Report: Obamacare Exchanges Fraud Costs Taxpayers Millions
Posted: January 27, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Economics, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, GAO, Government Accountability Office, Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare Leave a comment
It seems an incredible waste to put tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of taxpayer dollars at risk through fraud on federal exchanges.
Christopher Jacobs reports: What do Obamacare and Haley Joel Osment have in common? They both see dead people.
On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released another report into eligibility verification checks on the federally run Obamacare insurance exchange used by more than three dozen states. As with prior studies, GAO concluded that regulators still need to improve integrity efforts to ensure the federal government spends taxpayer funds wisely.
[Read the full story here, at thefederalist.com]
Among the report’s most noteworthy conclusions: A total of 17,000 federally subsidized insurance policies studied during the 2015 plan year—the most recent for which GAO had complete data at the time of its investigation—began or continued after the applicant’s reported date of death. In 1,000 of those cases, coverage began after the applicant’s reported date of death. In a further 2,000, the application was submitted after the applicant’s reported date of death—in most cases because the exchange automatically re-enrolled applicants without checking to determine that they remained alive.
GAO previously recommended that the federal exchange verify eligibility periodically, checking changes in circumstances that would affect the status of federal subsidies, such as death. However, to the best of auditors’ knowledge, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not implemented this recommendation, one of 18 relating to exchange integrity that remain open (i.e., not completed) from two prior GAO reports. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Ted Cruz vs Bernie Sanders Debate the Future of Obamacare
Posted: February 7, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Education, Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Bernie Sanders, Capitalism, CNN, Communism, Debate, Democrats, Free market, GOP, Health Care, Liberty, Marxism, media, Obamacare, Progressivism, Republicans, Rule of Law, Socialism, Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz vs Bernie Sanders Debate, video 1 Comment
[VIDEO] OH YES THEY CAN: This Is How to Finally Repeal Obamacare
Posted: December 14, 2016 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Congress, Heritage Foundation, Obamacare, Reconciliation, Repeal, Senate Leave a comment
[VIDEO] REWIND: Best of Late-Night Jokes Mocking Obamacare
Posted: October 27, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, comedy, Health Care, Late-Night Talk Show, media, Mockery, news, Obamacare, Television, Washington Free Beacon Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Krauthammer: With Obamacare Insolvent, Democrats Want a ‘Single-Payer Government System’
Posted: October 25, 2016 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Party, Democrats, Insurance Premiums, media, news, Obamacare, video 1 Comment
Williamson in Wonderland: ‘The Supreme Court Has Firmly Established That It Does Not Matter What The Law Says Or Does Not Say’
Posted: June 29, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Alice in Wonderland, Ayatollah Roberts and His Sharia Council, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, NRO, Obamacare, Rule of Law, Same-sex marriage, SCOTUS, SSM, Supreme Court 3 Comments
Opening paragraph of “Ayatollah Roberts and His Sharia Council” by Kevin D. Williamson
Read Kevin D. Williamson‘s article about the SCOTUS rulings here, at National Review
MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber Had Bigger Role in Health Law, Emails Show
Posted: June 21, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, Health And Human Services, Jeffrey Sachs, Jonathan Gruber (economist), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matthew Ladner, Obamacare, Office of Management and Budget, Poverty reduction, The Wall Street Journal 2 Comments
Adviser whose comments on Affordable Care Act touched off a furor worked more closely than previously known with White House
“His proximity to HHS and the White House was a whole lot tighter than they admitted. There’s no doubt he was a much more integral part of this than they’ve said. He put up this facade he was an arm’s length away. It was a farce.”
The emails provided by the House Oversight Committee to The Wall Street Journal cover messages Mr. Gruber sent from January 2009 through March 2010. Committee staffers said they worked with MIT to obtain the 20,000 pages of emails.
They depict frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable Care Act. They show he informed HHS about interviews with reporters and discussions with lawmakers, and that he consulted with HHS about how to publicly describe his role.
The administration has sought to distance itself from the MIT economist in the wake of his controversial statements in a 2013 video where he said the health law passed because of the “huge political advantage” of the legislation’s lacking transparency. He also referred to the “stupidity of the American voter.”
