On the delay of the employermandate.

No one with a working knowledge of the statute or the avalancheof regulations promulgated in its wake is at all surprised that thescope of this component exceeded the time budget allotted andadvertised by the administration. Over-committed and underdelivered. Not dissimilar from the ubiquitously mismanaged PCIPprogram.

Someone call it.

One can only wonder about the fate of other massive undertakingslike the world's largest and most ambitious IT project, whichhappens to be in the works right now and under the complete coverof night: the exchange data hub. This is the system where SocialSecurity Administration, the IRS, the Department of HomelandSecurity, the Veterans Administration, Office of PersonnelManagement, the Department of Defense, and the Peace Corps, andstate Medicaid merge data for the sole purpose of vetting Medicaid,CHIP, and PPACA state subsidy eligibility. This is happening in 50states, which is far more ambitious and an even tighter relativedeadline. We were promised that this will be fully functional inall states on Oct. 1.

This won't be the last.

Once again, anyone who's lived through a data migration or newsystem install at the office will understand that this deadline,too, is an absolute pipe dream. The difference here is that failureto be on time is not the delay of a tax; instead, it's the delay ofa promised benefit. More political damage attached to this likelyupcoming mess.