Barack H. Obama doesn't mind lying to accomplish his goals.  The Democrat party pushed the Obamacare bill through the Congress by resorting to an assortment of lies and emotional outbursts.  Since the bill became law, the opposition has continued, and so have the lies.

Related topics:

Health care is not a right.

Obamacare does not work as promised.

Recap and overview:
The Obamacare calamity can't be swept under the rug.  There were three central things voters really wanted and were promised when Obamacare was debated and passed.  First, they wanted to keep their doctors and health plans if they liked them.  Second, they wanted to ensure they would have lower rates.  (Plus, President Obama also made the extra promise that premiums would go down by $2,500 per year for a typical American family.)  And third, those with preexisting conditions wanted a way to find health insurance coverage.  And of course, the central purpose of the whole exercise was to insure the uninsured.  Well, Obamacare has theoretically fixed the preexisting-conditions issue, but in doing so, everything else about the health insurance system has gone up in smoke, and most of the problems are only getting worse.

Bogus Term 'White Supremacy' is Just War on the West.  Whenever words or phrases appear out of the blue and achieve rapid currency — think "disinformation" — they're almost always top-down attempts at mind control or mental conditioning.  In sneaky fashion, a new phrase can be just a tweak of a former phrase yet the tweak will shift one's mindset.  For example, people used to have medical insurance for medical care — insurance to cover unexpected and high medical bills in case someone got seriously sick.  A few decades ago, however, the term became health care.  This slight change had huge implications: instead of people seeing a doctor to treat illness, people began to accept the notion of seeing a doctor to maintain health.  This was especially true for mothers who took their kids to the pediatrician for "well visits" — mostly to get vaccinations.  Then the word "doctor" yielded to the more generic "health care provider" — sometimes a doctor, sometimes not.  Ultimately, these changes suggested that one's health was no longer the responsibility of the individual but rather the responsibility of others, including non-doctors.

Many Little Lies.  The Democrats' campaign against Donald Trump has been characterized by so many lies that it is impossible to respond to all of them.  The sheer volume of lies prevents observers from learning the truth about any of them.  A large number of lies makes any particular lie more credible.  But we must do our part to document the truth — if for no other reason than that it is the truth. [...] The same can be said of the allegation that Project 2025 will repeal what is left of Obamacare (referred to in the ads only as "The Affordable Care Act").  This program has been unpopular since its inception.  It was enacted only because some senators were promised that their states would be exempt.  Following enactment, the Democrats lost both houses of Congress.  Portions were later repealed, but RINOs prevented outright repeal.  Outright repeal would not increase Trump's power.  Were the federal government to remove itself from one seventh of the economy, the power of any president would decrease.

To 'Empower Patients' — First Dispel Seven Myths.  [#2]  Coverage does not equal care.  One of the most persistent myths Harris seems to embrace is the idea that coverage equals care.  Her vision for healthcare reform is laser-focused on expanding insurance, yet experience shows that insurance coverage does not guarantee timely or quality care.  Patients with government plans like Medicaid often face long waits for treatment, sometimes with fatal consequences.  Conversely, those without insurance often receive necessary care under existing laws, revealing the complex reality that coverage does not equate to access.  Simply having insurance doesn't ensure patients receive the care they need.  Harris's Medicare for All proposal, focused on expanding coverage, misses this critical distinction.

Government's license for laziness revoked.  The U.S. Supreme Court has finally overturned the infamous Chevron case after forty years, much to the consternation of lovers of Big Government.  We should praise SCOTUS for what they did judicially because Chevron was a License for Laziness in both of the other branches of government. [...] Nowhere was that deliberate deferred laziness more clearly epitomized than when the misleadingly-labelled Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, was enacted in March 2010.  It was rushed through in such haste that the majority of lawmakers voting on it had no chance to read, let alone digest, its thousands of pages.  Who can forget Madame Speaker Pelosi's pronouncement that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."  Though the statement has been subject to various interpretations, to many it is the most brazen Declaration of Indolence ever uttered by the leader of the legislative branch in American history.

Rejecting the Status Quo Is the Only Way to Survive.  The easiest way to navigate this Kafkaesque environment is to follow a simple rule:  whatever the government says, believe the opposite.  Obama promised that socialized medicine would lower health care costs without benefiting illegal aliens; a decade and a half later, the only people who can afford Obamacare are the illegal aliens who get it for free!

