By Christopher Medrano
When the Obamacare website launched on October 1st, it was far from being well received. It should seem that the faulty launch only served to prove the Republican view that the government cannot be trusted to be in charge of healthcare in the United States. The representatives of this institutionalized system have been answering to the public through hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee. It should appear that those constructing the website were in too much of a hurry to analyze quality assurance. Marilyn Tavenner of the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services explained that the final testing of the website was too rushed. Many are questioning why it was that the system was not tested until two weeks prior to its launch or why the government was unprepared for five times the number of people signing in than expected. It is expected that the site should be up and running efficiently by the end of November, but many citizens and politicians remain pessimistic that HealthCare.gov will persevere. This pathetic incident far from aided the people’s general confidence in the government’s performance as a health care provider. Especially since it has now become public knowledge that emails and other documentation exchanged between webmasters and the Obama Administration clearly explained that it was known how inconsistent and unreliable the website was with regards to technical performance.
The Affordable Healthcare Act serves as a piece of legislation that will be most directly helpful to those are not currently covered by a healthcare plan, particularly the elderly and younger generations who are not eligible for it. To people who already have insurance, Obamacare stands as a looming cloud in the distance formed by the government stepping outside of its bounds. While the president vowed that those with health care policies would be able to keep them, many people are discovering that their policies won’t be available next year and that it will be more expensive to replace them.
One of the biggest targets to suffer the brunt of the Affordable Healthcare Act is the class of college students who benefit from their university’s coverage. The institutionalization of healthcare declares that most college’s coverage plans do not meet the strict standards, which leaves many schools with a puzzling decision to make. They can either opt to get rid of their coverage plans or provide far more expensive ones, an estimated 1500% increase. For most college students, the stress of affording books will now be burdened by the need to afford insurance that will cost around four times the cost of the most expensive textbooks.
Another recent dilemma that has emerged since the launch of the Obamacare website has been the question as to whether the system truly promotes a citizen’s right to privacy when it comes to their medical information. The disclaimer on the Terms and Conditions page of the site clearly states, “You have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system,” and that, “At any time, and for any lawful Government purpose, the government may monitor, intercept, and search and seize any communication or data transiting or stored on this information system.” These statements out and out confess that the government simply is not prepared to take on such a large responsibility as social healthcare. Perhaps someday in the future, a more efficient system can be implemented, but, for the time being, the government’s plan for institutionalized healthcare is not capable of doing all it can to satisfy the privacy needs for those who purchase plans through it. Citizens will, no doubt, be disclosing private medical information through this electronic setup, which runs the risk of allowing hackers to gain access to such documentation. In addition, such information could be manipulated by various departments of government to snoop around patients’ confidential files. This is how individuals become just numbers in a computer system. It has already been recognized that the government’s intrusion in the medical field has had many debilitating effects. Obamacare has an even more threatening potential to cause further harm.