Latest Obama Defense - Incompetence, Not Ignorance

The Times ponders our "bystander" President and gets this rousing defense from an Obama spinmeister:

On health care, aides said that Mr. Obama had been fixated on details of the law’s carrying out and that advisers did not withhold information but were likewise surprised by the scope of the problems.

“From the moment the health care bill was signed into law the president was very focused on making sure it was implemented correctly,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a senior White House adviser. “In just about every meeting, he pushed the team on whether the website was going to work. Unfortunately, it did not, and he’s very frustrated.”

"[He] pushed the team on whether the website was going to work". Did Obama actually review testing schedules and results? How did those conversations unfold, and who left him with the impression that the testing was anywhere near adequate? Was there really never a time when someone asked for more resources and higher-level involvement?

Or did Obama just exhort them by threatening them with a mega-tantrum if he ended up disappointed or frustrated?

Our former community organizer might have been more diligent in organizing this community of software engineers. Or not - those golf balls aren't going to hit themselves.

Comments

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

TomM-- well it's back to the future. As you have pointed out many times, Obummer never did get that asbestos out of Altgeld Gardens did he?

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

PS-- did the NY Times touch on the lie about keeping your insurance?

[DrJ]

The party line is that "the insurance companies were canceling the plans of their own volition." That's true if one is a literalist, and also not particularly relevant.

[centralcal]

Just now saw this come across Twitter:

AnnieLaurie ‏@AnnieLaurie76 2m

JustOneMinute: Latest Obama Defense - Incompetence, Not Ignorance http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2013/10/latest-obama-defense-incompetence-not-ignorance.html … #tcot #sgp #teaparty #tlot

AnnieLaurie are you a commenter here? A lurker? You go girl!

[henry]

Incompetence covers pretty much everything this administration has touched.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Sebelius testifies-- she says ObamaCare launched 'miserably' and she's sticking with the 4 Pinocchio 'keep you plan' lie. Can Chairman Upton please give her the Cromwell 'for the love of God go' speech.

[Danube on iPad]

I'm not sure it's even literally true, DrJ. As I understand it, the admin wrote regs that were intended to, and did, un-grandfather many policies so that it was no longer lawful to offer them.

[Old Lurker]

My fantasy is that we fire all 535 members of Congress then give the new congress 12 months during which no laws of any type get passed but after one year they propose a long list of existing laws that will be cancelled.

Unfortunately then I wake up.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

"That's true if one is a literalist, and also not particularly relevant."

Nah-- it was a calculated and willful lie-- a HUGE lie at that. See Phil Klein and 4 Pinocchio WaPo-- or the 10 million people who's low cost individual plans had to be cancelled-- IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH THE FRIKKIN' LAW.

[DrJ]

DoT,

From what I've read -- and I'll grant that it is easier to find opinion rather than fact -- the insurance companies were given so little wiggle-room in revising their existing (and potentially grandfathered) policies that offering them in acceptable form would cause them to lose money.

I'm quite interested to learn what is right.

[Old Lurker]

I think they hide their truly evil intent behind a smokescreen of incompetence. Works for them pretty well so far I must say.

[Dave]

You are a day late, my friend. They have moved off incompetence, perhaps it wasn't polling well. On the "If you like your insurance you can keep it" promise, today's spin is "We knew, we lied." It should make for another entertaining Jay Carney session of stammering attempts at obfuscation.

[Army of Davids]

Listening to Lois Capps (D) talking about how well things are working in California

Not here they aren't

My high deductible catastrophic coverage w/ Pacificare went up 34% this year. This is coverage I sourced some 8 years ago online w/ little administrative difficulty (Ehealthinsurance.com)

Notice received....Effective January 2014 it is going away due to the ACA.

I have used this coverage several times at both UCLA Med and at Sedars Sinai. Very happy with prior coverage.

Just one of many examples of how this is just horrible, horrible legislation.

Moving to Florida is in the works very soon so policy changes are inevitable. But this is garbage.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

PS: the 'Grandfathering' ONLY applied to plans in effect 3/10 and which were NOT 'unduly burdensome'-- well guess what unduly burdensome means not 'substandard' under ObummerCare-- the combination of people shifting plans since 3/10 and 'substandard' plans mean virtually all would be revoked before 2014. It was always a willful lie.

[MarkO]

Someone needs to tell that hectoring Sebelius that even the Constitution can be amended. Everything is up for debate.

[Extraneus]

Or did Obama just exhort them by threatening them with a mega-tantrum if he ended up disappointed or frustrated?

