 In-Flight Warning: Stay On Target
With as much media hype as the sputtering rollout of Healthcare.gov has received this past week, we understand how you might have gotten the impression large sections of the internet were somehow frozen and broken. However, not only is most of the internet working fine - you're reading this online right now - but the main portal for Obamacare is indeed functional, and getting better all the time.
We don't want to appear as though we're ignoring the problems. In fact, as Brian Beutler of Salon pointed out on Tuesday, it's actually a very good thing that we're drawing some attention to the failures of the website now, before it's too late to fix the problems.
Still, as both Lucia Graves and Jonathan Cohn pointed out, the rough start to the federal health insurance exchange doesn't really matter that much. The next few weeks - specifically, between now and Thanksgiving - are really going to be the ones that count. Then the system will either work or it won't.
So while the machines of Obamacare may cough and sputter now like some wheezing airplane, the two major subjects you should be keeping your eyes on right now are 'Jobs and The Economy,' and the Icarus-like collapse of the Republican Party.
We've been saying it regularly for years now, and both Greg Sargent and Ryan Cooper echoed that refrain perfectly this week, noting that virtually every fight Democrats and the left have this fall should be about jobs - especially in the budget battle now happening on Capitol Hill...
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