The Portal

For John, BLUF:  Yes, these things can be made to work.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Someone forwarded the following to me:

According to statistics from the FBI, there were 1,687,599 firearms background checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) during the month of October.  Compare this to the 106,185 individuals who are rumored to have enrolled through O'Care's federal exchange.

For one thing, the 106K number has to include State operated portals as well as the Federal version.  Here is the quote from The Washington Post, linked to by blogger Ann Althouse:

Slightly more than 106,000 Americans signed up for health plans in the first month of new state and federal insurance marketplaces, the Obama administration reported Wednesday.  The figure, which was far lower than the administration predicted, points to the steep challenge ahead as the White House tries to overcome public and congressional frustration with the program’s problem-plagued rollout.

The tally showed that just a quarter of the enrollments were in the federally run marketplace, while the rest were in the state exchanges.

Notice how the newspaper skips the actual numbers.  Skimming, I missed it the first time.  Law Professor Althouse gives us the numbers.

Only 26,794 have been able to sign up through the federal health insurance exchange in its first month.  These come from the 36 states that are not running their own exchanges.  There are also 79,391 who have signed up using the 15 exchanges set up by the remaining states and the District of Columbia.

But, back to the NICS System.  Who did their software?  Should we take the PP and ACA away from the IRS, the Canadians and the Navigators and just give it to the cops.  It may look more fascist, but in fact might be less communist (in this situation there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the two characterizations of excessive state control).

Regards  —  Cliff

PS:  In doing this post I wondered if I needed a Tag for incompetence, but then I realized I had one.  (A little over the top humor there.)