Financial Times editor Gary Silverman suggests that Obamacare’s problem isn’t the concept itself, but an over-reliance on computers and the Internet:
Opponents of Mr Obama point to the inconvenience as proof he never should have tried to extend medical coverage to people without it. They are wrong. Unlike so much of what comes out of Washington these days, Obamacare has public appeal. I realise that biological theories are out of favour in our nation’s capital these days, but I think it stands to reason that if you offer members of an evolving species a better chance of survival, they will take it – as the uninsured are now doing.
I would argue that we could cure much of what ails Obamacare today by simply turning back the clock and using old-fashioned methods. All the information about insurance plans and applications for medical coverage could be printed on paper, delivered by the US Postal Service, filled out by hand, processed by people and stored in secure metal filing cabinets in sturdy office buildings.
President Franklin Roosevelt didn’t need a web portal when he started his Social Security pension scheme. Nor did President Lyndon Johnson ask the elderly or the disabled to log on to anything when he launched the Medicare insurance programme.
