Bill Keller Doesn't Get Along Very Well with Reality

The following paragraph is one of the biggest howlers in the history of Ever:

Unless you’ve been bamboozled by the frantic fictions of the right wing, you know that the Affordable Care Act, familiarly known as Obamacare, has begun to accomplish its first goal: enrolling millions of uninsured Americans, many of whom have been living one medical emergency away from the poorhouse. You realize those computer failures that have hampered sign-ups in the early days — to the smug delight of the critics — confirm that there is enormous popular demand. You have probably figured out that the real mission of the Republican extortionists and their big-money backers was to scuttle the law before most Americans recognized it as a godsend and rendered it politically untouchable.

So presumably, this is one of the "frantic fictions of the right wing":

The federal health-care exchange that opened a dozen days ago is marred by snags beyond the widely publicized computer gridlock that has thwarted Americans trying to buy a health plan. Even when consumers have been able to sign up, insurers sometimes can’t tell who their new customers are because of a separate set of computer defects.

The problems stem from a feature of the online marketplace’s computer system that is designed to send each insurer a daily report listing people who have just enrolled. According to several insurance industry officials, the reports are sometimes confusing and duplicative. In some cases, they show — correctly or not — that the same person enrolled and canceled several times on a single day.

As, presumably, is this:

It's a batting average that won't land the federal marketplace for Obamacare into the Healthcare Hall of Fame.

As few as 1 in 100 applications on the federal exchange contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a plan, several insurance industry sources told CNBC on Friday. Some of the problems involve how the exchange's software collects and verifies an applicant's data.

"It is extraordinary that these systems weren't ready," said Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, which handles data integrity issues for major insurers including WellPoint and Cigna, as well as multiple Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates.

Experts said that if Healthcare.gov's success rate doesn't improve within the next month or so, federal officials could face a situation in January in which relatively large numbers of people believe they have coverage starting that month, but whose enrollment applications are have not been processed.

"It could be public relations nightmare," said Nijhawan. Insurers have told his company that just "1 in 100" enrollment applicants being sent from the federal marketplace have provided sufficient, verified information.

[. . .]

"It doesn't surprise me—I've heard similar numbers," said Dan Mendelson, CEO of consulting firm Avalere Health, when asked about the 1-in-100 rate that Infogix cited.

"This is not a traffic issue," Mendelson said. "Right now, the systems aren't working."

And this:

No one knows how many people have managed to enroll because the administration refuses to release those numbers, but the website's launch has been rocky.

Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who's actually been successful. The Washington Post even illustrated that sought-after person as a unicorn, and USA Today called the launch an "inexcusable mess" and a "nightmare."

White House officials initially blamed the problem on an unexpectedly high volume as they had more than 8 million hits in the first week, but after it went offline over the weekend for repairs, officials now acknowledge other problems.

"We've identified the glitches, we've added hardware, we're recoding software, and I can tell you today is better than yesterday, and we are hoping in the very near future to have a seamless process that's what we are aiming for," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.

However, computer experts say the website has major flaws.

"It wasn't designed well, it wasn't implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it," said Luke Chung, an online database programmer.

Chung supports the new health care law but said it was not the demand that is crashing the site. He thinks the entire website needs a complete overhaul.

"It's not even close. It's not even ready for beta testing for my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that," he said.

Oh, and as for those "millions of uninsured Americans" that Keller tells us have been enrolled . . .

The glitch-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature health care law has been dogged by one big question: How many people have enrolled in an insurance plan?

The White House refuses to release the numbers, leading many to assume they are embarrassingly low. But insurance industry insiders point to another reason: Nobody knows if the numbers they do have are even accurate.

Turns out, some insurance companies say they are receiving data from the administration that is incomplete, duplicative or contradictory, making it difficult to get an accurate count of new enrollment.

[. . .]

So far, the buzz in the insurance industry is that enrollment numbers are falling short of projections. One insurance company executive put it this way, "The numbers aren't as bad as the doomsday people would say. But so far, they're low and they have people worried."

Avik Roy has a theory for why the Obamacare website is crashing: He believes that it is because Team Obama doesn't want you to suffer sticker shock. I am sure that people like Bill Keller will try desperately to dismiss this as yet another "frantic fiction of the right wing," but given just how divorced Keller is from the facts, why should we take anything he has to say regarding this issue seriously? Either Bill Keller is one of the laziest and most inept intellects ever to try to find out and explain facts on Obamacare, or he is congenitally dishonest. He--and other Obamacare defenders--can feel free to take their pick as to which is the case.

