| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty October 31, 2013 Happy Halloween!
Obama's Last Move: Insist There's No Real Problem and Try to Escape in the Fog President Obama's message to those being notified that they're losing their insurance: "If you're getting one of these letters, just shop around in the new marketplace. That what it's for." It's as if he was completely unaware that the site was down for a good chunk of Wednesday.
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Then we have Sebelius' testimony Wednesday morning: "I would suggest the website has never crashed. It is functional but at a very slow speed and low reliability."
This is the spin of the desperate man: Despite all the evidence all around us that things are not fine, I will insist that everything is fine, and my hope is that I will create enough doubt in enough minds about whether or not things are fine to survive the day. That argument isn't really enough to win -- he's not likely to persuade the public that the sites are working hunky-dory -- but it might reassure the low-information voters inclined to like him that the current outrage is overhyped. Over the next few weeks, you're going to hear a lot of administration defenders insisting that things with the website aren't so bad lately. They're wrong; we'll talk about that more in item three. You're also seeing people assuming that it will be fixed at the end of November. As we've laid out, a fully or even largely functional web site by November 30 is probably a longshot, and perhaps even an impossibility. No wonder they're in a "bunker mentality," as Chuck Todd says. Obama and his team have finally encountered a problem that they can't successfully spin, cover up, distract from, or blame on the opposition. (This doesn't mean they won't try, of course.) Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and the IRS targeting of conservatives impacted too few people. The Syria bombing about-face is easily forgotten. The NSA scandal and its fallout abroad doesn't impact Americans on a day-to-day basis: 
Nice job, champ. They never ran this image during the Bush years. But this… this is just too big. You can't just trot out another shiny object. ("Hey, the Obamas have a new puppy!") You can't ignore it. You can't wait for the media to forget about it. We're talking about perhaps as many as 15 million people losing their health insurance: As many as 80 percent of people who don't have a company-hosted plan or insurance through the Medicare or Medicaid government programs may have to find new health coverage, said Robert Laszewski, an insurance-industry consultant in Arlington, Virginia. About 19 million people are included in this market. Remember, the goal of Obamacare was to enroll 7 million in the first year. (As you'll see in the next item, they're not going to hit that goal.) Some undetermined percentage of those 15 million people won't like what they're offered on the exchanges, no matter how many times Tim Carney calls their old plans "substandard" and Obama calls their old providers "bad-apple insurers." They are not going to forget this. After One Month, Quite a Few States Don't Have 1,000 Paid Enrollees Yet What a series of success stories! Oregon: A month after Oregon's problem-plagued online health insurance marketplace has failed to enroll a single person, concerns are mounting that some of the most vulnerable Oregonians may face a break in coverage if they don't enroll within the next month and a half. Tennessee: Gov. Bill Haslam says the most recent figure the state has on Tennesseans successfully enrolling in the troubled federal health insurance exchange comes to just a few hundred, but the Republican isn't sure whether or not he erred by refusing to create the state's own online marketplace. "The last time I heard the number was something in the low hundreds — 250 or 300" who successfully enrolled, Haslam told reporters today. "I do not have a new number on that. Obviously, that's been disappointing for everybody." Alaska: Nearly one month after the federally run health insurance marketplace launched, just 35 Alaskans have been able to sign up for plans. Idaho: At 5,000 monthly, that would still leave Your Health Idaho 10,000 people short. So far, fewer than 100 have managed to buy a policy, board members have estimated, in part because the exchange is using the glitch-plagued federal data hub based in Washington, D.C., that's hampered efforts to sign up and browse insurance plans. Montana: Jerry Dworak, the CEO at the Montana Health Co-op, said a little more than 30 applications have successfully made it through healthcare.gov from people looking to buy plans from the co-op. Nebraska: "Since the site opened Oct. 1, it appears fewer than 100 Nebraskans have been able to finish the online application process and purchase health insurance plans." South Dakota: "Avera reports 26 new customers since the marketplace opened Oct. 1. Sanford has six. Dakotacare has none." The District of Columbia: "…164 individuals or families have finished signing up and requested an invoice, according to new data released by the exchange." Minnesota: Since the MNsure website was launched Oct. 1 as part of federal health reforms, accounts have been created by 12,011 people — some with chronic illnesses and a desperate need for health insurance. Only 5,569 of those have finished applications, with 3,769 enrolling in various plans. And only 406 have completed the purchase of private plans on the site; most were eligible for public programs such as Medicaid. Social Security Administration Head: ACA Site Is 'Hacker's Dream.' Those who think the news about the exchange websites is getting better are wrong, of course: The document, obtained by The Associated Press, shows that administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were concerned that a lack of testing posed a potentially "high" security risk for the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states. It was granted a temporary security certificate so it could operate. Security issues are a new concern for the troubled HealthCare.gov website. If they cannot be resolved, they could prove to be more serious than the long list of technical problems the administration is trying to address. "You accepted a risk on behalf of every user...that put their personal financial information at risk," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during questioning before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security." If you read this newsletter, you probably don't need to be told about the risks of plugging your personal information into a strange website. But just in case… Cybersecurity expert Alex McGeorge said that the government's responses Wednesday were not reassuring. "This is a very, very enticing target for attackers because it's very simple to turn personal identifying info into hard currency," said McGeorge. "You have to weigh the privacy risks of, 'I'm going to put all my information with the government in this one basket in order to receive healthcare.' And one of the risks that you take is well, if it's all in one basket, it could be stolen from that basket." In an interview with NBC News, a former top government official raised his own questions about the site's security, and about the healthcare.gov's privacy protections. Michael Astrue, the Bush appointee who served as head of the Social Security Administration from 2007 until early this year, said that the Obama administration exempted the website from many federal privacy protections, potentially making the personal data on healthcare.gov accessible to a range of government and private entities, including the Department of Homeland Security to credit agencies. "There were shortcuts taken on the information technology," said Astrue, "and there were shortcuts taken in terms of adherence to the laws that protect our rights." According to Astrue, concerns about privacy protections were the subject of debate within the administration before launch. But Astrue said that his warnings that the site's design should not contravene the Federal Privacy Act were ignored. "I was extremely upset," said Astrue. "First of all they were violating the statute. Second, there would be real world consequences for Americans." "Many of their systems were put up quickly, shoddily, and tied together shoddily," said Astrue. "It's a hacker's dream." ADDENDA: America Rising notices: A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Hillary Clinton's net favorability rating falling to its lowest level in years. Just 46 percent have a positive view of Clinton, her lowest rating since January 2009 when she first became Obama's Secretary of State, while 33 percent have a negative view of her, the highest since January 2009. In addition, those with a very positive view are at a low of 22 percent, while those with a very negative view have risen to a new high of 21 percent. Finally… Happy Halloween! If you see a three-foot-tall Iron Man at your door tonight, give him the good stuff. 
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