Our national problem is economic illiteracy.  The public was told the lie that Obamacare, a 2,000+ page bill with a huge number of mandates, and many new taxes, would substantially reduce health care premiums.  They took away annual and lifetime limits that essentially made it so small- and medium-sized health insurance companies couldn't afford the risk.  This reduced competition and the big companies had a captive audience because of the individual mandate to buy insurance with specific coverage.  And as the price of health insurance, and out-of-pocket expenses have skyrocketed in the thirteen years since Obamacare passed, the public is still intentionally lied to by the media and other Democrats that Democrats have made health care more affordable.  Heath care costs have risen an average of 6.5% for workers in just this year, according to the Wall Street Journal, which it calls the steepest rise in years, and for many workers, they have risen much, much higher.

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.

Biden admin mulls more intervention in the market with new overtime pay 'rules'.  When the media and other Democrats were pushing Obamacare with massive mandates and many taxes, the people were told that premiums would go down substantially.  It was an obvious lie.  When you force people to buy a Cadillac product and give the insurance companies and medical entities a captive audience, there's no competition to drive prices down.  Democrats always claim they are for freedom of choice, yet they took away choice.  Trump and other Republicans gave the people back freedom of choice when they took away the individual mandates and when they allowed them to buy more basic policies.  And, prices stabilized; it is a simple concept.  But now the tyrannical authoritarians are back and Biden is emulating Obama, and seeking to take away freedom of choice; [...]

The Editor says...
Biden is not just emulating Obama, he appears to be following orders from Obama.  Biden appears to be far too senile to write executive orders himself, or even to fully understand what he's signing.

Obamacare: Still Killing People 13 Years In.  Xavier Becerra, the Health and Human Services secretary, astonishingly missing during the entire COVID health crisis, declared the following:  "As we celebrate the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act today ... this law has lived up to its name, providing a way for Americans to access quality, affordable health coverage."  The ACA did indeed expand medical insurance to more Americans.  In 2000, Medicaid enrollment was 15.6 percent of the U.S. population.  In 2022, that number has nearly doubled: 27.7 percent of Americans — 92,340,585 individuals — were enrolled in the taxpayer-funded, no-charge-to-enrollees program.  Thus, nearly one third of the country has medical insurance and, according to Secretary Becerra, "have the peace of mind that comes with high-quality health care."  Note the conflation of care with insurance.  Washington wants you to think having the latter means you get the former, presumably when you need it.  Otherwise, what good is insurance?  Having insurance does not mean getting timely care.  In fact, there is a seesaw effect:  as the number of people with government-provided insurance increases, access to care decreases.

It is no wonder the media has lost the trust of the people.  In 2009, President Obama went around the country intentionally lying about Obamacare.  The complicit media supported Obamacare even though they had no idea what was in the law.  Pelosi wouldn't even let her minions in the House see the bill before they voted on it, so how would a truthful media support it?

The 'Big Guy' Resurrects Big Brother NewSpeak.  Democrat NewSpeak conflates medical care, a service, with health insurance, a document.  They would have people believe that, by granting Americans the latter, they will get the former.  Insurance is not care.  Medical insurance is a promissory note that the government cannot make good.  Care is medical services you need when you need them.  People with government insurance, such as Medicaid or Medicare enrollees and veterans with Tricare, experience death-by-queueing, dying while waiting in line as the government fails to deliver on its promised insurance benefits (medical care).  After President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he admitted that, when he said he would reform health care, he really meant he would reform health insurance.  Insurance is not care, even if NewSpeak uses them interchangeably.

The media lies about Obamacare ... and everything else.  Now that Joe Biden's touting Obamacare and bringing President Obama along for the ride at the White House, the media still acts like Obamacare is great even though Obama and others continuously lied to get it passed and then lied about the results.  It's par for the course because they are such a dishonest crew.

The Huge Lie From the Obama-Biden Obamacare Event.  The Obamacare messaging wars will never end, and they will never get old.  It's another part of the left's sustained gaslighting campaign.  Biden touted the number of Americans who now have insurance through Obamacare.  This was never the original intention of Obamacare — it was all marketed as legislation that would cut costs, some $2 trillion over a decade.  That didn't happen.  Remember when Obama said, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it"? That was PolitiFact's 2013 Lie of the Year.  What about affordability?  Biden spoke at length about this flanked by Obama and Kamala Harris on the stage.  Not true.

