“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama,” the Mercury news said. “Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.”

Vinson, a 60-year old retired teacher will pay $1,800 more a year for her individual policy. Waschura, 52, self-employed engineer, will have to pay $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

This isn't funny, although the irony is. We at CalWatchdog, along with many in the new media, have been warning about the impending fallout of Obamacare. Our critics accused us of everything from being doom-and-bloomers, to wanting poor people to die.

CalWatchdog stories provided data, numbers, facts, studies, and quoted health care experts. But as is the case with so many, people apparently need to experience things first hand in order to learn.

Surprisingly, even with the painful reality of the significant health care cost increases, the San Jose Mercury News called media stories warning about Obamacare-induced cost increases, “political rhetoric.”

“For years, the nation has been embroiled in the political rhetoric of 'Obamacare,' but this past week the reality of the new law sank in as millions of Americans had their first good look at how the 3 1/2-year-old legislation will affect their pocketbooks,” the Mercury News said.

Obamacare facts page says, “In exchange for the new rights and protections most Americans must obtain health coverage by 2014, get an exemption, or pay a fee.”

Covered California spokesman Dana Howard defended the “winners and losers” under Obamacare. “Some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance,” he said, “but most people will not,” Howard said.

Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, claims on its website, “Your destination for affordable health care.”

I guess that depends on who you ask.

The list of who won't have to pay for health care under the Affordable Care Act is long. “The shared responsibility payment (IRS penalty) should not apply to any taxpayer for whom coverage is unaffordable, who has other good cause for going without coverage, or who goes without coverage for only a short time,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The list of exemptions to the payment of Obamacare exempts just about everyone except the middle class and those who pay income tax.

“I really don't like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this,” Waschura said. “When you take $10,000 out of my family's pocket each year, that's otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”

“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, and the Republicans' charge to defund Obamacare.

But it was okay that the $10,000 health care cost was going to come out of someone else's pocket.

The next day, at the White House press briefing, Obama administration spokesman Jay Carney told a room of reporters that traffic to statewide exchange sites and healthcare.gov “exceeded” what they had anticipated and that it was a “good problem to have.” Carney added:

“I think what we are confident of is that the high volume we've seen around the country, the 4.7 million unique visitors in the first 24 hours to healthcare.gov, reflects the extreme interest in the opening of the marketplaces and the opening of the opportunity for individuals to shop for and select affordable health insurance for the first time.”

That’s the spin. From MSNBC to the White House, the message is forming that the only reason online marketplaces experienced so many glitches was because they were so popular. This may be true; growing websites often experience major glitches when they get waves of traffic. It happened to eBay, Twitter, Google, Facebook and just about every other major website.

California lies

But here in California, it might not be fair to blame traffic on the cause of glitches. First, though, some perspective: California has been hailed as a leader in Obamacare implementation. Given that the state has deep blue majorities in both chambers of Legislature and is controlled by a Democratic governor, California has long been seen as a leader. Democrats in the state have done everything they can to cooperate with the federal government to set up their exchange. Gov. Jerry Brown, just this week, signed more legislation to help with implementation.

This has been a mixed bag for California, as the state has also become a poster child for sloppy implementation. But the state also  posted impressive numbers for its website. On Tuesday, state officials reported that the Covered California website had received around 5 million hits — more than the national website. The number was jaw-dropping; it was also wrong.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

“State officials said the Covered California website got 645,000 hits during the first day of enrollment, far fewer than the 5 million it reported Tuesday.

“The state exchange had cited the 5 million figure as a sign of strong consumer interest and a major reason people had so much difficulty using its $313-million online enrollment system.”

A spokesman for Covered California explained the error, claiming, “Someone misspoke and thought it was indeed 5 million hits. That was incorrect.”

Indeed.

The Times story continues:

“Meantime, Californians were still running into computer problems and long hold times during the second day of enrollment under the federal healthcare law.

“Those glitches have prompted Covered California to shut down its online enrollment system twice. …

“People calling for information continued to face wait times of 30 minutes or more. Some call-center representatives at the exchange told people they were having trouble accessing the state system themselves, further slowing down the enrollment process.”

The federal government has said it doesn’t know how many people have actually signed up for coverage. The state of Maryland, though, had less than 100 in the first day. It’s unclear how far along California is in registering its goal of 2 million people, though one estimate said that only a few thousand people had applications pending.