Obamacare Shouldn't Have Been Managed Like a Campaign
...According to two former officials, CMS staff members struggled at “multiple meetings” during the spring of 2011 to persuade White House officials for permission to publish diagrams known as “concepts of operation,” which they believed were necessary to show states what a federal exchange would look like. The two officials said the White House was reluctant because the diagrams were complex, and they feared that the Republicans might reprise a tactic from the 1990s of then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who mockingly brandished intricate charts created by a task force led by first lady Hillary Clinton.

In the end, one of the former officials said, the White House quashed the diagrams, telling CMS, instead, to praise early work on those state exchanges that matched the hidden federal thinking....

CBS: White House warned three years ago that ObamaCare was running off the rails
...Three years ago, a trusted Obama health care adviser warned the White House it was losing control of Obamacare. A memo obtained by CBS News said strong leadership was missing and the law’s successful implementation was in jeopardy. The warnings were specific and dire — and ignored.

David Cutler, who worked on the Obama 2008 campaign and was a valued outside health care consultant wrote this blunt memo to top White House economic adviser Larry Summers in May 2010: “I do not believe the relevant members of the administration understand the president’s vision or have the capability to carry it out.”

Cutler wrote no one was in charge who had any experience in complex business start-ups. He also worried basic regulations, technology and policy coordination would fail.

“You need to have people who have understanding of the political process, people who understand how to work within an administration and people who understand how to start and build a business, and unfortunately, they just didn’t get all of those people together,” Cutler said....

Feinstein: Hey, you could have kept your plan … until we enacted ObamaCare
...SCHIEFFER: The president said in the beginning that one thing was that if you liked the health care program you had, you could keep it. We now know there was debate within the administration before he said that as to whether that was actually a promise that could be kept. Should the president not have made that statement?

FEINSTEIN: Well, as I understand it, you can keep it up to the time — and I hope this is correct, but this is what I’ve been told — up to the time the bill was enacted, and after that, it’s a different story. That part of it, if true, was never made clear....

It's a Paternalistic World as Obamacare Advocates Admit Their Love for Bossing Us Around
...But all the possible solutions have tradeoffs. Laszewski's preference, he said in a recent interview, would've been for the administration to grandfather in more existing insurance plans. That would've meant higher insurance premiums in the exchanges, as healthier people who're able to buy into the individual market now would've just stayed there. High-risk pools or any other kind of direct, government-provided insurance or subsidy for the sick needs to be paid for by someone.

There are no easy solutions to the health-care trilemma. Someone always loses....

...Noah dispenses with that inconvenient philosophical hurdle to his "we all dig paternalism" argument by simply dismissing consistent objections to exactly that as "outside the mainstream of practical governance." Paternalism is nothing for which to apologize, he tells us, loud and proud. It isn't a matter of whether we should all be pushed around by the state, but only the specifics of the pushing. Nothing else rates discussion.

So welcome to world of paternalism as explicit policy, in which substituting the preferences of politicians for our own choices is a moral good, and lying to us about the outcome of rules and laws is just fine in the pursuit of a worthy goal.

CNN: ObamaCare “war room” worried about reaction when some enrollees figure out they can’t keep their doctors
...Officials expressed concern that the next shoe to drop in the evolving story about the Affordable Care Act would be disappointment from consumers once they are able to get on the troubled HealthCare.gov website – disappointment because of sticker shock and limited choice, according to a new document obtained by CNN.

“Mike described a general concern of PM (Project Management): getting to the point where the website is functioning properly and individuals begin to select plans; the media attention will follow individuals to plan selection and their ultimate choices; and, in some cases, there will be fewer options than would be desired to promote consumer choice and an ideal shopping experience. Additionally, in some cases there will be relatively high cost plans,” say the notes from the Obama administration’s Obamacare ‘War Room’ from one week ago…

Other notes from the war room meeting describe specific “problem plans,” and a problem with the site that prevents certification, perhaps due to a misspelling on the website....