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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; ObamaCare website</title>
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	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
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	<item>
		<title>ObamaCare Wants Poor Disabled Latino Women to Build $800 Million Website</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-wants-poor-disabled-latino-women-to-build-800-million-website/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-wants-poor-disabled-latino-women-to-build-800-million-website</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-wants-poor-disabled-latino-women-to-build-800-million-website/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 03 May 2014 20:19:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224632</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration is starting the hunt for next year’s diverse group of contractors.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/workplace-diversity.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-224633" alt="workplace-diversity" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/workplace-diversity-351x350.jpg" width="351" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>I can&#8217;t wait till it crosses the $1 billion threshold. We should have a party with balloons, ice cream, cake. Except we won&#8217;t be able to afford it because of ObamaCare.</p>
<p><a href="http://weaselzippers.us/184494-price-tag-for-obamacare-website-repairs-jumps-to-121-million/">At least the clown act is free</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>After shelling out $677 million to build the federal health care website, the government will spend an additional $121 million in 2014 to repair it—$30 million more than previously estimated—the Washington Times reported last night. This comes just as the Obama administration is starting the hunt for next year’s diverse group of contractors.</p>
<p>CGI Federal, the original lead contractor awarded $93.7 million, was replaced by Accenture this past January. Accenture received an initial payment of $45 million—an amount that was supposed to double by year’s end, according to the Washington Post. But yesterday, Accenture Federal Services announced their final agreement of $121 million for work through January 10, 2015.</p>
<p>The search for Accenture’s successor has commenced, and the administration has some specific criteria on its applicants’ gender, race, and socioeconomic status. From the New York Times yesterday.</p>
<p>&#8220;Federal officials said Monday that they intended to hold a new competition before awarding a contract and that they were particularly interested in responses from small businesses owned by women, disabled veterans and “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals,” including black and Hispanic Americans.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Sure, give it to a company of poor disabled gay Latino women. They probably can&#8217;t do any worse. Or maybe they can. Either way it will cost a lot of money and work badly.</p>
<p>Just like the rest of the government.</p>
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		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>ObamaCare Site Users Warned to Change Passwords</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-site-users-warned-to-change-passwords/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-site-users-warned-to-change-passwords</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-site-users-warned-to-change-passwords/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 20 Apr 2014 02:30:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223773</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ It only cost $600 million plus and counting.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Obamacare-Image.jpg"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-215304" alt="Obamacare Image" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Obamacare-Image.jpg" width="266" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>What do you want anyway? It<a href="http://nypost.com/2014/04/19/obamacare-site-flagged-in-heartbleed-security-review/"> only cost $600 million plus and counting.</a></p>
<blockquote><p>People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administration-wide review of the government’s vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw</p>
<p>.Officials said the administration was prioritizing its analysis of websites with heavy traffic and the most sensitive user information. A message that will be posted on the health care website starting Saturday reads: “While there’s no indication that any personal information has ever been at risk, we have taken steps to address Heartbleed issues and reset consumers’ passwords out of an abundance of caution.”</p>
<p>The health care website became a prime target for critics of the Obamacare law last fall when the opening of the insurance enrollment period revealed widespread flaws in the online system. Critics have also raised concerns about potential security vulnerabilities on a site where users input large amounts of personal data.</p></blockquote>
<p>Considering that the government knew about Heartbleed, this could have been easily averted, but clearly no one cared enough to bother.</p>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Two State ObamaCare Exchanges Under Federal Investigation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/two-state-obamacare-exchanges-under-federal-investigation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-state-obamacare-exchanges-under-federal-investigation</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/two-state-obamacare-exchanges-under-federal-investigation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220809</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where's the investigation of Healthcare.gov?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/77614639.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-220810" alt="Becca Pearce and Dr. Josh Sharfstein" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/77614639-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Two is a start. At the rate at which they&#8217;ve wasted money, <a href="http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=228317">it&#8217;s going to be a lot more than that</a>. It&#8217;s a shame that we can&#8217;t get an investigation of the mother of this boondoggle.</p>
<blockquote><p>A second state Obamacare exchange is under federal investigation in as many weeks.</p>
<p>The inspector general’s office for the Department of Health and Human Services reportedly told Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris that it will proceed with an investigation into how Maryland’s Obamacare exchange spent copious amounts of federal grant money in the face of its failing exchange.</p>
<p>Oregon’s Obamacare exchange will also be investigated by the General Accountability Office after a separate request from House Republicans.</p>
<p>“Maryland officials ignored early warning signs and chose to waste and abuse federal taxpayer money by opening up what they knew was a flawed exchange to the public,” Harris said in a statement Monday.</p>
<p>The website crashed on day one and has continued to face technical problems ever since.</p></blockquote>
<p>If spending ridiculous amounts of money a broken site while lying about how well it works gets Maryland and Oregon investigated, where&#8217;s the investigation of Healthcare.gov?</p>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>ObamaCare Website Partly Built by Communist Dictatorship</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-website-partly-built-by-communist-dictatorship/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-website-partly-built-by-communist-dictatorship</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamacare-website-partly-built-by-communist-dictatorship/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2014 17:36:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217978</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[HealthCare.gov works like a leftover Soviet project because that is what it is.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Lukasjenko-31.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-217979" alt="Lukasjenko-31" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Lukasjenko-31-450x270.jpg" width="450" height="270" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/the-u-s-affordable-care-act-software-was-written-in-part-in-belarus-by-software-developers-under-state-control/">I&#8217;m not surprised</a>. Are you? HealthCare.gov works like a leftover Soviet project because that is what it is.</p>
