The rollout of the federal health-care exchange under the Affordable Care Act has been a grade-A debacle. There is absolutely no denying it. And The Post’s big Sunday story on the combination of poor planning and political timidity puts the entire mess into perspective. Knowing that President Obama relentlessly admonished his team that “if the Web site doesn’t work, nothing else matters” makes it all the more infuriating.
But there were two tidbits in the 2,800-word piece that were previously known but still served to enrage me, especially now that we see how well the GOP’s premeditated campaign to try to kill Healthcare.gov is working.
Although the statute provided plenty of money to help states build their own insurance exchanges, it included no money for the development of a federal exchange — and Republicans would block any funding attempts. According to one former administration official, [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius simply could not scrounge together enough money to keep a group of people developing the exchanges working directly under her.
So, the federal exchange that Republicans said wouldn’t work ended up not working because it was starved of the money needed to help make it work.
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