Interesting question. I haven't read anything non-fawning about Obama's management style. I'd bet he's pretty poor at it.

[Extraneus]

How the Obama Administration Made Sure People Couldn’t Keep Their Plans

[Danube on iPad]

"Unduly burdensome" means not covering pediatric dentistry.

[MarkO]

You know, they really are as stupid as we thought.

[henry]

An insurer based in Milwaukee just laid off 180 underwriters... they had a niche in creating affordable small business and individual plans with customized coverages, co-pays, and deductables. Under ACA, they can only offer 3 standard "conforming" plans. No more need for underwriters. The sense of the reporting is that the only difference between insurers is the logo -- all plans must be the same. This is expected to be the first of many layoffs of underwriters.

[sbwaters]

NK, asbestos in the website is the first thing I thought of.

Needs tweeting: Did they find asbestos in the website?

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Henry/ThomasC/Dave/MadJack-- hope you all enjoy Game 6 tonight. Only one winner though, so some people will be unhappy.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

sbw-- Heh!

[Stephanie]

I wondered when the insurance companies would lay off the underwriters now that the feds have taken it upon themselves to do the underwriting.

[Bruce]

The Obama Plan:

Accuse IT workers of being racists.

[DrJ]

Thanks Ext -- the article you linked was my understanding. Here's the key paragraph:

Obviously, they could have chosen to raise premiums alone — but then customers who don’t expect to use a lot of health care would switch to plans with higher cost-sharing, which ruins an insurance pool.

Yes, there are many other restrictions (but not pediatric dental care), but the insurance companies were free to keep the policies as is and simply raised prices (say, doubling them). They thought they could not make money doing so, and thus abandoned them.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

'Underwriting?' it no longer exists in healthcare because of the pre-exixting ban and 'community standards'-- it's basically illegal to underwrite. Next comes destroying health insurance generally-- that's the point of ObummerCare-- always has been.

[Cecil Turner]

Seems to me President Perpetual Campaign doesn't care about the reality (at least not at this level), and is only concerned about optics. And it's systemic. From yesterday's Bret Stephens piece in the WSJ:

"The president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or which talking point it would give Republicans."

— Vali Nasr, "The Dispensable Nation," April 2013

As this becomes a bona fide political problem, I'm sure he'll get more engaged . . . but let's remember how we got here.

Obama initially campaigned on government (single-payer) health care. Then he proposed a kludged system, made ridiculous deals for bill passage, and then lied shamelessly to get it implemented. Once a critical mass of people lose their health insurance, there are very few options . . . and government takeover is by far the simplest. I see precious little evidence he really wants the kludged system to work, and I'm not terribly surprised.

If that is in fact the case, you'd expect there to be little effort to fix the underlying issues, and lots of pressure to get maximum participation from the states and industry. And lots of nonsensical propaganda to allow them to continue with the debacle until it's too late to just repeal it. Next step ought to be another distraction: possibly a sacrificial lamb.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Disagree DrJ-- the ObummerCare regs were always going to revoke existing low cost plans if for no other reason they contradicted non pre-existing conditions and community standards. The only plans that can survive ObummerCare are 'Cadillac' plans in highly regulated states (NY, Cal, Md etc) BUT those get a 40% excise tax in 2015(?) so they will be taxed out of existence. Then, 'insurance' will be limited to concierge plans for high income types, everyone else goes into the ObummerCare pool. We are all MediCaid clinic patients now-- just the way Obummer wanted it.

[Threadkiller]

Repost:

Again, the lie was exposed by McClintock's questions to the Cheif Actuary of Medicare in Jan. of 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC9rhGWJA2w

You will notice the empty room. Paul Ryan interrupts McClintock to explain why he needs to disappear as well.

The GOP buried this lie as much as the Dems did.

[pagar--]

I had put this on the other thread but it should be here.

More from the unbelievable Obamacare mess!

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/29/new-obamacare-glitch-automatically-enrolls-people-in-medicaid-when-they-register-for-an-account-on-exchange-website/

Was told by the site that she was not eligible for medicaid, then automatically enrolled in it.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

CecilT@10:57-- spot on.

[MarkO]

Here is another vivid example of how far the left will go to hide the fact that Obama is lying: Andrew Sullivan calls Obama lazy. (Who will suggest he likes watermelon?)

[Extraneus]

Ace has one that says "And then, and then I ended it with ... period!"