<blockquote><p>U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised.</p>
<p>The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S. officials familiar with the concerns.</p>
<p>“The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the software a potential target for cyber attacks,” one official said.</p></blockquote>
<p>Calling Belarus a former Soviet republic is somewhat debatable considering that its insane dictator, Alexander Lukashenko was a Communist apparatchik who was the only deputy of the Belarusian parliament who voted against the ratification of the December 1991 agreement that ended the USSR and called for its return in his speech to Russia&#8217;s Duma.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/mugabe-lukashenko-chavez2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-217980" alt="mugabe-lukashenko-chavez2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/mugabe-lukashenko-chavez2.jpg" width="379" height="256" /></a></p>
<p>He ran for office on a platform of defeating &#8220;the mafia against the Conspiracy of New World Order and Zionism&#8221;. If you&#8217;re not clear on what that convoluted phrase means, the Communist Party of Belarus is a pro-Lukashenko party and Lukashenko&#8217;s message last year was rather&#8230; Communist.</p>
<blockquote><p>I send my best greetings as the country celebrates the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Communist Party of Belarus.</p>
<p>The history of formation and development of the BSSR is inseparably connected with the Communist Party&#8230; We cherish the best traditions of those years.</p></blockquote>
<p>So it shouldn&#8217;t be a surprise that the ObamaCare website isn&#8217;t working. It was built in the best traditions of Communist projects.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/lukashenko-putin1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-217981" alt="Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/lukashenko-putin1-450x332.jpg" width="450" height="332" /></a></p>
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		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
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		<title>Woman Spends 6 Weeks Trying to Escape ObamaCare</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/woman-spends-6-weeks-trying-to-escape-obamacare/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=woman-spends-6-weeks-trying-to-escape-obamacare</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/woman-spends-6-weeks-trying-to-escape-obamacare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Jan 2014 14:22:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=216903</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["He said, 'I'm not allowed to tell you that.'"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/efny.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-216916" alt="efny" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/efny-231x350.jpg" width="231" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Getting into ObamaCare is hard enough, but like Hotel California or Facebook, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/20/parallel-universe-woman-spends-6-weeks-trying-to-disenroll-from-obamacare/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn">you can check out, but you can never leave</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Missouri resident Lesli Hill learned the hard way that terminating an Affordable Care Act plan can be far more difficult than navigating the website to buy one. She spent six weeks being bounced from operator to operator, calling the help line, using the online chat, blasting out emails to anyone who would listen, before ultimately driving to Kansas City last week to enlist her insurance company&#8217;s help. Only then was she able to break through the bureaucratic logjam, and cancel her policy.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s consumed my whole life,&#8221; she told FoxNews.com, albeit with a hint of relief in her voice as she described the Kafkaesque experience behind her. &#8220;I felt like I&#8217;d slipped into a parallel universe. &#8230; It&#8217;s just as hard to go off as it is to get on.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hill&#8217;s experience stands as a cautionary tale to anyone who, for whatever reason, is trying to bow out of insurance they purchased on the exchanges. Hill&#8217;s troubles started last fall, after the high-risk pool coverage she had was discontinued due to the health law. For lack of options, she went on the exchange and bought a policy with a $950-a-month premium.</p>
<p>She wasn&#8217;t thrilled about it, but at least she was covered.</p>
<p>However, shortly afterward Hill, 62, learned she could once again purchase an individual plan &#8212; with better benefits &#8212; outside the exchange. She checked with Blue Cross Blue Shield in early December and was told she&#8217;d have to cancel her ObamaCare plan first.</p>
<p>&#8220;At that point, I hadn&#8217;t paid my premium &#8230; so I thought okay, that&#8217;ll be easy to do,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>Ostensibly, yes. She tried using a simple &#8220;terminate button&#8221; on the website &#8212; but it wasn&#8217;t working.</p>
<p>Thus started what we&#8217;ll call the journey.</p>
<p>Hill first tried the HealthCare.gov help line, and &#8220;literally was on hold for several hours a day,&#8221; she said. After multiple attempts, without much luck, she tried the online chat. She was redirected back to the help line. The &#8220;script&#8221; that operators were reading from did not seem to address how someone could actually cancel a plan.</p>
<p>Hill continued to call the help line around the holidays, and eventually was given the impression that, at last, the plan was terminated.</p>
<p>But then, a $950 premium was withdrawn from her account &#8212; which she knew meant she was still enrolled.</p>
<p>Hill went on a blitz, breaking through to another layer at the HealthCare.gov help line. But the answer she was given was that cancellations are handled by a &#8220;special department,&#8221; the number of which could not be given out.</p>
<p>&#8220;He said, &#8216;I&#8217;m not allowed to tell you that,&#8217;&#8221; Hill told FoxNews.com. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to be kidding me.&#8221;</p>
<p>She kept pressing, to no avail. Then she got angry.</p>
<p>Hill started shooting emails all over Missouri, to the governor, the state&#8217;s two senators in Congress, the Missouri insurance department and others.</p>
<p>Then, as a last-ditch play, she got in her car and drove to Kansas City, hoping Blue Cross Blue Shield would know the &#8220;backdoor&#8221; to end the coverage.</p>
<p>Fortunately for her, she said the insurance company was helpful, and worked through the federal help line with her until finally reaching someone who, despite not being pleasant about it, said the plan would be discontinued. She later confirmed it was.</p>
<p>Hill is a grad student finishing her master&#8217;s in psychology. She said she knew enough to, eventually, solve her dilemma.</p>
<p>&#8220;But think of most people, when they would have given up,&#8221; she said.</p></blockquote>
<p>Since it doesn&#8217;t mention any medical problems, Hill is probably healthy and in a deep risk pool filled with the sick, you can see why they would have wanted to hang on to her.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s also another demonstration that all those jokes about your medical care working as well as the DMV were proven right.</p>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>FBI Warned Security Expert Not to Talk About Gov Health Website&#8217;s Dangers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/fbi-warned-security-expert-not-to-talk-about-gov-health-websites-dangers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fbi-warned-security-expert-not-to-talk-about-gov-health-websites-dangers</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/fbi-warned-security-expert-not-to-talk-about-gov-health-websites-dangers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:22:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[covered california]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=216611</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ “They were not interested in talking about the security issues." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/msg2.gif"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-216615" alt="msg2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/msg2-294x350.gif" width="294" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Shoot the messenger is the standard bureaucratic response of the system to its own ineptitude all the way down from ObamaCare&#8217;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/15/so-you-found-an-obamacare-website-is-hackable-now-what/">HealthCare.gov to Covered California</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>L.A.-based security researcher Kristian Erik Hermansen was signing up for Obamacare via the Covered California site. Given his background in finding vulnerabilities in software and websites, spotting security flaws , he couldn’t help noticing a vulnerability that would allow someone to take over another person’s account on the California site.</p>