What Justice Ginsburg Gets Wrong

Her disparagement of the Roberts Court notwithstanding, it is not an activist Court:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg believes the Roberts Court is “one of the most activist courts in history,” according to a widely cited interview with the NYT‘s Adam Liptak.   ”Activist” is a slippery label, often indicating nothing more than disagreement with a Court’s decision in a given case.  fortunately Justice Ginsburg provided Liptak with a definition.  Specifically, Ginsburg told Liptak that “if it’s measured in terms of readiness to overturn legislation, this is one of the most activist courts in history.”  This is one way to define judicial activism, but if this is the definition Justice Ginsburg wants to use, her accusation falls wide of the mark.

If activism is “measured in terms of readiness to overturn legislation,” the current Court is not one of the “most activist courts in history,” at least not compared to others of recent memory.  As Liptak’s own reporting has shown,the Roberts Court is the least activist Court of the post-war period by this measure, invalidating federal statutes far less often than did the Warren, Burger, or Rehnquist Courts.  Liptak wrote his earlier story in July 2010, but the conclusion still holds.  Since 2010 the rate at which the Roberts Court has struck down federal legislation has actually declined.  According to the same report, the Roberts Court overturns precedent at a lower rate than did prior post-War courts.

If in calling the Roberts Court  ”one of the most activist courts in history,” Justice Ginsburg meant that the Roberts Court is more activist than, say, the seriatim or Marshall Court, she has a point. If she meant to imply the Roberts Court is any more “activist” than any other court in the past 60 years, she doesn’t.

Maybe the New York Times should correct the record on this point. You know that they would if John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito made a similar boo-boo.

Shorter New York Times: “Filibustering Presidential Nominees on the Basis of Ideology Is Bad, Except When It Isn't”

From yesterday's New York Times editorial:

After years of growing Republican obstruction — legislation blocked, judicial candidates forced to withdraw, presidential nominations left to languish, government agencies rendered powerless by denying them leaders — Senate Democrats say they are finally ready to take action. Barring a last-minute deal, Harry Reid, the majority leader, said he would move to change the Senate rules on Tuesday to ban the filibuster for executive appointments.

This is a relatively modest step toward returning basic governance to the chamber. It does not change the 60-vote requirement that Republicans have made routine for virtually all legislation, perverting the majoritarian vision of the Constitution. It does not ban the filibuster for judicial nominees, though we wish it did because Republicans are still holding up too many federal court candidates.

Nonetheless, Mr. Reid’s move would be an extremely important reassertion of majority rule, finally allowing a president’s nominees to cabinet departments and other agencies to come to a confirmation vote. The president’s right to assemble an executive team without encountering ideological litmus tests from the Senate is fundamental, as history shows. From the Eisenhower to the Ford administrations, there were no filibusters of executive nominees. Over the next 32 years, there were 20.

From the New York Times, March 6, 2005:

he White House's insistence on choosing only far-right judicial nominees has already damaged the federal courts. Now it threatens to do grave harm to the Senate. If Republicans fulfill their threat to overturn the historic role of the filibuster in order to ram the Bush administration's nominees through, they will be inviting all-out warfare and perhaps an effective shutdown of Congress. The Republicans are claiming that 51 votes should be enough to win confirmation of the White House's judicial nominees. This flies in the face of Senate history. Republicans and Democrats should tone down their rhetoric, then sit down and negotiate.

President Bush likes to complain about the divisive atmosphere in Washington. But he has contributed to it mightily by choosing federal judges from the far right of the ideological spectrum. He started his second term with a particularly aggressive move: resubmitting seven nominees whom the Democrats blocked last year by filibuster.

And from the New York Times, April 17, 2003:

Senators opposing Priscilla Owen, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, are considering a filibuster to head off her confirmation vote. Filibusters are an extreme measure in which a minority of senators block an issue from being voted on. But the system for picking judges, which should be a relatively nonpartisan effort to seat jurists who reflect broad American values, has broken down. Filibustering Judge Owen's confirmation would send the Bush administration two important messages: the president must stop packing the courts with ideologues, and he must show more respect for the Senate's role.