Here Are 11 of Joe Biden's Biggest Debate Lies.  [#1] No One Lost Their Insurance Under ObamaCare.  BIDEN: "That's why I did not — not one single person, private insurance, would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare.  They did not lose their insurance, unless they chose they wanted to go to something else." FACT: Up to six million people lost their private health insurance plan after Obamacare became the law of the land, and the reason people lost their private health insurance is the most immoral things about Obamacare:  Obamacare outlawed — actually made it illegal, for private insurance to offer private plans that did not live up to Obamacare's lofty and ridiculous standards.  Essentially, Obamacare demands we all, each and every one of us, pay for Cadillac plans that include all kinds of things we don't need.  So if, for instance, you had a reasonably priced catastrophic plan with a high deductible — and these are perfect plans for the healthy — Obamacare outlawed them.  So many people lost their private plans that even the Obama-loving media were forced to declare Obama's promise that "no one would lose their insurance or doctor" the Lie of the Year.

Biden: 'Not a Single Person on Private Insurance' Lost It 'Under Obamacare' — Fact Check:  FALSE.  I'm old enough to remember when President Barack Obama promised, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."  I'm also old enough to remember that PolitiFact rated that claim the "Lie of the Year" for 2013.  Yet on Thursday [10/22/2020], Democratic nominee Joe Biden — who ostensibly might remember 2013 because he was serving as vice president that year — claimed that not a single person lost his or her health insurance under Obamacare.  "Not one single person on private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare.  They did not lose their insurance unless they chose something else," Biden said during the debate.

Fact Check:  Joe Biden Claims Obamacare Didn't Cause Americans to Lose Their Health Insurance.  CLAIM: Former Vice President Joe Biden said during the presidential debate Thursday night that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) never resulted in Americans losing their health insurance plans.  VERDICT: False.  Millions of Americans lost their health insurance plan because of Obamacare, which was called the "lie of the year" in 2013.

Donald Trump Won the Debate.  [Scroll down]  Biden's nose grew when he boasted that "not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan, nor did they under Obamacare."  When over a million Americans lost their plans in 2013 in the wake of the passage of Obamacare, PolitiFact famously dubbed President Obama's if-you-like-your-plan-you-can-keep-your-plan rhetoric as its "lie of the year."  "I have never said I opposed fracking," Biden maintained.  He challenged Trump to show the tape.  The moment the debate ended, Trump did just that by tweeting out video of Biden pushing for a ban on fracking on numerous occasions.  Biden, who boasted "my reputation is for honor and telling the truth," did not tell the truth here.  More importantly, the energy issue revealed the extent to which the Democratic nominee embraces fringe positions.

Still More Dem Lies About Obamacare.  Democrats have spent the bulk of the Amy Coney Barrett hearings warning that she would overturn Obamacare if she makes it to the Supreme Court, causing 130 million Americans to lose protections for preexisting conditions and costs to skyrocket.  None of that is true.  But then again, Obamacare was built on a Big Lie — "you can keep your plan."  On Monday [10/13/2020], Joe Biden warned that "This nominee has said she wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. ... This is about less than one month (until) Americans are going to lose their health insurance."  Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used his time at Judge Barrett's confirmation hearings to spin a bizarre conspiracy theory in which "big donors" are trying to eliminate Obamacare by "stacking" the courts with conservative judges. [...] But the lies go much deeper than that.  First, the notion that a Justice Barrett is certain to vote to overturn all of Obamacare is false.  Biden simply made up the claim that she "wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act."

Kamala Harris falsely says Affordable Care Act hinges on Amy Coney Barrett nomination.  Sen. Kamala Harris said Tuesday [10/13/2020] that the Affordable Care Act and "all its protections hinge" on the outcome of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings.  "Republicans have spent a decade trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act," the California Democrat said Tuesday evening.  "Donald Trump named a Supreme Court justice who would tear down the Affordable Care Act."  Harris, who is also presidential candidate Joe Biden's running mate, noted that President Donald Trump has argued that the Affordable Care Act should be "struck in its entirety."  She said that the "Supreme Court could be just one vote away" from overturning Obamacare.

