Obamacare fallacy is alive and well.  Unconstitutional from its inception due to the fact that no revenue legislation can originate in the Senate (which the ACA did by including the individual mandate), that this key aspect was demonetized by Congress' tax overhaul in 2017 didn't change anything.  All the squirmings by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2012 officially dubbing the mandate a tax instead of a fee only confirmed the unconstitutionality of Obamacare rather than the opposite.  The challenge to ACA to which a federal judge in Texas agreed, ruling the law unconstitutional because the mandate's teeth were extracted in passing the 2017 tax law by reducing it to zero, only adds to the clowning that this unaffordable Affordable Care Act instituted from the outset.  One could even argue that this case further muddies the waters regarding ACA's constitutionality as the mandate continues to be the political football thrown for a touchback.  The game was always hinged on a bad play.

Democrat AGs:  Obamacare mandate still exists, even at $0.  Congress may have cut the Obamacare penalty to zero, but that doesn't mean the individual mandate requiring Americans to have insurance is actually gone, Democratic state officials explained Thursday [8/30/2018].  They're preparing to argue in a major courtroom showdown next week that the 2010 health law is still legal even without the punishing taxes that were originally the heart of the law's constitutional basis, according to the Supreme Court.  California Attorney General Xavier Becerra compared the tax penalty to a bank account — even if all the money were removed, the account would still be there, he said.

With the individual mandate dead, the rest of Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Almost no one saw it coming.  In 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts famously ruled the Affordable Care Act's provision mandating most people purchase health insurance or else pay a fine constitutional on the basis that Congress has the authority to tax individuals, and the so-called Obamacare "fine" is effectively a tax.  As the now-deceased Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out in his dissenting opinion, in classifying the Obamacare penalty as a "tax," Roberts ignored history, the language of the healthcare law, statements made by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, and common sense.  (The obvious difference between a fine and a tax is that the purpose of a tax is to raise revenue, not to force people to behave in a particular way.)

The Obama Legacy Deserves To Be Destroyed.  The Constitution doesn't say "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law unless liberals tell us it's super important."  Yet, shortly after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration realized it would need more subsidies and asked for an appropriation from Congress.  When Congress, then teeming with politicians elected on the promise of overturning Obamacare, refused, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew ordered the administration to begin making "cost-sharing reduction" payments anyway without any public legal justification.  Obama created a $7 billion per year appropriation for insurance companies participating in the supposedly self-sufficient and competitive state health-care exchanges. [...] One federal court found the Obamacare subsidy unconstitutional, and the case is working towards the Supreme Court.

How Risky Is It to Be Uninsured?  In a recent survey, 48 percent of uninsured respondents did not plan on looking for information on the health insurance exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act, or had not heard about them.  Are uninsured people ignorant?  Or might the poll reflect a well-reasoned choice?  What are the actual risks associated with being uninsured?

Ted Cruz sees legal landmines ahead for Obamacare.  One of Congress' staunchest critics of Obamacare released a report Monday that cheers on legal challenges to the overhaul and says the White House overstepped its authority by delaying aspects of the law.  Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican who helped engineer a lengthy government funding stalemate earlier this year in a bid to block money for the new health care law, said many aspects of the Affordable Care Act are "constitutionally or statutorily suspect" and that the entire law should be repealed.

It will take more than a constitutional amendment to restore limited government.
Marco Rubio's Eleventh Right.  On Tuesday morning [6/4/2013], Marco Rubio unveiled what he hopes will be America's 28th constitutional amendment.  "If passed by Congress and ratified by the states," the senator declared, the revision would render it illegal for the federal government to "force citizens to purchase goods or services at the risk of being hit with a tax penalty."  Thus, the People would "reassert constitutionally limited government" in the United States.

Obama administration issues regulations for individual mandate.  The Obama administration took new steps Wednesday [1/30/2013] toward implementing the individual mandate in its signature healthcare law, downplaying the scope of the unpopular provision by stressing rules that allow exemptions from the requirement to purchase insurance.

Obama administration issues regulations for individual mandate.  The Obama administration took new steps Wednesday [1/30/2013] toward implementing the individual mandate in its signature healthcare law, downplaying the scope of the unpopular provision by stressing rules that allow exemptions from the requirement to purchase insurance.  The Internal Revenue Service and the Health and Human Services Department emphasized exceptions to the mandate, which were detailed in new regulations that also laid out the process by which the IRS will calculate penalties for going uninsured.

Trashing Tricare.  The Obama administration's proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers' benefits untouched.  The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials.  Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare's state-run insurance exchanges.

'Cornhusker kickback' senator meets with Obama to talk Obamacare fix.  Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who voted for Obamacare after securing the "Cornhusker kickback" for his state, met with President Barack Obama Wednesday [11/20/2013] to talk about how to fix the law. [...] Nelson is technically banned from lobbying Congress for two years, but is allowed to lobby the executive branch.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

To 'Empower Patients' — First Dispel Seven Myths.  [#4]  There is no right to healthcare in a free society.  Harris's push for Medicare for All is rooted in the belief that healthcare is a basic human right.  However, this notion raises serious questions about the implications for patients and providers.  Rights, such as free speech or religious freedom, are inherent and do not require someone else's labor or resources to exercise.  Declaring healthcare as a right would effectively compel medical professionals to provide services on demand, regardless of their consent.  True rights do not impose obligations on others.  Harris's vision would undermine the autonomy of healthcare providers, reducing their freedom and potentially compromising care quality.

Pull Back the Curtain on False Federal Narratives.  [Scroll down]  False narrative Number 5 is a hot button item: health care is a right.  To some, this is a moral imperative.  Leftists say that health care is the right of all peoples.  Government must control the health care system in order to fulfill its obligation to assure this right — health care, the service — to all Americans.  Health care cannot be a right, not in a country where the founding principle is personal freedom.  Health care is a voluntary, confidential service contract between a patient and a provider.  If health care is a right, then the patient can require the provider to serve him or her.  This denies nurses, doctors and therapists their constitutionally guaranteed freedom.

Louisiana approves Amendment 1 stating abortion [is] not a right.  Louisiana voters have approved an amendment to the state constitution that makes clear the document does not grant the right to an abortion.  The question before voters Tuesday was whether to explicitly state that "a right to abortion and the funding of abortion shall not be found in the Louisiana Constitution."

Health Care Is Not a Right.  Conventional wisdom holds that the progressive dream of Medicare for All died — or at least was deferred — when Joe Biden secured the Democratic presidential nomination.  Many supposed the former vice president would be more moderate on health care than the president under whom he served.  But recently Biden has started sounding a lot more like Barack Obama or even Senator Bernie Sanders.  In early July, six unity task forces convened jointly by Biden and Sanders released their policy recommendations for a putative Biden Administration.  If implemented, they'd represent the most left-wing governing program in U.S. history.  The healthcare task force stopped short of endorsing Medicare for All.  But Biden's "public option" alternative amounts to single-payer in slow motion.  Perhaps most alarmingly, the Democratic presidential hopeful has embraced the idea that Americans have a right to health care.  That idea is certainly popular — nearly four in five Americans believe that everyone should have a right to health care regardless of their ability to pay.  But declaring something a right does not make it so.  In fact, a government-guaranteed "right to health care" would undermine many of the other more fundamental rights that Americans hold dear.

No Bernie, healthcare is not a right.  Senator Bernie Sanders has suspended his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the President of the United States.  Even so, he strongly supports having the federal government provide health insurance for every American.  He says healthcare is right.  He is wrong.  A right is generally defined as "a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way."  Healthcare is not an entitlement, nor should it be.  According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are numerous rights humans have, but the right to healthcare is not included.  The Declaration of Independence of the United States says all Americans have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Nowhere in any definition of rights, is there any mention of the right to have health care.  The rights mentioned above, all deal with the rights that individuals should have in their daily lives and in their pursuit of happiness.  There is no mention of a right that requires other citizens to pay for something some citizens can't afford to pay for themselves.