Republicans seized on the comments as evidence that supporters of the law purposely misled the public about its costs. Mr. Gruber received nearly $400,000 from HHS for his work focusing on health-policy computer models, according to public records.
The White House has described Mr. Gruber as having a limited role in crafting the law. President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.” In testimony last year before Congress, Mr. Gruber disagreed with the widespread characterization of his role as the “architect” of Mr. Obama’s health-care plan.
“His proximity to HHS and the White House was a whole lot tighter than they admitted,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, (R. Utah), chairman of the House oversight committee. “There’s no doubt he was a much more integral part of this than they’ve said. He put up this facade he was an arm’s length away. It was a farce.”
[Read the full story here, at WSJ]
Mr. Chaffetz on Sunday sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwellrequesting information justifying the department’s sole source contract with Mr. Gruber for his work on the health law.
Mr. Gruber declined to comment. Read the rest of this entry »
Enhanced Interrogation: The Verdict is In
Posted: December 11, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Humor, Mediasphere, The Butcher's Notebook, War Room, White House | Tags: 9/11, ACA, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, CIA, Congress, Dick Cheney, Enhanced Interrogation, George W. Bush, Global Panic, Health Insurance, Islamism, Jihadism, Poster Art, satire, Senate, Socialized Health Care, Torture, Waterboarding 6 Comments
Jonathan Gruber + MIT + Individual Mandate + Congressional Budget Office + National Review = Adolf Hitler?
Posted: November 16, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Think Tank, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Algorithm, Barack Obama, blogging, Content Recommendations, Democracy, Dissent, Jon Gruber, media, MIT, news, Social media, software, wordpress Leave a comment
If you’re a WordPress blogger and post something critical of the Obama Administration and Health Care legislation, do you ever find unrelated content suggestions promoting creepy or offensive content leaking into the Content Recommendations panel? Either this is innocently absurd (benefit of the doubt) or legitimate Op-Ed criticism is being suspiciously herded into a category that triggers “kooky conspiracy theory” suggestions.
Read this post and see if there’s anything that could possibly fit with “Adolf Hitler”, or “Barack Obama Citizenship conspiracy theories”. Didn’t find anything related to Obama’s citizenship? Didn’t find anything related to Adolf Hitler? Exactly. Me neither.
The above screen cap records the list of suggestions offered in the content recommendations tags list when I prepared this post. A short post with only 88 words. If any one of the 88 words in that post is related in any way to these obnoxious suggestions (Hitler? Really?) I fail to see a connection.
One episode does not make a pattern, so there are no conclusions to draw here. But if any other WordPress bloggers find similar nonsense appearing in content suggestions, please, make a screen cap, and post it.
Why Raising Minimum Wage Means Less Money in Your Pocket
Posted: October 15, 2014 Filed under: Economics, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Health Insurance, Minimum wage, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Tom Harkin, United States, Walmart 2 Comments
“The Affordable Care Act demonstrates the phenomenon. This landmark piece of social legislation extended free or highly subsidized health insurance to millions of additional Americans. But it also, therefore, increases the loss of benefits to low-income workers after a raise.“
Will you actually be richer when your pay is raised to $15 per hour?
Perhaps the question seems ludicrous. Of course you’re better off making $15 an hour than you were at $9 per hour, right? But the answer is, unfortunately, not as obvious as you might think. And the question itself—will workers getting a raise be better off?—has been missing from debates in cities from New York to Los Angeles over whether to establish $15 per hour minimum wages for some workers.
Instead, we’re seeing the same old arguments — from San Francisco, where voters must decide on a November ballot measure proposing a new $15 per hour wage floor, to Seattle, which will begin phasing in $15 per hour next year — over whether the minimum wage hurts business and jobs, or whether it boosts local economies by giving workers more money to spend. For the record, I…
View original post 828 more words
[VIDEO] The Hammer: Affordable Care Act Language Is ‘Not Ambiguous At All’
Posted: July 22, 2014 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Andrew McCarthy, Charles Krauthammer, Congress, National Review, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Separation of powers, United States Congress 2 Comments“If the D.C. Court is upheld, Obamacare is over. It won’t survive.”