Biden cautions Senate Democrats against any questions about Amy Coney Barrett's faith.  Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday said that Judge Amy Coney Barrett's faith "should not be considered" during her Senate confirmation hearings. [...] Biden instead said that Democrats need to "stay behind the ball" and focus on Barrett's alleged opposition to the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama's signature achievement, which the Supreme Court will revisit after the November elections.  "Everyone knows that in 28 days, 20million Americans may lose their healthcare," Biden said.  "This nominee said she wants to get rid of the Affordable Care Act."  Barrett has never stated that she would rule against the Affordable Care Act.  At the hearings Monday, many Democratic senators accused her of opposing it, with Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Sheldon Whitehouse of New York making passionate speeches about the legislation.

Barrett Nomination Revives Obamascare Tactics.  The first question asked by moderator Chris Wallace during Tuesday night's presidential debate was about President Trump's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court.  After Trump explained why he nominated her, former Vice President Joe Biden claimed, "She thinks the Affordable Care Act is not constitutional."  He went on to imply that, if confirmed, Barrett would join a cabal of conservative justices in a plot to strike down the "reform" law.  The consequences of this, Biden said, would be to eliminate the health coverage of "a hundred million people who have pre-existing conditions."  This sordid scare tactic was routinely deployed by the Democrats in their failed attempt to retake the Senate majority during the 2018 midterms.  It has no basis in reality, of course, as the president pointed out immediately:  "There aren't a hundred million people with pre-existing conditions."

Dems Can't Stop Lying About Obamacare.  Apparently unable to come up with any alleged high school hijinks or embarrassing yearbook captions, Democrats have decided to make Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination all about Obamacare.  Good luck with that.  It didn't take long for Democrats to settle on their messaging plan for Barrett's confirmation.  If confirmed by the Senate, she will cast the deciding vote to overturn Obamacare, they say. [...] Democrats point to Barrett's criticism of Chief Justice John Roberts' 2012 ruling on Obamacare, in which she correctly characterized what he did by saying he "pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute."  For those who don't remember, Roberts ruled that the federal government had no right ordering Americans to buy insurance, but then essentially rewrote the law to claim that what Obamacare was doing was simply taxing people who didn't buy government-approved plans.

Hillary Clinton says 'diabolical' Supreme Court fight is about repealing Obamacare.  Hillary Clinton suggested that Senate Republicans are rushing to confirm President Trump's pending Supreme Court nominee for one singular purpose: to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  "Ultimately this fight, it seems to me, is about health care," Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said Wednesday during the 2020 Texas Tribune Festival.  "Health care is literally before the court."

ObamaCare: 10 years of distress and disappointment.  First, then-candidate Barack Obama said his namesake act would "cut the cost of a typical family's premiums by up to $2,500 a year."  In reality, the opposite has occurred.  According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), "premiums have doubled for individual health insurance plans since 2013, the year before many of Obamacare's regulations and mandates took effect."  Even more shocking, HHS reports, "Average individual market premiums more than doubled from $2,784 per year in 2013 to $5,712 on Healthcare.gov in 2017 — an increase of $2,928 or 105%."  Needless to say, ObamaCare has fallen woefully short in its grand ambition to slice health insurance premiums by $2,500 per year.  Second, ObamaCare supporters claimed it would drastically reduce the uninsured population.  Unfortunately, this also has not happened.

Donald Trump:  We Should Have Impeached Obama for Lying About Obamacare.  President Donald Trump suggested that President Barack Obama should have been impeached for lying to the American people about Obamacare.  "Remember President Obama, 28 times, he said, 'Keep your doctor, keep your plan.  Keep your doctor, keep your plan.' Right?" Trump asked.  The president spoke at a rally in Colorado Springs on Thursday, reminding them that Obama repeatedly lied about allowing Americans to keep their doctors and keep their health care plans under Obamacare.  "It was a lie.  We should impeach him.  We should impeach him," Trump said as the crowd cheered.

A Decade of Fake News.  2013: Obamacare collapse.  The media mocked and attacked Republicans after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) used a "talking filibuster" to shut the government down ahead of the imminent launch of Obamacare.  When Obamacare finally opened, however, the federal website did not work; one state's insurance exchange collapsed and never recovered.  In subsequent years, households were shocked by rising premiums and unaffordably high deductibles.