Democrats — Still the Party of Slavery after all these years.  According to Melissa Harris-Perry people have "...the right to health care, and to education, and to decent housing and to quality food at all times."  Perry is certainly not the first Democrat to argue that people have a "right" to the labor of others.  I have been fielding this argument in the course of debates about health care for years.  To be fair, I think sometimes such rhetoric is simply the result of a lack of deep thinking.  But like it or not, health care, education, housing, and food are all either services or tangible items which come from the labor of real people, people who many Democrats believe should be compelled to toil without compensation to provide for the "rights" of others.  To put it more simply, people like Harris-Perry are calling for certain people to be forced to work without compensation for the benefit of others.  Anytime you designate a good or service that must be produced by someone to be a right, you make the producer a slave.

No, NFL, You DON'T Have an Unassailable 'Right' to Protest the National Anthem.  First we need to define what a "right" is.  A right is something given to you by your creator, something no one can take away.  It is, as the founders said, "inalienable," or it can't be alienated from or taken away from you.  However, a right also cannot impinge on someone else.  This means that your rights must not require someone else to do something to "give" you your rights.  This, for instance, is why healthcare cannot be a right.  After all, if healthcare were a right, then a doctor or nurse would be required to treat you no matter what they want to do as individuals.  So, if healthcare were a right, then you are necessarily taking away the freedom of choice from a healthcare provider because they would not be allowed to turn away from you or decide to treat you in a different way.  Their rights as individuals would be eliminated in favor of your "right" to healthcare.  Since your right cannot force others to act, healthcare cannot be a right.  Get it?

Stop making everything a moral issue.  Health insurance is not a moral issue.  It is a service.  In America, anyone can buy health insurance.  Those too poor get Medicaid.  Free.  No premiums, no co-payments, no limits.  Those not quite poor get subsidies for their children through SCHIP.  Old people get subsidies through Medicare.  States regulate prices.  There is no moral right to health insurance, life insurance, or car insurance.

'Free' Government-Funded Health Care.  Clearly, Uncle Sam may be super-rich but nobody is sufficiently wealthy to pay for every health "problem" for every person, and this nightmare would be even worse if, as is now policy in Great Britain, "free" healthcare even extends to everybody physically in the country, even new arrivals.  Absent unlimited funding, choices are inescapable, so some will be denied vital health care and will "needlessly" die despite a "free" healthcare right written in stone.

No, no, NO — health care is not a right.  Once upon a time, Founding Fathers gathered and penned one of history's greatest documents, the Declaration of Independence, including a little line item that went like this: that all are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Now, thanks to a dude named Barack Obama — a dude who fancied himself a constitutional scholar, possessed of a real law degree, no less — we've got health care tacked on to that list.  Or, more specifically, government-provided, taxpayer-paid health care.  Now, thanks to Obama and his hard left supporters, tax-paid medical coverage has become a right — like breathing.  Like life itself.  It's no longer an individual responsibility, a familial obligation, a personal choice.

Hard Truths about Health Care.  Health care is neither a right nor a privilege; it's a commodity.  Worse, it's a finite commodity.  There are only so many doctors, so many hospitals, and so much money, and there are limits to how much these things can be expanded.  That's why no health-care system, outside Bernie Sanders's fantasies, provides unlimited care to everyone.  Every health-care system in the world rations care in some way, either through bureaucratic fiat (Scandinavia, the U.K.), waiting lists (Canada), or price (that's us).  One can argue about which of these rationing mechanisms is fairest or most efficient, but let's not pretend that it won't occur

Mark Cuban:  Amend U.S. Constitution to Make Healthcare a Right.  Billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban criticized the Congressional Budget Office's use of a 10-year score to determine the effects of the Republicans' American Health Care Act and said the U.S. Constitution should be amended to make healthcare a right.

The Editor says...
At least Mr. Cuban admits that at present, health care is not a right.

America, your health care is not a federal responsibility.  More insured patients plus fewer available doctors equals longer and longer wait times.  That is why 752 residents of President Obama's home state of Illinois died:  they had to wait too long to get life-saving care that was not available in time.  This is called death by queueing, something U.S. veterans experience every day.  ObamaCare has aided the growth of the malignancy that is destroying U.S. health care: a massive federal administrative apparatus and regulatory machine that diverts trillions — not millions or even billions — of "health care" dollars away from health care services to pay itself, to pay the health care bureaucracy.  There is another, even more compelling, reason to repeal ObamaCare.  Health care is not the fed's job!  Providing health care is not a federal responsibility according to the U.S. Constitution and the Medicaid law.

Nancy Pelosi: We 'couldn't be more thrilled' about Obamacare.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says although some Democrats may be voting politically to distance themselves from Obamacare, they were still supporting the law and working in their districts to implement it.  "This is history and the future and progress," she stated emphatically, "It stands right there as Social Security, Medicare, affordable health care, as a right, not a privilege for the few, but a right for the many."

The Editor says...
You can get medical attention at the free public hospital in any big city; but even so, medical treatment is not a right.

Obama: Martin Luther King Jr. would have liked Obamacare.  President Obama signaled in an exclusive interview with radio hosts Tom Joyner and Sybil Wilkes that Martin Luther King Jr. would have liked his health care plan for Americans. [...] "What do you think he'd say about Obamacare?" asked Joyner, when discussing King's legacy.  "Oh he'd like that," Obama asserted.  "Well, because he understood that health care, health security is not a privilege, it's something in a county as wealthy as ours, everybody should have access to."

Illegal Aliens Demand Free Organ Transplants.  Illegal immigrants have boldly demanded everything from civil rights in the U.S. to driver's licenses and government benefits such as welfare and discounted tuition at public universities, so why stop there?

Obama: Health Insurance [is] a 'Right'.  Before we get to whether a commercial product is actually a "right," perhaps we should explain what the president forgot to mention when he said he was "doing everything in my power to make sure the law works as it's supposed to."  The truth is, the president is doing everything in his power — as well as claiming powers he doesn't possess.  By unilaterally waiving some requirements of Obamacare without congressional consent, the president is basically ruling by decree.

The Hardest Working Man in Demagogy.  As to the assertion of health care as a right, Obama is simply reiterating one of the key assertions of his second inaugural address, which was in turn reiterating the Second Bill of Rights framed by Franklin Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union Address.  It is the doctrine of welfare state liberalism come to take the place of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Obama in California: health care is a right, not a privilege.  Flanked by representatives from Spanish-language media outlets Impremedia, Univision and Telemundo, Mr. Obama touted the plan's provision of coverage for 10.2 million uninsured Latinos and argued that the new law is already resulting in lower premium costs.  "Quality, affordable care is not some earned privilege — it's a right," he said during remarks at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif.

When Did Everything Become A Right In This Country?  I was watching T.V. the other day, when a story came up about Obama-Care, on the screen was a liberal saying, "at least, health care is now a right."  As I sat there I said to myself, Just what we need another right in this country, I mean really, it seems everything is a right these days. [...] No one owes you a house, a job, a bank account, or a successful life.  You want those things?  Go get 'em.  If you are not happy with your life, it is up to you to change it.
[Atrocious punctuation, capitalization and grammar in original.]

Trump Should Stop Illegal Obamacare Subsidies Now.  President Trump has an opportunity to unilaterally halt an unconstitutional corporate welfare scheme, deal Obamacare a mortal blow, and save the taxpayers more than $100 billion.  U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled last year that the Obama administration had unconstitutionally dispensed subsidies to insurers, holding that it had flouted the Appropriations Clause by doling out "cost sharing reduction" (CSR) payments that hadn't been authorized by Congress.  The Obama administration later filed an appeal but didn't have time to pursue the case further.  President Trump has the power and the duty to drop that appeal and stop these unconstitutional CSR payments immediately.  Instead of doing so, however, Trump is attempting to use these bribes as a bargaining chip in a futile attempt to get the Democrats to deal in good faith on a viable replacement for Obamacare.

The Obamacare Financing Flimflam.  Now we know why the Obama administration unilaterally changed rules on Fannie Mae funds in 2012.  They basically screwed private-sector bondholders and shareholders to create a slush fund for left-wing groups allied with the administration.  These funds do not go through Congress.  They are treated as off-balance sheet entities, where the amount that comes to the government is treated as a net reduction in expenses instead of an increase in revenue.  In other words, it allows Congress and the president to pretend they are controlling spending.

Watchdog: New York misspent $150 million in Obamacare funds.  The inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a report Tuesday that New York didn't follow federal requirements when handing out grants for setting up its Obamacare exchange.  An audit found that New York allocated $93.4 million from August 2011 to March 2014 using a formula that overstated the population who would use the marketplace to find health insurance coverage.  New York also gave $49.5 million to the exchange that should have gone to Medicaid and another nearly $6 million of enrollment assistance that was for Medicaid.  Now the federal government wants the state to refund the $150 million that was misallocated to the exchange.

