Dan Does Pivot TV

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Michael Froomkin

Question 1 from the interviewer: “How can you be so wrong?”

But it actually goes quite well.

(Link in case the embed doesn’t work for you.)

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2 Responses to Dan Does Pivot TV

  1. Vic says:
    October 8, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Dan Froomkin says in his article:

    “And holding the entire government hostage while demanding the de facto repeal of a president’s signature legislation and not even bothering to negotiate is by any reasonable standard an extreme political act.”

    You don’t even need to read any further that that statement to know it will be a waste of your time.

    But aside from that, the biggest problem right now with the ACA is the fact that the Obama Administration waited YEARS to start setting things up and so none of it is even really ready at this point, and it was not designed for the people who would be using it. This is an IT nightmare that was readily avoided (assuming what they wanted to do was actually possible). Did it REALLY not occur to anyone that millions of folks might be signing up shortly after October 1st 2013?

    The media is focused upon “temporary glitches” with the sign-up process (which may be outside of what most of us would define as “temporary”) while ignoring the OBVIOUS fact that a 40 year old, semi-literate (possibly ESL), non-tech savvy, non-computer using, landscaper (for example – your neighborhood is full of them right now), is not going to have anywhere near the ease of setting up, understanding/researching options, and administering, an ACA “account” in comparison to a college educated, tech savvy, journalist, who’s just doing it for demo purposes anyway and so doesn’t really care about the details.

    It apparently doesn’t occur to the relatively rich liberal white folks who set this thing up that if people in their constituency purportedly can’t manage to get to the DMV to get a driver’s licence so they can vote, then there is about ZERO chance that they will find it within them to navigate, properly, the hallowed halls of Obamacare. The system presumes that the people with the most need for Obamacare are just like the people who set it up. The blindness to that basic flaw in thinking alone should give us pause.

    You want “unbiased?” Let’s see an actual story (not questionable plants, as we’ve seen this last week) where a random sample of people are pulled from the very low paying strata of American life that “needs” this, sit them in front of a computer (maybe for the first time), and see if any can manage to get set up without help from anywhere but the Internet. Because THIS is how it will work in real life. getting a driver’s license is trivial in comparison.

    Many of these people, if you believe the hype on Obamacare, will be getting health insurance for the first time in their lives. Do you SERIOUSLY think that a web portal is what these folks need to get it all working?! Until THAT story exists, nobody can claim that journalists are doing their job – including the more jovial of the Brothers Froomkin.

  2. Vic says:
    October 8, 2013 at 4:39 pm

    You might note, for example, that one State’s website notes that info provided to setup Obamacare accounts can be used for law enforcement and audit purposes. (and we know that’s going to be true whether the site admits it or not) I’d remind you that this is the same sort of thing (it’s actually more overt) that is brought up every time voter ID laws are discussed and is called voter intimidation, voter suppression, etc.

    Now PERSONALLY, I don’t think the poor and the minority are so easily frightened off by Government, and to think so is insulting and condescending, but these are the reasons given by Dems who oppose stronger voter ID laws.

    So now this is OK just because it’s a Dem idea?

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