On October 1st
President Obama compared Obamacare's rocky start to problems that Apple encounters---and fixes--whenever it rolls out a new product [bold added]:
[On] every new product roll-out, there are going to be some glitches in the sign-up process along the way that we will fix....And we're going to be speeding things up in the next few hours to handle all of this demand that exceeds anything that we had expected. Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it.
When Apple has a "glitch," even one as bad as last year's Apple Maps or the
antenna problem in 2010, it fixes the problem or offers a substitute within a matter of weeks. The market eventually (re)embraces Apple's products as second to none in quality and aesthetics.
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An Apple glitch is like the mole on Cindy Crawford's cheek: hardly
noticeable in light of other favorable attributes. (China Daily photo) |
Commentators have been less forgiving in their metaphors.
Peggy Noonan:
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| (WSJ Graphic) |
The ObamaCare rollout is a disaster for the White House, not a problem or a challenge or an embarrassment, not a gaffe or a bad few weeks. [snip]
Asked whether Kathleen Sebelius should be fired, [former Obama chief of staff Bill Daley] said: "To me that's kind of like firing Captain Smith on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg." The Titanic. Some will see his comments as disloyal. Actually they were candid and realistic. Although in fairness, the Titanic at least had three good days, and Edward Smith chose to go down with the ship.
Then there's the Hindenburg:
Your humble observer is quite confident that healthcare.gov will be
"fixed" by the end of November. A website can be set up in less than an hour, and a feature like user registration can be added in less than a day.
More complex features, like enrollment with an insurance carrier, verifying taxpayer income and subsidies, and securing and encrypting data could take a lot longer than 45 days. However, because there is no published spec sheet the Administration will declare the project complete on November 30. The features that you or I are expecting, dear reader, will be in version 2.0, date to be determined.
© 2013 Stephen Yuen
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