Chief Justice Roberts is going to save ObamaCare one more time

"He (Roberts) sat passively for most of the rapid-fire questioning and made only one inquiry of real substance, near the end of Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr.’s presentation."

“If you’re right — if you’re right about Chevron, that would indicate that a subsequent administration could change that interpretation?” Roberts asked. 

Roberts’s question was referring to “Chevron deference,” a doctrine mostly unknown beyond the halls of the Capitol and the corridors of the Supreme Court. It refers to a 1984 decision, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., and it is one of the most widely cited cases in law.

Boiled down, it says that when a law is ambiguous, judges should defer to the agency designated to implement it so long as the agency’s decision is reasonable. (read more)

I received a tweet from an observant follower this morning. @thetrueoorah said "There is no greater threat to your life and liberty than a government that does not obey the law."

Not only did the democrats write a bad law, they wrote it poorly. Now having convinced everyone that "congress is broken", that they can't go back and fix it thru the proscribed constitutional process, they are just going to keep driving on the rims, as it where, and hope it will all work out.

People, we are taking too many shortcuts on the way to wherever our final destination may be.

ObamaCare Website Is Not "Fixed".

"Yesterday, I reported on the troubles I had accessing the new-and-improved HealthCare.gov. The Obama administration today said more than 1 million people accessed the site yesterday and that it was stable for users."

The president likewise touted the site’s performance today, part of a push to promote the law.

So I decided to try the site again this afternoon. This time, I didn’t see the “Please Wait” flags that bogged me down yesterday, but I had a more fundamental problem. When I got to the step of comparing health plans, I couldn’t see any.

ProPublica

"Health-care Web site’s lead contractor employs executives from troubled IT company"

"The lead contractor on the dysfunctional Web site for the Affordable Care Act is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show."

More than 100 former AMS employees are now senior executives or consultants working for CGI [the company that built the ACA Website] in the Washington area.

In 1997, AMS signed a $30 million contract to update the board’s archaic computer system. Four years later, with projected costs rising to $90 million, AMS was terminated. The company never delivered a workable system, according to a report by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.

“The code failed system tests, and attempts to fix the errors caused further delays and increased costs,’’ said the report, which also faulted the thrift board for insufficient oversight. It was one of three reviews that criticized AMS for substandard work, along with reports by the Defense Contract Management Agency and a private firm, Integrated Benefit Solutions, hired by the thrift board to review the project.

“They couldn’t fix the problems because they didn’t know how,’’ said Stiffler, the board official, who brought in a backup contractor that completed the job on time and within budget — after throwing out more than 95 percent of AMS’s software code and rewriting the rest.

Washington Post

"Sebelius: ‘I Don’t Work For’ People Who Want Me to Resign"

“My goal is to actually get the website up and running,” she [Sebelius] told reporters. “The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don’t work for and who do not want this program to work in the first place. I have had frequent conversations with the president and I have committed to him that my role is to get the program up and running and we will do just that.”

A group of 33 House Republicans on Wednesday sent a letter to President Obama calling for her resignation.

The Corner via Tweet (video at the link)

"Are Obamacare call centers outsourced too?"

@WhiteHouse are these #Obamacare "Call Centers" located in the United States? Pure irony if they are outsourced!
— Rosie Basset Hound (@Rosie_Bassett) October 21, 2013

I wouldn't be surprised if the call center was in India.
Obama hired a Canadian company to build the ObamaCare website to beguine with.

Twitchy,

Update: Commenter request after "read more"

Top 5: "Obamacare "Glitch" Explained In 25 Quotes"

1. “I hope they are working day and night to get this done. When they get it fixed, I hope they fire some people that were in charge of making sure that this thing was supposed to work.” — former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner,” Oct. 14

2. “A thousand Social Security numbers being sent to the wrong people is not a glitch!” — CNBC contributor Carol Roth on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Oct. 12

3. “How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn’t work?” — House Speaker John Boehner, Oct. 10

4. “Despite the widespread belief that the administration was not ready for the health law’s Oct. 1 launch, top officials and lead IT contractors looked us in the eye and assured us all systems were a go. Instead, here we are 10 days later, and delays and technical failures have reached epidemic proportions.” — Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) in a statement, Oct. 10

