Tavenner from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can't seem to answer  simple questions as to how many people have actually enrolled in Zerocare as opposed to Medicare. Keeps saying the numbers won't be available until mid November, over and over again. Once again the stock answer is I'll get back to you I don't have that info with me. But she sure has the POTUS talking points down, she is really prepared with an infomercial on how Zerocare is the greatest thing since sliced bread.


when you go before a Senate or House sub committee isn't it expected that you show up prepared to answer all the questions that might be asked?

Noboby knows anything

It's like talking to Nazis after May 7, 1945.

Judge Judy would not put up with this shit.

"Ummmm is not an answer."

I doubt she'd accept "I'll get back to you in November".............. either.

Not really. The documentation of their crimes paperwork was in order and made logical sense. These people are spent over half a billion dollars on a broken website.

 

My bad, yeah, at least the Nazis were very well organized, and very good record keepers.

Congressional hearings are a sham.  It ain't like any witness is every going to say "Yes I am totally incompetent and engage in criminal activity and then cover it up."



Posturing.

One thing they produce is fed workers squirming when they don't have an answer, at least they attempt to bring the slugs and crooks to light.

She is really stumbling now

If the Feds can hold a citizen indefinitely for "forgetting" a password, why can't they charge these idiots with contempt of congress for not knowing what they're paid to know?

Why is she even there trying to answer questions?  The people they need there are the healthcare.gov Program Manager, the Contracting Officer, and the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative.
EDT - and the real questions are why couldn't you get this working in 3 years with hundreds of millions of $; Did you adequately tests this system throughout it's development, etc.  Why did they roll out a system they knew (or should have known) would not work?

Since the "product" (insurance) is not provided by .gov, CMS has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the insurance - the reason costs are going up is BECAUSE THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS WROTE THE LAW IN A WAY THAT FORCES THE INSURANCE COMPANIES TO RAISE RATES AND CANCEL SOME POLICIES.  THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS did not allow less expensive plans to exist.  DEMOCRATS are at fault here.

Continually conflating the problems they caused with insurance products with the inability of CMS to develop a very complex IT system of systems.

Agreed.  Tavenner has only had the job for less than a year, and inherited a flawed implementation scheme.  There are heads that should be rolling, but most of them are much more junior.

Here's the other thing:  the website will get better and/or the load will drop as people get signed up, and it will work OK.  This is pretty much a temporary problem.  The real problems will come a year from now when insurance companies are rolling out their rates/plans for 2015, and people are pissed off about high deductibles.  Whether that happens in time to effect the 2014 elections is the real question, and the republicans should be trying to get EVERY waiver removed as fast as possible to encourage it to happen.