Pumpkin Patch

Well, Stephen started out last night complaining/rejoicing about the Affordable Care Act website. It has some glitches. He revealed that the company in charge of making the website, CGI (Conseillers En Gestion Et Informatique) is from Montreal, Canada. Okay, if he is aware of a problem with them, why did he not ask Win and Will Butler to pull some strings up in Montreal? The two Canadians were on his show on Monday. Surely they know someone back in Montreal that knows someone that could just fix it.

To show how easy/hard it is to sign up, there was a special segment about signing up for ObamaCare. It was called, "Stephen Colbert's I Tried To Sign Up For ObamaCare." To do so, he moseyed on over to The Foodbank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties and met with the Executive Director, Carlos Rodriguez who is neither a doctor nor a chef.

Stephen presented various scenarios that would impede his ability to sign up for ObamaCare. Luckily, a Navigator, Debbie Palacios, was available to help him. This was good, because we were able to see what types of information would be needed and what would not be needed. We learned that no exams are given when you sign up. We learned that Stephen had many misconceptions about the whole process of filling in his application. He also seemed to be on the defensive quite a bit. But he did put on his exam gloves and worked through the process. He was reluctant to tell her his birthday. Apparently he is sensitive about his age. Also, not happy that she would not be getting him a present. Anyway, rather than give out that information, he had her guess how old he was. Debbie correctly guessed 30 years old.

There were questions about whether or not Stephen had stopped working or changed jobs and of course the correct answer to that was, "I won two Emmy's." While she did need that information, she did not need Stephen's sexual history, which he would have been happy to talk about, but that was Too Much Information for the application. There was discussion about insurance choices and the ability to keep one's own doctor. Again, we found out Too Much Information from Stephen.

But in the end, he was able to go through the process and successfully get to a computer screen that said, "This webpage cannot be found." He was ecstatic! So much so that he left the building on Cloud Nine but soon found out why having insurance is so important.

Stephen's guest last night was two people - Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill. They are the anchors on PBS NewsHour. Stephen boasted, yes I think I can say that he boasted, about only needing half an hour to do the news. Gwen Ifill told him that on their show, they never run out of time. They do "in depth" coverage. As a matter of fact, they present the facts and let the viewers decide for themselves what it all means. Interesting tidbit about PBS NewsHour. Many college students explain to Gwen Ifill that they get their news from Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart. Gwen Ifill then tells these college students that Stephen and Jon use Gwen and Judy's show as their source for real news!