No, my state's governor is a major liberal Democrat, and was a serious cheerleader for ACA. He promised that our state would be a shining example of the law's implementation, and swore that he would use our local tax dollars to make a better web-facing exchange experience than the federal site could ever be. Then he made his deputy governor more or less a full-time ACA guy. He then spent over $200 million to completely botch the whole thing, and it had to be scrapped.

No, these issues were discussed loudly and often BEFORE the law was completed. The Republicans pointed out these and many more baked-in flaws, but were of course ignored. The president keeps saying this is now all a matter of "settled law," and has said he will not accept changes to it. Same thing that Pelosi and Reid say, obviously.

Right. Because their input was refused, they were not allowed in the writing of the law, and they DID NOT VOTE FOR IT. This resulting mess was created and rammed through entirely by the Democrats. It's theirs and their mess. They are why I'm out thousands of dollars more this year than last for inferior results.

A lot more people willing and often eager to die for the [insert crazy, often religion-based or partisan cause here] movement.

Regardless, you're making it sound like this is a recent development. This has been the case going back well over a hundred years.

And I pointed out that nobody on the hotline is going to be able to point out an insurance plan that doesn't exist. The state regulators don't allow for magic hidden policies that are cheaper than what's been priced for the exchanges. In other words, it was a BS, fantasy suggestion.

Who says I have meager skills or don't make a good living? I said that I make more than the amount under which the subsides kick in, and so I am in the group that has had their rates jacked up hugely in order to collect the money that is being given to the people who get the subsidies. Many many more millions of people would also be in that boat right now, but Obama unilaterally chose to break the law and push back the date at which the ACA's changes would also impact the rates paid by people who are on employer-provided insurance. He's waiting until after the upcoming election, to help struggling Democrats trying to retain legislative seats. As soon as that's past, and the illegally delayed employer program changes kick in, you'll find (at least) tens of millions more people describing exactly the scenario I have.

It's simple math: if they want to give billions of dollars of new federally mandated entitlements to one group, they have to take it from somebody else. It's the people like me who DO make a good living that are being handed that bill. Rather in contrast to Obama's promises that no such thing would happen, remember? Remember the assurance that rates would go down, and that having health insurance would be about like paying for a mobile phone account every month? Yeah. If your mobile phone costs you several hundred dollars a month, and never mind the huge new deductibles.

Yes, I do. If you ARE going to force compromise to your favor, it's your vote that you offer in exchange for the compromise in question.

You really have no idea how individual states handle this, do you? Please go educate yourself. States that chose to set up their own markets and which regulate their own rates have nothing to do with what you're saying. All they have is the ACA forcing certain new features into the plans sold in that state, and the states set new rules in order to pay for those new federally mandated features. In this state, the ACA-mandated Bronze plan leaves you with a $6,000 deductible per person. Married? $12k.

Sorry to take the fun out of it for you.

So, just to be clear, you have nothing of substance to say, because if you were to address the actual topic at hand, you'd have to actually answer the question:

Was the administration to incompetent that it thought the ACA web site was secure and functional before it launched, or were they simply willing to lie about it, since they knew it wasn't? It's one of those two. You just can't bring yourself around to admitting it because you're exactly the partisan whiner that you're accusing someone else of being. Typical response, though, from Obama's apologists on this: pretend everything was fine, and that the people who point out the incompetence of the administration's project (we don't even have to get into the law itself) are lying. Here's the problem with that tactic: millions of people know the web site didn't work and all sorts of third party security reviews show that it was and still is a security nightmare.

Nice attempt to change the subject, though. Probably worked really well on fellow twelve year olds.

They're not going to help here, because our situation is exactly what the law calls for. If you're making more than $60k, you don't GET subsidies, you have to GIVE subsidies to other people (like you). The premiums and high deductibles I mentioned are set up exactly as the ACA calls for. No hotline worker is going to wave their hands and make insurance regulators in a state lower the rates to the point where the insurance companies are forced to lose money on selling an account without a subsidy taken from someone else to pay for it. And they're not going to give subsidies to someone who makes lower-middle-income money (which in our area is anyone under $75k, since things like tiny 1100 square foot townhouses in bad neighborhoods cost $300,000+.

So unless we deliberately earn less money so we can get subsidies (which still is a net loss in overall cash), we are walking financial organ donors for ... you. And there's nothing to complain to a hotline about, because that's exactly what Pelosi and Reid and Obama wanted. They said as much, they wrote the law that way, and they got one party (and only one) to ram it through congress.

Who are you proposing to tax, instead of me, to fix it? And we haven't even SEEN the results on employer programs yet, because Obama broke the law and chose to put off actually enforcing that part of the law (he chose to ignore the law's statutory date requirements). When all of THOSE rates and deductibles go through the roof, you'll hear a lot of negativity from more than just people like me - you'll hear it from tens of millions of people whose insurance will suddenly no longer be viable, according to the ACA.

The fixes for this (cross-state shopping, tort reform, etc) were utterly rejected by the Democrats because their constituents (say, the trial lawyers) didn't want to give up their gravy train.