[DrJ]

NK, I agree with what you wrote on the restrictions. Yes, the plans that would be grandfathered now had to follow the pre-existing condition and community ranking rules. With those changes, the plans could still be offered. The insurance companies chose not to, because they would enter a death spiral from day one.

Where do we disagree?

[Ann]

Good news:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattkibbe/2013/10/30/after-the-government-shutdown-dust-settles-3-predictions-for-2014/?awesm=freedo.mw_p0k

[Ann]

Good news:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattkibbe/2013/10/30/after-the-government-shutdown-dust-settles-3-predictions-for-2014/?awesm=freedo.mw_p0k

[sbwaters]

Josh Barro says some people are so stupid they need government to tell them what to do.

Josh, the problem is our government, made up of such people, needs us to tell them what to do.

[Ann]

Newt Gingrich ‏@newtgingrich 22m

Sebelius dishonesty in testimony this morning exceeds anything president Nixon was accused of. The Obama team cant tell truth and survive

[Old Lurker]

Isn't "Underwriting" the same as "Redlining" which is always "Racist" to a Progressive?

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

DrJ fair question. I'll answer thusly, the law was passed and Regs adopted deliberately and purposefully to eliminate the vast majority of the 17M individual plans immediately when the law comes into effect in '14. It may be a semantical difference, but it's a hugely important difference, that while the insurers actually cancel the plans, they are doing so as an act of complince with the letter and reality of ObummerCare, NOT their own or their customers' judgment. This is imposed by ObummerCare, not business judgment. I think that's an important distinction.

[AnnieLaurie]

centralcal - Hi! I've been a lurker up to now. I'm FB friends with Janet and Clarice and discovered JOM from links they shared. Miss Marple has been my online friend from way back to Free Republic days.

[Old Lurker]

Clearly it is not business judgement, NK, since BCBS has been perfectly happy for more than a decade with the premium I paid them for my high deductible policy. I have always assumed that if they were not happy, they would charge me enough to make themselves happy, or get out of the business altogether for my sort of coverage...

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Ann-- I agree with that Kibbee piece, and I hope to God he's right. I've always believed if the 2 US Parties were a conservative and Leftist party, conservatives would win elections all over America, (except in the Bluest off hells and gerrymandered black districts.)

[*Bill in AZ*]

"Next step ought to be another distraction: possibly a sacrificial lamb."

That's what I'm expecting. When he gets off the golf course he'll crack open Hillary's! "Easy Presidenting for Commies" and read that distractions are always good in these situations. Aspirin factories and Chinese Embassies should be on full alert.

[Threadkiller]

I apologize for keeping you away so long, AnnieLaurie.

[C.R.]

Fun clip of Obama saying "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" over & over & over from NY Magazine of all places (unless it makes you mad...)

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/29/brutal-the-if-you-like-your-plan-you-can-keep-your-plan-compilation-clip/

[narciso]

They would meltdown like Harry Mudd's robots,

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

No doubt Obummer will find some squirrel-- probably Syria, or the Oil companies, or the banks or Insurance Cos. But remember, he's really a moron, and not the effective liar Clinton was. Another difference, the economy sucks and is getting worse, ADP printed a lousy October payroll number, and wages are up .9% this year (frikkin'.9%) that's half of inflation (ex food energy-- HAH). Obamanomics is killing the US economy, that has got to sink into the muddle sometime.

[Ann]

All you need to know from CNN's spit screen:

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

OL-- FYI I was a guest at a home off of River Rd saturday that that is on the sub dev block where Edward bennett Williams bought when the sub first openned and lived there (amongst other places) until his death. The former Tagliabue house across the street has been bought by a builder and is a tear down.

[Jane]

Welcome Annie Laurie!

[DrJ]

NK,

the law was passed and Regs adopted deliberately and purposefully to eliminate the vast majority of the 17M individual plans immediately when the law comes into effect in '14.

I would cast it as the law making it very difficult and not profitable for the insurance industry to pursue pre-Obamacare policies. That's why I initially said it was true but not relevant.

I'm not casting the insurance companies as the bad guy here. The pool of people with existing plans is shrinking (death, relocation), there will not be many new members, and administering those plans would be death by a thousand paper cuts. And there will be many "The Secretary shall" regulations coming in the future.

I fully understand why the insurance companies chose not to carry those plans. But I think it is too easy to say that they were regulated out of existance. Practically they were, but technically they were not.

[Threadkiller]

They just cut questions down to 2min instead of 5min, because the committee did not budget enough time for all of its members to ask their questions.

