates than others and some must meet statutory deadlines while others do not. As the Constitution assigns legislative authority to the legislative branch of government, I was not aware that Presidents were legally entitled to rewrite statutes unilaterally.
There is a 1978 poem, “Tom Smith an the Incredible Bread Machine”
Here is a link to a long version of the poem: http://www.agem.com/tomsmith.htm
Government taxes and inflation eventually cause the price to rise a “full cent”. The public is outraged at the doubling of the cost of bread and turns to commissions to investigate.
Pelosi must have been inspired by Bill Shorten (and who wouldn’t be?). “Can I just say that I haven’t seen what’s in the bill, but I support it.”
The NHS, for all its manifest faults, is still very popular in the UK – and as it happens my family and I have benefited greatly from its ministrations in recent years, for expert care which would have been far beyond my personal means. It is good to know that some (at least) of my taxes are going to support mothers in childbirth or oldies with cancer, rather than waging war in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the fashionable troublespot is at the moment.
To accept this, of course, I must accept that to some extent I am my brother’s keeper, and that a National Insurance Scheme (still an official name for the Health Service tax) will have winners and losers … and that it can too readily be the object of political posturing, poor IT and bloated managerialism. Until we get to abolish Original Sin, matters we arrange will always be imperfect. But hey! – in the UK democracy supports the NHS, with all its faults.
Observations, opinions, and predictions.
The website is the least of my worries when it comes to healthcare. They will fix it eventually. How does anyone feel about the IRS now controlling your medical information along with your financial? Toss in the NSA and your communication and buying habits are now centrally available also.
Observations:
– I have spoken to many folks over the last few weeks who have had to make choices on health care (it is that time of year for many folks), and not one of them had their rates go down. In fact the average uptick in cost was about a 250% increase in monthly costs. A relative with a single child and married saw a $320/ month increase in their healthcare costs from their large bank employer as a result of this tax/law. That is going to hurt them significantly from a financial standpoint. A $3,600+ increase per year!
– I have discussed the new healthcare system with a number of MD’s also and every one of them is evaluating options outside of the new system. Even my personal doctor has notified his patient base that he is no longer going to provide services associated with government insurance. He is getting away from the train wreck he said. A similar message came from my eye doctor of all places. (BTW, next time you go for an eye exam, be prepared to answer many more invasive questions than you did last time and have your blood pressure documented).
-Many more folks are being cut to part time, < 30hrs a week , due to the new healthcare law. Ironically, the BLS double counts those folk who actually go out and get another job to backfill their compensation losses. That is if they elect to work at all. An example from last month
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/09/just-how-distorted-is-us-unemployment.html
I could go on, but I think the picture is clear.
Opinion:
-The painful precipitation of this new health care law is out of the gate. Over the next few months we will see an ever increasing visibility to the painful nature of this new and extensive TAX. Nearly 20% of our economy will be directly impacted by this law/Tax. Disposable income will plummet for those who are on the paying side of the house. Even the massive unions are feeling the pain and that does not bode well for next year’s elections for the Democrats.
-The average American will finally understand what caused the government shut down. The CR that was originally submitted to the Senate, and denied by the president, included a 1 year delay in implementation of the healthcare law on the individual level (just like businesses and Obama supporters who garnered exemption from him got) and the removal of the exemption of congress and their staff from the same law they pushed down on everyone else. That was one of 17 changes in the law the president questionably placed. One should remember congress makes law not the president. Think about what he has been doing in that arena, let alone circumventing congress with the EPA to push up energy costs which hurt the poor the most. Eventually, even the most blind sheep see the wolf.
Predictions:
Nothing will sway the direction of this country until the 50% who pay no federal tax are faced with the same pain the average tax payer has to deal with. I am not sure that time will ever come now that we have increased the dependencies of so many capable Americans. When you can make the same amount of money through government entitlements that you would if you worked 40 hours a week, why would they work?
Obama told the truth once when he said he is going to fundamentally change this country and redistribute the wealth. He has and will continue his assault on the moral and constitutional aspects of this once great country. This is exactly what you get from ideologically driven agenda’s.
And you all thought “climate change” was a deceitful problem. Just wait until “coverage change” hits everyone!
