Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty October 25, 2013 So Far under Obamacare, More People Have Lost Insurance than Enrolled Campaign Spot's increasingly regular contributor, IT project management expert Bruce Webster, writes in again: Lots of people are going around quoting Fred Brooks now -- both the 'mythical man-month' concept as well as Brooks's Law ("Adding manpower to a late project makes it later."). But there's something else Brooks said with regards to projects that are running late that is directly relevant in the context of the 'tech surge': "Take no small slips." In other words, if you know a project is going to be late, or if it already is, and you have to come up with a new anticipated release date, you should significantly over-estimate how much time it's going to take to get it right. (In essence, a recasting of the old engineering maxim to 'under-promise and over-deliver'.) It is far better to estimate that you'll need an extra six months and deliver in four or five, than to estimate that you need one or two months and then deliver in four or five. I know that rule, or a version of it. I'm just used to seeing it attributed to chief engineer Scotty from Star Trek. Of course, the natural tendency on the part of HHS & the Administration will be to minimize the estimates of how long it's going to take to fix things -- and those estimates will almost certainly be wrong. So what we may see is the 'Never-Ending Story' pattern, where for several months they're perpetually 4-6 weeks away from having Healthcare.gov working properly. If I were in charge? I'd pull the plug completely and give no completion date at all until the website reconstruction was at a point where I felt comfortable opening it up for public alpha testing. Based on how the alpha testing went, I might announce a subsequent date for beta testing; and if that went well, then and only then would I announce a planned date to go live. (Here's some background on alpha test/beta test/release: http://bfwa.com/2013/10/10/an-approach-to-software-release/). Of course, the administration can't do that. They need to heave Hail Mary passes from here on out, and hope the thing suddenly and miraculously starts working like the hyperdrive of the Millennium Falcon at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Despite Joe Manchin, the administration is holding fast on the deadline to have insurance (as opposed to the open enrollment period, which is different). They've staked everything -- including their stance during the government shutdown -- on the mandate kicking in on March 31, and this whole thing working properly by that date. Also, expect the coming days and weeks to feature a big focus on how many of the 'enrollees' are from expanding Medicaid, as opposed to purchasing insurance. Avik Roy: Therefore the 476,000 number [the administration released] is misleading. My best guess is that for the 17 states that have reported out some data, the number is closer to 193,818 applications (once you pull out the Medicaid applications that have been reported on). And here's the devastating statistic you'll see cited until the numbers change: Over 500,000 individuals have seen their insurance policies cancelled in just 3 states. In all 50 states, only 476,000 applications have been "filed" in an exchange. In short, Obamacare has caused more people to lose their health insurance than gain it so far. Petty Little Liars When you lie about the little things, people won't trust you on the bigger things. Sen. Dick Durbin's assertion that an unnamed House Republican leader insulted President Barack Obama was the result of a "miscommunication" between the White House and Senate Democrats and is not true, an Obama administration official said today. The controversy began Sunday when Durbin posted on Facebook: "Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn't try hard enough to communicate with Republicans. But in a 'negotiation' meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: 'I cannot even stand to look at you.'" Obama spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday that he looked into Durbin's story and spoke to somebody who was at the meeting, and "it did not happen." But Durbin's office stood by his account. Today, a White House official issued this statement: "While the quote attributed to a Republican lawmaker in the House GOP meeting with the president is not accurate, there was a miscommunication when the White House read out that meeting to Senate Democrats, and we regret the misunderstanding." Aides to the president refused to say who conducted the "readout," or briefing, with Senate Democrats. Nor would they discuss how such a miscommunication might have occurred. This afternoon, Durbin put up a new post on Facebook: "I appreciate this clarification from the White House that explains recent conflicting reports on the GOP quote. It is important now to move beyond the unfortunate events of the last few weeks and work together constructively so that we're not faced with another shutdown showdown or debt-ceiling debacle." It's not that hard to believe that an unnamed House Republican leader might think that, but it's hard to believe they would actually say it. (What's the upside? You might feel good for a moment, but all you would be doing would be ensuring the man who will remain president for the next three years would have a vendetta against you.) This isn't even getting into the notion of respecting the office of the presidency even if you detest the man occupying that office. So . . . it doesn't appear anyone said this. And yet the White House told congressional Democrats this, who then went and told the world. So . . . What Policies Do Republicans Want to Enact, as Opposed to Repeal? Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg is a former communications consultant for corporations and Democratic campaigns, so it's safe to say he doesn't see the world the way a conservative does. But he's got a point here: While Democrats are fighting to protect the gains of President Barack Obama's first term, Republicans continue to define themselves by what they're against. The results are mixed at best, with surveys showing voters view Congressional Republicans as obstructionists. A quick point: It's very tough, pretty much impossible, to move much of your own a positive agenda when you don't control the Senate or presidency. You basically need the ideas to be so popular, neither Harry Reid nor President Obama would dare block them -- and remember, Harry Reid was perfectly fine with holding up NIH funding to help kids with cancer to ensure his partisan leverage. But broadly speaking, Republicans need to say to voters, "support us, and we will do X" instead of "support us, and we will stop/repeal/prevent X." Back to Wilkinson: Representative Marlin Stutzman became the spokesman for Republican anomie during the government shutdown, when he said Republicans would not tolerate being disrespected. "We have to get something out of this," he said. "And I don't know what that even is." The quote rang a bell. Last winter, when Republicans collectively decided to embrace the sequestration cuts they had previously decried, Republican operative Ralph Reed made a similarly aimless point to the New York Times. "The sequester and winning that fight -- however you define what winning means -- is critical for the party," Reed said. How critical can a goal be if you can't even identify it? Skipping over some paragraphs about how terrible Republicans are… Ronald Reagan lived in a different world, when 80 percent of the nation was white and zero percent was connected to the World Wide Web. Federal tax receipts as a percentage of gross domestic product are lower today than they were after Reagan's big tax cuts. Employment in manufacturing has shrunk by more than a third. Global trade, in total dollars, has increased about tenfold. Long-term unemployment is grueling. I'd add, there's no Soviet Union and many fewer Americans live in stable families and have a strong social network or community to help them through rough times than in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In other words, the problems the country faces are really different from 1980, and thus the solutions have to be different. The principles and goals are the same – creating liberty; limiting the power, scope, and cost of government; ensuring strong families and communities -- but we can't use the same playbooks -- unless the Democrats start running Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale again. ADDENDA: Rick Klein: "Sebelius says majority of people asking for her resignation are 'People who I don't work for.' So there's that." Ron Fournier: "I thought she worked for us."
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