Dr. Tim Johnson's Obamacare Podcast: The 'Unbelievable Bumble'

As president, you know things are really getting bad when every humor outlet from The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz ("Snowden Offers To Fix Healthcare.gov") to The Onion ("New Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks") is mocking your program's failures.

President Obama himself expressed his frustration today over the widespread technical glitches besetting people trying to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare, saying that "nobody is madder than me," NPR reports.

Here, in his latest podcast on health reform, Dr. Timothy Johnson, retired medical editor for ABC News, takes on what he calls "the very rocky start to the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act: the insurance exchanges." He and his guests discuss the technical SNAFUs that are marking the launch of the exchanges and dissect their causes. He begins with a New York Times article today that says federal health authorities simply did not have the expertise to do the job of setting up the technological infrastructure needed for Obamacare. He asks, "Question #1, are they right, these reporters? And question #2, can it be fixed?"

Listen to the podcast above to hear some answers (and to hear guest Dr. Gail Wilensky, a high health official under the first President Bush, refer to Obamacare's technical failings as "an unbelievable bumble" — what a fun phrase, rolling so nicely off the tongue!) And here's one useful tip: For those who have trouble on healthcare.gov, the Kaiser Family Foundation is offering a simple calculator of health insurance subsidies on its website, www.kff.org.

Readers, reactions? Please share below. And catch Dr. Johnson's inaugural podcast here.