While we all knew that Obamacare was going to be a fiasco – and many of us who work in IT were putting specific parameters around the term “fiasco”, by the way – there was always a least one pleasant sideline:
Adriana, the Obamacare girl.
Now, I’ve worked in healthcare IT. Executives in the trade have this notion that having a non-threatening, smiling woman on a website make the site a more pleasant, less-threatening experience.
There might be something to that. I dunno.
There might also be something to making the site actually work.
But I digress. According to ABC, Adriana is a Columbian immigrant, a legal resident, married to a citizen, and her photo was obtained through a – what else? – government program trading free family photo sessions for the rights to use the photos on Healthcare.gov. That’s right. Our government is trillions in debt, but on hiring camera models, they scrimp like Kazakh rug-traders.
And we’re told that the cataclysmic self-immolation of the site has brought out the crazies – and some of them have found Ms. Adriana:
She learned over the summer that her photo would be on healthcare.gov’s main page, but she didn’t realize it would become so closely associated with the problems of the glitchy website.
“I mean, I don’t know why people should hate me because it’s just a photo. I didn’t design the website. I didn’t make it fail, so I don’t think they should have any reasons to hate me,” Adriana told ABC News.
Anyone who blames a camera model for a system’s technical fubars deserves to lose their current insurance, if you know what I mean.
Ms. Adriana: Shot in the Dark needs a spokesmodel. The site works. And the locals – at least, the ones who agree with me – aren’t batspittle crazy. And the pay is exactly the same as you’re getting from the Feds.
Por favor – podría considerar mi oferta. That’s all I’m saying.
Ms. Adriana: Shot in the Dark needs a spokesmodel. The site works. And the locals – at least, the ones who agree with me – aren’t batspittle crazy. And the pay is exactly the same as you’re getting from the Feds.
I think she should go with MinnPost. She might get at least a taste of some of that Joyce Foundation money then. And if she plays her cards right, she might even get to represent Minnesota House District 66A some day.
Well played, D.
Fly, Ms. Adriana. Fly away.
Bob Collins brought this up on MPR newscut. I wondered why Obama & the Democrat legislators that made the law weren’t on the page.
They deleted the comment; your federal tax dollars at work.
Swiftee, Bob Collins doesn’t have a lot of patience for those who might dare question him or his habitual inability to speak truth to power unless it’s some perceived Rethuglican threat to how things must be ordered or Lumber Mutt ownership.
Next to Prof Bill, that’s the most cranky twitter feed I have seen.
If you were a Dem politician, what you would find terrifying is the idea that the rest of the law will prove as unpopular and badly implemented as what we have seen so far. It does not bode well for the future.
You might hear about Obama’s broken promise that ‘if you like your health insurance, you’ll be able to keep it”, but what you won’t hear from the MSM is why he made the promise. in 2010 over 80% of Americans were happy with their health insurance. Obama lied because he didn’t want that 80% to feel threatened by the ACA. It’s a cheap politicians’ trick, promising the people unhappy with the current system that they would get relief, while promising the people vested in the current system that nothing would change. Obama’s entire presidency has been one promise like that after another, a fact you would be made aware of every single day if the media was not itself invested in Obama’s success.
My thought is that, by giving free photo sessions to those willing to appear on the Health Insurance Deform Act portal, the government probably spent far more money to find a suitable model than they otherwise would have. A few hours spent searching for DC-area models and a couple of thousand bucks to a good photographer (found on the same website) is a lot cheaper than taking family pictures for bunches of families until you find the “right” person to be the “Glitch Girl.” Or they could have purchased rights to use a stock photo for a few hundred bucks.
So by trying to skimp, they probably ended up increasing the cost by a factor of at least ten. “Oops.” Kazakh carpet traders aren’t that dumb!
Numbers are out: Since October 1st, Obamacare has resulted in 5,000,000 policy cancellations and ~160,000 new policies issued. The NY Times reports that “Experts say that the new study’s estimates of premature death likely err on the conservative side. The report calculated that lack of insurance increased mortality rates by 25 percent.”
Obama is a moron elected by morons.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/deaths-rising-due-to-lack-of-insurance-study-finds/?_r=0
PM, the Malthusians are jumping for joy.
Now Powhatan, let’s not be so hard on the morons by comparing them with Dear Leader, OK? :^)
The costs of providing free photography in order to find a female model is really just another expense created by intransigent Republicans. They wouldn’t share their binders.
p m are those policies issued, or people who logged on and put them in the shopping cart to think about it ?
I saw another site claiming glitch girl is a resident alien, not even a citizen, who had not signed up herself. The jokes write themselves.
Joe Doakes-
I stole that number from Althouse — and got it wrong. Should be 106,000, state + federal exchanges. Althouse points to this WaPo article:http://wapo.st/1bDq0FF
“The administration report counted people as having enrolled in a health plan if they selected one, even if they have not begun to pay for it.”
The person I will like to hear from is that kid that appeared on the commercial that he went to the computer and signed up. Maybe a cable television news program will invite him on to sign up for a plan that works and is easy to do.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Well, here’s a true story.
My wife works for a very large employer. Since I work for a small company, I have been on her plan, for obvious reasons.
Yesterday, all of the employees with spouses on their program, had to declare whether or not benefits were available from their employers. If plans are available, the company wants those spouses to move to their own plans. If I stay on her plan, they will hang a $225 per month SURCHARGE (yes, that’s what the notice says) on it.
As it turns out my premium on my employer’s plan is $400 per month, but the company picks up $300 of it, so I’ll save money moving to that plan. It’s not as good (higher deductibles and co-pays), but the preventative portion is the same.
That’s all good, but what pisses me off, it that my wife’s company won’t be reducing the premium on her plan.