<p>He tried contacting Covered California “at least 15 times” by email, phone or chat about the problem, but got no response for over a month.</p>
<p>Hermansen, frustrated that the flaw had been out there for over a month already, decided to release a video of the exploit to YouTube. That got the attention of a Covered California lawyer who contacted him to take the video down.</p>
<p>Hermansen then spoke by phone to the lawyer and a chief security person. “They were not interested in talking about the security issues but about getting the video or any other online mention of the flaw taken down.”</p>
<p>Hermansen said he found more serious issues — such as an exposed admin interface and a potentially raidable database that might have made it easy to steal complete social security numbers en masse — but that he did not explore or expose them publicly to avoid running afoul of the law.</p>
<p>He was most dismayed though by how the site’s administrators reacted to his finding flaws: first ignoring him, then trying to sweep his disclosure under the rug, rather than immediately addressing or fixing the problem that he had found.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Hermansen said the FBI visited him and told him not to talk about this publicly anymore.</p>
<p>Matt Ploessel, a security researcher who collaborated with Hermansen, reported the problems to the government’s vulnerability clearinghouse US-CERT. He said he also got a call from the F.B.I. Wednesday. “They told me that creating a test account because we didn’t want to touch real live data is fraudulent.”</p></blockquote>
<p>These kinds of regs criminalize violations of terms of service punish whistleblowers. While professional sites such as Facebook actually pay users for bug reports and security vulnerability detections, government agencies send the FBI after you. No wonder their sites don&#8217;t work.</p>
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		<title>ObamaCare Website Didn&#8217;t Recognize Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-website-didnt-recognize-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-website-didnt-recognize-obama</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-website-didnt-recognize-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Dec 2013 16:07:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If there's anyone ObamaCare ought to recognize, it's Obama]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_213828" style="width: 415px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/110218obama_intel405.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-213828" alt="&quot;I'm sorry Barack, but I can't let you do that.&quot;" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/110218obama_intel405.jpg" width="405" height="304" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry Barack, but I can&#8217;t let you do that.&#8221;</p></div>
<p>You would think that no matter how much bad data the ObamaCare website puts out and how often it mangles enrollment information, there is one man that it has to recognize. The Frankenstein who unleashed the monster.</p>
<p>But Healthcare.gov is such a <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/12/figures-obama-tried-to-sign-up-for-obamacare-but-system-couldnt-verify-his-identity-video/">failure that it doesn&#8217;t even recognize Obama</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“We learned today from the White House. Initially, they said he signed up for what they called a bronze plan, paying about four hundred dollars a month in premiums. But, then they came back to us and said – Wait, he didn’t actually enroll. They said his staff did it and that’s because of his unique circumstance as Commander in Chief. That his personal information is not in particular government data bases. So healthcare.gov could not actually verify his identity, oddly enough… So his staff did it.”</p></blockquote>
<p>There&#8217;s nothing unique about it. Lots<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/02/healthcare-gov-finally-works-for-some-people/"> of ordinary people have been stuck </a>in verification. And they don&#8217;t have a staff to fix it for them.</p>
<blockquote><p>Kelly Weaver, a substitute teacher in Michigan, said her application has been stuck in the identity verification process since mid-October.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re fixing,&#8221; says Weaver, who considers herself a health-law supporter. &#8220;I&#8217;m definitely noticing different fonts but that doesn&#8217;t really fix my situation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Weaver has submitted identity verification information online and over the phone. She has uploaded copies of her driver&#8217;s license to the Web site. When she&#8217;s called the customer service center, she&#8217;s twice been told she&#8217;ll receive a call back in two to five business days. Both times, she never got a return phone call.</p></blockquote>
<p>If only Kelly had her own staff like Obama to handle pesky minutiae like this. Or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/us/id-verification-lagging-on-health-care-website.html?_r=0">if Roger had the staff</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“I am in no man’s land,” said Roger N. Hampton of Boca Raton, Fla., who filed an application early last month. “I have been waiting patiently for my ID verification to come through, which has not occurred thus far. So I can’t see what plans are available.”</p>
<p>When he tried to file his application online, Mr. Hampton received a message that said: “Your identity wasn’t verified. You won’t be able to submit your application for health coverage until your identity is verified. Submit documents that prove your identity. Once you upload your documents, they’ll be reviewed. The results of your identity verification will be emailed to you.”</p>
<p>Mr. Hampton hit a button that said, “Upload documents” and attached copies of his Social Security card and driver’s license. He said he had heard nothing back.</p>
<p>John W. Filbin of New London, N.H., reported a similar experience. “I have been stuck in identity proofing since early October,” he said Monday.</p>
<p>Mr. Filbin said he had called Experian, but got no help because he did not have a “reference number.” Experian sent him back to HealthCare.gov, which has repeatedly indicated that his identity verification is “in process.”</p>
<p>Jo Ann Fields of Felton, Del., appears to be lost in the same labyrinth. “I mailed a copy of my voter registration card on Oct. 24, and I have not heard anything back,” Ms. Fields said. “I uploaded the voter registration card, and they said I would get an email response. I have had no response&#8230; My application is stuck in ID verification.”</p></blockquote>
<p>This is why Obama&#8217;s gesture is meaningless. He isn&#8217;t really going to be stuck in ObamaCare verification hell even though if there&#8217;s anyone who deserves to struggle with the ObamaCare site, it&#8217;s him.</p>
<p>The troubles he has inflicted on millions of people with a website that can&#8217;t even recognize the man responsible for it will not affect him.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hal-2001.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-213829" alt="hal-2001" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/hal-2001-450x337.jpg" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Obama Picks Fired Husband of Dem Congresswoman to Fix Healthcare.gov</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-picks-fired-husband-of-dem-congresswoman-to-fix-obamacare-website/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-picks-fired-husband-of-dem-congresswoman-to-fix-obamacare-website</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-picks-fired-husband-of-dem-congresswoman-to-fix-obamacare-website/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Dec 2013 17:36:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213389</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama picked the company of his wife's friend to build the site]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2019324012.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-213390" alt="2019324012" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2019324012.jpg" width="418" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>Obama picked the company of his wife&#8217;s friend to build the site for a mere nine figures. So it makes sense to bring in the husband of a Democratic congresswoman to fix it.</p>
