The Cold Equations and Obamacare

Existence required order, and there was order; the laws of nature, irrevocable and immutable. Men could learn to use them, but men could not change them. The circumference of a circle was always pi times the diameter, and no science of man would ever make it otherwise. The combination of chemical A with chemical B under condition C invariably produced reaction D. The law of gravitation was a rigid equation, and it made no distinction between the fall of a leaf and the ponderous circling of a binary star system. The nuclear conversion process powered the cruisers that carried men to the stars; the same process in the form of a nova would destroy a world with equal efficiency. The laws were, and the universe moved in obedience to them. Along the frontier were arrayed all the forces of nature, and sometimes they destroyed those who were fighting their way outward from Earth. The men of the frontier had long ago learned the bitter futility of cursing the forces that would destroy them, for the forces were blind and deaf; the futility of looking to the heavens for mercy, for the stars of the galaxy swung in their long, long sweep of two hundred million years, as inexorably controlled as they by the laws that knew neither hatred nor compassion. -- Tom Godwin “The Cold Equations”

"I believe what we are witnessing will turn out to be

the single largest and most catastrophic government policy failure in US history, as well as the most public IT failure in world history. There have been larger (in years and dollar amounts) IT failures, but they have usually always involved systems that never went into production, or if they did, that impacted a relatively limited number of people. Let’s summarize:

• Healthcare.gov as well as many of the state exchanges still do not live up to the necessary quality aspects of a successfully functioning IT system: reliability, performance, functionality, compatibility, lifespan, deployment, support and cost.
• The vast majority of enrollments to date have been in Medicaid; a much tinier fraction have been people actually signing up for insurance plans.
• Meanwhile, vastly more people have lost insurance coverage due to Obamacare than have gained it.
• The enrollment figures to date are far below those needed for the system to be financially viable, and there are indications that those who are pushing through to sign up are those more likely to be a financial drain on the system, rather than a boost.
• There is no payment system in place for those who do sign up; instead, they are supposed to contact the insurance company directly, which may or may not have their information.
• The deadline for buying insurance is just days away.

I believe that over the next several weeks, the ‘cold equations’ of Obamacare as it actually exists and is currently implemented – as opposed to the magic thinking version on the Left — are going to lead to more and more unavoidable disasters — train wrecks, in the metaphor that Jim Geraghty has been using since before Healthcare.gov went live. Vastly more Americans will have both their bank accounts and their personal health damaged than those that will benefit under Obamacare. Obamacare and the Cold Equations by Webster at And Still I Persist...

Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 12, 2013 10:53 AM