every single day....
The Wall Street Journal has published this report that Aides Debated Obama Health-Care Coverage Promise, revealing that some questioned whether the promise was one that could actually be kept. But apparently, it was important that the President's message not be cluttered. Pesky details. As President Barack Obama...
Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out. In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it. “The District of Columbia is an island surrounded by reality. Only in the District of Columbia could you get away with telling the people if you like what you have you can keep it, and then pass regulations six months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it. But common sense is eventually going to prevail in this town and common sense is going to have to prevail on this piece of legislation as well,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said at the time. “The administration's own regulations prove this is not the case. Under the grandfathering regulation, according to the White House's own economic impact analysis, as many as 69 percent of businesses will lose their grandfathered status by 2013 and be forced to buy government-approved plans,” the Iowa Republican said. On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which could come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year.These vulnerable Senate Dems who are up for reelection in 2014 helped kill the grandfathering fix: Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich.
Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained email exchanges between former Internal Revenue Services (IRS) Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and enforcement attorneys at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicating that the IRS provided detailed, confidential information concerning the tax exempt application status and returns of conservative groups to the FEC in violation of federal law. Included with the email exchanges were IRS questionnaires to a conservative group that contained questions of a hostile nature.... The bulk of the records obtained by Judicial Watch consist of extensive materials from the IRS’ files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Forms 990) and request for exempt recognition forms (Form 1024), Articles of Organization and other corporate documents, and correspondence between the nonprofit organizations and the IRS. Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is a felony for an IRS official to disclose either “return information” or “taxpayer return information,” even to another government agency.Earlier in the week Eliana Johnson at National review detailed the results of IRS leaks about the National Organization for Marriage to its political opponent, the pro-gay marriage Human Rights Campaitn. Most outrageous is how the the law protects the identify of the illegal leaker. Investigation IDs IRS Leaker:
The ongoing debacle that is the administration’s rollout of ObamaCare has reignited debate about technocracy and big-government liberalism. But Democrats who worry that their mode of coercive politics will be discredited by ObamaCare should be thankful it took this long. A very well-timed reminder of this arrived yesterday from the Brookings Institution. Scholars at the left-leaning think tank analyzed the so-called “Cash for Clunkers” program, the 2009 “stimulus” program intended to get cleaner cars on the road by providing cash vouchers for those who trade in older gas guzzlers and buy newer, more efficient cars. The administration patted itself on the back when the program ran out of money, apparently pleasantly surprised that people took free money during an economic downturn. But Brookings confirms that this was, of course, a terrible program. Here are their major findings:
This paragraph pretty much sums it up, from an article at The NY Times (emphasis added): [Tom] Scully, who has spent the last 30-some years oscillating between government and the private sector, is hoping to be his own best proof of the Obamacare gold mine. As a...
As the first month of the Obamacare rollout comes to an end, most of Pennsylvania’s navigator organizations said they have not guided anyone to enrollment in the federal health insurance exchange. The organizations attributed the low enrollment to the lack of a fully functioning website.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Now more breaking news, evidence that the Obama administration is leaning on insurance companies to keep a lid on problems with the healthcare law rollout. Now Drew Griffin on CNN’s investigations did the reporting. So Drew, What’s going on here, what have you learned? DREW GRIFFIN: Anderson, what’s going on is behind the scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet. Several sources tell me and my colleague Chris Frates that insurance executives are being told to keep quiet....https://twitter.com/whpresscorps/status/395410470653661184 Why would the insurance industry be worried? Maybe because like all Obama critics, they are only one speech away from being demonized.
An internal government memo obtained by CNN and written just days before the start of open enrollment for Obamacare warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of testing of the HealthCare.gov website. "Due to system readiness issues, the SCA (security control assessment) was only partly completed," said the internal memo from the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations." The memo goes on to explain that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services would create a "dedicated security team" to monitor the risk, conduct weekly scans and, within 60 to 90 days after the website went live, "conduct a full-scale SCA test." The memo did not detail the security concerns. It was written by IT officials at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and was sent to and signed by the agency's director, Marilyn Tavenner, who testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that she thought the website was ready to go when it began its crash-riddled rollout on October 1.And in an earlier article at CNN Money titled Security hole found in Obamacare website, it was also reported that a cybersecurity expert discovered a security flaw that went unaddressed for more than three weeks after healthcare.gov’s launch.
If only it were that benign. What probably will be the most viral moment from the Sebelius hearing this morning: And The Only Obamacare/Sebelius GIF You’ll Ever Need, from our friend Steve Gutkowski: ...
Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will testify Tuesday morning before the House Ways and Means Committee about the administration's implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A livestream of the hearing will be available at C-SPAN when the hearing...
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
Republicans said Sunday they intend to press Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the Obama administration's troubled launch of healthcare.gov, the online portal to buy insurance, and concerns about the privacy of information that applicants submit under the new system. The Obama administration will face intense pressure next week to be more forthcoming about how many people have actually succeeded in enrolling for coverage in the new insurance markets. Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner is to testify during a House hearing on Tuesday, followed Wednesday by Sebelius before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The officials will also be grilled on how such crippling technical problems could have gone undetected prior to the website's Oct. 1 launch. "The incompetence in building this website is staggering," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., the second ranking Republican on the panel and an opponent of the law.Democratic Senator Jeanee Shaheen of New Hampshire, a supporter of the Affordable Care Act, told Face the Nation on Sunday that “The rollout has been a disaster,” and proposed that the enrollment period be extended beyond the March 31st deadline. (h/t Washington Free Beacon) Indeed, other Senate Democrats have joined Shaheen in support of such a proposal. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has also joined with Republicans in calling for a one-year delay of the individual mandate.
The troubled HealthCare.gov website will be running properly by late November, said Jeffrey Zients, President Obama's appointee to fix the problems that have plagued the site since its Oct. 1 opening. "By the end of November, HealthCare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users," Zients said Friday. "The HealthCare.gov site is fixable. It will take a lot of work, and there are a lot of problems that need to be addressed." Zients, former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, was called in Monday to help with the site until it is fixed. He helped with other website glitches during Obama's first term. QSSI, a division of UnitedHealth Group, will serve as a general contractor to oversee the effort, he said. Their existing contract for the site has been renegotiated.Philip Klein over at Washington Examiner was on a conference call this afternoon with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Jeff Zients, and offers a few additional pieces of information. (This is only an excerpt of several he mentions):
