Pardon Us If We Are Mistaken, But Might Darrell Issa Possibly Be Trying To Sabotage Efforts To Fix Obamacare Website?
So last week we told you how Darrell Issa was being a total dickhole, which is only natural for one who has been projectile vomited from the dark depths of Satan's nether-regions. Well, Issa followed through on his threat to subpoena Todd Park, the chief IT guy at the White House who is feverishly working to fix the healthcare.gov website. In an apparent attempt to be hipster-ironic, "Issa said Park’s “long history of involvement in the development and rollout of HealthCare.Gov” made his testimony crucial to ensuring the site gets fixed, according to The Hill.
However, what might actually help ensure the site gets fixed would be to #LetToddWork. Yes, it's a hashtag and a website and a movement and possibly a revolution, so let's sexplore.
First, let's recap. Todd Park works at the White House, and is the chief IT guy in charge of Healthcare.gov. Since that website has been a giant clusterfuck of a failure since launching, Park is clearly needed to fix the damn thing soon so that more peoples can get slut pills, boner pills, and other sexytime-related healthcares. But Issa wants Todd to testify before his committee, and he wants it to happen NOW. The White House has offered on numerous occasions to have Park testify in the beginning of December, which makes sense, since their goal is to have the site working by Nov. 30.
But Issa, being a petulant, destructive, vindictive, sorry excuse for a piece of rat shit, has decided that Park's testimony is needed NOW. Because apparently Park is a lying liar, which is something Issa certainly knows plenty about. On Fox News (natch) last week:
Issa accused Park of “engaging in a pattern of interference and false statements,” saying he had misrepresented website test results that showed how much capacity the site could handle ahead of its launch.
So rather than try to work towards a convenient time for everyone, Issa subpoenaed Todd to testify on Nov. 13. Naturally, this clearly partisan hackery was met with righteous outrage by Wonkette Hero Rep. Elijah Cummings:
“The evidence before our Committee demonstrates that Mr. Park is an honest and exemplary public servant, and your unsubstantiated public attacks against his integrity are a deficient basis on which to justify a subpoena against him,” Cummings wrote with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).
The White House piled on as well. Donna Pignatelli, the assistant director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), wrote a letter to Issa, saying:
"You explained that the Committee feels it has a duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch, but conspicuously absent from your letter was any statement or justification that would explain the legislative need to compel Mr. Park to appear next week as opposed to a few weeks from now."
“OSTP is left to wonder why you would demand Mr. Park appear on November 13, knowing that doing so is more likely to hurt rather than help the goal of fixing the website as soon as possible,” she wrote.
Hahahaha, silly White House. OF COURSE the goal is to hurt rather than help. Have you met the modern Republican Party?
To show support, a group of technology experts have created LetToddWork.org, encouraging people to sign a petition asking that Todd be allowed to do his damn job. Currently, more than 1,000 people have signed, and the hashtag #LetToddWork is making its way around Twitter, being used by awesome folks like Cummings, because that man is TEH BEST.
As for now, though, it looks like Todd will be compelled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. If he does, expect fireworks from Cummings, Connolly, and others, seeking to shame Issa for being a total hack.
[ The Hill ]
i signed up four people today. true they were all medicaid, but that's part of the deal. AND they were about 25.
i'm not ready to give this up. hell i took a job to try and make this work.
"...And we're looking at about 50k exchange signups TOTAL at the moment."
I have been seeing this number lately. I am wondering how it squares with the fact that just one state exchange (New York) is reporting that over 100k users have established accounts on it so far. Even Kentucky (yes, that Kentucky) is reporting a very strong positive response to its state exchange, too.
You see, not all of the ininsured/underinsured even need to use the national website to shop for insurance. Many live in states with state-run exchanges that are largely functioning well. A big chunk of the target population for Obamacare will never use the healthcare.gov website anyway. When I went to use it, for example, it smoothly and seamlessly redirected me to the website for my state exchange.
Plus, the same ACA-compliant, subsidy-eligible policies can be obtained via Navigators and even local insurance brokers. That's right, the ACA and healthcare.gov were never intended to put the traditional brokers out of business, and they haven't.
Finally, based on the history of comparable initiatives, a slow initial rate of adoption is quite typical. Social Security, Medicare, the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and even Romneycare in MA exhibited exactly the same pattern. This time around, people have until March to meet the law's mandate for insurance. So potential subscribers are taking their time, shopping around and comparing plans. Even those who signed up during the first week of October will not have insurance coverage until January 1, 2014.
And many people held off in order to avoid the expected crush of users that flocked to the sites in the first few weeks. After all, we're not talking about Black Friday here; the insurance policies in question are not being offered in intentionally limited quantities. Insurance shoppers don't have to Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! While Supplies Last! because the insurance companies aren't going to somehow "run out of" policies to sell if shoppers don't Act Now!
If history is any guide, you can expect to see a big spike in sign-ups as the March deadline approaches. That will be analogous to what happened with Social Security, Medicare, Romneycare, etc.
One last thing: it really pains me to have to constantly point out the obvious: the national website "healthcare.gov" does not equal "Obamacare." Glitches with the website do not mean that "the law is failing" as many media outlets have ignorantly reported. (I'm looking at YOU, NBC Nightly News.)