Obamacare Week Two

Obamacare just can’t catch a break. . . evil never does. It looks like the numbers are even worse than expected, unless you believe the whoppers coming out of New York. Moreover, the technical problems appear to be worse than expected. Here are some more thoughts:

● What Numbers?: HHS won’t release the number of people who have signed up for Obamacare until November, though I suspect they won’t release them then either. But that hasn’t stopped the numbers from leaking out. Last week, we spoke about some of the numbers and what they mean. This week, others are catching on. According to the Mail Online, administration sources have said that only 55,000 people signed up for insurance during the first week. The fact they won’t counter these numbers and the horrible PR they bring suggests they are accurate.

As an aside, New York claims it signed up 80,000 people, which would be more than everyone else combined and six times what California claims... something isn't right there.

● Just Short of the Green: The Mail Online calculates that at this rate, only 2 million people will sign up during the required six month open enrollment period. Obamacare needs more than 7 million to be financially viable.

● Don't Sign Up Anyone Under 30: Obamacare also needs 2.7 million “young invincibles” to foot the bill for the everyone else. Clearly, that ain’t happening. In fact, the 2 million number suggests they won’t get any of the “young invincibles,” which isn't surprising because that's basically throwing away money.

● The Big Flopper: If only 2 million of the 48 million uninsured sign up for Obamacare, then it’s a flop. Add in the fact that they would rather be fined than “helped” and what you have is a thorough repudiation.

● Obamacare? We Don't No Stinking Obamacare: Let’s think about this 2 million number. There are at least 9 million uninsurables who supposedly need insurance to stave of bankruptcy and to get critical treatment. So why aren’t they all signing up? Well, either, Obamacare is a bad deal for them OR there aren’t really 9 million uninsurables. Either way, the program loses it's biggest justification.

● One Step Forward, Three Steps Back: If only 2 million people sign up, then Obamacare has thrown 3 people off insurance for every person it added, as the run-up to Obamacare caused 6 million people to lose their insurance. Sounds like the government.

● Glitch In The Machine: The government is now privately admitting that they may need to scrap the $614 billion Obamacare computer system and start over. According to computer experts who have examined the system, it was built backwards with the wrong things using the most resources and by trying to use too much information at once. Tinkering won’t fix it. There are new problems discovered each day too. The insurers now say that they are getting duplicate applications along with phantom cancellations because of a glitch... so they don't know who is real and who isn't. Apparently, it's not calculating the subsidies correctly either, so one insurer stopped issuing insurance because they don't know if they are giving the right prices.

● Compare My Butt: The administration keeps trying to avoid the obvious that people aren't signing up by claiming that people are just comparison shopping at this point, which is why there haven’t been more applications. Yeah, only that’s nonsense. For one thing, there is nowhere to comparison shop. And if there was, then the whole justification for Obamacare goes down in flames. Think about that.

For another, industry people have noted that the website is build backwards, so that you need to apply before you can find out what it will cost you. Thus, no one who hasn’t opened an account can comparison shop! Indeed, the industry people are stunned. They note that there isn’t a commercial website in the world where you need to give your personal information before they tell you what they are offering.

● You Fail!: Not surprisingly, Obamacare gets really poor reviews. According to an AP poll:

● Only 7% of the public say the rollout has gone extremely well or well. In fact, only 19% of Obamacare supporters say the rollout has gone extremely well or well.

● 40% say it hasn’t gone well. The other 53% don't care enough to find out.

● Only 7% of respondents said that someone in their household has tried to sign up. And 75% of them experienced problems. Further, only 10% of those who tried actually went on to sign up for Obamacare, and 25% of those people weren’t sure if they had signed up correctly or not.

As an interesting aside, the AP claims these numbers are encouraging because 7% of the public could mean 20 million people want to sign up... but compare that to the 48 million they're supposed to help (still optimistic?). In any event, the AP is wrong. The question was households, not people. There are 310 million people, but only about 120 million households in the country. Thus, the "interested" number is closer to 8.4 million. Then you factor in that only 1 in 10 actually signed up and you’re looking at 840,000 by the AP’s count. But even if half of them eventually sign up, you’re still only talking four million... again, three million short of what they need. And even if all of them sign up, you're still looking at 16% of the people the program was supposed to help.

● Enough Rope: Finally, this is what happens when the Republicans don’t save the Democrats from themselves. The Democrats are brutally incompetent in everything they do, and historically, they’ve relied on the Republicans fixing their messes to make their programs palatable. This time, the Republican leadership stood fast. The result is an epic disaster unfolding. This is a system that has thrown more people off insurance than it’s covered. It’s cost a fortune and it doesn’t work. It’s attracting less than a third in raw numbers of what it needs to be financially stable and it has no chance of attracting the quality of applicants it needs.

This thing will die under its own weight. Let it.

But even more importantly, realize that you can’t get the public on your side about something until they feel its sting. With less than one in five of the people who will be fined even knowing someone who bothered to visit the websites, the public isn’t ready yet for this to be a big deal. Attack it rhetorically, but wait for the backlash to try to kill it. In the meantime, do what the Democrats do so well... tell the public they need to elect more of you if they want this thing killed.