Operative BG writes in with the following:

Never mind the insurmountable ten dollar cost of getting a ride to the library to apply for Obamacare; we’re going to have tons of fun when people try to actually apply.

I worked as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration in the 1970s and 1980s. My job was to take applications for benefits, help the applicant get all the necessary proofs, calculate the benefit payment, and award (or deny) the application.

Over the years, a hard rule emerged; never let the applicant complete the paperwork himself unless you want to have to re-do it, because there is no question that is so simple that someone won’t give the wrong answer. That even included, “What is your name?”

My favorite (meaning “most infuriating”) part was when I would ask the applicant if he was married, single, widowed, or divorced.

“Separated,” would often come up.

So that meant I had to ask a few more questions:

“Is she still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever divorce her?”

“No.”

“Did she ever divorce you?”

“No.”

“Then you’re still married.”

“No, we’re separated…”

At which point I would stab the applicant through the left eye with my letter opener, earning me a reprimand from my supervisor.

My second career (in IT) taught me another, better-known truism: Ninety percent of your processing deals with the ten percent of exceptions to your data. So the Obamacare system will either deal with Mister Separated automatically (good luck with that), or somewhere along the line, his attempt to apply online will crash and he’ll be kicked offline into manual processing, where one of the thousands of GS-10 ACA claims representatives (a government job description that does not as yet exist) will help him through the application process.

– BG

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.