Oregon Taxpayers 'Stuck' With $303 Million Bill From Failed ObamaCare Site

by JASmius

Remember the, er, "high" hopes with which Oregon's ObamaCare cartel, "Covered Oregon," fell off the cliff?



Remember how quickly "Covered Oregon" reached terminal parody velocity?




Well, my fellow (through Intern Missius) Granolans, you never will, because the plug has been pulled, and guess who's got the bill coming their way like the Sweet Meteor of Death?:

Republicans slammed the taxpayer waste from scrapping Oregon's $303 million, problem-plagued ObamaCare health exchange on Friday, citing it as yet another example of why the healthcare law should be repealed.

"Once again, ObamaCare causes chaos and confusion for Oregonians," Representative Greg Walden, the state's only GOP member of Congress, said in a statement. "Today, the same board that oversaw the colossal waste at Cover Oregon voted to throw in the towel, and taxpayers are left stuck with the bill.

To which the only allowable solutions are (1) to spend three times as much taxpayer money on a second attempt or (2) collapse healthcare.cov by leaping on that buck-buck pile.



Ha ha - trick question.  Oregonians already jumped on O's buck-buck pile.  Did they collapse it?  Who knows?  It's not like The One would ever stride colossally into the rose garden and announce THAT on April Fool's Day, nor the Obamedia report it as anything other than a "complete success".  Leave it to the Left to spoil even so majestic a Klingon term as "qapla!"

"The board should explain further to the taxpayers of Oregon and the nation how exactly this massive failure happened."

Which is a certainty, given the lengths to which they went to conceal its colossal failure up to now.

Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said: "It's remarkable that Cover Oregon was such a disaster that moving into the troubled HealthCare.gov is considered an improvement."

He also referenced  U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley's support of the [Una]ffordable Care[-Less] Act in 2010. The Oregon Democrat, who has since distanced himself from the beleaguered law, is seeking re-election this fall.

Lotsa luck with that little project, Jeff.

 "Oregonians can give themselves a real upgrade by firing Senator Jeff Merkley, whose deciding vote for Obamacare resulted in the creation of Cover Oregon," Wilcox said.

Lotsa luck with that little project, Jahan.  "Keep Oregon weird," remember?  Which I guess now should be revised to read, "Keep Oregonians broke."  Only way to do that is for Oregon voters to keep voting for Democrats.  Gotta keep those granola entitlements flowing, after all.

According to Cover Oregon officials, fixing the troubled portal would have cost $78 million and would have taken too long. Using HealthCare.gov, which has had its own share of glitches and problems since the Obamacare rollout, would cost just $4 million to $6 million.

"I don't know that anyone in the room is excited about going down this path," Liz Baxter, who chairs the Cover Oregon board, said in a report in the Oregonian. "But I think it's the only option."

So it requires a thirteen-fold level of savings before Oregon Marxists can be remotely convinced to go with the less expensive fiscal option?  Well, that certainly helps explain more than a few things.

But I saved the best punchline for last:

The state enthusiastically embraced Obamacare, and the website had been a pioneer for state marketplaces.

Not "had," skeeziks; is.  And that's the weirdest part of all.