5. “We’re going to do a challenge. I’m going to try and download every movie ever made and you are going to try to sign up for Obamacare — and we’ll see which happens first.” — Jon Stewart to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on "The Daily Show," Oct. 7

Zero Hedge

Update: Woman nearly faints while hearing Obama explain the "glitches".
Consumer Reports: ‘Stay Away From HealthCare.gov’
Obamacare seeks to segregate patients, doctors by race

Just Another Gulch In The System

I said:

Low enrollment in Obamacare has so far been blamed on glitches in the system. Another reason is quite possibly that potential enrollees fear the secondary consequences of signing up: for immigrants, increased scrutiny of immigration status; for many poor, increased IRS scrutiny.

Aridog said:

El Pollo Raylon .... you are much closer to a real truth than you might imagine.

'ObamaCare sends confusing enrollment information to insurers'

"The federal health-care exchange that opened a dozen days ago is marred by snags beyond the widely publicized computer gridlock that has thwarted Americans trying to buy a health plan."
The problems stem from a feature of the online marketplace’s computer system that is designed to send each insurer a daily report listing people who have just enrolled. According to several insurance industry officials, the reports are sometimes confusing and duplicative. In some cases, they show — correctly or not — that the same person enrolled and canceled several times on a single day."

The ability of consumers to sign up for a health plan, and the ability of the insurers to know who they are covering, is key to the success of the federal law that will for the first time require most Americans to have health insurance starting Jan. 1."

“It’s a glitch that . . . needs to be fixed,” said a spokesman for the plan, who, like most insurers interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing the Obama administration."

James Turner, a software engineer from Derry, N.H., said he has spent seven hours since Oct. 2 trying to enroll but keeps encountering issues that make have made it impossible for him to complete the application. Turner, 51, one of a number of software engineers who have written online critiques of the system, said the most infuriating one involves his wife. According to the system, he said, “I have four spouses.”
He said it has been impossible to delete the phantom family members from his profile."

Washington Post

"healthcare.gov is already broken"

The first day of healthcare signups for the Affordable Care Act — more commonly known as Obamacare — got off to a bumpy start Tuesday morning, as the healthcare.gov website suffered technical glitches before being temporarily shut down altogether.

“We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” the website told users who attempted to sign up for health insurance. “Please try again later.”

Prior to the site shutting down, users who attempted to create an account were guided through various steps (such as picking a user name and password) but the process came to a grinding halt when it came time to pick various “security questions” for the account. The drop-down menu of security question options simply didn’t work.

“And healthcare.gov is already broken,” complained Kelly Campbell on Twitter, who joined others in venting their frustration online. “Can’t sign up for an account because all the security question options are blank.”

 Surprise! Obamacare health insurance exchange websites don’t work; HealthCare.gov a total mess

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/01/3662645/health-insurance-marketplace-plagued.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/01/3662645/health-insurance-marketplace-plagued.html#storylink=cpy

"'Family glitch' in health law could be painful"

"A "family glitch" in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say."

Congress defined "affordable" as 9.5% or less of an employee's household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the "error" was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn't provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges."

That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all."

More at the link... USA Today

Meanwhile, Politico now reports the birth of Obamacare as just something the campaign picked up, to punch up a campaign appearance.

Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA, when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.

Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?

Thus was born Obamacare, a check-the-box, news-cycle expedient that would ultimately define a president.

Define a president, who, after passing his own signature legislation, through both, the congress and the Supreme Court, needs Bill Clinton to explain it. Thereby redefining the real defining signature of Obama's presidency, "leading from behind."

President Obama is rolling out Bill Clinton once again to give him some desperately need public relations assistance, appearing with the former president late this afternoon in New York City to try to sell the unpopular Obamacare to Americans.

It’s the second time in recent weeks Clinton has been enlisted by Obama to promote Obamacare.

Bill’s service is hardly altruistic. Not only does he love being the center of attention, he may also want something from Obama in return for his PR work – an endorsement of Hillary, or at least a neutral stance in her expected primary fight with Vice President Joe Biden.

UPDATE: Cruz appears to be filibustering Obamacare. Si se puede!

USA Today , Politico , White House Dossier , Althouse