http://professor-lyman.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] professor-lyman.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2013-11-14 11:31 am
Entry tags:

Current Affairs [Thursday, November 14, 2013]

"Right," Josh said, sipping from his coffee. "The very first numbers were released yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services about how many new people have signed up for health care since the law was enacted a month ago. And drumroll please--" he banged on his desk for a bit, "--the number is not zero, but it's a lot closer to zero than it is to the half-million people they'd been hoping to announce. And while they were announcing the numbers, the website that had them on it crashed."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Somewhere in Heaven my old boss is screaming a lot about football metaphors and the White House tripping over their own feet. Democrats being Democrats--especially Democrats being up for election in 2014--are already starting to panic and are introducing various pieces of legislation that are basically the Covering Our Asses Acts of 2013. They are good and pissed that when Obama said 'if you like your plan, you can keep it' that was only mostly true. It's supposed to only apply to plans that didn't really cover anything anyway, but no one can check and realize that they're getting a better deal with this new law because the website is still terrible and it doesn't look like it'll be fixed before November 30th like the administration wanted."

He crossed his legs out in front of him. "Now some of this is because more states than they'd anticipated said screw it and didn't make their own websites, some of it's because the government is inherently terrible at making something that is nimble, and some of it is Republican Chicken Little-esque 'the sky is falling' rhetoric, but no one wants to hear excuses from a guy whose name is in the name of the thing, and the President's poll numbers are crashing. Now if you were in the White House, what would you be advising them to do? Other than hide under their desks until January?"
arsenicmauls: (?: say what now neg (pb))

Re: Sign in [11/14]

[personal profile] arsenicmauls 2013-11-14 11:23 am (UTC)(link)
Gertrude Yorkes
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Awww maaaaaan)

Re: Sign in [11/14]

[personal profile] spin_kick_snap 2013-11-15 08:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Kathy Li
arsenicmauls: (conv: critical moment of what? (pb))

Re: Fix Obamacare!

[personal profile] arsenicmauls 2013-11-14 11:32 am (UTC)(link)
"Well, a competent tech team might be a start," Gert remarked. "What happened to that Harper Reed guy? Since when does it take months to fix a website?"
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Bitchy Sneer)

Re: Fix Obamacare!

[personal profile] spin_kick_snap 2013-11-15 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"Why don't they offer a bunch of kids graduating with degrees in programming some money to fix it and/or make a website for their state?" Kathy asked. "You know, something like 'After many hours of debate, by which we mean we picked the name of the university out of a hat, we've decided to offer $500 to a group of 10 seniors to make the Obamacare website for their own state.' Heck, let the school pick the best site and you don't have to do anything more than implement it."