Thursday, October 10, 2013

How long before computer glitches void the individual mandate?

Aside from being the focus of ridicule and a complete mess in the estimation of normally friendly NBC healthcare.gov has the potential to become a major impediment to the enforcement of the individual mandate if its problems are not corrected soon. Simply put, the government cannot insist that all uninsured sign up for insurance and then not provide a working website to do so. To be insured in 2014, as required by law, one's application must be filed by December 15. It's nice that the White House aide in the video thinks all will be well in 6 month but he only has two months as I'm sure there are plenty of district court judges who would like nothing better than to declare the individual mandate unenforceable for 2014. Bear in mind taxpayers have from January 1 until April 15 to file their income taxes and for many the burden is just as onerous and costly.
I have filed my state and federal taxes with Turbo Tax for years. Its software can verify the paper statement from my pension plan, my broker and my 401K plan in seconds and I'm reasonably sure Turbo Tax did not shell out half a billion bucks for its software. Hell, they should have mailed out the program to run on the users computer like AOL used to do. In online discussion groups, computer experts talk of major coding and software problems that could take weeks or months to fix.
If troublemakers want to fight the entire mandate I can think of two areas where they might have success. The standard argument presented against photo ID voting requirement apply to the individual mandate in spades. Too hard to get a photo ID for the poor and minorities? Are we to believe every American has the requisite computer skills to navigate healthcare.gov on a good day? If the mandate was so important the law should have provided a system to enroll even the dumbest among us even if it meant having someone to do it for them.
Then there is the question of internet access. In some remote parts of the country nothing beyond dial-up service is offered and what law mandates a citizen must own a computer? If it's too much trouble to go to the DMV to get a photo ID then is it less onerous to go to a library and spend hours shopping for health insurance? Yes, the Supreme Court did rule the mandate to be constitutional in that the individual could be forced to buy insurance but common sense dictates that it didn't intend that the obligation would be extremely difficult or nearly impossible with which to comply.

No comments: