Remember all those “progressive” policy wonks who kept telling us that we need government-run health care because the private sector is too chaotic and disorganized to work properly for health care? Don’t look for them to devote a lot of bandwidth to the Obamacare implementation FUBAR:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already missed as many as four deadlines under the law …
For those of us who routinely deal with various government health programs like Medicare, this was as predictable as the sun going down at night. And, trust me, the following is only the beginning of a long list of missed deadlines and botched roll-outs that will go on for decades:
The missed deadlines include creating task forces on breast cancer and Alaskan health care, publishing a list of new authorities granted under the law, and setting a schedule for a Government Accountability Office study and financial audit.
But you can believe that Kathleen Sebelius and her steroid-enhanced Department of Health & Human Services will hold hospitals, insurance companies, device manufactureres, etc. accountable for their deadlines, despite being hobbled by the absence of necessary information from our Beltway masters:
Vast industry sectors are trying to plan their own implementations of the health-care law and most of the details remain in bureaucrats’ hands, leaving a vacuum of uncertainty about the final burdens the law will impose.
This, BTW, is exactly what happened with the health care IT requirements of the “stimulus” bill. That boondoggle, you will recall, contained a mandate for “meaningful use” that hospitals and doctors have to meet. It took CMS a year to define that vague term, and it is still open to considerable interpretation.
I think this is what was meant by the person who coined the phrase, “Change isn’t always progress.”
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