When he announced hearings this week into the troubled launch and implementation of President Obama’s health care reform, Rep. David Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, demanded to know why “after spending over $600 million” the online health care exchange portal, healthcare.gov, doesn’t work properly.
In light of the site’s systemic failures, that bulging nine-figure price tag ($634 million, to be exact) has produced endless guffaws within the conservative media, where the figure has been adopted as evidence of a policy debacle.
“Who pays $634 million and has three years and screws it up that bad?” asked Fox News’ Sean Hannity on October 18. Added Rush Limbaugh: “That website, by the way, the original projected cost: $93 million. The end cost: $643 million. I kid you not.”
Wow, $550 million in cost overruns for healthcare.gov since 2010 when the health care reform law was passed?
That’s false.
The life of the $600 million figure appears to be the latest example of how misinformation is fermented within the right-wing media and then adopted as quasi-policy by the Republican Party. After all, Rep. Camp is holding a hearing specifically to determine why the government’s $600 million health care website doesn’t work, even though the site didn’t cost $600 million.
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