This post by Ann Barnhardt chilled me to the bone. Could this be true?
"The fact that the ObamaCare website is a complete clusterbungle that is totally inoperative is 100% INTENTIONAL.
It was designed to cause denial of service attacks on ITSELF, people. Come on. Wake up. This isn’t difficult.
This reminds me exactly of the Ukraine under Stalin in the early
1930s. The Ukraine is the breadbasket of eastern Europe. Tremendous
farming and wheat production was centered in the Ukraine. Under Lenin,
and then Stalin, all farms and food production were seized and
controlled by the state. The Soviets hated the Ukrainians and wanted
them all dead. All of them. So here’s what they did:"
Please read both of the above links and tell me what you think.
The photograph of the Ukrainian family is horrific, as is their story of survival.
ReplyDeleteThat photo is very upsetting. How horrible.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think it's a real stretch to compare the two. More than a stretch.
OTOH, the Natural News article on the Obamacare javascript code was very interesting and I agree with his conclusions. I hope he is correct and that this abortion of a bill fails on its own.
ReplyDeleteNo surprise. Design was by contractors who sub-contracted to others, who in turn subcontracted to more others...for the lowest bid possible. It is this way on purpose...cronies get the first contract and the 2nd one, start ups with zero experience get the 3rd. But don't believe me, I have only worked there, in this field.
ReplyDeleteObama and his acolytes are Cloward-Piven and Alinsky disciples. You cannot brew Grand Cru from pure shit. When you scour bowels and rectums you get shit, not grape juice. They want shit. They will not negotiate, because that might lead to enlightenment. They design to fail, both by intent and just by astounding ignorance and obstinate dumb-shitted-ness....it makes no difference to them. A collapse of epic financial proportions is what they want...and they seem to be on their way to getting it.
That's what I was afraid of. Both evil AND mind-boggling stupidity.
DeleteWhat do you think will happen aridog? Will they actually fix the website, or maybe just ASSIGN each of us a plan?
Comrade, pay your "premium" or it's to the gulag!
Hi florrie!
ReplyDeleteThe incompetence of the ObamaCare rollout is baffling. Why would they launch something without testing it? If it's intentional, we're in trouble. If it's not intentional, we're also in trouble.
The whole thing is just weird.
Unintentional, but quite predictable.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about how one _would_ go about architecting an exchange - the national Obamacare site specifically - the truth is, it is not an easy or obvious thing.
The easy and obvious way to put it together would be to hit a zillion different databases on virtually every screen. Which is what it apparently does, and which breaks instantly.
Getting to talk to many, many different government databases - databases hosted by old, legacy systems - and update those databases transactionally - making sure that they are all consistent and coherent for your records - and doing so with an interface which is intuitive and responsive - for tens of thousands of simultaneous requests, and millions of visits per day - consistent with thousands of pages of statute and government regs -
... well you get the idea.
I think this is do-able - but it is frankly at the limit of the current art. There are maybe a dozen teams globally that could pull this off. Mostly they are at Google, Yahoo, maybe some top-flight consultancies. They are not in government and they do not work for government.
If Romney had won and tried to implement Romney care nation wide, we'd probably be looking at the same level of clusterf**k. Especially given that his campaign couldn't put together their own mission critical apps.
The only thing that gives me pause is that Obama's campaign team could and did roll out amazing, scalable software. Of course those idiot hipsters did it mostly for the love, because it was cool. The health care exchange is just not an exciting, sexy, hipster problem.
Are those the only kind of programmers who could do this? Sadly yes. The techniques that would actually make this kind of system work were all invented after 2005 and reached wide scale adoption around 2010. Someone trained in how to do a database driven web ap circa 2004 is worse than useless right now.
Oregon is better off than most - they are doing their own exchange, Oregon is relatively small, and the site is more functional than the national site - and it's still messed up. They can't figure out how to calculate subsidies (likely because the law is ambiguous and not self consistent). No ETA for when it will be up and working. Regardless, my existing insurance is set to be cancelled Jan 1.
I'm certainly no techie, but why couldn't they start with a simple system until everyone is signed up and the kinks are worked out; then they could advance to a more complex system?
DeleteI mean, billions of people have FB, and it works most of the time.
