You know the ObamaCare debut isn't going well when a pair of supporters, Nick Wing and Jeffrey Young of the Puffington Host, pen an article with the headline "9 Valid Concerns We Can All Have About Obamacare, Without Thinking It Will Literally Bring Hell on Earth." Talk about damning with faint praise!

A volcanic fire pit in Hawaii Getty Images/Perspectives

Actually, let's dwell on that headline for a moment. As much as some people hate ObamaCare, nobody thinks it will literally bring hell on earth. We say that with confidence because literal hell on earth is a contradiction in terms. When hell is understood as a physical place, it is not on earth but beneath it. Hell may be imagined as resembling certain places on earth--say, the inside of a volcano or a burning building--but those places are not literally hell. Hell can also denote an abstraction referring to great suffering, either in the afterlife or on earth (as in "war is hell"). But again, "hell on earth" is but a figure of speech.

Wing and Young are being tendentious, not just playful. Republicans, they claim, "say the law needs to die in part because President Barack Obama and his administration are going to use it to 'destroy everything in America,' fulfilling some sort of sick, biblical End Times prophecy." The link goes to a report from the left-liberal group that styles itself People for the American Way, according to which "Rep. Michele Bachmann accused President Obama of giving aid to Al Qaeda, which she said is proof that we are living in the Last Days." That does seem bonkers but has nothing to do with ObamaCare.

The first link takes us to a National Review Online post quoting Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, who says: "America is going to be destroyed by ObamaCare. . . . This law is going to destroy America and everything in America, and we need to stop it." reports that CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressed Broun to explain what he meant, and at length the congressman responded: "Well, it's going to take us off the edge economically. It's going to destroy our economy and it's going to push us into a total economic collapse of America. And that's exactly what I mean by it's going to destroy America."

We'd call that prediction over the top, but it has no evident theological content. Wing and Young have set up quite a straw man, taking ObamaCare opponents' most exaggerated fears and exaggerating them even further.

They set up a straw man on the other side of the debate as well. The article opens with the "concession" that "the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. . . . Like most laws, Obamacare never will be perfect." (That "most" is a nice touch. One wonders if they have an example in mind of a law that is perfect.) But we don't recall anyone promising that ObamaCare would be perfect. What Obama and his backers promised was that it would be very, very good--that it would provide "universal" (or nearly so) coverage while reducing costs and maintaining or improving the quality of medical care.

Now, however, Wing and Young dramatically scale back that promise, describing ObamaCare as an "ambitious reform effort meant to make a dent in the nearly 50 million Americans who currently lack health insurance." Again, that's a contradiction in terms: It was in fact "ambitious," but it would not have been so if it meant only to "make a dent."

This is all by way of setting a very low standard for evaluating ObamaCare, one that will ensure it will be judged a "success" as long as it doesn't destroy America. But the meat of the article is actually an indictment of ObamaCare, at least if one applies a reasonable standard of asking whether on balance it is a good piece of legislation. Here are the "concerns" even these ObamaCare enthusiasts deem "valid":

1. What happens if not enough people enroll? 2. How will people respond to paying higher premiums? 3. What happens if the newly insured don't understand what they're buying? 4. What about the states that didn't expand Medicaid? 5. Will health care coverage be sufficient for everyone? 6. What happens if Obamacare succeeds in some states but fails in others? 7. How will companies handle the employer mandate when it takes effect? 8. Are there substantial technical flaws? 9. How secure are the exchanges?

All of these concerns could have been anticipated four years ago when ObamaCare was being designed, possibly excepting No. 4, which arose from the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius, which permitted states to opt out of Obamacaid.

Politico reports that Wolf Blitzer, of all people, "said Wednesday that the Obama administration should consider accepting the advice of Republicans and delay the Obamacare rollout by a year":

After fellow CNN reporter Brian Todd reported that the administration had been warned months in advance about potential glitches now plaguing the online sign-ups, Blitzer suggested perhaps the administration should have waited a year.
"They had three years to get this ready, if they weren't fully ready, they should accept the advice Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it ready and make sure it works," Blitzer said.

After drawing unwelcome applause from ObamaCare opponents, Blitzer tweeted a "clarification": "Context matters. Earlier I said the govt shouldn't launch a website before it works. I did not express a view about the individual mandate."

The problems with the website are pervasive. A new Associated Press poll finds that 7% of Americans "reported that somebody in their household has tried to sign up for insurance through the health care exchanges. . . . Three-fourths of those who tried to sign up reported problems, though." reports that "potential registrants talking to phone support . . . have been told that all user passwords are being reset to help address the site's login woes. And the tech supports behind will be asking more users to act in the name of fixing the site, too. According to registrants speaking with Ars, individuals whose logins never made it to the site's database will have to re-register using a different username, as their previously chosen names are now stuck in authentication limbo." claims "evidence is mounting that the Obamacare exchange is not actually a fully-formed online application. More and more, it appears to be a mockup of a health care exchange enrollment system." The site asks: "At what point will the Obamacare exchange hoax become obvious?" That seems like a crazy (if amusing) conspiracy theory. On the other hand, how would anyone know?

