Is deliberate sabotage partly behind Obamacare's supposed failures when there are examples of success to follow?

As of November 13, the state of Washington—one of 36 states that accepted the expanded Medicaid provision in the Affordable Care Act—enrolled more than 68,000 into Medicaid, compared to 9,230 in private plans in the insurance exchange program. The media has focused almost exclusively on the private plan numbers in its calculations on the success or failure of so-called “Obamacare.” Why the expanded Medicaid numbers, which in many states account for 90 percent of the total that have benefited under the provisions of the ACA, are not included in the overall number supplied by the media suggests that it is only interested in “bad” news. 

Nevertheless, it is an unfortunate fact that while a few states like Washington and California seem to have their act together, the state between them—Oregon—like so many others is completely off the ball. In that state, the software program designed to distinguish between those who qualify for subsidized private insurance plans or for Medicaid is so error prone as to be useless, forcing the state to hire hundreds of temporary workers to sift through thousands of paper applications. Elsewhere, states that are relying on the federal exchange website have encountered persistent and seemingly unsolvable glitches—and maybe for reasons the media won’t tell you about.

The Los Angeles Times recently touted the success of Washington’s mostly successful launch as due both to its high-tech sector and its embrace of “Obamacare.” Other states that set-up their own healthcare exchanges—and doing them right—have had similar success. That begs the question as to why the federal government with all its resources cannot get it “right”—and allowing opponents of the ACA a platform to “kill” it and damage Obama’s “legacy.” The tech company that was tasked to construct Healthcare.gov—CGI—was first contracted by the Bush administration; since it had an on-going contract to supply computer programs and IT support for among other things Medicaid and Medicare, current procurement policy forced the Obama administration to continue to employ the company to set-up the ACA website. Apparently CGI was too “old school” to handle the project.

Given the fact that most of the states that have refused to establish their own health care exchanges are in Republican-controlled states, forcing the federal website to do all the heavy lifting, there is naturally the suspicion that those states—Kentucky being an exception—have worked behind the scenes to sabotage the ACA. Those who make this claim are being accused of engaging in “wild” conspiracy theorizing. But given the Republican/Tea Party’s seemingly psychotic efforts to repeal healthcare reform—and their history of dirty-dealing in the shadows—one ought to at least take into consideration certain “curious” facts.

For example, the principle reason for the complexities of the ACA were numerous attempts by Democrats to compromise on parts of the law considered too “socialist” even  for the “moderate” Northeastern Republicans; in order to gain their vote to force debate closure, tweaks here and there were inserted that only served to make the law more cumbersome to implement. And for what? No Republican voted for the final bill anyways, but the damage had been done—which is exactly what Republicans had intended. Why should we be so blind about that reality?

Also, in many Republican-controlled states efforts by local health care providers to make the transition into the exchanges easier were often the victims of deliberate sabotage by Republican lawmakers who insisted on adding new questions that made it more complicated for consumers to navigate the application process; these interferences became so intrusive that many providers simply gave-up the process. Such Republican interference and/or refusal of those states without their own exchanges to coordinate with insurers in providing plans likely adds to the fact that the federal website is having trouble making “contact.” 

And was it merely “coincidence” that Republicans timed the recent government shutdown with the start of the open enrollment period, cutting or reallocating resources elsewhere that could have been used to more rapidly address the problems with federal website? Republicans and their Tea Party Brown Shirts and storm troopers actual intention during the shutdown had little to do with the debt issue, but almost everything to do with making things so bad that the Democrats would bow to their wishes on “Obamacare.” Only when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, did they decide to “compromise.” 

Since there are states that are showing the way to do things right, just because there are others that have been incompetently implementing reform doesn’t mean the ACA is a “failure”; it just means that either through incompetence or deliberate obstruction things have not gone as “smoothly” across the board as would have been hoped. But with any project this big, what is needed is support, not obstruction. We should not be clouded by right-wing politicians and their media stooges that have joined forces to muddy the picture. Obstruction and misinformation—not the needs of millions of Americans who have been denied what others apparently have either taken for granted or who see health care as “privilege” if you can afford it—are seemingly the only “facts” worth disseminating. CNN may claim to see "both" sides, but it clearly prefers the Republican/Tea Party "spin." No wonder many ill-informed people are “frightened” about health care reform. 

It’s funny, but many seem to have forgotten what it was like before the ACA; we want to go back to that? To something far worse—now and in the future, with costs going up and more people being uninsured with no hope that they can be?  That is supposed to be “better”? We need health care reform now and not the partisan and media bullshit—or all we will be left with is the bullshit.