German Chocolate Obamacare Schadenfreude Thursday

What would today's list of Obamacare schadenfreudes be without the website crashing while Kathleen Sebelius tried to demostrate how well it was working?:

She was meeting with Obamacare Navigators when the HealthCare.Gov website crashed right in front of her. This must happen a lot because she took it in stride, saying cheerfully, “Uh oh!” while her host said, “Oh, that happens every day!”

That's just German Chocolate Schadenfreude.

Kind of like a new version of Windows giving the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" while being demoed by Bill Gates. Wait, that happened too. 

"That's must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet."

Wellmark insurance company capitalized on the website fiasco (as nearly everyone now calls it) to produce a commercial suggesting that consumers bypass the government's buggy, low security website, and buy directly from them:



Everyday brings worse polling data for the Preznit.  Yesterday a CBS poll, an outfit not normally associated with criticism of his policies, showed his approval ratings at 37%, and approval ratings for the law at 31%.  But conservatives shouldn't take too much heart at that, because about half of them are liberals mad at him for not confiscating the healthcare system directly.

President Obama’s job approval rating has plunged to the lowest of his presidency, according to a new CBS News poll released Wednesday, and Americans’ approval of the Affordable Care Act has dropped it’s lowest since CBS News started polling on the law.

Thirty-seven percent now approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, down from 46 percent in October — a nine point drop in just a month. Mr. Obama’s disapproval rating is 57 percent — the highest level for this president in CBS News Polls.

The president and his administration continue efforts to deflect the criticism of the new law, complain that Mitt Romney or George Bush made them do it, or what have the republicans proposed? (plenty, but you'd never hear it), but as pointed out by ABC's Rich Klein, the democrats now own it, guts, feathers and all.

Lost in the Democratic angst over Obamacare is a simple fact of 2014 politics: They don’t really have any choice but to own it. If the new health care law is anywhere close to its current unpopularity in 10 or 11 months, it will be the biggest issue, and perhaps close to the only issue, that Republicans push in the midterm elections. No quantity of votes on “fixes” now will matter in the broad messaging wars later; no lawmaker, and virtually no Democratic challenger, will be able to seal him or herself off from potential political damage.

Democrats are farther into panic mode than even yesterday, if possible:

“Here we are, we’re supposed to be selling this to people, and it’s all screwed up,” one chief of staff ranted. “This either gets fixed or this could be the demise of the Democratic Party. “It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen it,” the aide said of the recent mood on Capitol Hill. “It’s bad. It’s really bad.”

“They’re freaking out, as they should be,” said one senior Senate Democratic aide, adding that the rollout continues to be “a lasting mess.”

“The only way he can really make it up to us is by fixing this s–t,” one Democratic House aide said.

While some people were comparing Obama's reaction to Obamacare with President Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina, even Obamashill Donna Brazil admitted that was a poor analogy:
Obamacare Isn't Katrina, It Reveals Something Worse

-Donna Brazile quoted in “Obama blunders into his own ‘Katrina;’ WashingtonTimes, November 17, 2013

Hurricane Katrina was not pre-billed as George W. Bush's signature achievement, he didn't direct it's creation, and he did, in fact, try to warn New Orleans to evacuate, and was overruled by
democratic pols. And Bush had the press against him and Obama has the press in his corner.  Otherwise, it's a perfect analogy.

President’s impulse so wholly redistributive of late and proving to be ineffective in arresting economic malaise, he does risk the possibility of feeding another economic contraction before he leaves office – something worse than the second-term curse of any recent predecessor.

The greatest crisis of confidence transcends views of President Obama, it is the one that has all of America in doubt over its economic future.

The one bright spot in all this mess is that seeing the government fail so awfully in it's attempt to take over and control the nation's health care system, one sixth of its economy, in one swell foop, is that it may actually be turning a significant number of voters away from government control:

Gallup asked Americans: "Do you think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage, or is that not the responsibility of the federal government?" Only 42% of those surveyed said it is the federal government's responsibility, vs. 56% who said it isn't.

More telling is the trend. Gallup has been asking the question since 2000. "Prior to 2009, a clear majority of Americans consistently had said the government should take responsibility for ensuring that all Americans have healthcare," the firm reports. The proportion answering "yes" peaked in 2006 at 69%--27 points higher than today's number. Then it began declining, to 64% in 2007 and 54% in 2008.

The current 42% is the lowest figure ever recorded, but the percentage answering in the affirmative hasn't risen above 50% since 2009. Remember what happened in 2009?

Remember a few days ago that Project Veritas, the conservative investigators headed by the hated James O'Keefe, showing how federally hired Obamacare Navigators (who just happened to be old ACORN workers) were counseling people to lie on the applications to get better subsidies? They released a new tape showing Obamacare Navigators conspiring to release personal data from the website for political purposes.  Yeah, we never would have predicted that... Long video at link.  I suppose so that can't claim he released an edited video, as is their common complaint (regardless of whether it's true or not).

Enter Enroll America, a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare and Chris Tarango, Texas Enroll America Communications Director who Project Veritas caught on tape agreeing to help obtain a private list of potential Obamacare enrollee data for election/political purposes. Tarango goes so far to say he’ll “Do whatever it f****** takes.”

 The seamless integration of the Democrat Party and the Federal government continues apace.