Charles Krauthammer believes that the language in the Affordable Care Act saying that subsidies are to be provided through state exchanges is unambiguous…He referred to a point made earlier today on NRO by Andrew McCarthy, who argued that even if you accept the government’s defense that it was indeed a drafting error, Congress is the only instrument in the constitutional system that can change the error.
“It is not in the power of the executive to fix what’s written in the legislation.”
Good News: Americans No Longer Required to Obey Laws, Regulations, or Court Decisions
Posted: July 22, 2014 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Josh Earnest, Obama administration, Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, Supreme Court, White House 6 Comments
White House Signals Greater Flexibility and Autonomy, Encourages Non-Compliance for All Americans, All U.S. Laws and Regulations Subject to Individual Discretion
For The Daily Caller, Sarah Hurtubise reports: The Obama administration will continue handing out Obamacare subsidies to federal exchange customers despite a federal court’s ruling Tuesday that the subsidies are illegal.
A D.C. Court of Appeals panel ruled Tuesday morning that customers in the 36 states that didn’t establish their own exchange and use HealthCare.gov instead cannot be given premium tax credits, according to the text of the Affordable Care Act itself.
[White House on Obamacare Ruling: Letter of the Law Doesn’t Matter]
[RELATED: Federal Court Takes Down Obamacare: Subsidies In Federal Exchange Are Illegal]
[‘Court Upholds Obamacare; Liberals Hit Hardest’]
But the White House said in response that it will continue handing out the billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: Federal Appeals Court Panel Says Most Obamacare Subsidies Illegal
Posted: July 22, 2014 Filed under: Breaking News, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Dan Mangan, HealthCare.gov, Obamacare, Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, Subsidy, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, United States courts of appeals 4 Comments
Crash and burn for Obamacare?
Dan Mangan reports: In a potentially crippling blow to Obamacare, a top federal appeals court Tuesday said that billions of dollars worth of government subsidies that helped 4.7 million people buy insurance on 
HealthCare.gov are not legal under the Affordable Care Act.
“Now, Obama and Company will look for John Roberts to pull their fat out of the fire again. I am afraid he will.”
— Wesley J. Smith
[Obamacare Fed Exchange Subsidies Fall]
In its decision, a three-judge panel said that such subsidies can be granted only to people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run exchange HealthCare.gov. Plaintiffs in the case known as Halbig v. Burwell argued that the ACA, as written, only allows that often-significant financial aid to be issued to people who bought insurance on a marketplace set up a state.
[Also see: Good News: Americans No Longer Required to Obey Laws, Regulations, or Court Decisions]
[White House on Obamacare Ruling: Letter of the Law Doesn’t Matter]
The decision is certain to be challenged by the Obama Administration, and does not immediately have the effect of law. But if it is ultimately upheld, it would cause insurance rates for those people who lost the subsidies to dramatically rise. Read the rest of this entry »
Employees Hired to Process Obamacare Applications: We Did Absolutely Nothing
Posted: May 15, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, corruption, Democrats, KMOV, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Serco Group, Wentzville Missouri 2 CommentsEmployees at a Missouri facility awarded $1.2 billion to process Obamacare applications told a local news station that they were “just doing nothing — absolutely nothing” over the past several months.
“You sit there and you wait and you wait and you wait.”
Over her six months at the facility, she said she processed only six total applications; another employee was told by her supervisor that processing just one or two applications per month was sufficient…(read more) NRO
Al Franken: People Don’t Like Me?
Posted: April 3, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Al Franken, American Encore, Associated Press, Franken, Minnesota, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2 Comments
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
From NRO‘s Morning Jolt:
Here’s the headline from a new poll of Minnesota likely voters commissioned by American Encore and conducted by Magellan Strategies:
Only 41 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Sen. Franken, while 45 percent had an unfavorable view of him. Only 44 percent approve of the job he is doing.
• 54% of respondents disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, and only 38% approve.
• Only 40% of respondents think Al Franken deserves re-election.
Memo To Clueless Democrats Crowing About Obama’s April 1st Deadline “Victory”: After Four Years and Millions of Sign-Ups, Obamacare Is Still Unpopular
Posted: April 2, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Politics | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 1 Comment
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Democrats have said people would learn to love the law once they saw how it would help them. Polls show the public doesn’t agree so far.