<p>What happened to Cash-for-Clunkers wunderkind Jeff Zients who was already supposed to fix it? Uhh he fixed it already. <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2013/12/17/breaking-microsoft-executive-to-take-over-glitch-filled-obamacare-exchange/">Now, like every other ObamaFailure (TM) he&#8217;s</a> being promoted upstairs.</p>
<blockquote><p>The White House is tapping the private sector for its next point man to fix the troubled Obamacare website.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama&#8217;s idea of tapping the private sector is appoint a Microsoft executive married to a Democratic congresswoman.</p>
<blockquote><p>Zients is poised to become the director of the National Economic Council next year, forcing the administration to quickly find his replacement.</p></blockquote>
<p>He was appointed 5 minutes ago and already he&#8217;s being promoted. How impressive.</p>
<blockquote><p>DelBene was most recently the president of the Microsoft Office Division and has been with the company since 1992. He is also the husband of freshman Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.).</p></blockquote>
<p>Private sector FTW. But <a href="http://www.trust.org/item/20131217170422-hxygy">let&#8217;s have a little more context</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>DelBene&#8217;s appointment was also announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a blog posting. He starts his new job with the Obama administration later this week, a spokesman for Rep. Suzan DelBene&#8217;s office said. DelBene&#8217;s retirement as head of Microsoft&#8217;s Office division was announced in July as part of a reorganization at the software giant.</p>
<p>A Microsoft spokesman said DelBene&#8217;s last day at the company was Monday.</p></blockquote>
<p>That sounds like<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-one-of-microsofts-most-trusted-leaders-was-left-out-in-the-cold-2013-7"> Kurt DelBene was pushed out</a> by Microsoft&#8217;s reorganization and his wife got him a nice new job.</p>
<blockquote><p>DelBene was president of the Microsoft Office Division and his exit was described as a &#8220;surprise&#8221; by several former Microsoft employees we talked to. He was well-liked within Microsoft, they said.</p>
<p>Some people speculated that DelBene opted to retire because there was no role for him in the new reorganization.</p>
<p>&#8230;</p>
<p>CEO Steve Ballmer took a big chance with this reorg and wiped all the &#8220;mini-CEO roles&#8221; where chiefs like DelBene were responsible for all aspects of their units. Instead, Ballmer created new engineering units to create products, making other executives responsible for finance/marketing.</p></blockquote>
<p>Kurt DelBene is also on the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago, so Obama Inc. is still keeping it in the family. And how did his wife get elected? Money.<a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2019324951_delbeneprofile03m.html"> She spent millions on the races, self-financing her campaign</a>. And now her hubby gets a post-retirement government job.</p>
<p>Isn&#8217;t liberalism wonderful?</p>
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		<title>Cost of Broken ObamaCare Website Rises From $630 Mil to $677 Mil</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/cost-of-broken-obamacare-website-rises-from-630-mil-to-677-mil/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cost-of-broken-obamacare-website-rises-from-630-mil-to-677-mil</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/cost-of-broken-obamacare-website-rises-from-630-mil-to-677-mil/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Dec 2013 01:16:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The price tag increased by $47 million.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/tumblr_inline_mvmaolrztt1qij8k6.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-213019" alt="tumblr_inline_mvmaolrztt1qij8k6" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/tumblr_inline_mvmaolrztt1qij8k6-350x350.jpg" width="350" height="350" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/11/no-big-healthcare-govs-pricetag-up-by-47-million-and-counting/">Forward! To a Billion. We can do it!</a> Together. Hope, Change and 404 in 2014.</p>
<blockquote><p>The government has been cagey about revealing how much money has been spent to fix HealthCare.gov, but today officials revealed the overall price tag for the troubled Obamacare website has increased by $47 million.</p>
<p>An official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees the site, could not immediately explain the reason for the additional cost. But the official confirmed the amount of money “obligated” by the Obama administration for IT costs has increased in the past month.</p>
<p>In October, CMS Spokeswoman Julie Bataille said the total obligated for IT costs associated with the federal marketplace was “in the neighborhood of about $630 million.” Speaking on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the number is now $677 million.</p></blockquote>
<p>At this rate, it might have been easier to just buy health insurance for people.</p>
<p>How long is it going to take this mess to hit a billion? At this rate, it might just happen by the spring&#8230; if not even earlier.</p>
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		<title>1 in 4 ObamaCare Applications are Bugged</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/1-in-4-obamacare-applications-are-bugged/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=1-in-4-obamacare-applications-are-bugged</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/1-in-4-obamacare-applications-are-bugged/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2013 14:52:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212621</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One in four of applications did not get transferred to insurers,]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/obamafly3.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212622" alt="obamafly3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/obamafly3-450x328.jpg" width="450" height="328" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/1-in-4-obamacare-enrollments-affected-by-technical-bug-first-month/article/2540329">1 in 4. Or as </a>ObamaCare&#8217;s media defenders would say, a tiny minority. I bet<a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2013/12/07/white-house-1-in-4-obamacare-enrollments-affected-by-technical-bugs/"> most of them also belong to white males</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>After refusing for weeks to detail the extent of back-end problems with healthcare.gov, the Obama administration on Friday said a technical bug affected approximately 25 percent of enrollments on the federal exchanges in October and November.</p>
<p>Those technical bugs, separate from the troubles consumers had experienced accessing information on the website during the first two months, are posing a significant new problem for those who signed up and are expecting insurance coverage come Jan. 1.</p>
<p>One in four of those applications either did not get transferred to insurers, were transferred in duplicate form, or had major errors in information shared.</p>
<p>Insurers are supposed to receive the 834 Forms from healthcare.gov. The forms, meant to be read by computers, provide insurers with information on enrollees and what plan they have chosen. Without the information, insurers have no way of knowing who has signed up on the Obamacare exchanges and what coverage they need.</p></blockquote>
<p>Shouldn&#8217;t be a problem. This is just like Amazon.com which also gets 1 out of 4 orders wrong. And Kayak.com routinely books people for trips to the wrong destinations. Every fourth person just randomly gets booked for a one way trip to Benghazi.</p>
<p>Still if Obama Inc. is admitting to a 1 in 4 failure rate, the real failure rate is anywhere from 50 to 100 percent. That raises the question. What&#8217;s more dangerous? Trying to buy health insurance through ObamaCare or being an Obama diplomat in Benghazi?</p>
