We learned a few interesting things from President Barack Obama’s rambling, analogy-filled news conference Thursday.
We learned that there was a fumble. We learned that technology is hard. In fact, the president went on for an extended period of time explaining government’s historical struggles with IT issues. Considering that the entire backbone of the law is dependent on this technology and expertise, how can anyone truly believe that the Nov. 30 deadline set for HealthCare.gov to work properly is going to be met? And why should anyone trust that IT will work better in the future?
We also learned, despite this traditional technology deficit, the president was not “informed directly” about the challenges facing the website, because he would never be “stupid enough to say this is going to be as easy as shopping around on Amazon or Travelocity.”
We learned that buying insurance is complex business — more complex even than buying an airline ticket. It’s not “like buying a song on iTunes,” the president said. It’s “a much more complicated transaction.” But one of the selling points of Obamacare exchanges was that they would simplify the process. Exchanges were supposed to offer consumers no-hassle, straightforward choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment