President Obama got in a brief tick of turmoil a while back when his approach to foreign policy was summarized as “Don’t do stupid shit.” Which, as the political equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, makes a world of sense to me.

And I wish our leaders in Montpelier would frame it and hang it over their desks, because it sure would come in handy when dealing with Vermont Health Connect. The latest, ICYMI:

Thousands of Vermont Health Connect customers who signed up to pay health care premiums online recently received email notices directing them to pay through a website that is offline.

Vermont took down its health exchange Web portal Sept. 14…  But the state and its contractors apparently forgot during the intervening three weeks to cancel an automated email blast that directed roughly 6,500 people who signed up to make payments online. Those people, about 20 percent of the website’s commercial customers, were directed to visit vermonthealthconnect.gov to view their premium invoice.

(ahem.)

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 

Stop it! Just stop it!

Stop doing stupid shit!

“Apparently forgot,” eh? Maybe some of you should come to work tomorrow and find that your keys no longer work because your bosses “apparently forgot” to let you know about your change in employment status.

This bout of apparent forgetfulness happened under the new contractor, Optum, and under the revamped administrative team of Harry Chen and Lawrence Miller, so we can’t blame this on the dearly departed (CGI, Doug Racine) and the recently rendered invisible (Mark Larson).

I’m a strong supporter of the current iteration of health care reform, and I have high hopes for single-payer. As a result, I’ve too readily accepted Administration assurances that they’ve learned their lessons, they’re working hard, they’ve got a handle on it, and they’ll fix it.

This time, as Bullwinkle T. Moose used to say, for sure.

But I am getting tired of defending the Governor and getting the ground cut out from under me. Maybe that’s why a new poll shows him with a 45% favorable rating against 41% unfavorable. In spite of the fact that he’s running for re-election against the legendary comedy team of Mr. Blandy and Mr. Fringey.

So, Shumlin team, please tell me there won’t be any more screwups, revelations of past blunders, delays, or embarrassing emails to the very constituents who (a) were in line to benefit from Vermont Health Connect and would love to see it work, and (b) now have every reason to be royally pissed off at the authors of this reform.

A protest vote for Doug Racine is startin’ to look awfully tempting.