To Save Obamacare, the President Plots a Massive Bailout of Health Insurers.  Distracted by the presidential election and the news that ACA insurance premiums will increase by an average of 25 percent in 2017, many have failed to notice the administration's plan to use a special U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) fund, called the Judgment Fund, to funnel billions of dollars to insurers without congressional approval.  If it successfully executes this plan, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will have circumvented Congress to secure a taxpayer bailout for insurers — directly contradicting Congress's intentions as expressed by multiple spending bills, and possibly violating federal law.

Obama Administration Willing to Break Law to Save Obamacare.  President Barack Obama's signature health care law is failing and his administration will go to seemingly any length to prop it up.  You know the famous quote from "Animal Farm" that "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others?"  This was George Orwell's attempt to point out the hypocrisy that many politicians preach equality, but then give favors to only a few.  Well, for the Obama administration, it turns out that the health insurance companies participating in Obamacare happen to be "more equal" than taxpayers — even to the point where the administration is willing to break the law to help them stay in Obamacare.

Obama's Latest Bailout For Big Insurance Aims To Cover His Lies.  Even as nonpartisan experts at the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Obama administration broke the law with Obamacare's reinsurance program, the Washington Post reported the administration could within weeks pay out a massive settlement to insurers through another Obamacare slush fund — this one, risk corridors.  The Post article quoted Republicans criticizing risk corridor "bailouts."  But in reality, the Obama administration itself has admitted using risk corridors as a bailout mechanism — trying to pay insurers to offset the costs of unilateral policy changes made to get President Obama out of a political jam.  These two interlinked bailouts — one political, the other financial — explain this administration's rush to pay off insurers on its way out the door.

Obama plans to circumvent Congress and bail out big insurance companies.  Most readers will recall that in 2013, millions of Americans received notices informing them that their existing health insurance plan would disappear once Obamacare's major provisions took effect.  President Obama's "if you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan" mantra was exposed as a lie.  In response, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) agreed to ignore the requirements of Obamacare and allow people to keep their prior coverage.  Insurers could permit individuals who purchased coverage after the law's enactment but before October 2013 to keep their plan for a few more months (later extended until December 2017).

Panic prompted ObamaCare lawlessness.  Senior Obama administration officials took a series of decisions beginning in late 2013 that ranged from the reckless to the illegal in an effort to keep insurers participating in health insurance exchanges.  A report issued last week jointly by the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees explores how the administration came to unlawfully funnel $7 billion in unappropriated money to insurers through a single ObamaCare program.  The program — known as cost-sharing reduction (CSR) — requires insurers to reduce deductibles and other out-of-pocket spending for certain low-income people who signed up for coverage through health insurance exchanges.  In turn, the statute authorized the administration to seek an appropriation from Congress to reimburse insurers for the cost of providing these coverage enhancements.

Obamacare's $250 Million Bribery Scheme.  Shortly following last week's revelation that Obamacare premiums will spike yet again in 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it would offer $22 million in grants to state insurance officials to enforce "compliance with Affordable Care Act key consumer protections."  The Obama administration will, in other words, bribe state regulators to impose price controls on insurers selling coverage through Obamacare exchanges.  Where did CMS get the $22 million?  From a multi-million dollar slush fund the federal government has quietly used to control state insurance departments over which it has no legal authority.

Hidden Spending.  Largely unnoticed, the architects of Obamacare have invented a new way to hide federal spending.  In addition to dumping people into Medicaid, Obamacare functions by having the federal government send billions of dollars in direct payments to insurance companies.  Taxpayers pay this money to the federal government, and the government then pays it to insurers.  By any normal definition of the terms, the money coming in constitutes revenues, and the money going out constitutes outlays.  Under Obamacare, however, the government is obscuring large sums of federal spending by labeling these direct subsidies to insurance companies "tax credits."  Not only is the government hiding billions of dollars in spending, it is counting these hidden expenditures as tax cuts.

White House Secretly Squashed IRS Resistance to ObamaCare's Illegal Subsidies.  The New York Times reports on a secret meeting from 2014, exposed thanks to sworn testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, at which a vanload of IRS officials were told to stifle their complaints about billions of dollars in flagrantly illegal ObamaCare funding. [...] The Times makes a fitful attempt to spin this as a "Republicans pounce" story, stressing that we're only learning about Fisher's testimony because Ways and Means Democrats "feared Republicans would release selected excerpts" as part of a "witch hunt," which would in turn be part of a "crusade to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which has been twice upheld by the Supreme Court."

13 Incompetent Failures in the Obama Administration.  [#4] Well before he became secretary of State, John Kerry profited from the Obama administration.  While he was helping to craft Obamacare, the Massachusetts senator bought stock in a pharmaceuticals company which would benefit from the law.  He also bought shares in a medical device manufacturer — a company whose stock rose 71 percent when the bill passed.  Finally, Kerry and his wife sold off their investments in United Health and Wellpoint, two of the healthcare providers which ended up losing big from Obamacare.

How Congress Mysteriously Became a 'Small Business' to Qualify for Obamacare Subsidies.  It seems that federal officials have worked overtime to undermine public trust.  Benghazi, the IRS abuses, the "fast and furious" gun-running fiasco, the solar power boondoggles, and the seemingly endless implementation problems of the Affordable Care Act — all these scandals have common themes:  arrogant and abusive bureaucracy, double dealing, lame excuses, and legal hairsplitting.  The outrages listed above can be placed squarely at the doorstep of the White House.  But one scandal is truly bipartisan:  How key administration and congressional officials connived to create, under cover of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, special health insurance subsidies for members of Congress.

Feds Blow Off House Subpoena For Obamacare Co-Op Docs.  Federal health officials refuse to give Congress hundreds of subpoenaed documents on Obamacare's failed co-ops so that people will continue enrolling in the deeply troubled program, a congressional leader said Tuesday [4/19/2016].  Twelve of the 23 co-ops created in 2011 under Obamacare at a cost of $2.4 billion have failed, and another eight of the remaining 11 are likely to go under this year.  But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won't hand over documents subpoenaed months ago by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Congress Plans Fight on Obama Administration's Illegal Diversion of $3.5 Billion to Insurers.  The fight over whether the Obama administration broke the law by prioritizing insurers over billions of dollars in payments to the U.S. Treasury through a program implemented under Obamacare is only beginning.  Following the release of a memo from the Congressional Research Service last week, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on the $3.5 billion illegally diverted to insurance companies under Obamacare's transitional reinsurance program.  The nonpartisan agency said that the administration violated the Affordable Care Act's language in prioritizing insurers over the Treasury.

Obamacare Co-Ops Used Accounting Gimmick Approved by Feds.  Co-ops created under Obamacare reported net assets despite losing millions because they used an accounting trick approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Tax filings for 18 co-ops, including nine that collapsed in 2015, also revealed that co-op CEOs were paid handsomely before many had to shut down.  In July 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services amended its agreement with co-ops, allowing them to list $2.4 billion in loans they received from taxpayers as assets.

Government Illegally Diverts Billions to Obamacare Reinsurance Slush Fund.  In a late Friday afternoon [2/19/2016] news dump before the President's day holiday weekend, the Obama administration announced that it would pay out $7.7 billion to Obamacare insurers through the reinsurance program — including $1.7 billion in illegal payments.  In all, the administration has unlawfully funneled $3.5 billion into this program.  For 2015 Obamacare reinsurance, the administration will pay out $6 billion raised from a fee on private health insurance and an additional $1.7 billion that under federal law belongs to the Treasury department.  Indeed, the decision by the Obama administration directly violates section 1341 of Obamacare which explicitly states "money shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used for the [reinsurance] program established under this section."

Congress Is Exempt From Obamacare Because It's Listed As A Small Business.  Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairman David Vitter is questioning why Congress is able to get its health care through the Small Business Health Options Plan (SHOP) — which requires a business to have 50 or less employees — when the tax forms provided list Congress as a large employer.  In a letter written to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen Wednesday [2/10/2016], the Louisiana Republican said it appears Congress is "misrepresenting itself to either DC Health Link or the IRS" and questioned whether the contradiction violates the Internal Revenue Code.

