Is Executive Action, the Solution to Second Term Blues?

The president will be delivering his fifth State of the Union address to Congress tomorrow, his people have given some hints that, to be honest, I found boring except for one. Floated by Jay Carney, of all people, is the idea that the presidency is getting ready to bypass congress and use executive orders to further his economic goals like income inequality and minimum wage. It's interesting because maybe it is telling us how the president plans to finish his last term in public office.

HealthCare.gov's small step in the right direction.

If you have an internet connection and you live in the United States of America, you have read the awful coverage that the Affordable Care Act has been getting. Most of the coverage was geared towards the faulty and very malfunctioning website, people were unable to sign up or pick plans, the site froze and generally was awful. That coverage of the glitches was giving the entire law a very negative image, and was reviving the Republican party that had been pretty decimated by the debt ceiling showdown. With his approval ratings in free fall and the threat of the Democrats losing the Senate in 2014, President Obama and his administration announced that they had given themselves a November 30th deadline for the website to be close to fully functioning.

The glitches that could doom Obamacare

 debt ceiling and shutdown drama, the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act or as it is commonly called Obamacare, on Oct. 1st has been a very big failure for the government. The website that was supposed to help people in 36 states register, has been plagued by glitches that have not allowed visitors to sign up or select plans. Originally the plan was for every state to set up their own healthcare exchange websites, but the conservative states governors refused setting up their own exchanges forcing the government to create one website for those states, heathcare.gov.

Building a fully functional website for the use of millions is no small challenge even when given around two years to build and sustain, but the failure of the administration especially the Health Department, was abysmal. Glitches are to be expected and growing pains are usual but complete shutdown mode and utter inefficiency are inexcusable. The taxpayers forked around 100 million dollars to create that website and being told that it has been shutdown for 42 hours, as was the case yesterday is upsetting and does not go a long way in getting people to like the law, a law whose popularity was actually on the rise during the debt crisis. The reporting on Obamacare is mostly centered on the glitches instead of the many benefits that the law offers like kids staying on their parents insurance until they are 26, no more preconditions and government subsidies for those who cannot afford health coverage.

The government has said that around 476,000 people have signed up for the law, an underwhelming number, and around half of those come from states with their own exchanges. The government is planning on giving the full number in November giving us a clearer picture. States exchanges websites, have shown to be much more functioning and have only suffered minor glitches. The target for the administration is to have seven million people enrolled in the program by March and going by these number form Oct. 1st, that goal seems impossible to achieve. The situation will only generate bad press for the law and give republicans ammunition to attack the law.

What this glitches are doing is completely overshadowing the content of the law. The Affordable Care Act, with its many imperfections, is still away to deal with the health care crisis that the country has and make sure that everyone gets a change to have heath coverage. Just because acquiring it is proving to be a problem does not mean that the product itself bad. Hopefully, the administration will find a solution to make the website even remotely functional and give people health care, like the law intended.

The Government is still shutdown

It was unbelievable when the government shut down seven days ago and it's still unbelievable now. The government closed because the House refused to pass a clean CR bill that would have funded the government until early December while they worked on compromise for raising the debt ceiling. Unfortunately for all of us the Tea Party hijacked everything a decided to attach a de-fund of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) measure as condition for funding the government. The White House and Senate predictably refused. The House offered a delay of a year, the Senate and the administration still refused. The shutdown happened.

The shut down is looming.

So on Monday if there is no spending bill passed by the Congress the government will shutdown. What does the shut down mean? It means that millions of government workers will go without pay, public parks and buildings will be closed, and the marketS will fall down. Of course those government workers who will be struggling to pay their bills will not include the members of Congress who are really at the origin of this mess.