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		<title>You Can&#8217;t Apply for ObamaCare by Website or by Mail</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/you-cant-apply-for-obamacare-by-website-or-by-mail/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=you-cant-apply-for-obamacare-by-website-or-by-mail</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/you-cant-apply-for-obamacare-by-website-or-by-mail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Dec 2013 00:39:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212609</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What's left? Carrier pigeons? Smoke signals? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/abc-obamacare-memos.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-212615" alt="abc-obamacare-memos" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/abc-obamacare-memos-450x258.jpg" width="450" height="258" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;m not sure what options that leaves. Carrier pigeons? <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/07/feds-on-second-thought-maybe-you-shouldnt-use-paper-applications-to-sign-up-for-obamacare-either/">Smoke signal ObamaCare applications</a>?</p>
<p>Or maybe insurance agents can meet Federal health insurance officials in back alleys and exchange codes. &#8220;The weather is unseasonably warm in the Oval Office.&#8221; &#8220;The crippled jackass brays at midnight.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>Federal health officials, after encouraging alternate sign-up methods amid the fumbled rollout of their online insurance website, began quietly urging counselors around the country this week to stop using paper applications to enroll people in health insurance because of concerns those applications would not be processed in time…</p>
<p>&#8220;We received guidance from the feds recommending that folks apply online as opposed to paper,&#8221; said Mike Claffey, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Insurance.</p>
<p>After a conference call earlier this week with federal health officials, Illinois health officials sent a memo Thursday to their roughly 1,600 navigators saying there is no way to complete marketplace enrollment through a paper application. The memo, which Claffey said was based on guidance from federal officials, said paper applications should be used only if other means aren’t available…</p>
<p>That contradicts what federal health officials told reporters during a national media call this week, during which they said there were no problems with paper applications…</p>
<p>In early November, President Barack Obama himself encouraged paper applications as one of several alternatives to the federal website.</p></blockquote>
<p>The website is producing a whole lot of errors when it comes to properly passing along information, but Obama Inc. has decided that&#8217;s a problem for insurance companies to deal with.</p>
<p>But the paper applications<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/obamacare-glitches-paper-phone-applications-98872.html"> are still going through the website</a>. So that just means someone is going to have to manually enter that data into the website.</p>
<blockquote><p>With the supposedly state-of-the-art $600 million HealthCare.gov portal malfunctioning, President Barack Obama is urging Americans to go ahead and try to get health coverage by mailing in a paper application, calling the helpline or seeking help from one of the trained “assisters.”</p>
<p>But the truth is those applications — on paper or by phone — have to get entered into the same lousy website that is causing the problems in the first place. And the people processing the paper and calls don’t have any cyber secret passage to duck around that. They too have to deal with all the frustrations of HealthCare.gov — full-time.</p>
<p>“I feel like we’re sort of back in the era of control-alt-delete where we’re trying to figure out the different tricks that facilitate people’s enrollment,” said Jennifer Ng’andu, director of health policy for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group that has been helping to publicize the Affordable Care Act.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don&#8217;t think Ctrl-Alt-Del is going to help you there. Though a lot of people seem to want to Ctrl-Alt-Del this administration.</p>
<p>Healthcare.con still lists paper as the top alternative for applying for ObamaCare. Even ahead of the torturous website process. Or you can try applying by phone&#8230; though operators have been known to be just as hapless as the website.</p>
<p>But this mess is typical of bureaucracies where no one is quite sure where anything is or what to do about it. Departments develop their own clashing methodologies and ignore conflicts.</p>
<p>Obama told people to drop the substandard website and go find a paper application. Now people are told to drop the paper applications and go to the website&#8230; even while the website is telling them to go fill out a paper application.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;ve ever dealt with the runaround from a bureaucracy, then you already know what&#8217;s happening here.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s &#8220;Tech Surge&#8221; Depends on Friendly Engineers from Companies like Google</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-tech-surge-depends-on-friendly-engineers-from-companies-like-google/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-tech-surge-depends-on-friendly-engineers-from-companies-like-google</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-tech-surge-depends-on-friendly-engineers-from-companies-like-google/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 01 Dec 2013 19:24:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=212076</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's own greed for corruption landed him and his website in this mess]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_212077" style="width: 410px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/toniwhitleyobamachristmas.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-212077" alt="A photo worth nine figures" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/toniwhitleyobamachristmas.jpg" width="400" height="320" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">A photo worth nine figures</p></div>
<p>Instead of bringing in competent companies to build Healthcare.gov, Obama gave a no-bid contract to CGI, a company with a terrible track record and a top executive who is friends with Michelle Obama and has visited the White House. Oversight stayed with CMS, a government agency completely unprepared for the task.</p>
<p>The<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/us/politics/inside-the-race-to-rescue-a-health-site-and-obama.html?pagewanted=4&amp;_r=0"> Tech Surge consisted of Obama bringing </a>in friendly engineers from actually competent companies. But it raises the question of why he threw $630 million at companies that couldn&#8217;t do the job, but had political connections?</p>
<blockquote><p>In fact, the surge centered on about a half-dozen people who had taken leave from various technology companies to join the effort. They included Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer at Google who had also worked on Mr. Obama’s campaign and now draws praise from contractors as someone who is “actually making a difference,” one said.</p>
<p>Even so, one person working on the project said, “Surge was probably an overstatement.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Everything Obama says is an overstatement. But what&#8217;s interesting is that Obama shunned the pro dot com companies and talent that might have gotten the job done and followed his usual bad habit of giving the work to incompetent political cronies paid with taxpayer money.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s own greed for corruption landed him and his website in this mess. And he turned to the people he should have put in charge only when it was clear that his poll numbers were disastrous.</p>
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		<title>70% of ObamaCare Website Still Not Built</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/70-of-obamacare-website-still-not-built/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=70-of-obamacare-website-still-not-built</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/70-of-obamacare-website-still-not-built/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:12:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=211102</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not only is Healthcare.gov a malfunctioning disaster, it's only a 30% complete disaster.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Obama_mad-magazine-cover.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-211103" alt="Obama_mad-magazine-cover" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Obama_mad-magazine-cover-271x350.jpg" width="271" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>The Russian space program used to launch vehicles that weren&#8217;t actually finished because the Party had a deadline that had to be met to humiliate the Yankee Capitalist pigs. It seems like Team Obama subscribes to those same standards.</p>
