The bungled rollout of Obamacare is a lesson on why so many people are leery of expanding government: It does big projects poorly and then runs from accountability.

President Barack Obama knew the Affordable Care Act was the foundation of his legacy. He had three years to get it right, knowing his adversaries would be watching for missteps they could use against him.

Yet what needed to go down smooth as good scotch was an epic disaster of mismanagement, digital confusion, broken promises and frustrated Americans.

A final push got the administration to its minimum goal of 7 million enrollees, but the system remains buggy and questions persist on whether enough younger Americans signed up to make Obamacare sustainable.

The fumble set back the best chance ever to bring equity to American health care and handed Republicans who were on the ropes after the government shutdowna fair chance of regaining control of the U.S. Senate in midterm elections.

This isn’t about whether health care for all is a good idea; it is. It’s about the president governing competently; Obama didn’t.

Locally,Hawaii was the first state to embrace Obamacare and set up a health exchange, but theeffort was even more botched than the national fiasco and we were the last state to get online.

After predicting it would enroll 50,000 uninsured local residents the first year, the Hawaii Health Connector signed up 8,000, using a contractor that was already in a dispute with the state over a faulty tax system.

The agency will be $4.7 million in the hole after $204.3 million in federal funding runs out this year, and the remaining question appears to be how local taxpayers will subsidize an unsustainable system.

As for accountability, Obama and his allies blamed Republican attempts to repeal the health law and the failure of outgoing Health and Human Services SecretaryKathleen Sebelius to inform the president of developing problems.

But the administration had a free hand to implement the law, GOP gripes notwithstanding, and you’d think that with all Obama had at stake he’d have had a trusted aide riding herd on HHS and reporting to him daily.

Localofficials blame Hawaii’s Prepaid Health Act for low enrollments and say making the health exchange independent fromstate government was the wrong way to go.

As if they didn’t know about the Prepaid Health Act when they made their initial exuberant predictions and weren’t the ones who set up the doomedhealth exchange.

Federal and local politicians responsible for thisdebacle are generally the same ones hectoring for more revenues for new and bigger government programs.

Let them prove they can competently run programs they have before taking us on new misadventures.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.