ACA opponents have been wailing "Incompetent feds, Facebook has 500+ million users and it runs just fine." I'd point out that when FB got started it was limited to college campuses, and only ones that it selected (e.g. in 2005 Willamette University students with a valid college email address could join, but Linfield College could not).

Washington Healthplanfinder is one of four state-run exchanges that WaPo reports seem to be functioning well, so that's something:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk…

And to be fair, you don't really know whether your tax return will be accepted as written until you get the refund or the bill.

Also, uninsured people face incredible uncertainty when seeking healthcare because it's very hard to get pricing information out of many providers. Even if you can get a hospital to give you a dollar figure for a test you plan to pay for out-of-pocket, the actual bill may be quite different, and you have little recourse. They might let you work out a payment plan if your colonoscopy zooms from $900 to $5500, for example, if polyps are found, removed, and tested.

It delivers a pizza
And it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that's been at large
Under the chaise longe for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar

And it's only a dollar, step right up

It's only a dollar, step right up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByomIJf5n…

@4, have you quit your "job" yet so you can get your premium down to $50 a month?

Any criticism of the ACA needs to be put in context of the system it is replacing. Even in the realm of group insurance, things tend to work very poorly. My current employer-provided health insurance has an almost unusable and very error prone web interface. Meanwhile I'm still arguing with my old insurer over a payment they've been repeatedly botching since July 2011. And that's group insurance from a big company with its own hotline.

And why is this better than single payer and managed system? A smooth launch isn't a bug, it's a feature.

HMMMM

Maybe it should have been delayed.

#5

No, luckily my position cleaning the lint from public dryers comes with luxuriant benefits.

#1

I have to give the ACA website some slack as for the first week..or month even...the site is filled with gawkers who "just want to see" what it would cost them. These rubberneckers are surely blocking the 1% who are actually there to buy.

@1,

It's also ridiculous to claim that Facebook runs just fine. Facebook has non-existent customer service. Facebook will jack people's profiles for "impersonating" celebrities, and the process for reinstatement is fucking ridiculous. This happened to a friend of mine who does not share the name of any kind of notable celebrity. After a great deal of time of Facebook ignoring her complaints, they finally required her to send a snail mail copy of her drivers' license before they would give her her profile back.

@11: >"1% who are actually there to buy"

Citation needed.

You were rubbernecking yourself there the other day, and insinuating that it was a huge giveaway because people would voluntarily cut their incomes from 400% of poverty level to a third of that just to get the tax credit. Remember?

Look, if you want to stick with Medicaid disability or trust fund or male alimony or whatever, or you're embittered by divorce/job loss/etc. and have decided to roll the dice with the E.R., that's your business, but don't troll other people trying to do the right thing.

@4 Good song but Tom Waits has nothing to do with this.

#13

You're tripping over your own invective. Try and follow the logic.

#14

It's a song about a come-on. Although written about private sector ripoffs, here I apply it to a public sector one.

Again, as said to #13.

Much as I want to see ACA succeed: the backend problems are just beginning. This has been an extremely complex system to build and there wasn't enough quality test data or time available to properly validate it. Nor will the defects get corrected in a month. Healthcare IT runs thru a seasonal pattern, for example: membership problems mostly happen during Q4 as open enrollment occurs; claims processing problems tend to be discovered from February thru about May, lagging the January go-live by a month or two; accumulator defects start happening in November as people start hitting their out of pocket maximum for the year. As we cycle thru the coming year you may begin to discern a pattern in the problems reported in the media.

If the ACA website hadn't opened when it did, the government would still be shut down. By having people flood the site and show the teapartiers that people actually NEEDED insurance, Boehner and company had to back down. It was a calculated risk and it worked.

And so will the ACA site soon enough.