<p>Healthcare.gov doesn&#8217;t have a payments system. It can&#8217;t properly relay or secure data. Its profiles leak. Everything is a mess.</p>
<p>Not only is Healthcare.gov a malfunctioning disaster, it&#8217;s only a 30% complete disaster. And when it&#8217;s a 100% complete disaster, then 80% of people might be able to buy insurance through it&#8230; according to the same people who were claiming there was no problem.</p>
<p><iframe width="540" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/twxMbPeejFY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<blockquote><p>A chief official responsible for building the federal health-insurance exchange revealed that as much as 70 percent of the system still needs to be built.</p>
<p>Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a House subcommittee that the administration still needs to construct the payment systems and other “back office” functions, which constitute 60 to 70 percent of the system.</p></blockquote>
<p>Considering how well they did with the 30 percent&#8230; there&#8217;s no reason to worry. Why wouldn&#8217;t you want to entrust your credit card information to the people who can&#8217;t keep your existing information secure.</p>
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		<title>Pelosi: &#8220;We Don&#8217;t Have a Policy Problem. We Have a Website Problem&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/pelosi-we-dont-have-a-policy-problem-we-have-a-website-problem/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pelosi-we-dont-have-a-policy-problem-we-have-a-website-problem</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/pelosi-we-dont-have-a-policy-problem-we-have-a-website-problem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:01:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pelosi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=210853</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Only a liberal progressive could be this stupid.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/pelosi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-73803" alt="pelosi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/pelosi-300x208.jpg" width="300" height="208" /></a></p>
<p>Only a liberal progressive could be this stupid.</p>
<p>If you lack the competence to execute your policies, that&#8217;s a policy problem. Government is not the proper tool for selling insurance. It&#8217;s barely the proper tool for selling people anything.</p>
<p>A policy that depends on government <a href="http://weaselzippers.us/2013/11/15/pelosi-does-her-best-baghdad-bob-impression-for-fellow-dems-on-obamacare-we-dont-have-a-policy-problem-we-have-a-website-problem/">trying to go Amazon is a policy problem</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other party leaders discussed options for a bill with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just before McDonough arrived to address the full caucus. She is trying to help the White House stem a tide of House Democrats who are leaning toward voting for a GOP bill, due on the House floor Friday, that would address the cancellation issue in much broader fashion than Obama would like.</p>
<p>“We don’t have a policy problem,” Pelosi told her Democrats in the private meeting, a defense of the law written by Congress. “We have a website problem.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Much of the backlash actually now has to do with the cancellations, the website has become icing on the cake. But Pelosi is predictably too out of touch to know that.</p>
<p>But it takes a liberal progressive to think that policy is the ideal and that problems that take place in the realm of the real don&#8217;t affect it.</p>
<p>To Pelosi, policy is an idea that remains legitimate no matter how badly the implementation is flubbed. This is why the left still thinks Communism can work. The implementation was the problem. Not the idea.</p>
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		<title>ObamaCare Girl Has No Plans to Sign Up for ObamaCare</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-girl-has-no-plans-to-sign-up-for-obamacare/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-girl-has-no-plans-to-sign-up-for-obamacare</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-girl-has-no-plans-to-sign-up-for-obamacare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:32:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=210556</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When you can't even get the face of ObamaCare to sign up for ObamaCare...]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-obamagirl-1113.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-210569" alt="article-obamagirl-1113" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-obamagirl-1113-450x274.jpg" width="450" height="274" /></a></p>
<p>You know that your website is really bad when the person in the stock photo<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-obamacares-mystery-woman-victim-cyberbullies/story?id=20868617&amp;singlePage=true"> on it doesn&#8217;t want her last name to be used</a>. That&#8217;s the case for Adriana, a Colombian woman who for some reason ended up as the face of ObamaCare and is now crying on television about it.</p>
<blockquote><p>Adriana, who asked that only her first name be used, said she was speaking out now to defend herself after weeks of enduring online lampooning.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m here to stand up for myself and defend myself and let people know the truth,&#8221; she said.</p></blockquote>
<p>And the truth is that she wants nothing to do with ObamaCare. But like most people interested in ObamaCare, she showed up for the free stuff.</p>
<blockquote><p>Seeking free family photographs, Adriana emailed a contact at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for the Affordable Care Act&#8217;s rollout, about having photos of her and her family taken in exchange for allowing the photos to be used to market the new health care law. She was never paid.</p>
<p>She said that while she knew her photo would be used on the healthcare.gov website, she was stunned at the negative reception.</p>
<p>&#8220;They took the picture down. I wanted the picture down, and they wanted the picture down. I don&#8217;t think anybody wanted to focus on the picture.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sometimes free stuff from the government can turn out to be surprisingly expensive. Whether it&#8217;s free photos or anything else.</p>
<p>Adriana is not a citizen, but still eligible for ObamaCare&#8230; but has no plans to sign up for it. When you can&#8217;t even get the face of ObamaCare to sign up for ObamaCare&#8230;</p>
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		<title>Obama is Sorry that You Lost Your Insurance Even Though It&#8217;s Not His Fault</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-is-sorry-that-you-lost-your-insurance-for-reasons-having-nothing-to-do-with-him/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-is-sorry-that-you-lost-your-insurance-for-reasons-having-nothing-to-do-with-him</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-is-sorry-that-you-lost-your-insurance-for-reasons-having-nothing-to-do-with-him/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Nov 2013 02:57:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[That's why he put the bomb there. Because he didn't want to kill people.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/316891247obama-rainbows.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-210000" alt="316891247obama-rainbows" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/316891247obama-rainbows-450x213.jpg" width="450" height="213" /></a></p>
<p>Is he upset that you lost your insurance? Absolutely.</p>
<p>No one is angrier than him about the set of circumstances that caused you to lose your insurance. Except maybe you and the other millions of people who lost their insurance.</p>