“If last fall’s round of cancellation letters wasn’t enough, another round is expected to go out this fall for letting small businesses know that they too can’t keep their plans.”
Obamacare’s Hierarchy of Privilege
Posted: March 18, 2014 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, FEHBP, Mark Steyn, New Hampshire, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States, University of Virginia 2 Comments
No one who favors the law wants to be bound by it.
Mark Steyn writes: On his radio show the other day, Hugh Hewitt caught me by surprise and asked me about running for the United States Senate from New Hampshire. My various consultants, pollsters, PACs, and exploratory committees haven’t fine-tuned every detail of my platform just yet, but I can say this without a doubt: I will not vote for any “comprehensive” bill, whether on immigration, health care, or anything else. “Comprehensive” today is a euphemism for interminably long, poorly drafted, and entirely unread — not just by the people’s representatives but by our robed rulers, too (how many of those Supreme Court justices actually plowed through every page of Obamacare when its “constitutionality” came before them?). The 1862 Homestead Act, which is genuinely comprehensive, is two handwritten pages in clear English. “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is 500 times as long, is not about patients or care, and neither protects the former nor makes the latter affordable.
“The Affordable Care Act means whatever President Obama says it means on any particular day of the week. Whether it applies to you this year, next year, or not at all depends on the whim of the sovereign, and whether your CEO golfs with him on Martha’s Vineyard.”
So what is it about? On Wednesday, the Nevada AFL-CIO passed a resolution declaring that “the unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week.” That’s quite an accomplishment for a “health” “care” “reform” law. But the poor old union heavies who so supported Obamacare are now reduced to bleating that they should be entitled to the same opt-outs secured by big business and congressional staffers. It’s a very strange law whose only defining characteristic is that no one who favors it wants to be bound by it.
“A few weeks back, the president unilaterally suspended the law’s employer mandate. Under the U.S. Constitution, he doesn’t have the power to do this, but judging from the American people’s massive shrug of indifference he might as well unilaterally suspend the Constitution, too.”
Meanwhile, on the very same day as the AFL-CIO was predicting the death of the 40-hour week, the University of Virginia announced plans to boot working spouses off its health plan beginning January 1 because the Affordable Care Act has made it unaffordable: It’s projected to add $7.3 million dollars to the university’s bill in 2014 alone.
And the Award goes to…
Posted: March 2, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Censorship, Entertainment, White House | Tags: Academy Awards, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Humor, LIAR, Obamacare, Oscars, Pinocchio, satire 3 Comments
George W. Bush found the solution to America’s healthcare crisis seven years ago. Too bad nobody listened.
Posted: February 19, 2014 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, U.S. News, White House | Tags: 2007 State of the Union Address, Affordable Care Act, Edward Lazear, George W. Bush, Health care in the United States, Nancy Pelosi, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States 6 Comments
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
BUSHCARE
Edward Lazear writes: The Congressional Budget Office’s warning that the Affordable Care Act will cause employment to fall by the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers is just the latest of Obamacare’s negative surprises. Unfortunately, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s statement that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” is proving to be depressingly accurate.
The law’s defenders legitimately argue that it is not sufficient merely to criticize the Affordable Care Act; responsible action requires proposing an alternative. Fortunately, Republicans have a good one, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for the past seven years. The plan was first described in President George W. Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address, but it remains timely. This plan would remedy most of the major problems that exist in America’s health care system and cause less destruction with fewer adverse consequences than Obamacare.
There are two main problems associated with health care in the United States today. First, it is expensive. Health economists, among them Daniel Kessler at Stanford, have shown convincingly that the United States spends a larger share of its gross domestic product on health care than other countries (for example, about one-and-a-half times what Switzerland spends per capita) because of inappropriate incentives to use care efficiently. Patients who have insurance or rely on state funds to cover their expenses bear little of the cost of any treatment received, which causes them to use health resources as if they were almost free. This means that health care is overused and the scarce resources do not always go to those who need them most. Part of this is a result of a Tax Code that subsidizes expensive plans, which have low co-payments and overly extensive coverage. The second problem is the large number of uninsured Americans who do not have reasonable access to health care and who obtain the health care that they do receive in inefficient ways, such as using emergency rooms for minor ailments.
