This article, written by CNN's political analyst Gloria Borger, raises the question: how could President Obama not have known about the problems with the Obamacare website rollout, as well as the controversial false promise of, "you can keep any plan you may already have"? Apparently, the reason why this rollout has been such a clunky debacle is because "no one was really in charge, so no one knew for sure how bad the overall picture was." That is, the healthcare experts, tech experts and political experts all stayed in there own fields, which resulted in a failure to tie the entire package together.
A "mad, frustrated and angry" (words of senior administration aides) President Obama expressed his discontent at a recent press conference, saying "had I been informed, I wouldn't be going out saying, boy, this is going to be great. You know, I'm accused of a lot of things, but I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying, this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity, a week before the website opens, if I thought it wasn't going to work."
Some former administration officials say that the lack of internal communication is due to the "infamous no-drama Obama credo," that no one wanted to be the naysayer or the bearer of bad news. One ex-White House official stated that "it's hard to go in there and say, 'Well, I don't think this is going to work.'"
Borger notes the irony in the administration's efforts to "spare the drama created a huge theatrical mess all of its own." The article ends on a suspenseful and climactic note in the context of this fumble of politics and policy: "The reviews [of Obamacare] are lousy, and now the unhappy leading man is stewing, centerstage."
I have supported and will continue to support President Obama. He is a trustworthy leader who wants what's best for the country. Nevertheless, this has been a dreadfully cumbersome rollout of an otherwise primarily acceptable plan. The website's glitches were much bigger than initially thought by all involved, and many people are justifiably upset by the knowledge that they cannot, in fact, keep a healthcare plan that doesn't meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. My family received one of the letters that broke such news; our plan doesn't meet all of Obamacare's requirements. To be honest, this is an inconvenience, but it won't drown us; we can afford to pay a little more in order to oblige with this legislation (and has that concept not yet been considered by all those who so fiercely oppose President Obama? That to achieve a relatively equal and "more perfect Union," those who can pay just a little more, do so, for the sake of the national community?). Of course, there are some who cannot afford to pay a little more. This is a problem; it is on the mend. Still, the fact is that only 4.8 million out of 300 million Americans have received plan-cancellation letters. That equates to just two percent of the U.S. population, and that's rounding up.
Much of the other gripe is about the glitch-tastic healthcare.gov website. I don't mean to dismiss any fault; certainly, it should have been ready when it was supposed to be, and it's unfortunate that it wasn't. But the website is not the people's only way to get healthcare. It can easily be done on the phone, in person, etcetera. Let's not make the internet the chief distributor of rights and resources.
It is the contention of some that the commander-in-chief is trying to place the blame to someone else, such as the Republican party. However, this is an utterly foolhardy and closed-minded accusation; President Obama has repeatedly apologized for the rollout and website dilemmas, saying, "I am sorry that they [i.e. the American people] are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me." This apologetic statement, among others, is enough to refute without challenge Republican senator John Boehner's assertion that Obama was merely trying to "shift blame rather than solve the problem."
Furthermore, some argue that Obama has been lying from the start of this whole production, that he was well-informed and simply chose to lie to the American people about the Affordable Care Act. Of course, such would have been a very poor and foolish lie to make, as its consequences--very real at this point in time, regardless of whether or not lies have been told--would have been duly noted by the people, and the president's obvious mendacity would've been exposed in a heartbeat. One wouldn't claim to have eaten one's vegetables while they lie in plain sight on one's plate. To call the president a blatant liar is a foolish accusation, devoid of abstract thought and based on the simpleminded indignation which fills those who have already developed in an unshakable bias against the nation's current leader.
In short, if he lied, that means he probably didn't think the public would notice any one of the problems with the rollout.
And he isn't that stupid.
Article: http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/opinion/borger-obama-clinton/index.html?hpt=us_mid
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