Failed Co-Op Under Investigation Used $280K in Taxpayer Dollars For Lobbying.  A failed co-op currently under investigation for underreporting its financial situation used hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars for lobbying, according to Senate lobbying disclosure records.  Health Republic Insurance of New York, a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, began paying Alston & Bird, LLP in the second quarter of 2014 and continued through the third quarter of 2015, around the time the co-op announced that it was going out of business, according to the lobbying database.

Obamacare Grant Scandal: Congress Awakes!  Last April, the HHS Office of Inspector General issued an alert concerning the misuse of Obamacare start-up grants by certain states.  Congress yawned. Later, the Obama administration illegally rewrote the law's limitations on how these funds could be spent.  Our elected representatives remained inert. [...] That body received its wake-up call from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  The GAO released a report showing that 16 states (all but one secure Democrat strongholds) and the District of Columbia were awarded $4.6 billion in grants to create Obamacare exchanges which cannot account for the vast gulf that exists between the amounts spent on their "marketplaces" and the grant money awarded.  Of the $4.6 billion, only about $1.4 billion can be confidently reconciled with specific expenditures.  This leaves a gap of $3.2 billion.

NY State audit finds Obamacare exchange enrolled hundreds of dead people, paid out benefits.  Never let it be said that Democrats don't take care of their constituents.  Dead voters frequently supply the margin of victory to Democrats in key elections, so it makes sense that the signature achievement of the Democratic Party in the Obama era takes special care of the dead.

NY Obamacare Exchange Enrolls Hundreds Who Appear to be... Dead.  An audit by the State Comptroller's Office has revealed that hundreds of dead people were enrolled in New York's health exchange, with nearly two dozen of them enrolling after death.  Medicaid payments totaling over $300,000 were paid out to a majority of the deceased individuals.

Audit: Medicaid for the dead.  An audit released Thursday [10/29/2015] by the state comptroller's office shows that Medicaid payments went to claims for hundreds of dead enrollees in the New York State of Health system.  Of $3.4 million in overpayments found by auditors, $325,030 in claims associated with 230 deceased New Yorkers identified as active Medicaid recipients was paid out, according to the audit.  In total, 354 deceased New Yorkers were found to be enrolled in the system, with 21 of those people officially enrolled after they had died.

Report questions how states spent ObamaCare funds.  The federal government awarded over $5 billion to help states set up ObamaCare exchanges, with the vast majority — $4.6 billion — going to 16 states and Washington, D.C.  But, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, much of that money has not been accounted for — and yet not returned, either.

Grant Theft Obamacare.  Between 2010 and 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) awarded $4.6 billion in Obamacare start-up grants to 16 Democrat-controlled states and the District of Columbia.  $1.4 billion of this taxpayer largesse was spent on exchanges, many of which imploded upon launch or operated so inefficiently that enrollees have been left to the tender mercies of Obamacare.gov.  The rest of these states also appear likely to abandon their exchanges in favor of federal "marketplaces."  Yet, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), they have kept all but $1 million of the grants.  Where's the rest of our money?

Obamacare seems designed to launder your tax dollars from Feds to Blue States.  [Scroll down]  The Federal government spent $4.5 billion on grants to states building their exchange programs.  And despite some states demonstrably failing to use that money, like Maryland ($125 million price tag) and Oregon (over $300 million price tag), the Federal government has only managed to recover $1 million of it.  Under any other circumstances, it would be easy to chalk this up to traditional Obama-administration style incompetence.  However, to do so would be to miss the details of how the Obama administration has conducted recouping its funds.

Is Obamacare Officially A Money Laundering Scheme?  Could the failed Obamacare exchanges have been merely an excuse to direct payola to safely Democratic states?  Based on a new report from the Government Accountability Office, and the actions of acting head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) Andrew Slavitt, the answer may well be yes.

Obamacare Lawfare in Oregon.  In October 2013, Oregon was just another state whose Obamacare exchange failed to achieve lift-off when its Democrat governor attempted to abet the President in the launch of his "signature domestic achievement."  Shortly thereafter, Governor Kitzhaber earned two additional distinctions not enjoyed by Obama's other accomplices:  He was the first to abandon his constituents to Healthcare.gov, and resigned pursuant to an ethics scandal.  Before leaving office, however, Kitzhaber made what may be the most outrageous decision of his tawdry tenure — he sicced his Attorney General on the IT firm that built the exchange as well as some of its employees.

Obamacare's Blue State Money Laundry.  When Maryland's Attorney General announced last summer that his office had negotiated a settlement whereby $45 million would be recouped from the IT contractor that botched the state's Obamacare exchange, it was widely reported as good news for taxpayers.  It appeared that their investment in the mismanaged project would not be a dead loss.  But the AG's statement included this curious passage:  "The agreement... will lead to the recovery of funds for both Maryland and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS]."  What's so odd about that?  Well, the state didn't contribute any money to the project.

The Fight to Halt Congress's Obamacare Fraud.  For all the Republican complaints about Barack Obama's lawlessness, Americans should know that many Republican members of Congress, especially its leadership, are happy to partner in Obama's despotic approach to governing.  You can see this hypocrisy in our lawsuit on behalf of a DC taxpayer challenging the use of local dollars to help Congress obtain Obamacare benefits in violation of Obamacare law itself.

U.S. House and Senate Each Said They Had Only 45 Employees — Then Signed Up 12,359 for Insurance on Obamacare 'Small-Business' Exchange.  Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives certified that they had only 45 employees each in order to sign up for the District of Columbia's Small Business Exchange.  But 12,359 — or 86 percent of the exchange's enrollees — are members of Congress, congressional staff members, and their spouses and dependents, according to an appeal filed with the D.C. Court of Appeals by Judicial Watch.  The public interest law firm announced Monday [8/10/2015] that it is appealing the February dismissal of its lawsuit challenging congressional participation in the Obamacare exchange even though the D.C. Exchange Act limits enrollment to small companies with 50 or fewer employees.

A Bonus for a Botched Obamacare Exchange.  When former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley signed the bill that created his state's Obamacare exchange, he bragged that it was "being established using no state funds... due to federal grants."  Later, when the online "marketplace" exploded on the launch pad and a new IT company was hired to untangle the wreckage, O'Malley's top health official assured Maryland voters that this would be paid for with "leftover federal grants."  Consequently, it surprised many when Maryland's Attorney General announced a $45 million settlement with the original contractor the proceeds of which would be split between the federal government and the state.

Obama Admin Making Billions In Obamacare Subsidy Payments Without Verifying Amounts.  The Obama administration is making billions in payments to health insurers under Obamacare without calculating the exact amount companies are owed, according to a federal audit released Tuesday [6/16/2015].  Obamacare's premium subsidies are paid each month directly to insurance companies, to ease the burden of health coverage to eligible customers in the health law's government exchanges.  The payments add up: the federal government doled out almost $2.8 billion to insurers in just the first four months of 2014, when Obamacare launched.

The Cover Oregon Cover-Up.  The key measure for an effective ad campaign is an affirmative response to a simple question:  "Do viewers remember the ad?" In the case of Oregon and their effort to drive people to the state's Obamacare exchange, officials are doing everything in their power to make people forget the awful campaign, including, allegedly, deleting emails and documents pertaining to what has become an every-growing story of corruption and criminality.

Obama Admin Accused of Illegally Using Tax Refund Money to Fund ObamaCare Program.  Obama has repeatedly shown that he doesn't think he needs Congress' approval to change the law, and now he's being accused of funding parts of it without Congressional appropriations.  Funds set aside specifically for tax refunds owed to hard-working Americans are being used to subsidize the Basic Health Program associated with ObamaCare.

Massachusetts ObamaCare exchange joins Oregon under investigation by FBI.  It's no secret that ObamaCare's father is RomneyCare in Massachusetts, and as we look to the problems that plague a government run health care system, The Bay State is a good place to start.  Case in point:  corruption in the system.  Josh Archambault, senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability has dug into the state's $1 billion ObamaCare exchange and found many discrepancies and issues that should concern everyone.

