U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) is in the national news again today, calling for President Obama to fire someone over the bungled roll-out of the Obamacare website.
There’s plenty of speculation on Obamacare to go around, though most agree that the federal exchange website was not ready for prime time and is the primary reason most perceive the roll-out as a failure. E.J. Dionne points out that in states which created their own exchanges, such as our own state of Minnesota, and “particularly in Kentucky, Connecticut, Washington and California” the roll-out has gone much better. Here’s Dionne:
“The law was written with states’ rights and state responsibilities in mind. States that created their own health-care exchanges — and especially those that did this while also expanding Medicaid coverage — are providing insurance to tens of thousands of happy customers, in many cases for the first time.”
But apparently no one expected half the states in the country to deliberately fail to set up exchanges that would insure tens of thousands of uninsured people in their borders. The result overwhelmed the government’s Plan B. For now. I highly doubt these website problems will persist past this year, and so we’ll see what the policy’s true implications are next year. If the program works at all, public opposition to Obamacare will evaporate like so much fog.
(h/t Wonk Wire)
Interesting to see how some Democrats who were harshly critical of Republican proposals to delay the individual mandate and were so opposed they were prepared to have the government shutdown over the issue are now, weeks later, prepared to embrace essentially the same thing.
I think for Nolan to come out with this statement indicates he’s hearing footsteps.