An Obama-administration official announced that the portion of the Healthcare.gov system that would allow users to pay insurance companies with marketplace subsidies will not be available for another two months.

And yet ObamaMart was rolled out 7 weeks ago, knowing this small component wasn’t ready.

A couple of possible outcomes: an insuree might show up at the doctor’s office—or hospital—and discover he owes full freight, even though he’d “successfully” signed up, subsidies and all.  Alternatively, an insuree might show up at the doctor’s office—or hospital—and discover he’s not covered at all, yet, even though he’d “successfully” signed up.

Indeed, Henry Chao, CMS’ Deputy Chief Information Officer, has already testified in front of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce that as much as 40% of the technical systems supporting ObamaMart aren’t even built.  That sample of missing parts includes security, in addition to this matter of payment.

Holy cats.