He claims he'll repeal it if elected President, yet blocked an inquiry into its worst abuse.
Rand Paul's Obamacare Hypocrisy.  In every speech he has made since announcing his presidential bid, Rand Paul has vowed to repeal Obamacare.  At a Las Vegas rally he put it thus:  "I will make it my mission to heal this nation... and to repeal every last bit of Obamacare!"  But if Paul's behavior in the Senate is any guide, this is empty rhetoric.  Shortly after his Vegas speech, he aided the Democrats in obstructing an investigation into falsified documents submitted to the D.C. Small Business Exchange so that members of Congress and their staffers could receive subsidies to which they aren't legally entitled

Levin: Rand Paul covering up Obamacare fraud.  Mark Levin, who likes Rand Paul, regularly defends Rand Paul, and has him on his show frequently, says it now appears that Rand Paul, at the behest of Paul's close ally Mitch McConnell, is actively trying to cover up Obamacare fraud on Capitol Hill.  In order to get small business subsidies under Obamacare, someone in Congress submitted an application claiming that Congress, the entire Congress, only had 45 employees, so it could qualify.  This was obviously fraudulent.  David Vitter tried to get to the bottom of this by asking for subpoena power to find out who submitted this application, but he was blocked by the other Democrats... and Rand Paul.

How Five Republicans Let Congress Keep Its Fraudulent Obamacare Subsidies.  The rumors began trickling in about a week before the scheduled vote on April 23:  Republican leadership was quietly pushing senators to pull support for subpoenaing Congress's fraudulent application to the District of Columbia's health exchange — the document that facilitated Congress's "exemption" from Obamacare by allowing lawmakers and staffers to keep their employer subsidies.  The application said Congress employed just 45 people.  Names were faked; one employee was listed as "First Last," another simply as "Congress."  To Small Business Committee chairman David Vitter, who has fought for years against the Obamacare exemption, it was clear that someone in Congress had falsified the document in order to make lawmakers and their staff eligible for taxpayer subsidies provided under the exchange for small-business employees.

Hospital Profits Soar As Obamacare Creates More "Paying" Patients.  Whether "Net neutrality," Dodd-Frank, or Obamacare, pretty much every regulation these days has been gamed to benefit certain large (often corporate) vested interests.  It's not big business VERSUS the regulators.  Often and increasingly the two are in cahoots.  Occasionally they are actually one.

Obama Has Given Insurers $3B To 'Compensate For Caps'.  Funny how we have never heard about any of this before.  But we suppose another illegal executive action from Obama is not even news these days.

Treasury throws unauthorized $3 billion to insurers under Obamacare, won't say why.  It's right there in the Constitution:  "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."  Which is why this latest episode of lawlessness from the administration is so particularly galling.  "The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations," The Washington Examiner's Philp Klein reported on Thursday [2/26/2015].

H&R Block Helped Shape Obamacare, Now Set For Gigantic Payday.  Five years ago, a bevy of high-priced H&R Block lobbyists worked on the tax preparation company's behalf to shape the Affordable Care Act.  And this April 15, those efforts are set to pay off in a big way for the company.  H&R Block is well positioned to earn more than $100 million in additional fees from low-income Obamacare enrollees as they face the daunting challenge to properly file this year's complicated health-related tax forms.

Congress itself implicated in new Obamacare scandal.  They didn't fess up willingly.  But after we applied the appropriate pressure, government officials responsible for operating the Washington D.C.  Obamacare "Small Business Exchange" have finally admitted that Congress is taking advantage of health benefits its members and staff are not entitled to claim.

ObamaCare Is Funneling Billions To Defense Contractors.  Jonathan Gruber isn't the only one who got rich off ObamaCare.  Several big government contractors are raking in megabucks to help the government take over the nation's health care system.  Gruber made news when it came to light that the Obama administration had paid the stupid-American-calling MIT economist roughly $400,000 to help build ObamaCare, and several states paid him big bucks as well to build their exchanges.  But this is just the tip of the ObamaCare bonanza.

Jonathan Gruber cashed in even more than previously thought; Update: And Obama JUST found out about all this.  I've written in a couple other posts that Jonathan Gruber — the man Nancy Pelosi refers to as "WHO?" — was paid in excess of $400,000 for giving up the dirty truth about how the Affordable Care Act really functions.  As it turns out, that $400k figure came just from Gruber's federal contracts.  Gruber is being paid much more by the states where he was sent in order to let them in on the ACA's dirty little secrets so they were under the impression the law wouldn't cost them as much as they feared: [...]

Grubergate shines spotlight on Obamacare profiteers.  [MIT professor Jonathan] Gruber's frank admissions that he and others deceived the public about Obamacare have drawn a lot of attention in recent days.  But the money that Gruber made from Obamacare raises yet another issue about his involvement in the project.  Throughout 2009 and 2010, he energetically advocated a bill from which he stood to profit.  And when it became law, the money rolled in.

Judicial Watch: Congress Obtained Obamacare Coverage, Subsidies 'Through Fraud'.  At a Wednesday press conference to announce the filing of a lawsuit challenging health insurance coverage for members of Congress through the District of Columbia's small business exchange, Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton called the arrangement "fraud."  Fitton based his remarks on the D.C. law requiring small businesses to have 50 employees or less to get insurance through the small business exchange, and on documents obtained by the government watchdog group through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the District of Columbia Health Benefit Exchange Authority.

Maryland Obamacare contractor gets subpoena.  A federal watchdog issued subpoenas in its investigation into Maryland's troubled health insurance exchange, and a congressman who opposes Obamacare said there's evidence of fraud.  The now-fired lead contractor for that exchange, Noridian Healthcare Solutions, told CNBC.com it received a subpoena at the end of July in a probe of how federal funds were spent on the Maryland exchange.  Companies or entities associated with the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange have also received subpoenas in the investigation, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Long after announced 'resignation,' ex-Cover Oregon director Bruce Goldberg draws $14,425 monthly salary.  He was the highest profile casualty of Oregon's health insurance exchange disaster.  Bruce Goldberg, the respected, long-time director of the Oregon Health Authority, offered to resign on March 18.  Two days later, with the Cover Oregon tech mess going from bad to worse, Gov. John Kitzhaber announced that he'd shown Goldberg the door.  The resignation was "effective immediately," said officials in the governor's office.  Or so we thought.  It turns out, Goldberg never really left and is now drawing a full-time salary from the state.

Sebelius personally pressured major firms to support Obamacare.  Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius lobbied several private companies to support Obamacare while the program was having difficulty getting people to sign up, a new investigative report found, showing the lengths to which the administration has gone in support of the president's signature health care law.

Sebelius 'shake-down' helped outside pro-Obamacare group raise $13 million from a single foundation ... but was it legal?  Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius maneuvered one of America's richest liberal philanthropies into contributing $13 million to Enroll America, a group founded by a former Obama White House staffer to drive up insurance enrollment numbers under the Affordable Care Act.  A report issued Monday by the Government Accountability Office shows what Republican members of Congress have anticipated learning since 2013:  that Sebelius called a total of five organizations a year ago and urged them to help Enroll America reach its goals.

Great moments in state exchange success: CO director put on leave after fraud indictment.  The allegations:  She paid herself healthy sums for "consulting" work for her federally funded housing agency in Montana even though she was already paid as a full-time employee, charged homeowners she was "helping" for things that didn't exist, used federal money for personal travel and paying members of her own family.  She pled not guilty Feb. 6 in Montana.

Exclusive: HHS won't say if Sibelius is fundraising for Obamacare.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other department staff may be continuing to solicit private donations to help an outside group promote the president's health care law as the administration works to boost enrollment figures after a troubled fall rollout.  News last May that Sebelius had asked business executives and nonprofit groups to donate to Enroll America, a nonprofit organization formed to help encourage millions of Americans to sign up for the new Obamacare insurance exchanges, provoked an uproar among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Medical Identity Theft and Obamacare:  [A]s many as 31 states do not conduct background checks on Obamacare navigators, who have access to enrollees' names, Social Security numbers, financial records, and health information.  A recent NR report found that in California, at least 43 navigators approved by the state health exchange had prior convictions, including for forgery and welfare fraud.  Clearly, there's enormous risk that consumers' confidential information could fall into the wrong hands.

More about Navigators.

House panel says Obamacare co-op improperly diverted $25 million.  A New York nonprofit improperly diverted $25 million meant to help establish three Obamacare health insurance co-ops to a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, a congressional oversight committee said Wednesday [2/5/2014].  The Freelancers Union, which received $340 million in federal loans to set up co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon, gave some of that cash to a for-profit entity called Independent Worker Services.