This is the heart of the problem with these idiots. They call the hearing to expose why the healthcare website was premature and if it had more time, through a delay, the issues may have been resolved, yet they pick a forum that needs more time in and of itself.

??

[Jeff Dobbs]

Quick reminder...

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care ... then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
--stuff Michelle Obama said, April 2008

[Threadkiller]

Mooch seems to be the most truthful of the bunch.

[Threadkiller]

Cerberus finds it to be much easier to filibuster for 2min.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

11:44-- I find that wholly unpersuasive. It gives credance to the bogus fig leaf the Obamaniacs applied to cover their tracks. It is political semantics, not the reality. They have the same plan in mind for coal fired electric plants, you can build it, but we'll regulate it of existence. These are not 'technicalities' it is the reality of what they are doing.

[Danube of Thought]

Where do we disagree?

Obama "guaranteed" that those who liked their plans could keep them. I say that was a lie. Are we agreed?

[Miss Marple]

Hi, AnnieLaurie! Glad to see you came on board!

Oh, we are now going to get a patronizing explanation of the navigators.

(Can you see me rolling my eyes?)

[DrJ]

NK,

My original statement was "That's true if one is a literalist, and also not particularly relevant."

I'll stand by that and agree to disagree beyond that.

[Danube of Thought]

Josh Barro says some people are so stupid they need government to tell them what to do.

The Obamacare Act tells every single American what to do.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

As committed Alinsky socialists, Mooch and Obummer don't really care if the parasites actually get more, so long as the producers get less. If their crony pals take all of the difference in administering 'programs' that's more than fine.

[pagar--]

Welcome Annie Laurie!
Hope you enjoy a site that is very important to a lot of us.

[DrJ]

DoT, I'll agree with that.

[Danube of Thought]

Question about all these people enrolling in Medicaid through the exchanges (80% or more): Why weren't they in Medicaid before?

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Doesn't MediCaid expansion commence 1/1/14-- that was another of the LIES, the 10 year CBO cost numberes excluded 3 years of susidies and Medicaid expansion.

[windansea]

David Burge ‏@iowahawkblog 18h

If you like your cable package, you can keep it. PERIOD.
Ooh, I see you don't have mandatory Oprah.
That'll be $8k/month.

[Ignatz]

--They thought they could not make money doing so, and thus abandoned them.--

Just got my Blue Shield policy for 2014.
In it they say "they believe" our policy is a grandfathered one. Not sure why the weasel words, but probably inserted by the legal department.
In any event they haven't cancelled our plan. They've just raised the premium to $3500 per quarter, another 10% increase, and said the increase is mostly due to Barrycare taxes. It was $1750 a couple of years ago. $300 of the $3500 is due to me turning 55 shortly so I can't actually say Barry has doubled our premium but I would like to say something to the worthless *&%^*%#$%!*^&!!!

[Stephanie]

THAT is the question DOT. Many of them didn't care enough to enroll.

Those they are so far enrolling appear to be people that were already covered via existing policies and plans that were in place before Obamacare was passed SHOULD THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO ENROLL.

What makes them think that many of these people will choose to now?

[Ann]

WHATEVER

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Calif Blue Shield was probably so highly regulated by State law that it complies with ObummerCare-- similar to NYS, NJ and Md. Someone remind me how Obummercare bends the cost curved down, like that liar Ploufe used to say.

[Stephanie]

I would like to submit a waiver for my congressional district.

Love it!

[Ignatz]

--Why weren't they in Medicaid before?--

I linked an article the other day which said many of the so called "uninsured" were already eligible to be on medicaid and simply hadn't applied. Many states are now automatically enrolling them; something that obviously could have been done without Barrycare.
Whether this swelling of the medicaid rolls includes those who will be eligible under the expansion to 133% of the poverty level I don't know.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Ig@12:07-- that sounds right.

[Ignatz]

--Calif Blue Shield was probably so highly regulated by State law that it complies with ObummerCare-- similar to NYS, NJ and Md.--

As cathyf or someone pointed out CA had a pretty decent and relartively free health insurance picture prior to Barrycare. The near doubling of my premiums demonstrates that.

[Stephanie]

They keep saying that the individual market is unregulated and that the premiums were willy nilly raised by the insurance companies without oversight.

THESE ARE BLATANT LIES.

All insurance companies, by law, are required to submit their plans, premium increases and coverage changes to the individual state insurance department for APPROVAL before those changes can go into effect. So they ARE REGULATED.

