The Obamacare-loving press spares no effort in excusing and minimizing the scheme's operational, systemic, and law-based failures.
Six months after launch, HealthCare.gov still isn't functioning as intended. In fact, as of 8:47 a.m. this morning, the time stamp on an Associated Press report (also saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) by chief wire service Obamacare defender Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, the web site wasn't functioning at all. Did the AP reporter tell readers the system had crashed, or was down? Oh heck no (bolds are mine):
HEALTH CARE WEBSITE STUMBLES ON LAST DAY
The Obama administration's health care website stumbled on deadline day for new sign-ups.
Visitors to HealthCare.gov on Monday morning saw messages that the site was down for maintenance. At times the visitors were also directed to a virtual waiting room - a feature designed to ease the strain on the site during periods of heavy use.
Administration spokesman Aaron Albright said the website undergoes "regular nightly maintenance" during off-peak hours and that period was extended because of a "technical problem." He did not say what the problem was, but a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services called it "a software bug" unrelated to application volume.
So the problem really isn't related to volume. Six months in, it still crashes.
Oh, and that "waiting room" isn't a "feature." It's a necessary and supposedly temporary stopgap made necessary by still obviously present system bugs.
I thought wonder boy Jeff Zeints fixed all this? Oh wait, he lasted less than two months after his October appointment as HC.gov czar before being kicked upstairs to an economics post.
Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene, who has been in charge of the site since then, assured everyone last week that there have only been "minor issues" with site performance, which have all supposedly addressed "rapidly." Oops.
So "stumble" has a hallowed place in the Obamacare excuse lexicon, along with "glitch" (defined before Obamacare excuse-making as "a small and sudden problem"), "wrinkle" (used to be "a small problem") "unintended consequence," and several others.
No rollout of a corporate web site would ever receive such kind press treatment. Then again, no corporate web site in the competitive world of the private sector would ever have remained live this long in such a messed-up, insecure state.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
