Dawn breaks on Obamacare

No excuses, but no accountability. That seems to be the message from the Leader of the Free World about the rolling clusterfark that's known as Obamacare:

President Barack Obama on Monday offered "no excuses" — and little explanation — for the computer bugs still frustrating Americans who are trying to enroll online for insurance plans at the center of his health care law. But software developers tasked with building the site said they saw signs a year ago that the debut could fail.

A year ago? Well, we couldn't have been bothered with that then, because we were too busy laughing at Mitt Romney's binders full o' women that were strapped to the roof of his dog's car, or something like that. I might have that about 47% right. Yeah, it was all pretty funny then.

Meanwhile, even the Associated Press is starting to notice a few things:

The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The glitches have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior White House officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the health insurance markets, known as exchanges, opened.

Obama stopped short of apologizing for the failures, saying instead that "nobody is more frustrated than me."

I doubt that, but we'll let it pass. Meanwhile, the dispatch offers something that's rarely been seen in the last five years -- skepticism concerning Obama administration assertions:

Officials have instead pointed selectively to figures putting the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites. The applications must be completed before people can enroll in insurance policies.

Emphasis mine. Selectively, you say? Huh. Interesting.

A lot of the problems were baked in; last week the New York Times reported this little tidbit:

Deadline after deadline was missed. The biggest contractor, CGI Federal, was awarded its $94 million contract in December 2011. But the government was so slow in issuing specifications that the firm did not start writing software code until this spring, according to people familiar with the process. As late as the last week of September, officials were still changing features of the Web site, HealthCare.gov, and debating whether consumers should be required to register and create password-protected accounts before they could shop for health plans.

This is project management 101; my son, who is working on his Eagle Scout project right now, understands that you can't let deadlines slip. To let a year go by before issuing specifications is an excellent way to fail.

Don't abandon hope, though: America's Finest News Source has unearthed a solution:

Responding to widespread criticism regarding its health care website, the federal government today unveiled its new, improved Obamacare program, which allows Americans to purchase health insurance after installing a software bundle contained on 35 floppy disks. “I have heard the complaints about the existing website, and I can assure you that with this revised system, finding the right health care option for you and your family is as easy as loading 35 floppy disks sequentially into your disk drive and following the onscreen prompts,” President Obama told reporters this morning, explaining that the nearly three dozen 3.5-inch diskettes contain all the data needed for individuals to enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace, while noting that the updated Obamacare software is mouse-compatible and requires a 386 Pentium processor with at least 8 MB of system RAM to function properly.

Sounds like the Hillarycare prototype.