I will leave the other 43 predictions off the table, but I think everyone has their own take on things. Mine take has not changed since 2008 …_ _ _…
I live in South Carolina, and I have no idea what my options are. I finally set up an account after about 50 attempts and got an email to click on to verify my email address. This I did, but when I tried to log in I got an “information invalid” message. I tried to log in for hours and got the same message, so I clicked on “forgot username”, even though I hadn’t – I’d put in the same username and password umpteen times before I could get past the security questions. In response to “forgot username” I was informed that an email had been sent to me, presumedly to rectify the situation, but it never came. Last night I tried to set up another account using a different username. I got another email requesting address verification and clicked on it within 3 minutes of receiving it. The response I got was “Oops, you didn’t respond to the email in time.”
I’m thinking this is all intentional. The administration does not want people to know how bad Obamacare is going hit their wallets until they are sure it is fully funded by congress and the debt ceiling is raised. Be afraid! Be very afraid!. This is much scarier than climate change. Most voters
are such morons.
I’m sorry, but anyone talking about how great the Canadian system is, is just blowing smoke.
There’s lots of room for improvement and dedicated status quo left wing people trying to stop improvements.
Just talking about improving the health care system sets the left wingers off on rants.
We get the bogeymen of “American style” health care or “two-tier” healthcare. Ignoring the obvious that Canada has multiple tiers of healthcare. We just don’t talk about them.
I wonder, given all that we see on TV or read about computer breaches, whether hackers have already hacked the Obamacare web site and are stealing information ?? How safe is the people’s data that are signing up for Obamacare? There seem to be two types of hackers, the ones who do it for fun and announce it to the world, and those who go in to steal data in order to steal. The second type, if they have broken in, would not want to announce it, they would just be feeding at the trough. I have read that as a part of Obamacare web site the developers had to open up channels to other government web sites, that are supposed to be secure. Would hacking the Obamacare web site give them a back door into these other sites ? How would anyone know? Before I give my data to Obamacare, I am going to have to be a lot more convinced of the security of the site. The cheapest plan I have seen on the Obamacare web site is $250 per month (or $3,000 per year), with a $6,000 deductible and lots of co-pays. The penalty (Robert’s Tax) starts at $95 per year (if you make $100,000 per year it is 1% or $1,000). Why is it in my interest to sign up and risk identity theft?
WOW, what is the problem? they only spent almost 700 million and took 3 years to create that site……..you expect it to work properly??
“Gdn, did you take out of that amount the armed forced wages that have to be paid anyway? the munitions that have to be used because they are timed? (the USA made a lot of money selling the UK older munitions including cruise missiles that were getting near their decommission time!) ”
I doubt all of those things had been subtracted (beyond the cited wages for non-deployed troops) after including the costs of building/rebuilding the infrastructures in the two wars, but if overlooked they would only make the point stronger: The monetary “cost” of the war is often flippantly overstated, and the monetary “savings” is ignored. It is especially heinous when you consider that the tax cuts in 2003 brought in more extra revenue to the federal government than the cost of the war by 2008.
Likewise, the ACA plan was sold on the premise that it would increase efficiency to the point where in addition to saving the average family $2400 a year, it would also allow for free health-care/insurance for those who didn’t have health insurance. That’s without even going to the silly claims by President Obama like that it would save businesses 3,000% of their health-care costs, and should get people pay raises with the savings.
Let’s not forget about the over 1,000 exemptions King Obama has granted his political crony organizations.
Another point about the tax/fine. 1% of gross annual income, PER PERSON. So if a married couple without children making $50,000 gross annual income, that is a $500 tax/fine each. $1,000 taken by the government at gunpoint. Nice!
I am amazed that the Republicans do not see the out Justice Roberts gave them. By declaring the non participation fine a tax, and understanding that it is Congress alone that can change tax law, the House of Representatives should simply lower the tax/fine to $10 with no future increases. Everyone who does not want to participate can pay the $10 and the insurance companies will not be able to sustain themselves as they will only have the sick, old and dying as clients sucking out all the money in the system in a very short order. They will never let that happen. So if you get the insurance companies to fight the ACA it will no longer be politically viable for an elected official to continue to support it. Bye bye obamacare.