Bloomberg, meanwhile, reports that "insurers are getting faulty and incomplete data from the new U.S.-run health exchange, which may mean some Americans won't be covered even after they sign up for an insurance plan."

Which raises an interesting question about the individual mandate. After the court's ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius, the mandate, of course, is not an actual legal command, but, as Chief Justice John Roberts put it, merely the establishment of "a condition--not owning health insurance--that triggers a tax--the required payment to the IRS."

Suppose Congress had enacted the individual mandate, as construed by the chief justice, as stand-alone legislation. That is, suppose we had a law imposing a punitive tax on uninsured individuals without any provision to help people get insurance. It seems patently unfair and constitutionally at least dubious to tax people for a "condition"--being uninsured--that is in many cases beyond their control.

Yet in practical terms that is exactly what ObamaCare will turn out to be if the exchanges aren't made to work within a matter of weeks. That suggests grounds for a new legal challenge to the individual mandate one that--OK, call us a cockeyed optimist--could give the chief justice an opportunity to undo his mistake.

6103 Skidoo




Meanwhile, the Hill quotes Ingram as telling the committee her agency hasn't experienced any technical problems in implementing ObamaCare: "The portion of the responsibilities the IRS is in charge of is going fine," she said. How reassuring!

We Blame George W. Bush
"Ask Amy: Family Debt Problem Starts With Dad"--headline, Washington Post, Oct. 10

They're Shutting Down the Whole Solar System
"Shutdown Mars Obama Kin's Trip"--headline, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 10

He'd Also Be 141 Years Old
"Kansas Scholar: President Coolidge Would Have Compromised on Today's Shutdown"--headline, Wichita Eagle, Oct. 10

The Lonely Lives of Scientists
"Want Ripples On Your Icicles? Scientists Suggest Adding Salt"--headline, University of Toronto press release, Oct. 9

Hey, Kids! What Time Is It?
"After Years of Austerity, It's Time for Germany to Push Growth in Europe"--headline, Puffington Host, Oct. 10

Questions Nobody Is Asking
"Al Gore Tried to Buy Twitter and Merge It With Current. What if He'd Succeeded?"--headline,, Oct. 9

Answers to Questions Nobody Is Asking
"Bachmann: I've Never 'Done Twerking' "--headline,, Oct. 9

Question and Answer

  • "Will a Chicken That's Fed Lemons Taste Like Lemons?"--headline, Popular Science website, Oct. 9
  • "President Obama's Chicken Little Challenge"--headline,, Oct. 10

Ted Cruz Wants to Be Obama's Next Cousin--Now That Would Be News
"Obama's Cousin Wants to Be the Next Ted Cruz"--headline, National Review Online, Oct. 9

Look Out Below!
"PC Sales Continue to Plunge, but the Drop Is Less Steep"--headline,, Oct. 9

It's Always in the Last Place You Look
"In a Polluted Stream, a Pathway to Peace"--headline, New York Times, Oct. 10

News You Can Use
"There Is Still Time to See a Cranberry Bog Outside Union Station"--headline, Washington Post website, Oct. 9

The Accidental Reconstructionist
"A Florida TV station reports that people's credit score's [sic] will 'have a big impact' on how much they pay for Obamacare," reports The Weekly Standard's Daniel Halper:

"As more and [more] families are looking for insurance options for the new Affordable Care Act, they're finding out their credit score will have a big impact on how much they pay," reports an anchor. "A lot of people want to know why credit scores are determining how much they pay."
"Well, they say it was explained to us like this: It's like buying a house or a car. Your credit score and other factors can determine your interest rate. In this case, it can determine how much you pay in premiums," the local reporter explains.
Says one Obamacare navigator: It's "so that a health insurance provider can make [an] educated decision about who to insure based [on] if somebody is defaulting on all their bills, they may not want to have them in part of their health plan."

Oops! Turns out the navigator had no idea what she was talking about: ObamaCare premiums are unrelated to credit ratings. Halper has an update with the follow-up report from Orlando's WKMG, in which the lost navigator is unable to explain where she came up with the idea.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from Atlantic City, N.J., that "an accident has taken place at an accident reconstruction convention--but not intentionally":

Russell Strickland of Cincinnati was acting as a radio operator for an experiment to crash two cars at medium speeds in a controlled environment when the accident occurred. Strickland was badly bruised but did not break any bones. He is expected to be released from the hospital Thursday.
Accident reconstructionists were meeting from across the United States and Canada at their annual convention, which this year is being held in Atlantic City.

We had no idea there was such a thing as an accident reconstruction convention. But it's a hell of a metaphor, isn't it?

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(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Miguel Rakiewicz, Ethel Fenig, Zack Russ, Irene DeBlasio, Michele Schiesser, Jeff Bliss, David Smith, Macrena Sailor, Todd Dierdorff, Bob Acker, Irwin Kraus, Dave Shelly, Rod Pennington, Yan Mogilyansky, Eric Jensen and Stuart Claghorn. If you have a tip, write us at, and please include the URL.)