Magic Unicorns are Real! Republicans Who Love Obamacare
Posted: February 15, 2014 Filed under: Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Humor, Politics | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, New Port Richey Florida, Obama, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Republican, Republican Party (United States), United States 2 CommentsA very special report by paranormal phenomena WUSF News reporter Carol Gentry:
Exclusive. Rare discovery, screen capture of unique Obamacare-loving Republican
By now, the Republican Party’s view of the Affordable Care Act should be pretty familiar.
“I’m fighting to repeal Obamacare, right away. It’s bad for our families, and our economy.”
But not all Republicans agree; one is Irene Jacusis of New Port Richey, who was uninsured until now.
“I did not vote for Obama,” she said. “But I am so in love with this plan, with this health care plan, what can I do?”
She knows that her party wants to repeal it. “But I don’t think they’re going to,” she said. “There are too many people out there who need this and require it.”
Other special Republicans agree. Another Republican who wants to keep the Affordable Care Act is Mary
Fallon of St. Petersburg…
“In a half hour she had my account set up, and I had a confirmation, a password, a login, and I was good to go,” said Fallon, 49. “This was December and I cried. I just held my hands up in the air. Thank you, god. Finally, some relief. I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Glowing reviews from special Republican Obamacare supporters..
“ I have dental insurance!” she said in wonder. “And all the doctors that I do see, my dentist, my GYN, for a whole year I’m paying less than I paid per month.”
What to Do When ObamaCare Unravels
Posted: December 26, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Law & Justice, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Health Insurance, John H. Cochrane, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Southwest Airlines, United States, Walmart 3 CommentsHealth insurance should be individual, portable across jobs, states and providers, and lifelong and renewable.
David Gothard
John H. Cochrane writes: The unraveling of the Affordable Care Act presents a historic opportunity for change. Its proponents call it “settled law,” but as Prohibition taught us, not even a constitutional amendment is settled law—if it is dysfunctional enough, and if Americans can see a clear alternative.
This fall’s website fiasco and policy cancellations are only the beginning. Next spring the individual mandate is likely to unravel when we see how sick the people are who signed up on exchanges, and if our government really is going to penalize voters for not buying health insurance. The employer mandate and “accountable care organizations” will take their turns in the news. There will be scandals. There will be fraud. This will go on for years.
Yet opponents should not sit back and revel in dysfunction. The Affordable Care Act was enacted in response to genuine problems. Without a clear alternative, we will simply patch more, subsidize more, and ignore frauds and scandals, as we do in Medicare and other programs.
There is an alternative. A much freer market in health care and health insurance can work, can deliver high quality, technically innovative care at much lower cost, and solve the pathologies of the pre-existing system.
‘We Screwed the Duck’: CNN Really Misheard Obama’s Health Care Apology
Posted: December 21, 2013 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, CNN, Duck Dynasty, Jon Passantino, Obama, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States 2 CommentsPresident Obama admitted during his big end-of-year press conference, “We screwed it up.” This was in reference to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, considered his signature achievement in office.
Meanwhile, Duck Dynasty has (regrettably) been in the news for three whole days now, and whether it had something to do with that or was just an innocent mistake, someone at CNN clearly misheard what the president said and this is what ended up on CNN’s Political Ticker instead.
So… does this mean CNN screwed the duck too?
Poll: Americans Want to Go Back to Previous Health Care System, Disagree With President Obama on Size and Power of Government
Posted: December 11, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Americans, Barack Obama, Congress, government, Obama, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States 2 Comments
Emily Ekins writes: At a recent event, President Barack Obama said the health care law is here to stay and vowed, “We aren’t going back.” But 55 percent of Americans say they’d prefer to go back to the health care system that was in place before the Affordable Care Act, while 34 percent prefer the current health care system.
The latest Reason-Rupe national telephone poll finds the Affordable Care Act’s troubled launch has made 47 percent of Americans less confident in government’s ability to solve problems. Forty-one percent say the troubles have made no difference and 11 percent say the health care law’s launch has given them more confidence in the government.