F'N LIARS.

Excellent question "Why were these plans OK when you were governor and not now?"

[Threadkiller]

"--Why weren't they in Medicaid before?--

I linked an article the other day which said many of the so called "uninsured" were already eligible to be on medicaid and simply hadn't applied"

You will hear McClintock and Foster confirm this notion in the January 2011 video I posted above.

[Ignatz]

I'm glad I get to vote for McClintock,

[Threadkiller]

"They are not being turned away from their existing plan, instead they are being steered towards a new plan"

Wow!

[Stephanie]

Insurance companies can't even LOWER premiums in the life insurance market without having the lower premiums approved by the state, too. And life insurance premiums are going down as people live longer. Function of the actuarial tables that amortize cost/payout over the expected life of the policy.

Also, they keep saying that the individual market is 'volatile' Well DUH! Lots of people get individual insurance as a stop gap between jobs and will drop it as soon as they are reemployed or eligible for medicare. Also, many start ups start with so few employees that they start in the individual market and will transition to group coverage once the company has grown.

They obfuscate and make blanket statements that are bullshit and are slanderous of the individual market to make it appear they are protecting the consumer from evil insurance practices when in fact, many of those statements are inoperative as they are imputing assumptions without looking at underlying data.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

Stephanie-- if every woman voter in this country were as analytic ass you, we'd have a great republic.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

'as'-- I am the worst typist evah. Apologies.

[Threadkiller]

Ass?

[matt]

Fixated on the details, huh? Down in the West Wing basement writing code, perhaps? Meeting with his IRS henchmen?

He was so frickin focused it all blew up in his face! Or was it a case of Armeeabteilung Steiner? He has his phantom divisions ready to sweep his enemies from the Eastern Front.

[Threadkiller]

;-)

[AnnieLaurie]

Thanks for the welcome!

[Some Guy]

the law was passed and Regs adopted deliberately and purposefully to eliminate the vast majority of the 17M individual plans immediately when the law comes into effect in '14.

vs.

I would cast it as the law making it very difficult and not profitable for the insurance industry to pursue pre-Obamacare policies.

Talk about a distinction without a shred of difference…

[Miss Marple]

Regarding the website not crashing, just slow (Sebelius's quote), I suddenly remembered what this reminded me of:

"It's not a dead parrot. He's just resting. He's pining for the fjords!"

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

"It's a dead budgy! It has ceased to be alive!"

[Account Deleted]

"I'm not casting the insurance companies as the bad guy here."

Certainly not more than the Thiessens, Krupps and Agnelli were real fascist fascists. They are all just trapped by the circumstances in which they find themselves able to reap rather extraordinary rewards for being dutiful servants of the state.

[Miss Marple]

So now, Fox has the noted healthcare and computer expert Karl Rove on to comment.

Bah.

[NK(tryin'2.0)]

OL-- alas Jim Geraghty agrees with us, he's calling the Va race a rout, thw AG race close, terrible time for Repubs in Va.

[jimmyk on iPad]

"Here is another vivid example of how far the left will go to hide the fact that Obama is lying: Andrew Sullivan calls Obama lazy."

Have they tried "His desk is really messy" yet?

[Jim Eagle]

Came in late to the hearing but heard from little chubby guy from Mizzou who asked Cordilla point blank if she would join the local exchange under the individual mandate if she could legally. Crickets except for the the Rodent from California interrupting with one of his classic snarks and smirks.

But the best moment was Renee Elmers noting a the end of her questioning if Cordilla knew of any man who has delivered a baby (in re to ACA requirement for maternity services in policies). LOL.

[Stephanie on kindle armchair QB flea flicker enthusiast]

Elmer was awesome.

[Jim Eagle]

....Cordilla = Cruella.....

Brain fart:)

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

Sadly, today's hearing is another example of how worthless the congressional committee hearing is for uncovering useful information or for pinning down a slippery witness.

[Stephanie on kindle armchair QB flea flicker enthusiast]

If every woman voter was like me, I might have more women friends. I can't abide emotional sloppy thinkers and am very bad at hiding it.

[jimmyk on iPad]

Steyn's latest is very interesting. The problem is that it comes close to saying we may as well adopt single-payer.

I may be naive, but I have to disagree with the premise, which is that Americans like big government as much as Europeans, we just don't admit it so it's more disguised. I would argue that we genuinely don't like it as much, so those in power or who do want more government have to use shell games.

http://www.steynonline.com/5862/third-party-statism