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| Obamacare's Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn't Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are |
| 2013-10-15 |
| The Healthcare.gov website requires that individuals looking for coverage enter personal information before comparing plans. IT experts believe that this requirement is causing the website to crash. A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare's federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you're eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare's insurance plans would scare people away. HHS didn't want users to see Obamacare's true costs "Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering," report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. "But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said." Why was it delayed? "An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies." (Emphasis added.) As you know if you've been following this space, Obamacare's bevy of mandates, regulations, taxes, and fees drives up the cost of the insurance plans that are offered under the law's public exchanges. A Manhattan Institute analysis I helped conduct found that, on average, the cheapest plan offered in a given state, under Obamacare, will be 99 percent more expensive for men, and 62 percent more expensive for women, than the cheapest plan offered under the old system. And those disparities are even wider for healthy people. That raises an obvious question. If 50 million people are uninsured today, mainly because insurance is too expensive, why is it better to make coverage even costlier? Political objectives trumped operational objectives The answer is that Obamacare wasn't designed to help healthy people with average incomes get health insurance. It was designed to force those people to pay more for coverage, in order to subsidize insurance for people with incomes near the poverty line, and those with chronic or costly medical conditions. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #13 You have to agree to the contract before you see the price... Pretty much how medical care is now anyway. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-10-15 23:19 |
| #12 Major Tax increases for middle class if there are any middle class left. |
| Posted by: Dale 2013-10-15 19:49 |
| #11 #9 You have to agree to the contract before you see the price... Some airhead in congress We had to pass the bill before we could see what was in it too. |
| Posted by: Lowspark 2013-10-15 15:56 |
| #10 Seems everyone getting Dear John letters is going to ehealthinsurance.com. I took a quick look - works great. You can check on subsidies too (to the extent anyone can calculate it). So: why was it necessary to blow $650m on a redundant site that doesn't work? Seems the only point was to allow the government to assemble a massive database of sensitive personal data, to be used "for any lawful government purpose," LOL. Like an IRS audit if you're cheering for the wrong team, I presume. |
| Posted by: RandomJD 2013-10-15 15:38 |
| #9 You have to agree to the contract before you see the price... Some airhead in congress |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2013-10-15 12:27 |
| #8 How many Snowden's are just waiting to harvest all that personal information? It's already been done. P.S. They already have your email address book(s) Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2013-10-15 11:20 |
| #7 It is NOT "crashing". Service is being blocked to forestall the negative impacts [and press] of sticker shock. Once the budget is passed and Obamacare is funded, look for an amazing system recovery. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-10-15 11:14 |
| #6 "What does Obamacare cost?" Whatta ya got?" (The Chicago Way) |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2013-10-15 11:09 |
| #5 The paranoid side of me suspects many of the website problems aren't problems so much as laying the groundwork of blame for why nobody signed up. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2013-10-15 10:45 |
| #4 In short you have to provide all your personal information before you can see the price list - because then you already have a stake in the game. I shudder to think how 'secure' the system is... How many Snowden's are just waiting to harvest all that personal information... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2013-10-15 08:46 |
| #3 "See price in cart!" |
| Posted by: Perfesser 2013-10-15 07:28 |
| #2 The site is cratering because even the webservers are appalled at the surprising costs of 'free' health care. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2013-10-15 02:16 |
| #1 As if we need further proof that open rebellion is now necessary; I can't print the remaining stream of thought, like I need to... And - Good Morning, NSA! You guys manage to put those server fires out yet? |
| Posted by: Raj 2013-10-15 01:04 |