Debug Effort Speeds Up As Hearings Commence
HHS details debugging efforts. AP: "Unexpectedly high consumer interest that overwhelmed the system in its initial days. Equipment has been added to handle the load and system design has been improved. More fixes are in progress. — Lack of a way for consumers to browse their health plan options without first having to set up a user account. A partial fix is in place. — Incorrect or duplicate information in enrollments is being delivered to insurance companies. Some software fixes that should help address the issue have been completed, others are underway. — Difficulties for consumers trying to create user accounts, including drop-down menus that didn't work. Design changes and software fixes should address the situation."
Fingerpointing ensues as contractors prepare to testify to Congress. AP: "Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI, suggested in prepared testimony that Congress should look beyond the contractors. HHS 'serves the important role of systems integrator or "quarterback" on this project and is the ultimate responsible party for the end-to-end performance,' she said. Overwhelming interest from consumers triggered the website problems, she said. 'No amount of testing within reasonable time limits can adequately replicate a live environment of this nature,' she said. Andy Slavitt, representing QSSI's parent company... blamed the administration, saying that a late decision to require consumers to create accounts before they could browse health plans contributed to the overload. 'This may have driven higher simultaneous usage of the registration system that wouldn't have occurred if consumers could window-shop anonymously,' he said."
How GOP handle oversight hearings? Politico: "There’s congressional oversight that answers everyone’s most urgent questions - and then there’s just heckling from the partisan peanut gallery. Over the next few weeks, Republicans are going to have to decide which path they’re going to take as they open hearings into the broken Obamacare website."
State websites working well, federal sites improving. Bloomberg: "With many Republican-controlled states refusing to build exchanges, supporters of the law from Texas to Michigan to Florida have been relying on the troubled federal site and preaching patience, rather than enrolling the uninsured ... More than half of about 500,000 enrollees since the Oct. 1 opening come from the 14 states running their own exchanges independent of the U.S. government ... The delays that have plagued the federal healthcare.gov website may be improving ... [In Florida,] the navigators [had been] forced to rely mostly on the government’s call-in line and paper applications to sign up people. This week, they’re using the website more often."
Obama campaign tech alums compare their own debugging struggles to today. Mother Jones: "...when they rolled out a new product, such as the much-hyped Dashboard application for digital organizing, they did so in bits and pieces and tested it beforehand. It broke. A lot. ... former Obama techies agree that Healthcare.gov could have avoided some kinks with more strenuous pre-launch testing. But they generally think that the administration's most ambitious technology project never had a chance ... tasked with building a site that had to be compatible with hundreds of different health insurance providers and dozens of state databases. It was a daunting task complicated by out-of-date technology ..."
Fresh Momentum For Immigration
Obama to push immigration in WH speech today. The Hill: "White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the White House had been consulting with congressional staff about how to best move forward. Republicans have said that they do not favor a comprehensive bill, instead favoring a piecemeal approach to immigration reform. They argue a single bill would be too unwieldy and difficult to implement. But Democrats believe Republicans intend to pass new border security measures without also including a pathway to citizenship."
Boehner keeps door open. TPM: "'I still think immigration reform is an important subject that needs to be addressed. And I'm hopeful,' Boehner told reporters at a weekly Capitol Hill briefing."
Rep. Issa proposes "halfway" bill. Politico: "Rep. Darrell Issa is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States ... 'It’s halfway – and it always has been – halfway between full amnesty and simply rejecting people,' Issa [said] ... despite behind-the-scenes progress on writing new immigration measures, it’s unclear whether legalization bills drafted by Republicans would be able to pass the House, particularly if Democrats withhold their votes. A bloc of conservatives say they will oppose any immigration measure brought to the House floor."
Farm bill negotiations begin next week. W. Post: "The Senate bill, passed in June with bipartisan support, would cut about $4 billion from food stamps over the next decade. The House’s Republican-backed measurewould slash almost $40 billion in food stamp funding over the next decade, mostly by rewriting eligibility rules for beneficiaries. [Sen. Debbie] Stabenow said Senate Democrats will oppose cuts much higher than those they’ve approved."
Conservative ALEC Targets State Public Pensions
ALEC looks to cut pensions in 2014. St. Louis Beacon: "ALEC initially had proposed a shift to 401K-type pensions in the states about a decade ago, when the stock market was booming and then-President George W. Bush was making a similar proposal to change part of Social Security. But now, part of ALEC's pitch is that more private-sector workers have 401Ks, and no longer have defined benefit pensions. The group argues that it's unfair for taxpayers with 401Ks to foot more generous pensions for public employees."
"Wall Street’s favorite Democrat wants your pension" writes Salon's David Sirota: "...we [now] know the kind of corruption and damage the [pension] 'reforms' mean for taxpayers and retirees ... The first set of revelations comes from a detailed forensic analysis of Rhode Island’s pension system by Forbes columnist and former SEC investigator Edward Siedle ... the data-driven analysis ends up reading like a criminal indictment of the speculator-turned-State-Treasurer Gina Raimondo (D) ... The report documents a 'staggering, almost 700 percent planned increase in (pension) investment expenses from $11 million to an estimated $70 million—fees paid to Wall Street hedge fund and other alternative managers' who control the so-called alternative investments in hedge funds ..."
Republicans Push Social Security/Medicare Cuts
House Majority Leader Cantor says GOP wants cuts in mandatory spending to replace sequester. The Hill quotes: "The Republicans in the majority in the House do not believe we ought to raise taxes, and we will not go about raising taxes in exchange for sequester relief. What we want to do instead is to allow for sequester relief and put into law mandatory savings that in the long run will exceed the kind of spending reductions that are in the sequester."
GOP sees sequester as leverage. The Hill: "...during the GOP meeting, [Rep. Paul] Ryan pointed to sequestration as the party’s leverage with Democrats and said the Republican negotiators would not accept revenue increases in exchange ... McConnell has said the GOP would try to lock in sequester spending levels, and other Republican lawmakers said Wednesday they viewed that as perhaps their only point of leverage. 'The sequester’s our leverage,' Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said. 'I don’t know how much we have at this point. There’s not much beyond that.'"
