HealthCare.gov helped by Obama's deadline
President Barack Obama grabs a pen to sign a series of bills in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington DC. (Nov. 27, 2013) Credit: EPA
Deadlines are tough. Just ask President Barack Obama. He promised the Obamacare website would be up and running by the end of November and, wouldn't you know it, the end of November came.
The results aren't perfect. Deadline projects seldom are. There's never enough time, talent or information for perfection. HealthCare.gov is still no Amazon.com.
But the federal health-insurance portal is vastly more welcoming than it was a month ago, and a huge part of the reason is this: The people trying to fix it had a loud and firm deadline.
"Much improved . . . the vast majority . . . 80 percent": They knew there was a narrow limit to how much wiggle room they'd get at the end.
You think it's an accident that deadline starts with "dead?" Without a deadline to focus their efforts, the Obamacare programmers would still be adjusting their Aeron chairs.
It's taken me years to understand this, but even I see it now: Deadlines aren't my enemy. They are my friend. Deadlines are what let me stop writing and go to dinner. Without a deadline, I would still be typing now instead of lounging on the couch in my undershorts reading the Sunday paper.
Thankfully, I too had a deadline.
1. Cyber Monday
2. One-day-shipping Tuesday
3. Stupid-thing-won't-work Wednesday
4. Send-it-back Thursday
5. Where's-my-refund Friday
Rockville Centre's South Side High must have had one heck of a social studies department in the late 1950s. Those teachers -- thank you, Mrs. Alston -- sure sparked something in eager young Doris Kearns. After decades away, the Pulitzer-winning presidential historian has turned her sights homeward for "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism." A long-ago field trip to Sagamore Hill might have piqued some interest too. Sunday night at 10, Goodwin talks Teddy and all the rest of it with Ray Bertolino on WHPC/90.3. Yes, life's a circle sometimes.
Email ellis@henican.com
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