Obama Chief of IT: The Website Will Be "Greatly Improved" on the Date Upon Which We Said It Would be Fixed

The economy has been "greatly improved" too. You know, all those jobs saved, created, or funded.

The Obama administration is lowering the bar again on the problem-plagued ObamaCare website, saying that it will be “greatly improved” by month’s end -- not fixed.

“The consumer experience … will be greatly improved for the vast majority of users by November 30,” Henry Chao, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ deputy chief information officer, will tell House investigators on Tuesday, according to written testimony obtained by Fox News.

Chao’s testimony, 11 days before the fix deadline, appears to be the most recent case of the administration attempting to lower expectations, or at least prepare Americans for more problems when attempting to enter the site to purchase insurance policies that begin coverage January 1.

If you like your technical glitches, you can keep your technical glitches. Period. End of story.

Meanwhile, it turns out the White House was specifically warned in March that the website was in bad shape and was likely not to function by the rollout date. This is important, because Seblius and Tavenner claimed otherwise when questioned about the website's progress by a congressional committee:

Sebelius and Tavenner provided testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee well after that briefing. ECC has oversight over HHS, and had pressed Sebelius and Tavenner on the progress of the ObamaCare infrastructure, but had received nothing but sunny assessments on the program’s development.

A government's institutional character is set by the President. The government largely adopts his personality -- and his pathologies.

In Obama's case, this means a predilection for secrecy, contempt for the normal processes of democratic government, a refusal to acknowledge "bad news," and a strong preference for lies over truth.

Note in the last case this government lies even when the truth would serve them better. Doubtless, Obama would be in better shape now had his lieutenants confessed that the website was in bad shape, and hence prepared the public for "glitches." And, perhaps, if they had sought a delay, rather than fighting like wolverines to avoid one.

But a man habituated to lying about everything does not just lie when it serves his interest, no more than an alcoholic can drink only when thirsty. The first, second, last impulse of this paranoid, insecure Administration is to lie, to lie about small things and grand, to lie cunningly and to lie stupidly. To lie, and lie, and lie some more, and dare people to call them liars.

Oh: Obama went on the Internet to explain away Obamacare's problems to his most intense partisan supporters.

Might have worked, too. Except yet another website glitch resulted in the feed running with no audio for many viewers.

The event on Monday was intended to offer Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters a chance to hear directly from him. It was the latest conference call to be hosted by Organizing for Action, the nonprofit group that grew out of the president’s 2012 campaign organization.

...

“I am confident that by the end of this month, [Healthcare.gov is] going to be functioning for the vast majority of folks,” Mr. Obama said. “Despite all the noise out there, despite all the criticism, despite all the setbacks, I’ve never lost faith in our ability to get this done.”

But many people who logged in said they could not hear anything, with the website reporting “connection failure” over and over again. It was unclear how many people could listen to the call. An official with the group gave a New York Times reporter, who also could not hear anything on the website, a telephone number to call and listen in.

At the same time, a chat board on the website began filling up with messages:

“I can’t hear any audio?”

“Is everyone getting the ‘reconnecting’ message?”

“I did refresh twice — still no sound.”

“WHERES THE SOUND YO?”

One supporter pleaded, “Don’t tell me there are troubles with this live event like there were with the Obamacare website!!!!!”

They gave out low-tech phone solutions to people to work around a crashing website? Perfect.

posted by Ace at 09:50 AM

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