Editorial: Managing Expectations

The "first-class" user experience for shopping health care online (the one that Shumlin et al. compared to "Amazon" or "Orbitz") is scheduled to come online Oct. 1. But if you were getting excited about that... calm down.

In March Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said of the federal effort - "Let's just make sure it's not a Third World experience." Two weeks ago Robin Lunge, director of health care reform, told the legislative Health Care Oversight Committee that the Vermont exchange likely won't be ready at all. That system cost $100 million and will be the exclusive source for purchasing health insurance for over 100,000 Vermonters.

Don't worry, Lunge said, "If the Web portal is broken or isn't usable we could continue to do a paper process."

But before despairing at the aforementioned bad choices (no online shopping or a third-world experience), just think of all the money liberals promised you'll save through their "more affordable health care system." Remember they said that by cutting out big CEO bonuses and superfluous marketing budgets - voila - they would bend the cost curve; save us hundreds of millions - billions even.

Unfortunately it turns out that community rating, guaranteed issue provisions and premium taxes on insurers are guaranteed to drive up premiums across the board - making insurance more expensive for the middle class; raising taxes on almost everyone; and dramatically increasing federal spending (read, debt). Anyone paying attention to Vermont missteps in health care over the past two decades could have explained this to the liberal ideologues - if they had been interested in facts (they weren't).

At the federal level candidate Obama's projection of a $50 billion system has already doubled.

OK, fine. So now they've confessed to a bad (or no) online shopping experience and higher premiums for almost everyone. At least every one of the 45 million uninsured Americans will now be covered, right? Well, everyone except 23 million of them.

So what are the chief architects to do when their terrible system is nearing its debut?

Earlier this week Rep. Peter Welch and Governor Shumlin stood shoulder to shoulder and explained to Vermont businesses... er... well... nothing in this world is perfect. Welch said "There is no law that is going to on its own change health care. It's the hard work of implementation to get from where we are to where we need to be, and where we are is health care is too expensive."

What Welch should have said is that there is indeed a law that is going to change health care. In fact there are a couple, including the federal PPACA and Vermont's H:202. Liberals raved about them because they've never had to actually deal with federal or state bureaucracies (other than to collect their pay check). Anyone who has knew well that this was going to be a train wreck - a. really. expensive. terrifying. train. wreck.

...And sure enough....

So do yourself a favor and forget everything they promised. Try to make peace with your coming, expensive, third-world experience.