re: #212 lawhawk

If the site’s functioning and people can now get plan information without requiring registration, that will do a whole lot to reduce the frustration with the site.

The next step is whether they’ve resolved the application process problems, along with the transmittal of data to insurers (834 reports). Finally, there’s the back end processing portion of the site - that portion of the puzzle that gets payments to insurers and deals with the subsidies.

Having easy access to the information is key and critical to the ACA’s long term success. I’d say that the revamp does just that, and undermines the GOP’s continued opposition. We’ll see how the application numbers pick up and how many more people are now covered.

I do begin to wonder whether the GOP sabotage and repeal efforts might eventually trigger a major backfire. At the public level it might be viewed as something that works and it is obvious that the GOP has done nothing productive to help the law help the citizenry. At the business level the insurance industry might start seeing the GOP work as counterproductive to their profit making since the GOP efforts are complicating their work, and the obvious next step is for the GOP to start throwing up roadblocks by adding “extras” to the ACA at the state and national level to make applying and using the law more bureaucratic and annoying.