{"id":11055,"date":"2013-10-24T17:47:45","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T17:47:45","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-10-24T17:47:45","modified_gmt":"2013-10-24T17:47:45","slug":"democrats_blast_republicans_at_hearing_on_the_failure_of_the_obamacare_website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/10\/24\/democrats_blast_republicans_at_hearing_on_the_failure_of_the_obamacare_website\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Blast Republicans at Hearing on the Failure of the Obamacare Website"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Let\u2019s go to the audio sound bites now, the hearings today up on Capitol Hill with the joint committee looking into what happened here. Well, not a joint committee. Republicans and Democrats, House committee, looking into the glitches and the problems of the website. The chairman and the ranking member give their opening statements, and then the next members in the leadership give their opening statements while the guests and the targets are just sitting there at the witness table waiting. And everybody goes through the motions here. Then they finally get to the questions for the witnesses. During his opening statement, the ranking member, the Democrat on this committee is Henry “Nostrilitis” Waxman, Democrat from California. And here\u2019s a portion of his opening remarks.<\/p>\n

WAXMAN: We have already documented a record of Republicans attempting to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, even by shutting down the government in order to try to repeal this law. Republicans have not shown us that they are trying to make this law work so far. If we want this law to work, we\u2019ve gotta make it right, we\u2019ve gotta fix it, not what the Republicans have been trying to do, nix it and repeal it.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: We have documented a record of Republicans attempting to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, even by shutting down the government. In the midst of the system collapsing, in the midst of people unable to go online, the Republicans have nothing to do with this law\u2019s existence. Anyway, that\u2019s just an example. There were others on the committee, other Democrats. Frank Pallone, you\u2019ll hear in a moment. They\u2019re just all over the board here using the typical time-honored tactics, blaming the Republicans, coming up with conspiracy theories. <\/p>\n

Now, at this hearing, all the contractors, the witnesses passed the buck, saying that their individual parts worked, but that the whole system didn\u2019t. They also said there was not a sufficient end-to-end beta testing period. Now, that is unbelievable. You\u2019ve got three years, $638 or whatever it is million dollars, and they didn\u2019t beta test it? They didn\u2019t test it at all. And they had people who knew that it wasn\u2019t gonna work. Yeah, Waxman called it an enormous success first. The first thing he said was it\u2019s an enormous success. And he cited statistics of people that are now have insurance who didn\u2019t and he cited people who are paying much less than they ever did. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I mean, it was incredible. It was one misstatement after another. And it will be played in California, low-information voters out there will hear it, and they\u2019ll fall for it. But the fact is in real life it\u2019s a bomb. All of these Democrats who were up for reelection, Democrat senators, every one of them up for reelection next year wants a one-year delay in the individual mandate. By the way, Obama has extended — this is in the New York Times, I think — the Obamacare enrollment period by six weeks, which means he\u2019s arbitrarily changing the law again. The New York Times calls it a tweak. <\/p>\n

But remember when Ted Cruz<\/a> and Mike Lee tried to change the law of the land, that was called terrorism, hostage taking, treason, demanding a ransom<\/a> or some such thing. When Obama does it, it\u2019s just a tweak. He just arbitrarily is extending the enrollment period six weeks. He can\u2019t do that, but he\u2019s doing it. <\/p>\n

So here\u2019s a montage of the contractors passing the buck and then saying that there was no integrated beta testing, meaning after each individual contractor set his area up, they didn\u2019t see if any of it worked together. It\u2019s always somebody else\u2019s fault. The problem is they can\u2019t blame this on the Republicans. That\u2019s where this is falling apart. They can\u2019t blame this on the Republicans. Here it is.<\/p>\n

ANDREW SLAVITT: Here\u2019s what we saw —<\/p>\n

JOHN SHIMKUS: Isn\u2019t that a beta test? Wouldn\u2019t that put the different components together and see if the system worked?<\/p>\n

SLAVITT: So here\u2019s what we saw. We didn\u2019t see the full kind of integrated end-to-end system testing that you\u00c2\u2019re talking about —<\/p>\n

SHIMKUS: Why not?<\/p>\n

SLAVITT: — until the couple days leading up to the launch.<\/p>\n

SHIMKUS: Shouldn\u2019t we have had that?<\/p>\n

SLAVITT: Ideally, yes.<\/p>\n

SHIMKUS: Ideally yes. Wouldn\u2019t any other system, corporate entity rolling out something would test to see if it worked before it went out into the field?<\/p>\n

SLAVITT: Yes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, again, just raises questions about how in the world something like this happens. It really is important because it exposes so many things about Obama that are not true. You know that if you are a leader of people in a business or in any endeavor, and if you\u2019re charismatic, dynamic, and if you\u2019re really passionate about something and they all know you really want it and they love you and they love working for you. They want you to look good. They want to look good in the process. They believe it like you do. You want it. They\u2019ll go over the hill for you. They\u2019ll work 24 hours straight for you. They\u2019ll do whatever it takes to get it right and make it the best. <\/p>\n

Why wasn\u2019t that happening here? We\u2019ve got supposedly the most messianic, inspirational, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of a politician ever in Barack Obama, and this is the bill deal. I mean, this is the cat\u2019s meow. This is the piece de resistance. Where were all these people making sure it worked for Obama? Where were all these people doing it for Obama? Where were all these people doing it for the country? Where were all these people doing it for the party? Where were all these people doing it for the cause? <\/p>\n

Nobody was. And that comes from the top, and I\u2019m telling you, Obama still to this day doesn\u2019t care about any of this because this isn\u2019t what the big deal is to him. This is just a bump in the road on the way. This doesn\u2019t matter to anything. He\u2019s a forward thinker. He\u2019s already three, four years down the line while we muddle our way through this. And in Obama\u2019s life, everything did get taken care of. Everything got done. Every school he wanted it, he got in. Needed a grade, he got it. Law review, got it. President, law review, got it. Obama\u2019s way has been paved. He\u2019s got a lifetime of expectation. It\u2019s all gonna work out. Let Kathleen take care of it, whoever, it\u2019ll work somehow, somewhere, someday, it will end up working. I don\u2019t care what happens between now and then, it\u2019ll work. That\u2019s his attitude. <\/p>\n

So he goes out and says, “You\u2019re gonna keep your doctor.” No, doesn\u2019t matter, because in the end you\u2019re not gonna be able to anyway, but whatever it takes to keep you in line. “Premiums coming down $2,500.” He may actually be saying things he wishes he could make happen and by force of will because he wants it to, it will, maybe that\u2019s his makeup, I don\u2019t know. But I\u2019m telling you, all of this, even now, the only reason he cares about it is because image, optics. That\u2019s why he jumped both feet today in immigration reform and amnesty. I mean, full boat, which we\u2019ll get to in due course. <\/p>\n

Frank Pallone, Democrat, member of Congress, New Jersey, lost it numerous times in the hearings with Republicans who were daring to ask questions about the competence of the regime. Pallone ended up calling the hearings today a “monkey court.”<\/p>\n