Massachusetts Obamacare web exam handed to one-man band.  The glitch-plagued Obamacare website that has failed thousands of people trying to sign up for health insurance is getting an emergency review from just one private consultant — news that surprised experts who yesterday said the system needs a deeper probe.  The Bedford-based nonprofit government contractor MITRE Corp. began the review of the $69 million website on Jan. 6 and is expected to submit a report by Friday [1/17/2014] — a time span of less than two weeks.

Obama administration awards another noncompetitive contract for healthcare.gov.  On Saturday [1/11/2014], administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced they were firing CGI Federal as the designer and manager of the botched healthcare.gov and replacing the firm with Accenture, the world's largest consulting firm.  The new contract, valued at $90 million, was given to Accenture as a non-competitive and sole-source contract, according to news sources.

Obama replaces healthcare.gov czar.  Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene will soon take over the job of resuscitating healthcare.gov, the White House announced on Tuesday, replacing former budget director Jeff Zients who will move on to become President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser. [...] His wife, Suzan DelBene, is a first-term congresswoman from the state of Washington.

Tiny Vermont Gets $208 Million to Build Disastrous Obamacare Exchange; Where Are the Press Watchdogs?  In mid-November, Americans for Tax Reform compiled a list of federal spending on state Obamacare exchanges totaling a breathtaking $4.5 billion.  One number on the list stands out from the rest — and it's not California's, though its $910 million amout is awful, disproportionate, and surely highly wasteful (before considering scalability concerns, the fixed costs of building a web site should be close to the same regardless of a state's population).  The big eye-catcher is tiny Vermont's staggering $208 million.  The nation's second-least populous state (626,000 as of 2012) has 0.2 percent of the U.S. population, but has received 4.6 percent of grants from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Obamacare Website Users Say Site Led Them to Phishing Page.  And now there is another problem with the Obamacare rollout:  the Washington, D.C., insurance exchange has led customers enrolling to a fraudulent website.

Covered California gave consumers' contact info to agents.  California's health exchange has provided insurance agents with names and contact information for tens of thousands of people who went online to check out coverage but didn't ask to be contacted.

Obama's corporatist contraceptive mandate.  The audacity and mendacity with which the Obama administration defends its illegal contraception mandate is standard fare for politics.  What's distinctively Obamian in this fight is the insidious corporatism underlying it all.  Look at the contraception mandate from almost any angle, and you see the corporatism.  Sometimes it's on the surface, and sometimes it's implicit in the arguments.  The contraception mandate is nakedly a huge subsidy to the industry that most firmly supported Obamacare:  the drugmakers.

Thanks for nothing, President Obama.  President Obama's war on America has accelerated.  We're losing ground on every front. [...] Aided and abetted by nearly all of the Ds and most of the Rs, he pardons unions and megacorporations from Obamacare.  There is no reprieve yet for the millions of Americans who liked their healthcare plans and planned to keep them.  Expect unilateral, unconstitutional action, though, to provide breathing room until after 2014 elections.  Planned Parenthood and other unvetted hoods have been made official agents of change under the ACA.  Under penalty of law, Americans are forced to provide far more personal information to the Feds than our Dear Leader did as a candidate for the presidency.

Texas Enroll America official resigns after proclaiming Obama loyalty in video.  The Texas communications director for Enroll America has resigned after a conservative watchdog group posted a video of him discussing his Democratic leanings. [...] In the video, [Chris] Tarango tells an actor posing as a Democratic operative that he is helping out with a Texas House race on the side, "so that's about as partisan as it gets."  He says that many people who worked for Organizing for America, the grassroots arm of Obama for America during the 2012 campaign, ended up working for Enroll America.

Did someone mention OFA?

Busted: Obamacare Navigator Conspiring to Use Data for Political Purposes Resigns.  Remember when James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas exposed those supposedly nonpartisan Obamacare navigators being unmistakeably partisan?  Well, the watchdog group's investigation has already had some dire consequences for those caught on camera.

Enroll America Director Resigns.  Chris Tarango, Texas Communications Director for Enroll America, a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare, resigned following a Project Veritas investigation.  The video exposé showed Tarango conspiring to release private data to help a political action committee.  The resignation occurred Friday evening [11/22/2013] and was originally reported by Ashley Allen of KCEN (NBC) in Texas.

Unbelievable incompetence led to no-bid contract for healthcare.gov.  Suddenly realizing that you can't manage the finance and accounting aspects of the program is somewhat like a contractor erecting a skyscraper and suddenly realizing that it hadn't competently excavated the foundation.  In toher [sic] words, the whole edifice is at risk of collapse in both cases.  You can tell how embarrassing and revealing this is by the fact that nobody is willing to speak on the record.

Obamacare agency rushed in contractor without bids, documents show.  Caught flat-footed by the challenges of building the financial-management and accounting parts of the U.S. government's new online marketplace for health insurance, officials rushed to hire a familiar contractor without seeking competing bids, according to government procurement documents reviewed by Reuters.

Subcontractor working on Obamacare site under FBI investigation.  Client Network Services Incorporated (CNSI) became a sub-contractor on the Obamacare website in 2012, working hand in hand with QSSI, according to its website.  QSSI was one of several contractors hauled before Congress to address the sites troubled rollout in October.  According to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) "war room" notes released in October, CNSI was responsible for assisting with electronic data interchange (EDI) — defined as a system to transfer data between computer systems without human interaction.

Kickbacks?
CA Obamacare Director Reveals Counselors Paid $58 for 'Each Successful Enrollment'.  Dana Howard, the deputy director of California's Healthcare Exchange program, appeared on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's program on Friday [11/22/2013] where he revealed an interesting detail about the incentives for Affordable Care Act navigators.  Howard revealed that enrollment counselors are paid $58 for each individual they successfully enroll in the California's insurance exchanges.

ObamaCare Website Opens Door For Mass Identity Theft.  "Not only is the poorly designed and still only partially built ObamaCare website, Healthcare.gov vulnerable to attack by computer hackers, it already may have been compromised, cybersecurity expert David Kennedy told a House Science, Space & Technology Committee hearing on Tuesday [11/19/2013].  "Hackers are definitely after it," said Kennedy, CEO of data security firm Trusted SEC.  "And if I had to guess, based on what I can see... I would say the website is either hacked already or will be soon."  What kind of government would lay bare the lives of its own citizens to online marauding identity thieves?  The answer to the question is chilling when it becomes obvious that it is an evil rather than stupid one.

O'Keefe video captures nonprofit Obamacare enrollment group conspiring to engage in political activity.  An official with the nonprofit Obamacare enrollment group Enroll America conspired to give people's personal information to what he thought was a political action committee, according to James O'Keefe's latest video, provided to The Daily Caller.  Enroll America, which Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted to fundraising for, is a "nonpartisan" 501(c)(3) nonprofit that critics accuse of working as an unofficial Obamacare navigator across the country.

One fired, three suspended after undercover health care video.  The Urban League of Greater Dallas fired one person and suspended three others after a video from a conservative activist reportedly showed the workers encouraging health care applicants to lie.  An edited video was released Monday [11/11/2013] that seemingly shows so-called health care Navigators encouraging people to lie on forms signing up for health care to get better rates.  The video was released by Project Veritas, which was started by conservative activist James O'Keefe.

Obama slams lobbyists, then hires one to help Obamacare.  On the campaign trail, President Obama vowed that lobbyists would have no place in his administration, but his health care agency last month gave a half-million-dollar grant to a registered lobbying firm to help enroll people for Obamacare as Affordable Care Act "navigators."  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the $510,577 grant to Chatman LLC, which has filed disclosure forms revealing that it lobbies CMS on behalf of a private hospital client.  The firm also has filed a disclosure that it lobbied on the health care law itself.

Latest James O'Keefe video leads to call for inquiry into Sebelius-linked group.  New questions are being raised about the tax-exempt status of an Obamacare enrollment group tied to Kathleen Sebelius after it was implicated in James O'Keefe's most recent investigative probe.  O'Keefe captured an official for Enroll America, for which Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted to fundraising, being introduced at an event as "the official group for the DNC."  O'Keefe's work also revealed that Enroll America might be working with the political action committee Battleground Texas, possibly sharing mined data between the two groups.

