It's Broke and Nobody is Fixing It

In a Thanksgiving eve news dump, the White House delivers more bad news about Obamacare and, at this rate, is poised to fill Christmas health-care stockings with lumps of coal.

The Administration slips in a one-year delay for small businesses to go online to buy insurance for their employees through the new federal marketplace website, another blow to smooth implementation of the ACA.

Companies with fewer than 50 employees were to begin selecting coverage through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), an online exchange this month. With the delay, they will have to find coverage through an agent or broker.

In addition, to avoid a Black Friday on the website, officials urge users to go easy on “the still-fragile HealthCare.gov.” lest it collapse under a post-holiday crush of new customers.

This is not what success looks like. More and more, Obamacare seems broke and nobody is fixing it.

The outlook is so grim that it reduces a sane observer to quoting Eric Cantor without mockery.

“Once again,” says the House Majority Leader, “President Obama has unilaterally delayed another major portion of Obamacare, and once again, he has tried to bury bad news around a holiday hoping nobody will notice...The president's latest one-year delay is another sign that Obamacare's issues run much deeper than a failing website.”

If that isn’t a symptom of a sick society, what is?

For die-hard optimists, the best advice is take two aspirin and try to sleep until after the New Year.