Obamacare Deadline Miscellany!

[maxomai]

• Oregonians have until April 30th to buy health insurance through Cover Oregon — mostly because Cover Oregon is such an incredible clusterfuck. To apply, download the form from here, fill it out, and mail it in. They'll ask you for a lot of financial details (gag). Yes, it's a project. But if you're eligible for fat subsidies or Medicare, it's probably worth it. Of course, if you already have insurance, you can skip this altogether.


• Speaking of which, Cover Oregon is going to replace their site — and Portland company Metal Toad want to do that work, and keep it open source, for the low low price of $10 million. I admire their gusto, but if you ask me, the price tag will be more like $50 million once Metal Toad gets all the requirements.


• ACA signups are heading to 7 million enrollees, matching the original CBO projections before people realized the website was a complete mess. In theory, this is bad news for Republican excuse-making. In practice, the Republicans have won the debate, at least for the next election cycle. Their base is convinced that Obamacare is simply a huge bribe to poor voters (whom they hate), unemployed voters (whom they hate), and disabled voters (whom they hate), to vote Democratic (which they hate). The swing voters are convinced that Obamacare can't work. Finally, Democrats mostly support Obamacare, but Democratic candidates simply don't feel like defending the law, probably because they're listening to mealy-mouthed triangulating idiots like this person. You know it's bad when the ultimate triangulator, Bill Clinton, tells you to 'nad up. Again, this goes to the Democratic and Republican campaign strategies of old: Democrats appease the base and crank the swing voter (the Obama campaigns being exceptions), while Republicans appease the swing voter and crank the base. Guess what wins?