Here's an idea: for the first year, can't they just clump people into groups?
The young and healthy pay $100 with a $1000 deductible, middle aged and healthy pay $200 with a $2000 deductible, pre-existing requiring no hospitalization to manage pay $300 with a $3000 deductible, smokers/grossly overweight/chronic illnesses requiring multiple hospitalizations pay $400 with a $4000 deductible.
Get everybody in the system, then fine tune it. Everybody. No exemptions.
I know it's ultra-simplistic, but coupled with tort reform and an emphasis on wellness, I'll bet it would generate enough money to do the job.
All I know is that my patients are scared half to death. The state is cutting our home health staffing. The closest hospital is closing whole wings on a day to day basis because of low census numbers. In the trenches, everything is a real mess.
I would add: Ann Barnhardt is obviously smart and accomplished, given her bio. I appreciate that she understands the proper role of financial market making. Her apprehension about the current state of affairs in this country is well founded.
ReplyDeleteYet she's also, IMHO, pretty overwrought and somewhat toxic. I've recently decided to limit my exposure to this kind of over the top rhetoric because I find it makes me less effective in sorting out what's what, not more. And excess anxiety isn't something I need.
When someone starts talking about "musloids", I'm reminded that the price of retaining one's humanity is to grant everyone else theirs - a plot I fear she's in danger of losing.
I don't mean to pooh pooh the idea that there is a crisis situation - just that I don't find it worthwhile to get as caught up as she.
The left wing press is pretty much losing its collective mind and calling out half the country as sub human.
Let them. Don't follow suite.
Not out of virtue, but because when all around you are losing their heads, if you can retain some calm, you have the advantage.
DeleteYet she's also, IMHO, pretty overwrought and somewhat toxic. I've recently decided to limit my exposure to this kind of over the top rhetoric because I find it makes me less effective in sorting out what's what, not more. And excess anxiety isn't something I need.
That is how I felt as well.
Wise words lewy.
DeleteEr, that should be follow suit. Apparently.
ReplyDeleteWhat do I think? Here is a comment I just posted on another blog. In short, I am now too numb to think.....
ReplyDeletexyz said...
" At this point what difference does it make."
Unfortunately, you are very correct in this assumption. The "shutdown" is a mirage, with a mere 17% or less actually furloughed, and 83% still working and on payroll. How the mirage is stage managed is all that you can see, carefully crafted to garner publicity felt to be good for the ruling party and bad for the opposition. How true that turns out is yet to be determined.
You see, taxes are still being collected from payrolls, and virtually all offices are lighted, and staffed. Those that appear to be "down" are hiding in plain sight. A great many obligaitons are being met, only those that have some sting value are temporarily set aside, and subsequently met. The furloughed 17% have already been asured they will be paid for not working. Do YOU get paid for not working? In short, your government is running at full 100% steam and is stage managed to imply stress and shortfalls. If you don't think this is true I know that you have never worked in federal government, nor submitted even a tiny portion of an Executive Budget, nor studied it much either. It is now a beast that thrives stand alone. It does so because it can. We've over the years built an institutionalized self-sustaining creature that collects revenue and expends it as it sees fit.
The new Autocracy will spend whatever it sees fit, print whatever money it needs, and defy any ceiling it chooses. It no longer needs you or me except to pay up. Plenty of piss ant countries are run this way, and now we are as well. It is important to realize that it is not Obama personally, it is the party and only the party. Obama came to his job with all the skills necessary and that was solely a glib tongue.
zyx said...
" No more power to government."
It is too late for that. The government as an institutionalized mass of bureaucrats has surpassed any need for public support short of a violent uprising. Think of it as a feudal aristocracy where warlords and kings rule, all with courts of sponsors and acolytes, but otherwise as they see fit. No real "congress" nor " independent" judiciary. Such systems worked for far long than our fairly new Republic has survived. Even arch Marxists have corrupted the words by calling themselves "democratic republics." We are ourselves now a "democratic republic" in the literal sense of the words.