<p>He is &#8220;very sorry&#8221; that they found themselves in this situation &#8220;based on assurances they got from me&#8221;; which is the sort of thing you say if you&#8217;re a corporate lawyer trying to explain how bad your client feels about all the people whose cars exploded, without in any way conceding fault.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s too bad about those assurances, but only a non-lawyer would assume that a lawyer was conceding fault with so little available causality.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not his fault really. He really believed you could keep your health plans. And then his people wrote the regs so that you couldn&#8217;t. But the trigger for the regs was technically in the marketplace.</p>
<p>So it&#8217;s not his fault. It&#8217;s the fault of the healthcare marketplace churn.</p>
<p>Some might say that&#8217;s like putting a bomb on a bus that will go off if it drops below 50 miles an hour and then blaming the resulting deaths on the bus for going too slow&#8230; instead of on the guy who planted the bomb.</p>
<p>Obama put the bomb on the bus. But it&#8217;s the fault of the bus, gasoline, the combustion engine, gravity and the fragility of human bodies that caused all the deaths.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t get him wrong. He&#8217;s sorry that your subpar body was on board a bad apple bus that began going so slowly that the bomb went off. He really, really thought that the bomb wouldn&#8217;t go off.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s why he put the bomb there. Because he didn&#8217;t want to kill people.</p>
<p>And only a crazy right-winger would assume that Obama would put a bomb on a bus because he wants it to go off or that his people write regs that kill a health plan if it raises its co-pay by 5 bucks because they want to wipe out the &#8220;wild wild west&#8221; marketplace full of sub-par plans that may have lower premiums and deductibles, but don&#8217;t cover your sex, sexual preference and species change operation into a gay female lemur.</p>
<p>Obama is trying to be patient with you. He realizes you&#8217;re not very smart. I mean, let&#8217;s face it, you watch NBC. How smart could you be? So he&#8217;ll patiently explain to you that due to circumstances beyond the control of his passive voice, your health insurance policy is cancelled, the website where you&#8217;re supposed to buy an expensive sub-par bad apple new policy doesn&#8217;t work, even though enough money was spent on it to insure everyone in your state for the next ten years and, worst of all, even country singers are making fun of him.</p>
<p>Obama was &#8220;burned by a website&#8221;. And it&#8217;s not because it had one of those animated gifs of crackling flames on it. Sure he isn&#8217;t the one spending days trying to get it to work. But people are blaming him for spending a few hundred million dollars on a website that doesn&#8217;t even work and is keeping people from getting his new overpriced insurance that costs more, but covers them in case their birth control runs out while they&#8217;re under attack by a giant spotted gay lemur.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s all about Obama. Bad things happen to him.  You&#8217;re just a bystander in the great drama of his great life.</p>
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		<title>ObamaCare Gets Its Own Country Song</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-gets-its-own-country-song/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-gets-its-own-country-song</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamacare-gets-its-own-country-song/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Nov 2013 13:42:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209864</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every terrible tragedy gets memorialized in a country song ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Every terrible tragedy gets memorialized in a country song sooner or later. ObamaCare is no different. And now alongside the usual breakup and divorce songs, there&#8217;s <a href="http://twitchy.com/2013/11/06/obamacare-by-morning-brad-paisley-and-carrie-underwood-hilariously-mock-healthcare-gov-during-cmas/">a sad country song about ObamaCare</a> too.</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SsiIz15KyEk?feature=player_embedded" height="360" width="540" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>ObamaCare by morning is probably optimistic. It&#8217;s more likely to end up being ObamaCare by mourning.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>Healthcare.gov Isn&#8217;t the Only ObamaCare Website, Michelle Obama&#8217;s Pal&#8217;s Company Screwed Up</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/healthcare-gov-isnt-the-only-obamacare-website-michelle-obamas-pals-company-screwed-up/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=healthcare-gov-isnt-the-only-obamacare-website-michelle-obamas-pals-company-screwed-up</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/healthcare-gov-isnt-the-only-obamacare-website-michelle-obamas-pals-company-screwed-up/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Nov 2013 23:58:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[single payer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vermont]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209275</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“The website is working better today than it was yesterday," Governor Shumlin said]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/23843032_BG2.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-209313" alt="23843032_BG2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/23843032_BG2-450x253.jpg" width="450" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Vermont&#8217;s ObamaCare disaster isn&#8217;t getting that much attention outside Vermont because everyone is focusing on the national ObamaCare disaster. But it&#8217;s the same exact comedy of errors, complete with ridiculous costs, a dysfunctional site and an incompetent Democrat in charge of the whole mess.</p>
<p>And Michelle Obama&#8217;s Princeton Pal&#8217;s company, CGI Federal, also behind the mess.</p>
<p>Yesterday, after Republican pressure, Governor Shumlin <a href="http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/october/angry-governor-shumlin-extends-enrollment-date-vermont-health-connect-march-31-2014">was forced to extend</a> the enrollment date into Vermont Health Connect to March 31st. With the website broken, Vermonters were encouraged to go low tech and <a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/viewart/20131009/NEWS03/310090019/Vermont-health-insurance-website-offers-paper-application-while-digital-glitches-persist">fill out paper applications</a>&#8230; and more realistically, apply through insurance companies, instead of the broken government website and navigators.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;This is the right move and Vermonters deserve this,&#8221; said House Republican Minority Leader Don Turner.  He said his caucus called on the Governor to implement contingencies and he says he&#8217;s thankful for Thursday&#8217;s action.</p>
<p>Governor Shumlin says despite making the plans available he still has faith the system will be operational, though he couldn&#8217;t say how quickly that may happen.</p></blockquote>
<p>Next century might be good. It is Vermont after all. But S<a href="http://vtdigger.org/2013/10/28/mcclaughry-vermont-exchange-train-wreck/">humlin&#8217;s turnaround is already progress</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Vermont Health Connect, the state’s $170 million exchange, is “one of the most functional in the country,” according to Gov. Shumlin.</p>
<p>Gov. Shumlin first dismissed Vermont Health Connect’s missed opening date as a “nothing burger.” He then said the exchange would be operative by Nov. 1, and that unspecified people were “working 24/7” to get it going. Most recently, he waffled on the Nov. 1 deadline as well, saying it might be ready by Nov. 3.</p></blockquote>
<p>Surprise. It won&#8217;t be. How<a href="http://vtdigger.org/2013/10/24/shumlin-keeps-health-care-exchange-contingency-plan-wraps/"> functional was Vermont Health Connect</a>?</p>
<blockquote><p>The site went live on Oct. 1 and has been fraught with technical problems. Navigators, business owners and individuals who have attempted to sign up for the program have been unable to get past frozen screens, error pages and the like.</p>
<p>“The website is working better today than it was yesterday; it will work better next week than it does this week,” Shumlin said. “We’re going to get this done over time.”</p>
<p>CGI has missed several deadlines, and the company recently shuffled around its leadership team in Vermont.</p>
<p>Last week, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns completed a survey of more than 170 municipalities.</p>