“This is the most transparent administration in history,” President Obama has declared. However, 57 percent of Americans tell Reason-Rupe that the Obama administration is not the most transparent administration in history, while 37 percent agree with the president’s statement.
A majority of Americans, 52 percent, say they disagree with President Obama’s views about the proper size and power of government, while 38 percent agree with the president. Read the rest of this entry »
Liberals’ Love-Hate Relationship With the Law
Posted: December 2, 2013 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Iran, Iran's nuclear program, Obama, Peter Berkowitz, Politics 3 Comments
Peter Berkowitz writes: The controversies raging about the merits of two very different Obama administration policies, the Affordable Care Act and addressing Iran’s nuclear program, shed light on the common political outlook that underlies them.
President Obama’s signature domestic initiative and his grandest foreign affairs undertaking alike reflect a defining feature of the progressive or left-liberal mind. Both betray an incoherent opinion, or rather incoherent set of opinions, about politics and law. In both cases, Obama began by exaggerating the primacy of the rule of law. Subsequently, without fanfare, apology, or apparent regret he blithely disregarded the requirements of law.
The left-liberal mindset endemic on the college faculties and law schools where Barack Obama’s political sensibilities were forged holds that morals and politics are subject to a universal reason to which the left-liberal sensibility is uniquely attuned. This conceit receives expression in a faith that the left-liberal brain trust can embody complex public policy in general rules and regulations, which can then be administered smoothly by well-educated bureaucrats and adjudicated impartially by empathetic judges.
SHOCK: Obamacare Fix Could Add Millions of Dollars in Government Costs
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, CNN, Cost, Health policy, Insurance, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States 4 Comments
Adam Aigner-Treworgy reports: President Barack Obama’s proposal to allow people to keep canceled health plans for one year could end up costing the government millions of dollars.
This is due to a provision of the Affordable Care Act called risk corridors that allows for insurers to share the cost of insuring more expensive customers…
CNN Political Ticker – CNN.com Blogs [Full Story]
Which one is lying, Obama or the White House?
Posted: November 6, 2013 Filed under: U.S. News, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Monday, Obama, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President, United States, White House 1 Comment
If that sounds like a trick question, you’re just not smart enough to understand it. Go back to your coloring books, teabagger.
Whew! Glad they left. It’s just us now, the sophisticates who can appreciate nuance and subtlety and crap like that. We understand how the following two things can be reconciled.
Here’s President Barack Obama, speaking last Monday: Read the rest of this entry »
Will a ‘Tech Surge’ Save HealthCare.gov ?
Posted: October 23, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Science & Technology, White House | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Aneesh Chopra, BarackObama, Bob Kocher, David Halberstam, HealthCare.gov, Monday, Obama, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Todd Park, VentureBeat, White House Leave a commentThere might yet be hope from the private sector — just not in the way you might think.
Flickr
Christina Farr reports: Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services promised it would recruit the ”best and brightest” to fix HealthCare.gov, the federal government’s online insurance marketplace that’s part of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), which has been plagued by technical defects. On Monday, President Barack Obama promised a “tech surge” to fix the problems.
It’s not going to happen.
HealthCare.gov is not going to get help from “the best and brightest” nor a “surge,” neither of which it can easily afford. In reality, the government’s options are limited, sources tell VentureBeat.
But there might yet be hope from the private sector — just not in the way you might think.
All Sham, No Wow
Posted: October 22, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Science & Technology | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, BarackObama, Health Insurance, Insurance, Kathleen Sebelius, Michael Slaby, Obama, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Paul Krugman, Robert McNamara, Speeches of Barack Obama 1 Comment
The lady on the left passed out before the speech was done. Associated Press
Obama Delivers an Infomercial when an Accounting is Due
James Taranto writes: “The Affordable Care Act is not just a website,” President Obama said at the Rose Garden today. “It’s much more.” It’s like a chamois, it’s like a towel, it’s like a sponge.
Another way of putting it is that ObamaCare isn’t just a technical failure. And it isn’t just an economically unsustainable scheme. Now it’s a rhetorical disaster too. Even by the standards of Obama speeches it was terrible. It was so bad, it was the ObamaCare website of political oratory.