You see, what occurs with bureaucracy run amok is that the swarming mass adopts a "party", whichever one serves its, the institutionalized mass's, self-sustaining interest. When you look upon the vestige of the IRS's Lois Lerner or Steven T. Miller, that arrogance of posture is a reflection of the divine right of bureaucracy. It is too late to stop it now, it has morphed over to run independent of legislation or judicial oversight or even leadership by an individual executive. The leadership must kneel before the bureaus and the party. No higher authority exists now than the party. I've sat across the table from the likes of Miller or Lerner and I can testify that opposing them and all those like them is folly, you have a better chance trying to fly by flapping your arms.
When I retired I was running away, I was too tired of it all to continue in a job I otherwise enjoyed in the performance for the public. The bureaucrats wore me down and I ran away.
October 12, 2013 at 12:14 AM
Very eloquent posts, Aridog. What you say makes me want to weep.
DeleteYes, well put Ari.
DeleteThing is - when did it happen? Certainly not right this moment - not even five years ago - maybe ten? Maybe 20? Maybe 1933? Maybe 1913? Maybe a little bit of all of the above?
The only thing new is that the pretenses are being abandoned.
Thanks for the heartfelt post aridog. It saddens me, but I still see you as a true warrior. You have insights that we don't have; sharing your knowledge and teaching those around you is critical if we're to ultimately drive these rats back into the sewer.
DeleteLewy asks...when did it happen. Well, for a starting point I'd use what the Wall Street Journal said...1961. Here is what I wrote elsewhere today and have written here in the past, a refresher of sorts, to put numbers to our assumptions...
DeleteLet me clarify my comments on senior executives in government, including the military flag ranks.
1> There are over 950 Admirals and Generals (Flag Ranks) in the USA military, which is made up of approximately 1.4 Million people. That is roughly 1480 people per general or admiral...a number normally commanded by a Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel....which are equivalent to Civil Services grades of GS-15 or 14 respectively...neither are "flag" ranks.
2. At present our government has approximately 7000 SES (Flag Rank, just like generals they have their own special flag) executives and it seeks to grow larger, of course. With federal employment at 1.9 Million, each SES "oversees" about 270 people, just slightly more than what a Captain would oversee in the military. Remember a Captain is a "junior" officer, while an SES executive is flag rank, like generals and admirals.
3. If we reduced military flag ranks and SES flag ranks by a mere 17% that would cut a paltry 1343 people or so...leaving still far more "executives" than any ordinary organization would need.
4. I am not imagining all this duplication and overlap and redundancy. The Wall Street Journal on 26 April 12 put up an article on this very issue. It showed that between 1961 and 2009 the management layers in an average agency grew from 7 to 18. Further, the average number of executives in each layer grew from 457 to 2600. And those numbers do not count the 7.5 Million contractor employees of the federal government, let alone the civil service grades, who actually oversee and perform the work of government.
lewy14 said ...
ReplyDeleteUnintentional, but quite predictable.
I was and is both, if you believe in the Cloward-Piven strategy is in play. Anything legislated so crudely and constructed so amateurishly is designed to fail. This stage is merely the antecedent to Medicare cradle to grave, and that to total autocracy of the party.
Thank you, I'll take my tin foil hat now.
BTW...I am sure I discussed a potential application of the FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefit Program) plan previously. It has been up and running smoothly for over 50 years. It is portable. It has no prior condition exclusions. It is both "national" and state organized, though one federal office, that contracts entirely with private sector insurance providers, and offer at least a dozen alternative plans in each state or nationally, selectable annually in an open period. It is already staffed. No additional senior executive layers would be necessary, just some mid-level civil servants...to handle increased volume. Federal staffing rules do not provide for extra layers of executives if responsibility doesn't increase only volume....unless you create brand new levels of responsibility like in H&HS and IRS....which of course is what was done.
ReplyDeleteThe only essential things that would have had to be decided in Congress are 1.) Consensus to subsidize the indigent 2.) what level to do the subsidy 3.) to means test for subsidy and 4.) to stipulate legislatively that employer participation is mandatory either by enrollment in the FEHBP or by independent contractual arrangements, similar to Workman's Compensation, and tax for it similarly to Social Security or Unemployment Compensation. All of this within an expansion of an existing frame work that has worked for 50+ years and works today.
No power would be derived, however, so that wasn't even considered. Even John Kerry forgot about it and it was his idea (2004)...undoubtedly the only good idea he ever had.