We’ve officially come a long, long way from the Obama administration’s promises that the Affordable Care Act would be something of a cure all for everything that might ail the American health care system. In fact, the administration’s message today couldn’t be more clear – don’t expect too much from Obamacare, including from the website during this year’s open enrollment period.
That way, you may not be too disappointed. Yet, disappointed with ObamaCare many continue to be, with more most assuredly to follow.
The Obama administration is tamping down expectations for the next phase of Obamacare enrollment, saying outside estimates were too ambitious.
Obamacare’s second open-enrollment window begins Saturday. And although sign-ups have beaten expectations so far, officials from the Health and Human Services Department say they’re now expecting the pace of enrollment to slow.
Obama rose on lofty rhetoric back in the day … that was the day when everything wrong, in his view, with America would be put right – and we’d all get a puppy dog and our favorite candy come Christmas – one might suppose. Unfortunately, when it comes to making one website work, let alone a complex health care disaster few like and even fewer understand – well, that may have been just a little too much to expect from the current administration.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell is expecting at least some snags during the second year of ObamaCare sign-ups.
“We will have things that won’t go right. We will have outages, we will have downtime,” Burwell said Monday in a discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress.
Even after hundreds of federal workers spent months rebuilding the site, Burwell warned that some customers would run into glitches.
“Something will happen. What we need to do is be transparent, be fast and get it fixed,” Burwell said in one of her many public appearances ahead of open enrollment on Nov. 15.
Which is the long way of saying, better luck next year, suckers. But don’t hold your breath, or count on good medical care if you pass out from doing it.