New James O'Keefe sting reveals rampant Obamacare navigator fraud.  Conservative provocateur and undercover filmmaker James O'Keefe released a video on Thursday revealing rampant fraud among Obamacare navigators.  "Lying about income and smoker status came natural to the navigators we encountered," O'Keefe narrates.  "Some may argue that hiding small amounts of cash income is no big deal.  But who, exactly, would that hurt?"

Navigators Fired, Suspended after Viral Video of Their Abuses.  When James O'Keefe, the guerrilla videographer who has now exposed the Obama navigators, went after the corrupt "community organizing" group ACORN in 2009, he released videos showing its employees offering advice on running brothels and evading taxes.  ACORN's response was to claim (a) the tapes were edited (b) the incident was isolated and (c) it was letting go of the employees shown in the video. [...] It will be interesting to see if that same pattern holds in the navigator scandal, which shows employees of the Urban League of Greater Dallas advising O'Keefe investigators on how to lie and cheat in order to score Obamacare subsidies or lower their insurance premiums.

Top White House officials refuse to testify on Obamacare.  On Nov. 7, Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, along with subcommittee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, sent the White House a letter requesting testimony from top Obama aides Nancy-Ann DeParle and Jeanne Lambrew.  Both are leading figures shaping the White House position in Obamacare design and implementation.  Issa wanted them to appear at a Nov. 20 hearing on the so-far disastrous rollout of the president's national health care scheme.

Obamacare Flaw Allows Anyone on Earth To Fraudulently Enroll Through Healthcare.gov.  [N]ew regulations established by Obamacare to cover Medicaid enrollment have created a major threat to the United States' ability to administrate that far larger benefit program. [...] Non-citizens are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program).  This is not a new development.  However, the documentation and verification process for such enrollments was significantly eased by regulations in the Affordable Care Act.  Getting fraudulent applications for Medicaid or CHIP approved is now easier, and thus more likely.  The risk is increased by the security concerns inherent in the Navigator/Assister program.

ObamaCare Navigators Caught on Tape Telling People To Lie On Applications, Defraud Government.  Well, this should be the nail in the coffin, right here.  And it isn't even surprising given that ObamaCare Navigators aren't properly screened, or trained and even convicted felons can get the job.  But who could have predicted that James O'Keefe would be able to get them encouraging fraud on camera, this soon.

WebMD's healthy deal with Obamacare: Millions of dollars for kind words.  The consumer health care site had the occasional nice thing to say about Obamacare, too.  In one article, it predicted doctors might pick up more patients and crowed in an article titled "7 Surprising Things About the Affordable Care Act" that many consumers already had received insurance refunds under the law.  But what neither Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius nor WebMD mentioned at the time was that the company, which millions of Americans regularly read for health news, also stood to earn millions of dollars from a federal contract to teach doctors about Obamacare.

Obamacare drawing con-men like rotten meat draws flies.  Seriously, it's widely known at this point that the only real reason that we haven't seen more fraud is because pretty much nobody can actually use the site.  To the point where seeing the process apparently working smoothly should in itself set off warning bells.

The Truth about Navigators.  James O'Keefe, the guerrilla videographer who helped bring down ACORN (the "community organizing" group that Barack Obama worked for as a lawyer and trainer) and got NPR's president fired, is back.  This time, his undercover investigators focused on Obamacare's "navigators," the nearly 50,000 people who, in the words of the Department of Health and Human Services, "will serve as an in-person resource for Americans who want additional assistance in shopping for and enrolling in plans" on the Obamacare exchanges (at least when they're finally working).  The total value of grants doled out for nonprofits and community organizations to hire navigators has topped $67 million nationwide, and some of the money is going to a group run by ACORN's highly controversial founder.

Background Checks as the New Racism.  Last week, Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) grilled Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, about why the 45,000 "navigators" who assist people in signing up for Obamacare aren't required to undergo a criminal-background check, even though they handle sensitive personal information.  "So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them?" Cornyn asked her.  "That is possible," said Sebelius, noting that states could always impose their own requirements — as some have done.

At least one group of Americans loves ObamaCare.  For those on the left who thought that ObamaCare would mean large health insurance companies might get their comeuppance, they might want to look at UnitedHealth.  Wall Street analysts expect the giant to see its stock price rise 40 percent over the next two years, thanks to expanding profit margins.  The company has also won big contracts to help implement the rollout.  Quality Software Services, Inc., a major contractor for Healthcare.gov, is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth.  One of President Obama's most reliable fundraisers in both 2008 and 2012 was Anthony Welters, executive vice president of UnitedHealth.  He raised more than $500,000 for the 2012 election, according to opensecrets.org

Fright Of The Navigator: ObamaCare Guides Could Be Felons.  Kathleen Sebelius admits that convicted felons could be hired as ObamaCare "navigators," giving them access to the personal information of those signing up.  Some might already be on the job.

Obamacare Could Cost Over $1 Trillion Per Year.  Clearly, Obama's goal was not improved healthcare, but more political power and benefits for his political party and his allies.  A good example is Canadian website contractor CGI.  Consider:
  •   CGI Federal received a $93.7 million Obamacare website contract, as part of a $678 million contract for work on the Medicare/Medicaid websites.
  •   CGI executives have donated extensively to Obama, while website contractor CGI Federal's Senior VP attended Princeton with Michelle Obama.
  •   The CGI CEO became an Obama donor after being awarded the contract.
  •   CGI gave a website design subcontract to a former Obama campaign manager [and] When this became news, all evidence was erased.  When evidence that it was erased became news, they put it back.
  •   CGI received an $11 billion contract for IT security from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this spring.
  •   CGI received a no-bid contract to distribute $1.7 billion of aid to Hurricane Sandy victims.  The victims are still waiting.

Rubio bill would prevent felons from becoming ObamaCare navigators.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a possible 2016 presidential candidate, introduced legislation on Thursday [11/7/2013] that would prevent felons from being hired as ObamaCare navigators.  The "Healthcare Privacy and Anti-Fraud Act" would — at a minimum — require a universal criminal background check, fingerprinting and a credit report for those seeking a job to help walk potential consumers through the insurance enrollment process.  It would also preclude the Department of Health and Human Services from hiring a navigator that has been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor involving identity theft, fraud or perjury.

The Next Big Obamacare Scandal.  [Scroll down]  Perhaps even more troubling than the Obama lies, however, is the political cronyism that has surfaced in the administration's choice of the contractor to fix the Obamacare website and a legally indefensible interpretation of the Obamacare law by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that can protect this contractor and its insurance company parent, among other firms, from kickback claims.

The Connected Company behind Healthcare.gov.  Quality Software Services Inc., the company that built the data hub for Healthcare.gov, won its huge contract after its parent, UnitedHealth Group, enlisted two so-called super-lobbyists.  These men are Democratic power-brokers:  They have raised significant amounts of funds for Democratic causes and campaigns, and they maintain lots of friends in high places.

Obama donor's firm hired to fix Web mess it helped make.  A tech firm linked to a campaign-donor crony of President Obama not only got the job to help build the federal health-insurance Web site — but also is getting paid to fix it.  Anthony Welters, a top campaign bundler for Obama and frequent White House guest, is the executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, which owns the software company now at the center of the ObamaCare Web-site fiasco.

Serco's Checkered History.  The CEO of Serco, a British-based company whose North American division received one of the largest contracts to work on the Obamacare insurance exchanges, resigned Friday [10/25/2013] amid allegations that the company had defrauded the British government of millions of pounds.

HHS quietly cancels contract with group to promote ObamaCare to recently released convicts.  The Dept. of Health and Human Services has quietly canceled a contract to a Chicago-based advocacy group that planned to promote ObamaCare benefits to recently paroled prisoners, after GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions wrote a letter to the agency in July questioning how the contract was funded.

Michelle Obama and CGI Federal executive belonged to student group at Princeton that hosted pro-terrorist speaker.  First Lady Michelle Obama and her Princeton classmate whose company received the no-bid government contract to build the HealthCare.gov Obamacare website were both members of a black student organization that caused a tense scene on campus by inviting a PLO leader who advocated for terrorism.  Michelle Obama '85 and her classmate Toni Townes-Whitley '85, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, were both students at the university when their groups the Organization of Black Unity (OBU) and the Third World Center (TWC) engaged in a confrontation with Jewish students on campus.

