Overwhelming Demand for Obamacare Shows Potential Success

[TomCADem]

Source: Bloomberg

Obamacare’s opening day drew millions of consumers to the law’s core insurance exchanges, offering supporters and investors hope that if the websites can stay up and running, customers will follow.

In New York, officials said their exchange had 2.5 million visitors in its first half hour yesterday. California reported as many as 16,000 hits a second. And U.S. officials recorded 2.8 million visitors to the federal website, healthcare.gov, even as it fought technical problems much of the day.

The difficulties with the online insurance marketplaces gave new ammunition to Republicans who say the Affordable Care Act doesn’t work. President Barack Obama countered that the volume gives “a sense of how important this is to millions of Americans,” and administration officials said marketing of the exchanges will now start to pick up steam.

“Anything short of a calamity on day one is a victory,” said Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Washington-based consultant Avalere Health LLC. “It’s all about message and repetition, and making sure it’s accessible.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-01/obamacare-exchanges-debut-with-websites-down-and-state-delays.html

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The GOP and the corporate media are, of course, trying to turn a positive into a negative by complaining that the glitches, which are due in part to the unexpectedly large demand on the very first day, are signs that the ACA is unpopular. Of course, if there were no lines, no jammed servers, the Republicans would say that no one wants the ACA. Heads I win. Tails you lose.

[Democat]

1. The unprecedented popularity of the program proves it's a failure?

The Republican talking points don't make sense.

[Swede Atlanta]

8. They are trying to find anything negative to say.....

I guess maybe as many as 50% of those hitting the site in the first few days are just curious onlookers. I am one of them. I went out at 10:00 last night to just see what everyone was experiencing. I have employer-provided insurance (at least through next year) but wanted to see what it was all about.

But even if we discount the numbers by 50%, it is clear there are lots of people that want to see if they could reduce their current premiums or get better coverage or that hope to get insurance for the first time.

I am encouraged the volumes suggest people will actually avail themselves of the program and we will see some long-term health improvements.

But the Republicans want to discredit Obama at every turn. Even if the premium subsidies cost X, the long-term will mean that they will have insurance and so those of us with insurance will no longer be paying for their care.

[pscot]

2. republicans make the yogi Berra argument

Nobody goes there because it's too crowded.

[tridim]

3. Yep. Nobody drives in NYC because there is too much traffic.

[question everything]

4. And some claim that they are "forced" to apply because their employers

kicked them off the plan.

They are better off not depending on their employers. And... one can only hope that Obamacare will eventually lead to a universal plan.

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. K&R

[JaneQPublic]

6. And if there weren't any glitches,

the GOPers would be whining that traffic to the website was tepid and underwhelming.

They probably had a flowchart tacked up on the wall instructing them on how to frame every possible outcome as one type of failure or another.

[Jefferson23]

7. Millions more will be coming, count on it. We all here know the GOP bastards are terrified

of the relief this brings to Americans.

The GOP brand will become even less palatable than ever before.

[gopiscrap]

10. My thought also

[gopiscrap]

11. BTW: Welcome to DU

[Jefferson23]

12. It highlights how many Americans want desperately to fulfill a basic need,one the GOP will deny them