Americans have always been an impatient and restless people. It’s in our national DNA, RNA, NRA and PTA; not the latter 2 obviously, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s one reason we love new technology so much, our national attention span is short and we get bored easily. This national ADD has been there from the beginning and has been a blessing and a curse from the beginning as well. We want instant gratification, and we want it right now.
That brings me to the increasingly stupid debate over the ACA roll-out. The MSM and foes of the bill are shocked, shocked, shocked by the low enrollment numbers. I guess they think everyone should have signed up by now in defiance of everything we know about human nature. This is an important decision and people tend to weigh their options and then procrastinate. The ACA sign up experience is in line with Willardcare:0.3% of the population there signed up in the first month as opposed to 1.5% for the ACA. That’s right, people wait for a deadline but the impatient among us insist upon instant gratification.
The stupidity of the coverage is, of course, driven by the GOP and their lackeys in the MSM. The former *wants* the ACA to fail and the latter loves drama. I have a real estate analogy to bring to the ACA debate table. The Democrats have built a new house on a relatively firm foundation but it needs tweaking just like every structure. It ain’t perfect, but it’s a start. Next door the Republicans have an empty lot but feel free to criticize the house built by the Obama administration using pre-nihilst era GOP plans. A few of them have vandalized the ACA house and others have contemplated arson. Then there are the Republican Governors who have turned down federal money to help their own constituents. So who’s driving the ACA debate in the MSM? The vandals and arsonists, that’s who.
In a perfect world, Healthcare.gov would have worked well from day one, but nothing in the IT zone is ever perfect at the beginning. Unless you can write your own code or do your own programming, you’re at the mercy of your IT people. That is *part* of the story of the web site problems, not a conspiracy by the Obama-ites to jam unwanted health insurance down the throats of the American people. The people running the ACA roll out are only as good as their IT people who seem to have been overly optimistic, which is as much a part of the American character as impatience. We *expect* good things to happen and are surprised when they don’t.
The feverish coverage of the ACA roll out is beginning to make me sick. And I’m already sick and tired of being sick and tired as the saying goes. The whole mess shows why health care reform has *always* been so hard: it’s too complicated to explain in pithy sound bites but it’s easy to oppose using 2nd grade level language ala Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity.
My prescription is for everyone to take a deep breath and stop freaking out about a web site working slower than hoped. That’s life, y’all, you hope for the best and deal with the worst. In the words of the old song, “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.” Of course, roses have thorns that need trimming. Nothing is perfect, life requires patience even in the age of impatience.