Joe Biden Falsely Boasts About Getting GOP Votes for Obamacare.  Former Vice President inaccurately claimed on Saturday [12/14/2019] that he helped convince Republicans to vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act.  Biden, who has a history of embellishing his political accomplishments, made the claim while boasting about his ability to forge bipartisan consensus during a campaign rally in San Antonio, Texas.

Bernie Sanders's and Elizabeth Warren's health-care plans sound too good to be true.  They are..  Single-payer health care can work.  Government-run systems operate in other industrialized countries and often achieve comparable or better overall results, for less money, than the health-care patchwork in the United States.  So why aren't Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposing something that resembles those systems?  The two presidential candidates promise far more generous benefits than other countries offer.  They pretend that the United States wouldn't have to make any of the trade-offs other nations have had to make.  They promise fantastically generous benefits, no premiums, co-payments or other cost-sharing, and a miraculously low price tag.  It's fiction.

While Democrats Trash Obamacare, Trump Is Fixing It.  In the upside-down world of Washington politics, President Donald Trump appears to be fixing Obamacare, while Democrats are running around the country dismissing it as a horrible failure.  The latest evidence of the former is that Obamacare premiums are set to drop 4% next year, after declining 1.5% last year, according to a report released by the Health and Human Services Department this week.  This comes after five straight years of huge increases, during which Obamacare premiums more than doubled.

Elizabeth Warren Is Not Honest.  [Scroll down]  But there's a reason that all of the data on this practice of rescission (which insurance companies claimed was fraud prevention) predate 2010.  The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, explicitly outlawed it.  As Healthcare.gov explains:  "Under the Affordable Care Act, rescission is illegal except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of material fact as prohibited by the terms of the plan or coverage."  Elizabeth Warren surely knows this, and thus her tales of people's insurance being withdrawn when they get sick are not illustrative examples of a serious problem.  They are dishonest efforts to build a case for eliminating private health coverage.  Warren, like Bernie Sanders, is an ideologue, enamored of government regulation of everything.  Most Americans do not share her disdain for private health coverage.  Eighty percent rate the quality of their care as excellent or good, and 69 percent rate their personal coverage the same way.

Democratic Party presidential candidate are unqualified... and weird.  [Scroll down]  Elizabeth Warren, AKA Pocahontas, says she will fund Medicare for all by taxing the "wealthy and big corporations."  Even Joe Biden found this ludicrous and unbelievable.  She refused to answer the question whether she will raise taxes on the middle class to fund Medicare for all.  We all know that tax rates have to be raised on all taxpayers to fund Medicare for all.  All the candidates have proposals to "fix health care."  Nobody asked the candidates why we need to "fix health care," since Obama supposedly fixed it with his Obamacare.  We were told by Obama, Biden, and Pelosi that Obamacare would reduce premiums and insure the uninsured and that we could keep our doctors.  Evidently, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of the gang lied to us.  Shocking.

Squeaky clean, huh?  Obama forgot about these 25 scandals.  [#5] Obamacare & Obama's false promises:  Politifact rated President Obama's promise, "If you like your health plan, you can keep it," as its "Lie of the Year" in 2013.  Obama repeated the claim dozens of times, as well as promising, "If you like your doctor, you can keep him," which also turned out to be untrue.  Obamacare was supposed to cut costs and insure more people.  Instead, premiums skyrocketed and more than five million people lost their heath insurance coverage.

The Democrat Party Is A Joke That Would Cease To Exist Without The Media's Support.  Consider the wide open secret that Democrats have to lie about literally every policy aspiration they have.  On healthcare they claim they simply want to "help the poor," but every single one of them wants a total government takeover of our healthcare system because they know that's the best way to control people.  Some believe they can get away with doing it faster than others, but in the end that's all any of them actually want.

Ocasio-Cortez: Nobody is 'Heartbroken' By the Prospect of Losing Private Health Insurance.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., NY) said on Wednesday nobody is "heartbroken" by the prospect of losing their private health insurance if Medicare for All were to be implemented.  Her comments were first reported by Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur.

