So, . . . what's next?
Well, the primary Contractor for the federal exchange system, Canadian firm CGI federal, has already wrung up significant cost overruns in "building" the federally facilitated exchanges, . . . like 5 or 6 times the original cost estimate. DonDiego expects a lot more will be spent trying to get it right.
[DonDiego has had a little bit of experience programming, . . . enough to know how it works anyway. And in his career he spent lots of time working with programmers developing databases to document/process information related to testing defense systems.
This whole business isn't, . . . umm, . . . rocket science. All it is is creating a database to hold the information and implementing processes by which the data can be entered/processed/shared/etcetera to provide an "insurance policy" for an applicant with all the details of the policy, including its cost, and then handing it over to the insurance company.
None of this is groundbreaking. It's pretty much what insurance companies have been doing for years. It takes a lot of mismanagement to get it this wrong.]
Anyway, a lot more money is going to get thrown at the programing problem, . . . when the real problem is mismanagement.
And since the delays are, . . . umm, . . embarrassing to the current administration a quick solution will be demanded, . . . likely involving delaying certain programming elements once thought necessary. Of course some necessary elements have already been neglected, like detecting fraudulent applications - intending to game the system for payment subsidies higher than deserved.
And it still won't get fixed quickly.
Costs will rise.
In the meantime, the Government will start hiring folks to process paper insurance applications manually, . . . or technically start hiring more folks to process things manually. In early July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) granted the Serco Group $1.25 billion contract to review and process paper insurance applications for Obamacare’s 34 federally-operated exchanges.
“Serco is a highly-skilled company that has a proven track record in providing cost-effective services to numerous other federal agencies,” said a spokesman for HHS. Nonetheless, Reuters reports that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office is now investigating Serco after the company reportedly overbilled the British Government as much as $80 million for criminal electronic monitoring devices.
Anyway, Serco and others will now get lots more work, . . . paperwork, . . . until/if the faulty electronic system is fixed.
Costs will rise.
DonDiego opines there'll have to be a delay in implementing Obamacare, . . . 'cause one cannot apply a penalty-tax against someone for not buying insurance if one does not provide a means by which someone can buy the mandatory insurance.
Hmm, . . . "delay Obamacare", . . . DonDiego has heard that before.
And once it is implemented, and folks, . . . especially younger folks, . . . find out what it costs, including deductibles, DonDiego expects lots of sick folks and lots of old folks will sign up and insufficient healthy young folks will sign up to actually provide the revenue necessary to sustain the "insurance system".
And as the penalty-tax rises for the first several years - sorta like boiling a frog in a pan, one cannot start out with the water too hot - the dissatisfaction of the young will grow.
[This points out a significant flaw in the Obamacare Insurance. It is not insurance. A self-sustaining insurance company is run based upon computation of the expected costs likely to be incurred by a client - based upon all sorts of statistically relevant medical data - and subsequent computation of a price so as to on average cover those costs and provide some profit. The price of Obamacare Insurance, once subsidies are applied, is primarily dependent upon what the applicant can pay.]
The result will be w-a-a-a-a-y insufficient funds to run the system. This realization will be followed by all sorts of solutions - like making it even more mandatory, reducing payments to health care providers, limiting services to clients, charging more to "those who can afford it", etc., etc., etc.
Quality will decline. And costs will rise anyway.
And eventually someone will recognize that this medical insurance program just isn't working, . . . and propose that the Government has to take over administration of the entire medical system of the USA.
[The suspicious among the population might well suspect that designing a mandatory faux-insurance system that is destined to fail might have been the the first step toward this objective all along.]
Oh, . . . and then costs will rise. But at least the Government will have relieved the citizenry of the burden of making their own medical decisions.
And the suspicious will have learned the lesson of Winston Smith:
"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."__1984