The Republicans forced no such thing. Not a single one of them voted for it. The Democrats were the only people who wanted, and who rammed through, the law they put together.

What are you talking about? Everything that's happened was predicted in plain language for everyone involved before they "deemed" it passed in a 100% partisan maneuver. Larger deficits? Playing out exactly as predicted. Huge jump in premiums and deductibles for those that don't get entitlement subsidies? Playing out exactly as predicted. That's what the Democrats WANTED: get insurance for more people by taking more money from one group and giving to another. It's a transfer tax that reduces benefits for those that actually pay in order to give SOME benefits to those that don't, or who pay only part of the way.

Right. So when any of the normal annual changes take place (the way they handle certain experimental drugs or therapies, the way they handle certain hospital scenarios, etc), the insurer can no longer provide the plan - the ACA shuts it down because it doesn't provide post-menopausal women maternity care, etc.

But this isn't a horror story. This is just the ACA, doing exactly what it's designed to do. Obviously it's not doing what Obama repeatedly promised it would do, but that was all lies in advance of them ramming the law through. There's nothing shocking (from the point of view of the law) about our situation, it's exactly what was intended - use the higher rates as a new tax to fund a huge entitlement expansion for people who make less money. Self employed middle class people are the beasts of burden in this scenario.

There is no exchange. Our state spend hundreds of millions of dollars, but couldn't get it to work, have decided to scrap the entire thing, and buy a copy of the exchange that another state built. Regardless, by law in our state, you don't get anything by going through the exchange except discounts when you qualify for subsidies. The subsidies aren't meant for people who make >$60k, so the exchange (if they ever get it working) won't apply. Insurers offering ANY plan in the state have to do so at the exchange rates. Essentially, the numbers I mentioned ARE the exchange rates. That's the cheapest plan you can buy. If we choose a lower deductible (say, $5,000 instead of $12,000) our monthly rate would have jumped from our earlier
The only "shafting" that's going on is by way of the ACA itself and the requirements it places on new policies. And since we work hard to make more than $60k (in an area where that's essentially poverty-level income, given the local cost of living), we get none of the candy they're taking from other people. We're the ones they're taking the candy from. New outlets didn't need special cases like us, because we're not a special case. There's a whole state full of people like us, unless you're in the huge group who have opted to pay the no-insurance-tax/fine and save the money.

What? Obama's new wonder-plan is what TOOK AWAY our low deductible plan and forced us, for more money, to buy one that will cost us thousands more each year in premiums, and ten thousand more a year in deductibles. The people you're defending - Obama, Pelosi, Reid - forced us to buy a high deductible plan with fewer benefits, minus the doctor we'd used for years, and more. Obama didn't "outlaw" bad, expensive coverage, he just forced us into that exact situation. Thanks for shilling for him, though - it's nice to see that BS so transparently on display for all to see.

I used to have affordable insurance for my wife and I. The ACA killed it. Were forced to go to a new plan that:

1) Has much higher monthly premiums (we went from roughly $230/month to about $500/month)

2) Has a hugely higher deductible (we went from $2,500 a year to about $12,000 a year). This means that we are much, much farther out of pocket every year, especially if we actually need medical care beyond one or two simple visits annually.

3) We are past any risk of pregnancy. None the less, we are being forced to pay for elaborate maternity care that we cannot possibly use.

4) The new plan forced us to give up the doctor we've been using for 15 years unless we want to pay cash for that in a way that doesn't help with our deductible.

5) The two best local hospitals are no longer available to us unless we want to pay retail for their use, and get no benefit against our deductible.

Prior to this "affordable" new act, we had no need to change insurance, doctors, hospitals or anything else for well over 10 years.

Because of how the math is working out, we're told to expect that next year's premiums will go up by another 45-55%. Thanks, Mr. Obamacare Cheerleader, if you're one of the people who helped to empower the people who snuck this 100% partisan monstrosity through congress on Pelosi's "deeming" technique. Thanks a lot.

So you are ALSO saying that the information presented is incorrect ... that the people at HHS had NO idea that the site wasn't full of holes in terms of security and functionality. That the "cherry-picked" emails that show the administration knew the site was a train wreck are referring to something else, because the site wasn't a train wreck when it went live. Right? I see. So if that's incorrect, then what you're saying is that the administration did NOT know that the site was a train wreck. Which makes them stupefyingly incompetent.

So your idea of "nothing to see here" is either:

1) The administration knew exactly what a train wreck the thing was, but lied about it. Or...

2) The administration, at every level, was so foolish and incompetent that it had no idea whether or not the system was useless, and in lacking any sort of knowledge one way or the other, just assumed it was fine.

So what you're saying is that: 1) The administration didn't knowingly force people to use a badly designed, insecure web site that wasn't ready for prime time. That's just something the administration's critics made up, out of context. 2) The administration has fixed all of the security concerns, and that the whole platform is now working as they promised it would, and that anyone saying otherwise is lying and spinning the glorious real facts on the ground. I see.