Three Obamacare Myths That Refuse To Die.  Every time the question of Obamacare's constitutionality comes up, we hear a lot of noise about how conservatives intend to "strip" health care from millions of Americans, a lot about how Republicans are committing political suicide, and a lot of historical revisionism.  Take these comments from David Weigel of the Washington Post, which summarize a number of Democrat talking points neatly.  "You can dream up some lawsuit against Medicare itself, sure, but every legal attack on the ACA has focused on the parts designed to make it a market-friendly compromise," he tweeted.  "This is why a lot of Dems (and Rs) think that if the hail mary Texas lawsuit succeeds — if the ACA is torn up by judges on a technicality — the 'just fix it' era is over.  Democrats will have learned that compromise doesn't work and run on single-payer."

Why We Need to Stop Saying 'Health Care'.  The Democrats have once again sucked us into using their terminology, and it is much to our detriment.  We should be saying "Medical Care" instead of "Health Care."  Here are two reasons we need to change our terminology.  [#1] "Health Care" has far broader implications than "Medical Care" does. [...] [#2] "Medical Care" refers to the treatment of people by trained professionals.

Hey Joe Biden, Here Are Some Scandals You Forgot.  Obama's most famous lie, of course, upturned millions of lives.  Without it, it's doubtful Obamacare — which was perhaps the only wholly partisan national reform effort in American history — would ever have passed.  Even with a stream of falsehoods, the bill had to be shoe-horned through Congress.  Media did a lot of heavy lifting for the administration in those heady days.  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" was only one of an array of demonstrably false statements fed to the public to give (now-extinct) moderate Democrats cover.  You might remember one of Obamacare's architects, Jonathan Gruber, explaining how this "lack of transparency" compounded by "the stupidity of the American voter" was a huge political advantage for the administration.  Or maybe you don't.

As Liberalism Sinks, Socialism Rises.  "The Democrats have no ideas" has been a GOP talking point for a long time, but it's actually worse than that.  Their biggest idea, ObamaCare, was exposed as based on lies ("If you like your doctor, you keep your doctor.  If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan.") and built of straw, as premiums didn't drop dramatically as promised but instead rose steeply, while multitudes lost their coverage.  When President Obama was selling ObamaCare in a special address to a joint session of Congress in September, 2009, he grandiosely called it the "great unfinished business of our society," quoting Ted Kennedy.  By October, 2016, six and a half years after its enactment, Obama was referring to his troubled Affordable Care Act as "just a first step."

Government report reveals CBO was scandalously off in Obamacare estimates.  A new report from government actuaries has revealed that the Congressional Budget Office was scandalously off in its estimates of the impact of Obamacare's individual mandate, a miscalculation that has had significant ramifications for healthcare and tax policy over the past decade.  CBO estimates about the importance of an individual mandate to a national healthcare scheme prodded President Barack Obama into including the unpopular provision into the law in the first place.  The mandate projections also played a key role in President Trump's two major legislative initiatives.  The fact that the CBO assumed 14 million could lose coverage mainly due to the elimination of mandate penalties helped kill the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, while its later assumption that 13 million fewer insured individuals would mean less spending on subsidies from the federal government helped get the 2017 Republican tax cut across the finish line by improving the budgetary math.  Yet those incredibly influential estimates now appear to have been wildly off.

Hillary Clinton Sounds Alarm: 'Americans Dying for Lack of Health Care' While Obamacare [is] Still in Place.  Failed Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton warned of "real national emergencies" that included "Americans dying for lack of health care," despite Obamacare remaining in place.  Clinton posted a message Monday appearing to take aim at President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the U.S. southern border.  She offered four alternative "real national emergencies."

As Democrats eye health care again, keep an eye on these phony 'narratives' they will tell.  John Merline of Investor's Business Daily has always been that outfit's health care expert, not just explaining why Obamacare fails, but exposing all the smelly little shibboleths that propel such bad laws to find their way into the congressional ledgers. [...] He also breaks apart three other lefty myths:  First, the one on U.S. spending on health care, which he points out is a function of living in a rich country -- his outline of the nuances of this is far more detailed and persuasive than I am describing -- see it as the first point of his piece here.  Second, the myth of quality of health care based on life expectancy and infant mortality.  Life expectancy is an easy one to shoot down, as it doesn't take into account behavioral factors such as drug abuse, obesity and the murder rate.  Strip out those and health care becomes a very small factor.  Infant mortality is the same way.  It's also defined in different ways in different countries and naturally, hellholes such as Cuba don't even count babies that died at birth.  Cuba goes out and claims a low infant mortality rate when the reality is, they don't even try to save just-born babies.  In the U.S. by contrast, every baby counts.  Health insurance has very little to do with any of this, but sure enough, Democrats argue that they need to reform it as a result of this misleading picture [...] Third, Democrats yell a lot about health care being a 'right' in every country but the U.S., yet they fail to note that 'right' doesn't actually result in actual care in these places.  Wait lines and refusals to do even the most basic surgeries taken for granted here are routinely denied in socialist systems as they ration out the care.

