In the “other” Washington, the one that is temporarily shuttered at this moment in time, the debate ties our nation’s economic comeback and unemployment figures to “consumer demand.”
Breaking news: We’ve just found it! The demand placed on “our” state’s online Web servers for wahealthplanfinder.org as of October 1st, 2013, is enormous. In fact, the demand for affordable health care in this Washington has been so overwhelming it temporarily flooded health care registration on our state’s Exchange site for a period of nearly 5 hours on opening day. Consumer demand for affordable health care is simply “off-the-charts,” at “strike up the bandwidth,” record-breaking levels.
The “demand” to sign on to the Affordable Care Act among tens of millions of Americans, including those who qualify for subsidized health insurance, or with pre-existing conditions, or with serious illnesses that exceed outmoded coverage limits, resembles something like a “national avalanche” under the geologic formations of Mount Rushmore. The lifeline that so many Americans are desperately reaching for to pull them out of the downward spiral into illness, bankruptcy and despair could ultimately mean the difference between life and death. Why is this a political issue that is holding our government hostage?
For millions of U.S. citizens in desperate need of health care, their “mortal enemy” is the Republican party of the United States Congress. With the ideological ultimatum to defund, destabilize, and, in essence, destroy a national health insurance, policy, the motives seem all too clear. What is unforgiving is that it is not just a rogue faction but a unanimous right-wing party vote has repeatedly maneuvered to wrest health care out of the hands of millions of Americans. Patriotic? We’d call it pathologic!
Closer to home, the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, while struggling to regain its online footing, is squabbling with insurance brokers who heretofore have worked tirelessly to educate their clients about the choices available to them under the new health plan offerings. One such firm, Washington’s HealthInsuranceTeam.com has been caught in the crossfire while trying to promote its role as insurance advisor, albeit using a very similar domain name, WashingtonHealthPlanFinder.org
Talk about “spelling things out.” Without the abbreviation, the Shoreline-based health insurance brokerage would actually mirror the address for the state’s new health insurance exchange. However, Health Insurance Team notified the state about its intent to use the similar sounding domain name in advance and even met them for lunch. Now the state has referred the matter to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner to investigate deceptive practices. Say what?
With its server on the injured list and its Website overrun, it seems to us the Washington Health Benefits Exchange needs all the help it can get. It is not in the spirit of the Web to cut off the channels or Web links that afford safe passage to important public programs. [24×7]
