October 2013

President Barack Obama conceded that technical "kinks" had bedeviled the rollout of the federal healthcare website, but said the administration had launched a "tech surge" to fix it and emphasized that the law would give uninsured Americans access to reasonably priced, quality insurance.

"Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," President Obama told supporters in the Rose Garden. But he insisted: "The product, the health insurance, is good. The prices are good. It is a good deal. People don't just want it; they're showing up to buy it." The President relaunched his campaign to sell the law as Republicans announced plans for hearings on the balky website. A Gallup poll last week found that 7 out of 10 uninsured Americans were "not too familiar" or "not familiar at all" with the online marketplaces. Administration officials initially claimed the problems were caused by the unexpectedly high volume of visitors to the federal portal, which serves consumers in 36 states. President Obama acknowledged that the website needed to work "better, faster, sooner," but did not explain what went wrong or when it would work properly. He said "some of the best IT talent in the entire country" was part of a "tech surge" to fix it.

Verizon has been tasked with helping the government fix the federal health exchange.

It makes sense for the Department of Health and Human Services to seek Verizon's help, said Aneesh Chopra, the Obama administration's former chief technology officer and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. "There is an existing 'best and brightest' available to call in," Chopra said. "Verizon is one of those already under contract." The odds that the problem will be fixed are "50-50," said Clark Kelso, California's chief information officer under governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. "They've got a short window here to try to fix things," Kelso said. "Simply throwing a lot of new programmers at something like this does not guarantee success."

What problems does the AT&T-Crown Castle deal solve?

AT&T does not need to reduce debt. It could use the cash for share buybacks but, until AT&T says otherwise, the Crown cash will fuel speculation about an offer for Vodafone. Vodafone, after the cash from its Verizon Wireless stake comes in and is paid out to investors, will cost at least $70 billion, even before a control premium is factored in. The cash from Crown only solves a fraction of that problem.

If not for California, consumer privacy law would be at a complete standstill. Privacy legislation in Washington isn’t moving. The White House has been talking about working on consumer privacy law for more than a year, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) Do Not Track bill has only one co-sponsor.

But in California, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed two bills that solidified the state’s lead position on consumer privacy, all but dictating privacy policy for the nation. “Once a state starts enacting privacy legislation, it becomes the de facto national standard,” said Lisa Sotto of law firm Hunton & Williams. It could compel other states to follow suit, even Congress. The first law, known as the eraser button law, gives minors the right to erase information they posted. It also prohibits sites targeting minors from carrying ads for products like alcohol, tobacco, dietary supplements and other adult products. The second law requires online publishers and services that use behavioral advertising to be transparent on how they respond to Do Not Track. For the most part, the laws codify what members of the Digital Advertising Alliance already do, but the eraser button may pose some problems.