<p>Only about half of those municipalities have been able to create a username and password on the site. Of those 70 municipalities that were able to create an account, only about 35 towns and cities could actually add information to the account after it was created. Only about 17 towns and cities were able to actually submit employee rosters to the state system to insure their employees.</p></blockquote>
<p>Not that this is going to be a problem. It&#8217;s not like this is the linchpin of a disastrous big government health care scheme by people who can&#8217;t even run a website.</p>
<p>Oh but wait&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p> Thanks to an unique monopoly feature of Vermont’s Act 171 (2012), Vermonters who are thwarted by an inoperative exchange site cannot choose to continue their present coverage with their present insurer.</p>
<p>The reason for the monopoly is that Gov. Shumlin and his single payer allies are trying everything possible to lure or force people into the exchange before 2017. On that date state-run, taxpayer-financed Green Mountain Care is supposed to replace all health insurance.</p>
<p>This $3+ billion single payer plan will be financed in large measure with a federal block grant equal to the sum of all the Obamacare tax credits paid on behalf of the people buying through Vermont Health Connect. (GMC will also require an enormous payroll tax increase, as the governor has recently admitted.) Forcing the insured into the exchange will maximize that hoped-for (but by no means assured) federal payment.</p></blockquote>
<p>Can&#8217;t see any reason why it won&#8217;t all work out. Surely running health insurance for everyone is bound to be easier than running a website.</p>
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		<title>Obama $1 Mil Donor Hired to Fix Broken ObamaCare Website</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-1-mil-donor-hired-to-fix-broken-obamacare-website/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-1-mil-donor-hired-to-fix-broken-obamacare-website</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obama-1-mil-donor-hired-to-fix-broken-obamacare-website/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Nov 2013 14:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209369</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[QSSI has been paid an estimated $150 million so far]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13125687532008Alumni_Welters620.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-209370" alt="13125687532008Alumni_Welters620" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/13125687532008Alumni_Welters620-450x225.jpg" width="450" height="225" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/02/could-google-have-saved-healthcare-gov/">Donald Trump proposed Google</a> fixing Healthcare.gov. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/hhs-chief-technology-officer-on-obamacare-site-i-wish-there-was-something-i-could-do-to-help/">Amazon had reached out </a>earlier. But that&#8217;s never going to happen in the real world. Not unless Google is prepared to spend serious lobbying cash on kickbacks and then inflate its estimates to cover the difference.</p>
<p>On Planet Washington, health care data is handled by well-connected government companies that do nothing else except lobby for contracts and then drastically overcharge while delivering a fourth-rate product.</p>
<p>This<a href="http://nypost.com/2013/11/01/obama-donors-firm-hired-to-fix-web-mess-it-helped-make/"> isn&#8217;t the free market. It&#8217;s crony capitalism</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site — but also is getting paid to fix it.</p>
<p>Anthony Welters, a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest, is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which owns the software company now at the center of the ObamaCare Web-site fiasco.</p>
<p>Welters and his wife, Beatrice, have shoveled piles of cash into Obama’s campaign coffers and ­apparently reaped the rewards.</p>
<p>Beatrice Welters bundled donations totaling between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s campaign during the 2008 election ­cycle, according to campaign- ­finance data compiled by Center for Responsive Politics.</p>
<p>The couple then became top donors for Obama’s inauguration festivities, kicking in $100,000 out of their own pockets and bundling another $300,000 from friends and business associates, according to the center.</p>
<p>The investments quickly paid off for Beatrice Welters. The Obama administration tapped her in 2009 for the plum job of US ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, which she held through last November.</p>
<p>The couple have been frequent guests at the White House. Visitors logs show at least a dozen visits between the two by the end of 2012, the most recent information available.</p>
<p>The Welters, along with their sons, Andrew and Bryant, have contributed more than $258,000 to mostly Democratic candidates and committees since 2007.</p>
<p>What’s more, UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest health-insurance companies in the country and spent millions lobbying for ObamaCare.</p>
<p>QSSI has been paid an estimated $150 million so far, but officials couldn’t say how much more the company might collect on the ­repair contract.</p></blockquote>
<p>The &#8220;good news&#8221; for the GOP is that this mess obviously isn&#8217;t getting fixed any time soon.</p>
<p>The website will work somewhat better eventually, but it&#8217;s not going to work well. Not until Obama overrides Valerie Jarrett at the prompting of some of his advisers and puts actual pros on this, instead of his and Michelle&#8217;s buddies. And he&#8217;s arrogant enough that it might simply never happen.</p>
<p>When faced with the massive health plan losses, he decided to double down on &#8220;bad apple insurers&#8221; and &#8220;scam plans&#8221; counting on public stupidity and media corruption to see him through another scandal.</p>
<p>At some point, Lincoln&#8217;s maxim will kick in and the whole thing will collapse. Campaign mode can only work for so long even with media backing. But Obama won&#8217;t even notice.</p>
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		<title>HHS Chief Technology Officer On ObamaCare Site: &#8220;I Wish There Was Something I Could Do To Help.&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/hhs-chief-technology-officer-on-obamacare-site-i-wish-there-was-something-i-could-do-to-help/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hhs-chief-technology-officer-on-obamacare-site-i-wish-there-was-something-i-could-do-to-help</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:23:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Healthcare.gov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ObamaCare website]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Amazon emailed two HHS officials. "Is there anything we can do to help?"]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/404-care-obamacare-glitch.png"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-207385" alt="404-care-obamacare-glitch" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/404-care-obamacare-glitch-450x300.png" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>This is sad, outrageous and pathetic at the same time.</p>
<p>Amazon, which has a ton of experience working on this scale and practically owns the infrastructure, <a href="http://sweetness-light.com/archive/amazon-microsoft-offered-to-fix-obama-care-site#.UnG8thCQNmU">reached out to Health and Human Services&#8217; CTO offering assistance</a>. Despite Jeff Bezos&#8217; liberalism, this wouldn&#8217;t have been pro-bono, but considering the huge amounts of cash that were burned through building Healthcare.gov, that shouldn&#8217;t have been the issue.</p>
<p>The exchange is telling&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>An Amazon representative wrote to the committee on October 28 to describe the company’s contacts with the administration about the website.</p>
<p>Amazon sent the panel copies of emails, showing an employee of Amazon Web Services Inc (AWS) emailed two HHS officials on October 7 saying, &#8220;I hear there are some challenges with Healthcare.gov. Is there anything we can do to help?&#8221;</p>
<p>HHS’ Chief Technology Officer Bryan Sivak replied to Amazon by email on October 8: &#8220;I wish there was. I actually wish there was something I could do to help.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>When your CTO is saying about a site within his jurisdiction that he wishes he could help and he&#8217;s open enough to say it to an Amazon employee, you know he&#8217;s desperate.</p>
<p>Healthcare.gov was a train wreck. It still is. And will be for some time.</p>
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