Tag Archives: healthcare.gov

It’s Time To Shut Down Healthcare.gov

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Dur­ing the ear­ly 1970s, stu­dents at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy car­ried out what is reput­ed to be the first e‑commerce trans­ac­tion: the sale of an unde­ter­mined quan­ti­ty of marijuana.

This year, glob­al online retail sales are pro­ject­ed to exceed $2.4 tril­lion. By 2020, e‑commerce will account for 14.6 per­cent of all retail pur­chas­es, near­ly dou­bling its mar­ket share in just five years. Con­sumers shop online for every­thing from cars to car insurance.

Which rais­es the ques­tion: Do we real­ly need HealthCare.gov?  Read more on The Hill.

How The Budget Deal Could Threaten Obamacare

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An angry John Boehner (R-OH) lashed out at conservative groups who opposed the budget deal. The deal strengthens his hand with his caucus and in negotiations over changes to Obamacare. [Credit: Washington Post]

An angry John Boehn­er (R‑OH) lashed out at con­ser­v­a­tive groups who opposed the bud­get deal. The deal strength­ens his hand with his cau­cus and in nego­ti­a­tions over changes to Oba­macare. [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Post]

“Frankly, I think they’re mis­lead­ing their fol­low­ers. I think they’re push­ing our mem­bers in places where they don’t want to be. And frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all cred­i­bil­i­ty.” – House Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑OH), com­ment­ing on oppo­si­tion by con­ser­v­a­tive groups to the bud­get deal.

Last week’s over­whelm­ing House vote to rat­i­fy a mod­est bud­get agree­ment has been var­i­ous­ly depict­ed as a defeat for the Tea Par­ty, a rare instance of bipar­ti­san­ship, and a moment of ratio­nal­i­ty in an oth­er­wise chaot­ic and dys­func­tion­al bud­get process. It is all of those things and some­thing more: a new threat to the already trou­bled imple­men­ta­tion of Oba­macare. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare’s Comfort Food For The Insurance Industry

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The President huddled with health insurance executives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the government has their back. (Credit: LA Times)

The Pres­i­dent hud­dled with health insur­ance exec­u­tives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the gov­ern­ment has their back. (Cred­it: LA Times)

The healthcare.gov web­site now works to the Admin­is­tra­tion’s sat­is­fac­tion.  While only 30 per­cent of users could enroll when the site first launched, it’s now up to 80 per­cent.

Frus­trat­ing one in five poten­tial cus­tomers, evi­dent­ly the gold stan­dard for the White House, is viewed less favor­ably by pri­vate insur­ers.  It’s among the rea­sons that the health care law is caus­ing such anx­i­ety in the C‑suites of insur­ance com­pa­nies that are hop­ing to prof­it by sell­ing poli­cies through the exchanges. Which is why White House meet­ings with insur­ance exec­u­tives are hap­pen­ing more fre­quent­ly than Cab­i­net meet­ings. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Cuccinelli Era Is Over

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Ken Cuccinelli fell short last night in his bid to become Governor of Virginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way forward? [Credit: Huffington Post]

Ken Cuc­cinel­li fell short last night in his bid to become Gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way for­ward? [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Chris Christie and Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe were both sup­posed to win big in their guber­na­to­r­i­al bids. Christie did; McAu­li­ffe didn’t. And that presents Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans with a gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ty to make crit­i­cal changes to the President’s health care law. If they don’t squan­der it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →