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We all know that once open enrollment began for the healthcare exchanges as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), there were multiple problems. The federal website crashed regularly. So did some state's websites. The marketplaces did not offer comparisons of various plans like was promised. No surprise then that the completed enrollments were fairly slow at first.
Despite the troubled rollout, millions of people still visited the site. The technical glitches were being worked on around the clock, and over the months following the botched virtual ribbon-cutting, the site's stability dramatically improved. Slowly, even more people began to visit.
Of course, still not every visitor completed the journey from starting the application to actually enrolling in a healthcare plan via the online exchanges. Still no surprise though. Choosing a healthcare plan is not like picking out which shirt to wear in the morning. It demands lots of comparison shopping and thoughtful consideration. It SHOULD take more than one visit to complete.
Factor in the predictable rush to enroll as the deadline approaches, and it's no surprise that heavy traffic might cause website crashes, and long waits via in-person and phone-in enrollment options. There would inevitably be many who would miss the March 31 deadline as a result.
That's why President Obama offered the deadline extension for those who began the process by March 31, but were not able to complete their enrollment by midnight. As long as you began the application process by March 31, you would still be allowed to complete your enrollment and get covered.
John Boehner had a fit over this, claiming that
"this is part of a long-term pattern of this administration manipulating the laws for its own convenience."
Let's just be blunt about this. John Boehner's comment shows him off as the blatantly hypocritical partisan who worries not about the best interests of his fellow Americans, but who instead only seeks any angle to sabotage President Obama. The damage done to the rest of America is just acceptable collateral damage.
This is no aggrandizement. Face it. The PPACA ("Obamacare") is here to stay. Refusing to work to improve the law is not going to change that fact. Actively working to sabotage it and keep people from enrolling blatantly harms Americans. It may be "convenient" that such inexcusable action also dings President Obama's image for some, but the real convenience here is John Boehner's ability to so quickly and blatantly contradict himself if it offers him the opportunity to take a pot-shot at President Obama. It was only in October that Boehner was actually calling for delaying the deadline for everyone. Now he is demonizing President Obama for simply letting people complete the healthcare applications they started but could not complete by March 31.
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I find these continual attempts to make President Obama a failure incredibly disgusting, and as much as I desire to refrain from questioning anyone's love of country, it is a greater misdeed to not call out this Republican obsession as patently un-American. This is especially so when your attacks on Obama hurt millions of Americans - not with demonizing words or approval ratings you seek to inflict upon President Obama - but with extremely serious real-life effects. When you actively seek to keep Americans from healthcare, Americans suffer not only real-life effects of your obsession, but real-death effects. It is one thing to criticize a sitting President if you disagree with policy. John Boehner's comment however is just the latest example of blatantly crossing the line into un-patriotic attacks on our President. We all suffer for it.
Now, here are my TOP TEN RESPONSES to John Boehner's comment...
10. What's next? Turning away people in long lines to vote?
9. So then, by your own logic, making healthcare enrollment an INconvenience for Americans is YOUR political "convenience".
8.Are you afraid that over 7 million will get health insurance - DESPITE your endless obstruction?
7.The GOP has placed nearly all its political eggs in the "making-Obamacare-a-failure" basket. And YOU are the one arguing that its degree of success is more about a political convenience - rather than it actually being about ending pre-existing condition exclusions, reducing the reality of emergency-room-as-primary-care because of such high rates of uninsured Americans, eliminating worthless junk insurance policies that bankrupt family savings because they don't cover the costs of major illnesses, ending annual and lifetime caps on needed care, making it illegal to not renew someone's insurance because they became ill, all while working to halt the hurtling rate of healthcare cost increases over the last decade? Really?!? YOU spend millions of taxpayer dollars trying to endlessly block fixing all these things, and then claim that OBAMA is the one acting only out of political "convenience" rather than for the good of Americans? I don't know what is more bronzed - your face or your brass balls!
6. When your political "convenience" relies on making healthcare reform an inconvenience for as many Americans as possible, YOU need to re-assess your values.
5. Seriously?!? You are bitching now because people who started the signup process by the end of March will be able to complete their healthcare enrollment in April?!? YOU were bitching only months ago that there was NO delay in the deadline for individuals to sign up. The only "convenience" here is your ability to attack President Obama and "Obamacare" by any and all angles - even if you have to blatantly and directly contradict your own arguments.
4.You really want to talk about "manipulating the laws"? It was only back in October that H. Res 368 took away the power of any House member to propose re-opening the government and put that power exclusively in your control. YOU made sure the government shutdown continued by blatantly "manipulating the laws".
3. The fewer people that sign up for healthcare, the more ALL our premiums will increase next year. Stop screwing us all, you idiot!
2. We'll make it "convenient" for you to find a new job in November, John
1. A**hole!
