How to Save Obamacare

Anyone who has tried to sign up for Obamacare, as I have, knows that the launch of the Affordable Care Act has been -- is -- an unmitigated disaster.

Can it be fixed? Maybe.

But first, it's important to digest the sheer ginormousness of this bastard cross between privatized grift -- a wholesale transfer of wealth from individual patients to giant insurers subject to no oversight but their own absent consciences -- and a spectacularly inept government bureaucracy run by careless, corrupt, connected buffoons.

More than 2 million people are getting booted from their existing health insurance because their current plans fall short of ACA standards.

Obama's defenders say the cancelled coverage was "junk quality." Which may be true. Still, it might have been nice to tell people about this provision, which the White House was well aware of, three years ago. When the president signed the law. As opposed to, you know, assuring us of the exact opposite.

Back in 2010, it turns out, the feds estimated that 50% to 75% of all current individual policies would have to be cancelled due to the ACA. So the current crisis is likely to expand in scope.

There's no evidence that anyone has successfully purchased a plan. None. No one. Zero.

Six people managed to "sign up" on October 1st. Nationally.

As for the "signs-ups" -- people who managed to register online or by phone, but couldn't choose or sign up for an actual plan -- it turns out that 90% of these people are so poor that they'll get Medicaid. Only 10% might wind up buying the mandated private insurance plans. "When we first saw the numbers, everyone's eyes kind of bugged out," Matt Salo, head of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, told The Washington Post. "Of the people walking through the door, 90 percent are on Medicaid. We're thinking, what planet is this happening on?"

Seriously?

The United States is not a rich country -- well, it's rich, but most United Statesers are poor. And anyway, who do you think is going to jam up the Intertubes to get healthcare first, 23-year-old "young invincibles" earning $10 an hour, or 53-year-old diabetics?

There may well be fewer Americans covered by insurance on New Year's Day 2014 than on 2013 -- due to Obamacare.

It's been estimated that 45,000 Americans die each year because they're uninsured. In other words, according to back-of-the-envelope arithmetic, 3,800 people will die because Obama and his underlings didn't focus on the website launches until a couple of weeks before October 1st. Those are Katrina numbers. With more victims by the day.

I'm not counting those who will lose their existing plans without being able to replace them.

OK, it's easy to complain (than to sign up for Obamacare, bapadumbum). What would I do differently?

Socialized medicine. Like in England. It works.