Fine, blame us. After all, we called for an Obama speech. But remember that what we called for–it was right there in the subheadline–was an accounting. What he gave us was an infomercial. Read the rest of this entry »
Obamacare seeks to segregate patients, doctors by race
Posted: October 20, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Health care provider, Obamacare, Office of Minority Health, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services 1 Comment
Separate but Equal Health Care
Katie McHugh writes: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor under Obamacare — if you both belong to the same race.
Obamacare’s spectacular flop of a rollout distracts from its crude calculus that encourages the allocation of healthcare resources along racial lines and a doctor-patient system splintered into ethnicities.
While the 2010 Patient Protecion and Affordable Care Act’s language on diversity sounds innocuous, a review of the frankly separatist thinking of the law’s ardent supporters indicates Obamacare is aiming for a health care system that puts political correctness above the struggle against illness and death.
A 2009 report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) examining the House and Senate bill eventually signed by President Barack Obama advocates pairing patients and doctors of the same race, a goal toward which the law channels taxpayer dollars. Read the rest of this entry »
WA State: 98% of UFCW Union Vote to Strike Because of Obamacare
Posted: October 12, 2013 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, U.S. News | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Conversation, Health Insurance, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Strike action, United Food and Commercial Workers, Workweek and weekend 3 Comments
The Washington State United Food and Commercial Workers Union has voted to authorize a strike because of Obamacare regulations. Approximately 30,000 workers could walk picket lines as early as next week and the vote to strike was approved by 98% of the membership.
One of the new proposals in the current contract negotiations is to provide health insurance only to those employees working a 30+ hour work week. “As with all employers, the Affordable Care Act will impact how we deliver health benefits to our employees,” said Allied chief negotiator Scott Powers. The previous contract provided healthcare for workers with 16+ hour work weeks.
Union officials say the President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act is being used as a convenient excuse to cut benefits.”The reason why the employers are doing this is it’s a big money grab,” said Tom Geiger of UFCW Local 21.
This could be the beginning of strikes around the country as the consequences of Obamacare become apparent.
That Sound of Big Government Hitting the Wall
Posted: July 11, 2013 Filed under: Economics, Mediasphere | Tags: Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, Big Government, Health insurance mandate, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Twitter, United States Leave a commentMark July 3, 2013, as the day Big Government finally imploded.
July 3 was the quiet afternoon that a deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy announced in a blog post that the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate would be delayed one year. Something about the “complexity of the requirements.” The Fourth’s fireworks couldn’t hold a candle to the sound of the U.S. government finally hitting the wall.
Since at least 1789, America’s conservatives and liberals have argued about the proper role of government. Home library shelves across the land splinter and creak beneath the weight of books arguing the case for individual liberty or for government-led social justice. World Wrestling smackdowns are nothing compared with Hayek vs. Rawls.
Maybe we have been listening to the wrong experts. Philosophers and pundits aren’t going to tell us anything new about government. The one-year rollover of ObamaCare because of its “complexity” suggests it’s time to call in the physicists, the people who study black holes and death stars. That’s what the federal government looks like after expanding ever outward for the past 224 years.
Douglas Jones
Even if you are a liberal and support the goals of the Affordable Care Act, there has to be an emerging sense that maybe the law’s theorists missed a signal from life outside the castle walls. While they troweled brick after brick into a 2,000-page law, the rest of the world was reshaping itself into smaller, more nimble units whose defining metaphor is the 140-character Twitter message.
Laughably, Barack Obama tried this week to align himself with the new age in a speech calling yet again for “smarter” government. It requires whatever lies on the far side of chutzpah to say this after passing a 1930s-style law that is both incomprehensible and simply won’t work. ObamaCare is turning into pure gravity. Nothing moves.
On July 5, the administration announced into the holiday void that because of “operational barriers” to IRS oversight, individuals would be allowed to self-report their income to qualify for the law’s subsidies.
If the ObamaCare meltdown were a one-off, the system could dismiss it as a legislative misfire and move on, as always. But ObamaCare’s problems are not unique. Important parts of the federal government are breaking down almost simultaneously.
