Obama pays price for skipping the high road

A single solution to two monumental political problems faced President Obama in the hours before the Oct. 1 government shutdown, and he failed to take the high road.

In one of those strange conflagrations of Washington events, the shutdown and the long-awaited launch of the Obamacare health exchanges took place on the same day. In the weeks leading up to that moment, the president was repeatedly cautioned that the federal website offering the online insurance marketplace was not ready to go. Glitches were publicly predicted by Obama, not outright malfunctions extending for weeks at a time.

 

He had been warned. He had to know what was coming – a disastrous rollout of the health insurance portal that would outlive the shutdown rancor on Capitol Hill.

At that time, the tea party Republicans in Congress, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, boldly demanded the defunding of Obamacare. Given that the Affordable Care Act serves as the signature achievement of the Obama presidency, I doubt that Cruz or his minions really believed that dismantling Obamacare was an option for the White House.

But delaying the ACA exchanges was an option – a smart, pragmatic option.

 

Realizing that the exchanges were headed for a meltdown – even if the online traffic on the web site was not heavier than expected – Obama had an opening.

On Sept. 30, he could have swallowed his political pride and made a shrewd move – a totally unexpected decision – to announce a delay in the individual exchanges in exchange for keeping the government running and temporarily raising the debt ceiling.

Befuddled congressional Republicans, caught off guard by the offer, would have immediately accepted it. They never would realize that they had been snookered, because an ACA delay was their Plan B.

 

The GOP would have achieved a concession they coveted, and Obama would have disarmed them to some extent. The mantra that the president refuses to negotiate and won’t work with Congress would be silenced.

That would have scored big political points for the White House with independents and moderates. More importantly, the president would have avoided the messy ACA enrollment period and would have quietly dodged a political bullet.

Yet, he pushed forward in a fit of Inside-The-Beltway bellicosity.

 

Numerous press reports indicate that the president was told as early as March that the healthcare.gov site was far behind schedule and far from working efficiently. Those internal warnings became a flashing red light as the Oct. 1 launch approached. But the administration dug in its heels and adopted a bunker mentality, determined not to give the congressional Republicans any more ammunition in their opposition to Obamacare.

It’s probably true that Cruz & Co. would be emboldened by presidential backtracking in the ACA rollout. But, from a purely political standpoint, Obama could have emphasized the fairness issue, declaring that he had come to believe that businesses and individuals should be treated equally by Obamacare, with each granted a reprieve.

 

He could have placated his liberal base by hinting that giving more time to ACA the system was best for all. He could have pointed out that the state-administered exchanges are ready to go but he is willing to hold them back. He could have said that the fact that 36 states refused to create their own exchange – far more than expected due to opposition from Republican state legislatures – placed an unanticipated burden on the federal portal, partially due to a lack of funding from GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

But he didn’t.
Instead, he obstinately pushed forward, refusing to concede in the least that the ACA was not working as planned.

And now Obamacare’s shaky image has suffered a big black eye.

 

It’s only a matter of days, now that the shutdown buzz is over, that the late-night comics will gorge their audiences with an unhealthy dose of Obamacare jokes. “Did you hear that the Obama administration used Commodore 64 computers to design the health care web site?”

This setback in public acceptance could prove ominous among tech savvy young people, the healthy cohort that the ACA system badly needs. The enrollment breakdown has already discouraged millions of uninsured Americans from signing up.

 

Instead of a self-imposed postponement, the White House will now be forced to extend the enrollment process for months as the snafus continue.

A delay in the exchanges (preferably for nine months, to keep the new launch away from the heat of 2014 congressional campaigns) would have undoubtedly produced howls of “surrender” from the president’s liberal base. But by sticking with Oct. 1, many who believe Obamacare will be a big success are exasperated and asking one question:

 

How can it take more than three years to design a web site? Let me count the ways.

 

The prototype of the federal exchange had gone from glitches to hardware and software malfunctions to breakdowns so severe that millions would never get past the sign-in stage on the portal. According to some reports, the software technology deployed is 10 years old.

The entire process was mismanaged, underfunded and far behind schedule. Cost overruns far exceeded 100 percent, putting the new price tag at about $400 million. The 55 contractors working on the project were frustrated by the lack of leadership from the Medicare/Medicaid agency chosen to oversee the effort.

 

Clearly, the Oct. 1 launch should never have happened. Nor should have the shutdown and the congressional Republicans’ irrational flirtation with a U.S. debt default.

The 16-day showdown that ensued damaged the economy and worldwide trust in the U.S. financial system. If it’s possible, the budget battle only widened the polarization in Congress.

The Republicans may have been wounded more than the Democrats by the White House tactics. But the tussle hurt our entire political system. It enhanced the public view that Washington is hapless and broken.

 

The reputation of Congress has hit rock bottom, though these so-called lawmakers didn’t have far to fall.

Obama must share in the blame for that. After all, he gave them a push.