So Buzz is sitting here trying to get a peek at healthcare.gov, the government website for health care insurance exchanges unveiled today as part of the Affordable Care Act.
Six tries in, and we're still stymied. But that's fine. Universal health care wasn't built in a day, and if you're a progressive living in Texas, you learn to be patient. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged everyone to "give us the same slack you give Apple," Slate reported -- which would be a lot more cheering if Apple's new iOS didn't stop playing in the middle of songs ever since we loaded latest version, making us want to pitch our iPhone out a window.
And of course, leave it to conservative, government-health-care-hating Texas to make healthcare.gov's first-day glitches a little more annoying. In the middle of our sixth try to make the site work, an email pops in our in box. It's a press release from the state:
"For the first time in its history, Texas.gov, the official website of the State of Texas, has received twelve industry awards in a single year. This impressive accomplishment demonstrates the State's dedication to providing the best possible online experience for Texas citizens."
Now maybe Buzz is being paranoid, but we can't help but suspect that Texas was being deliberately dickish in releasing that bit of happy news today. Crowing about the state's website awards while a good chunk of the country is making failed efforts to log into the website for the Obama administration's single biggest achievement -- that just sounds like something Governor Rick Perry would plan, doesn't it? Bet he was smirking when he did it.
Anyway, congrats, Texas. You dicks. Now leave us alone while we try again to get into healthcare.gov again ...
... Nope, still no luck. We keep getting stymied by the screen that asks for answers to three security questions, ONLY THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS, just blanks where the questions should be. We want this to work, so we try to imagine the questions and type some answers anyway: 1. 42 (What is the meaning of life?) 2. Unladen (What's the proper way to measure the velocity of a swallow?) 3. Bigger than average. (Never you mind what question we were thinking of there.)
Still nothing. We'll keep trying. How about you commenter guys? Anyone cracked the code yet?