Meet Valerie Jarrett daughter Laura's computer scandal tinged father-in-law.  If it hadn't been for the ongoing epic failure of healthcare.guv — ObamaCare — we may have missed the long road of computer scandals that seems to now serve as the government's way to feed mega money to their friends and supporters.  Indeed, the ObamaCare website failure may unwittingly end up blowing the whistle on one of the biggest government slush fund set ups in latter day history because the runaway costs on healthcare.gov uncovers a long trajectory of failed multi-million dollar government websites that point to coincidences way too many.

CGI Federal executive spent 'Christmas with the Obamas'.  Michelle Obama's relationship with Princeton classmate Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, whose company earned the no-bid contract to design the disastrous Healthcare.Gov Obamacare website, continued after the Obamas moved into the White House.  Townes-Whitley and her husband even enjoyed "Christmas with the Obamas" at the White House in December 2010, according to a Facebook album created by Townes-Whitley.

Feds reviewed only one bid for Obamacare website design.  Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.  Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.  CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened.

Scams Pop Up In Oklahoma Amid Launch Of Obamacare Website.  The Affordable Care website has had its share of problems.  But if you get a phone call from someone offering to help you get insurance, don't fall for it.  That's one of a number of scams popping up around Obamacare.  The Better Business Bureau says in Oklahoma they get calls about these scams every single day.  Just as the healthcare.gov web site rolled out the calls started rolling in.

Reports raise concern about backgrounds of ObamaCare 'navigators'.  New concerns are being raised about so-called ObamaCare "navigators" following a string of reports about the questionable backgrounds of those selected to guide Americans through what is shaping up to be a rocky roll-out of the health care law. [...] The "navigators" are outreach workers, funded by federal taxpayer dollars, who are supposed to help people sign up for coverage.  The Daily Caller reported earlier this week that one "enrollment assister" in Lawrence, Kan., had an outstanding warrant for her arrest as well as a troubled financial history.

Dead people can sign up for health care in Kentucky.  Obamacare can help dead people, too.  This is apparent in Kentucky, where application forms for the state's new Obamacare benefit exchange asks if the application is for someone who has recently died.  Question 39 on the kynect:  Kentucky's Healthcare Connection printable application form for a single person health seeking either coverage or help paying costs, states:  "If you are filling out this application on behalf of a person who recently passed away, enter the deceased person's date of death."

Obama's Acorn Cronies To Profit From ObamaCare.  As Mathew Vadum reports on the American Spectator blog, United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which is run by Acorn founder Wade Rathke, announced on its Facebook page that it's gearing up "to do mass enrollment and help navigate people into the marketplaces in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas under the Affordable Care Act!"  "Local 100's role as a Navigator, suggest(s) the program is less about health care and more about building a new progressive infrastructure," says longtime Acorn-watcher Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com.

Obama's ACORN Pals Cashing In on Obamacare Enrollment.  President Obama's old friends in the ACORN crime syndicate have decided to get a piece of the big-money Obamacare action.  United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which is run by ACORN founder Wade Rathke, announced on its Facebook page that it's gearing up "to do mass enrollment and help navigate people into the marketplaces in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas under the Affordable Care Act!"  Be afraid.  Wherever Rathke goes, lawlessness follows.

Fraud firm gets OK to sign people up for ObamaCare.  Seedco, a New York-based community-development organization, was sued by the federal government for faking at least 1,400 of 6,500 job placements under a $22.2 million federally funded contract with the city.  Eighteen months later, the feds and Seedco are teaming up again, this time to help medical-insurance seekers maneuver through the maze that is the Affordable Health Care Act.

Company with $1.2 billion Obamacare contract under investigation for 'serious fraud'.  A British multinational being paid $1.2 billion to implement Obamacare's federal insurance exchanges is under investigation after allegedly overcharging the British government by tens of millions of dollars.  Reuters reports that Britain's Serious Fraud Office is now looking into Serco, a massive service and security firm employing 120,000 worldwide, after the company reportedly overbilled its government client as much as $80 million for criminal electronic monitoring devices.

Republicans think Labor Department has secret Obamacare 'fix' for unions.  Two Republican House lawmakers asked the Labor Department to provide "all legal analyses" it has done on a proposed Obamacare "fix" sought by Big Labor.  The lawmakers think the administration is secretly working on a such a fix but trying to keep it hidden from the public.

Prelude.  [Scroll down]  In reality things have not worked out too well for Barack Obama.  His administration is now rotten to its core, unable to face enemies abroad, incapable of tapering the money machine, yet unwilling to yield the slightest ground on the Obamacare racket because that's what he needs to buy off his critics and pay off his supporters.  The question facing the other political players, ranging from Israel, Russia, Iran or the GOP is how much longer Obama can continue and get away with it.

ObamaCare's architects reap windfall as Washington lobbyists.  ObamaCare has become big business for an elite network of Washington lobbyists and consultants who helped shape the law from the inside.  More than 30 former administration officials, lawmakers and congressional staffers who worked on the healthcare law have set up shop on K Street since 2010.

Obama skirts Congress, funds pre-K through Obamacare.  With congressional Republicans refusing to finance an expensive universal preschool proposal, President Obama is seeking an alternate funding source:  Obamacare.  Universal pre-K is one of Obama's favorite "big ideas" — and one he has mentioned repeatedly in the past few months.  But his proposal to bulk up federal and state pre-K programs by raising tobacco taxes is unlikely to pass the Republican House of Representatives.

Stealthy Obamacare co-ops refuse to file public disclosure tax forms.  All but one of the 24 healthcare co-ops funded by a $2 billion Obamacare program intended to create public competition for private sector insurers failed to file required tax returns, according to a Washington Examiner survey.  The co-ops are required under federal law to file IRS Form 990 tax returns each year.

Obamacare nonprofit educates Democrats only.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' favorite pro-Obamacare nonprofit held a Democrats-only congressional briefing earlier this year, according to emails obtained by nonprofit watchdog Judicial Watch. [...] Enroll America, an activist nonprofit devoted to enrolling Americans in the Obamacare health insurance exchanges, has benefited from Sebelius' fundraising efforts.  Congressional Republicans have opened an investigation into her requests that private donors contribute to the group.

New propaganda campaign exposes a central lie behind the push for Obamacare.
Get Shafted America!  Get Covered America is the long-anticipated propaganda campaign launched by Enroll America, a "nonpartisan" organization whose ostensible mission is to help the uninsured navigate the exchanges.  In reality, Enroll America is an Obama administration front group funded with money extorted from the insurance industry. [...] Thus, Enroll America is typical of the day-to-day skullduggery that defines the Obama regime.

Community Organizations: Obama's corrupt power grab.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D. California) has equipped fellow Democratic lawmakers with an "Affordable Care Act Tool Kit."  It reveals the Democratic Party's plan to turn the worthy goal of enrolling the uninsured into a cynical scheme for enrollling Democratic voters.  The kit's biggest tool is community organizing. [...] Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is under fire for soliciting donations for Enroll America, and it's no wonder.  Enroll America is 100% political.

Republicans seek IG probe into Sebelius over ObamaCare group donations.  Congressional Republicans on Thursday [5/30/2013] escalated their call for an independent investigation into whether Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius broke the law when she sought donations from private companies for an independent ObamaCare project.  Three top Senate Republicans wrote a letter to the HHS inspector general asking his office to launch a probe.  It follows a previous GOP call for a review by another internal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.

Obamacare "Navigators": Another Sebelius Snitch Brigade?.  U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors who will propagandize and enroll Obamacare recipients in government-run health insurance exchanges.  This nanny-state navigator corps is the Mother of all Community Organizing Boondoggles.  It's also yet another Obama threat to Americans' privacy.

Krauthammer: Sebelius Using Private Money To Pitch Obamacare Will Be Admin's "Iran-Contra".  [Quoting Charles Krauthammer:]  ["]That's the Obama administration's own Iran-Contra, raising the money on the side because it can't get it through Congress.  Which constitutionally is supposed to appropriate the money that the executive spends.  But I think on this issue with the unions, you heard the president in the clip you showed, he said nothing the plan will require you to change your coverage.  It's a very clever construction.["]

Insurer with NY's 'worst' record of complaints gets $340M Obamacare loan.  The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the "worst" insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints.  The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama while he was in the Illinois state senate to launch Demos, a left-wing, New York think tank funded in part by George Soros.