Thursday, December 21, 2017

Christmas for ACA advocates

Healthcare Twitter was on edge today, as final open enrollment figures for HealthCare.gov were running a day late:


That triggered a bout of galloping Twitter procrastination on my part:

Twas the Friday before Christmas
and atop CMS
a late enrollment surge
was causing distress.

MEWAs were hung
on the chimney with care,
and Santa'd made the mandate
vanish in thin air.

And Seema in her kerchief,
and Price in his cap,
had worked to bend enrollment
until it would snap.

When all of a sudden I heard such a clatter
I sprang to my screen to see what was the matter.

Exploding on Twitter,
a work of high art:
a well-informed estimate
in a @charles_gaba chart.


























Reflecting a factor
our sabotage to derange:
a longer enrollment season
on each state-based exchange.

And countering our efforts
to see outreach smothered,
a shadow CMS rose
to Get America Covered

While plentiful free bronze plans
and discounted gold
dangled before the subsidized,
especially the old.

Would that compensate
for a lack of extolment
from those in control --
and short Open Enrollment?

A test result pending!
for administrative aggression
(enabled by like efforts
at voter suppression).

Then suddenly Twitter
was jolted extremely
by a message from Seema
that seemed quite un-Seemaly:

What -- almost a boast that the program was working!
What's next?! --we all wondered:
We'll see Verma twerking?

Nigh 9 million signups!
That's barely a downtick..
I glanced at my chimney
and saw you drop down, Nick...*

Nay, that's a mirage,
we reminded ourselves:
the miracle's due
to some 10,000 elves...

CACs, brokers and staunch navigators
(a.k.a. genuine Make-America-Greaters)
Posters on Facebook and pasters of fliers..
tweeters and other creative town criers

Sent a strong message
to slanderers and liars:
Sabotage by the stupidest
sometimes backfires! 

---
* Okay, so the point of view shifted here...this is only Twitter, after all.





1 comment:

  1. And let no one forget that the ACA will chug along in 2018 like the Little Engine that Could. Uninsured Americans can hop on (within the time-frame of the Special Enrollment Period) anytime they have a qualifying event: having a baby, insurance loss due to a move or job end, separation, divorce, marriage, Medicaid termination, retirement, and more...

    The Grinch may have to fill in the hole he wanted to bury the ACA in.

    ReplyDelete