By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--November 26, 2013
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“Let’s just wait and see what happens. We’re gonna — we’re gonna take two weeks off. I’m gonna visit with my five children together for the first time, 16 grandchildren, 44 people for Thanksgiving dinner. Let’s talk about that for a while,” Reid said last week. But in the meantime, Democratic lawmakers — particularly those on the House side — are preparing to try to put distance between themselves and the president because they’re not confident that the White House has a Plan B for getting the policy right or protecting them in the mid-term elections.
White House chief of staff Denis McDonough’s trip to Capitol Hill two weeks ago appeared to stave off a mass insurrection, but 39 Democrats still abandoned the president on the GOP bill. The vote was held the day after Obama announced his own competing administrative fix and a series of apologies to the American public — and fellow Democrats — which appeared to have the effect of lowering the count of defectors. But while the one-two punch of Obama and McDonough spared the White House a full-scale embarrassment on the floor of the House, it didn’t quell anxiety or imbue Democrats with new faith that Obama can solve the problems with the Affordable Care Act rollout — or deal with the political flak that would hit if the site continues to fall short after the self-imposed deadline. “There was an awful lot of eye-rolling when [McDonough] insisted that the website will be fixed in time for December 1, and he really didn’t offer a Plan B, but was adamant that it would be up and running,” said a House Democratic source who attended the meeting. “At this point, I don’t think there is anyone that would express any confidence in the administration’s ability to right the ship,” said the source, adding that members seem to be “bracing for another tidal wave when Dec. 1 comes and goes and we are still dealing with a dysfunctional website, or ‘broken computer’ as the old-timers have been calling it.”No one knows who the Politico's source is, but his name might as well be "common sense." It's painfully obvious to even the most casual observers that the administration is flailing - badly. Virtually no one believes there is a snowball's chance in hades that the website will be ready by December 1st. It's unlikely that it will even make the downscaled definition of "ready" - offered by Jay Carney - that claims "80% functional" somehow equals "fixed." Add to that the fact that 40% of the site, including the payment processing system, simply doesn't exist, and you've got a recipe for ongoing disaster. Even if the website was somehow magically working, things wouldn't change. All of the above presupposes that Healthcare.gov is the problem with ObamaCare. It's not. The concept behind the entire scheme was always unpopular. It was deeply flawed from its conception and wasting 3 years on a "broken computer" did nothing to change that. Democrats always knew how much people hated the ACA (which is why the Senate had to pass it on Christmas Eve when no one was paying attention) but now, very slowly, they're starting to realize that their voters are furious and they don't have any kind of escape plan. It's going to be fun watching the rats jump overboard.
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