Government launches are always flawless, don't you know?
There was the "failed" Challenger Launch that has been etched into our collective memories:
govhealthit.com -- October 31, 2013
For the sake of argument, let’s take a rocket launch. NASA certainly does end-to-end preliminary testing, and yet on the pad, all sorts of missions have been delayed over computer glitches. Sadly, some missions have failed completely, to the tragic loss of life.
Did NASA fold up shop and go home? Well hardly.
Quitting is not what they do.
And then there was the Presidential assertion that "Major combat operations in Iraq are now over" ...
pbs.org -- April 14, 2003
Although large-scale battles appeared to be over, McChrystal stressed fighting would continue.
"I think we will move into a phase where it is smaller, albeit sharp, fights," he said.
And how many more people died due to that "failed launch" to find those phantom WMD -- that as it turned out did not even exist?
Where was the reflexive GOP Outrage then?
How long was before "the real 9-11 Mission" was actually in fact accomplished?
And then there's this "failed launch" that was actually a lot more analogous to what's happening now, with the launch of the Affordable Care Act ...
govhealthit.com -- October 31, 2013
How about Medicare Part D? It was quite a mess for at least six months, as the government struggled (under a Republican administration) to get it right.
That "failed" Medicare Part D rollout even featured
a balky website too.
Where was the selective GOP Outrage then?
Answer: It was nowhere to be found -- because that botched launch, was their botched launch ...
Take that Republican Plan to "Fix Medicare" prescription drugs payment rules ...
THAT Government launch just went flawlessly -- well not exactly ...
Obamacare and the limits of the wayback machine
by David Nather, politico.com -- Oct 28, 2013
[...]
“If it gets fixed, six months from now it will be remembered as a rocky episode and nothing more,” said Mike Leavitt, who presided over the Medicare Part D launch as President George W. Bush’s Health and Human Services secretary. But if the HealthCare.gov website is still failing by then, Leavitt said, “it will brand Obamacare in a very harsh light.”
Lately, House Democrats have been using the wayback machine to remind the public that the early weeks of the Medicare prescription drug program in late 2005 and early 2006 were pretty disastrous, too. Rep. Henry Waxman of California, ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released a memo that recounted a host of problems, from a glitchy website of its own to overloaded call centers and seniors who couldn’t get their prescriptions filled.
It’s the Democratic counterpoint to the series of hearings House Republicans are holding on the klutzy start of Obamacare enrollment, which will continue with Tuesday’s questioning of Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and will peak with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s testimony on Wednesday.
[...]
MEMORANDUM -- October 23, 2013
To: Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Democratic Members and Staff
Fr: Committee on Energy and Commerce Democratic Staff
Re: Issues with Implementation of Medicare Part D
[...]
I. PROBLEMS WITH THE MEDICARE PART D WEBSITE AND ENROLLMENT TOOLS
The website and sign-up process for the Medicare Part D program began in early October 2005 and immediately ran into problems. The Bush Administration was forced to acknowledge that the Medicare & You handbook, mailed to over 38 million seniors, contained inaccurate details and information about the Part D program.[6]
The centerpiece of the new drug program -- the online Medicare Drug Plan Finder, which was designed to allow seniors to search for and sign up for Part D drug plans, was repeatedly delayed. Originally scheduled to go online on October 15, 2005, it was not launched until November 8 -- and immediately caused problems for consumers with long waiting times and slow processing.[7]
Even after several weeks, seniors still faced significant barriers to plan enrollment. Website glitches provided seniors with inaccurate cost estimates.[8] One article described the online experience:
[Seniors] logged onto www.medicare.gov, they called Medicare’s information hot line …, and they waited. And they waited. And waited. … Medicare’s computer servers were overwhelmed by the traffic …. And since the phone counselors at the federal agency and at state and local call centers around the nation all use the same Web site, they weren’t as much help as they should have been either. Other frustrations awaited those who managed to get logged on: Information on some plans was incomplete, and people sometimes found themselves referred to other sources to get the information they needed.[9]
[...]
And what of that "Medicare Part D" glitchy launch -- that the GOP
conveniently ignored at the time?
Answer: It went on to become an accepted part of the American health care payment system.
Botched Launches aside, the American People still need Health Care. And no matter 'the fumbles' along the way -- those trying provide such 'affordable care' WILL eventually score the goals.
All selective, reflexive, outrageous politics aside ... the ACA will eventually accomplish its mission, if the winning team doesn't fold up shop, and go home.
If we do, they "win" by default ... and we all know what their kind of winning looks like ... a return to the "standard practice" of Medical Bankruptcies anyone?
Talk about 'failure to launch'! The GOP really does need to take a long look in their own mishaps mirror ... before blaming others of the same kind of 'flaws'.