Health Care Reform Facts:  How Does U.S. Actually Stack Up Against Other Countries?  From 1990 to 2016, GDP growth in the U.S. was 211.5%.  Over those same years, spending on necessities climbed far more slowly.  The amount spent on clothing and footwear climbed only 100%.  Household supplies went up 141%.  But look at what happened to luxury items.  Gambling went up 443%, college education spending shot up 440%, spending on financial services rocketed up 447%.  Spending on phones went up a whopping 906%.  The increase in health care spending looks modest by comparison.  It went up by 327% over those years.  That's not to say that health care isn't expensive in this country, or that it couldn't be cheaper.

Democrats' Big Lie About Pre-Existing Conditions.  Across the U.S., Democratic campaign ads are telling voters a big lie.  Dems are falsely claiming they're protecting people with pre-existing medical conditions and warning that Republicans will take that protection away.  The ads would have you believe Obamacare is the only way to protect people with pre-existing conditions.  That's false, and the outcome of the midterm elections could turn on this falsehood. [...] These scare tactics are likely to work.  A whopping 81 percent of voters, including 80 percent of Republicans, support these protections, polls show.  Unfortunately, Republican pols failed miserably last year to explain how their Obamacare repeal bill safeguarded people with pre-existing conditions.  That failure opened the door for Democrats to vilify them this election season as enemies of people with health problems.

Media Ignore Record Low ObamaCare Rate Hikes — Anyone Want To Guess Why?  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared that "We Democrats are going to be relentless in making sure the American people exactly understand who is to blame" for-sky high rate hikes.  News outlets ran story after doomsday story about how efforts to undermine ObamaCare by Republicans and the Trump administration would cause a huge spike in premiums. [...] All those dire predictions scored widespread news coverage.  But then insurance companies started announcing modest rate requests for 2019, and suddenly ObamaCare was no longer a story.  ObamaCare premiums will rise a mere 0.7% in Pennsylvania, according to the state's insurance commissioner.  They will climb by just 1% in Nebraska.  In Wisconsin, they're expected to drop by 3.5%, and drop by more than 5% in Arizona.

Dems' Big Lie About Kavanaugh.  Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says Democrats can sink Kavanaugh by showing how his appointment will lead to a court majority that "repeals ACA with its protections for pre-existing conditions."  It's demagoguery.  And it's working, as demagoguery too often does.  Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), a frequent Trump ally, is already moaning that the SCOTUS appointment will determine if "West Virginians with pre-existing conditions will lose their healthcare."  Not true.  Even if the Supreme Court does strike down the ACA someday, the era of insurance companies turning down applicants with health problems is over.  Across the country, Republican and Democratic state lawmakers agree on that.  They are busy devising smarter ways to protect people with pre-existing conditions and keep insurance affordable, with or without Obamacare.  Not one of these plans throws people with health problems under the bus.  Democrats' rhetoric about losing coverage for pre-existing conditions is hysteria.

Preexisting Prevarication.  Joe Manchin poses as a moderate.  Yet, to save his Senate seat, he has resorted to the same sordid tactics employed by his most radical Democrat accomplices.  Facing a serious challenge from Republican Patrick Morrisey in a state that President Trump carried by 42 percent in 2016, Manchin is telling his West Virginia constituents that Republicans want to take away their health care.  Recently, for example, Manchin told a group in Beckley that 800,000 West Virginians are in danger of losing their medical coverage because the GOP has evil designs on Obamacare's protections involving preexisting conditions.  Senator Manchin is lying.

CDC Outs Media on Obamacare Lies.  Anyone with the intestinal fortitude to subject themselves to the legacy media will have seen countless "news" stories about the devastation wrought by President Trump's "sabotage" of Obamacare.  A typical headline appeared a couple of weeks ago in the Washington Post:  "Americans are starting to suffer from Trump's health-care sabotage."  This work of fiction claimed that the number of working-age Americans without health insurance had risen to 15.5 percent, a 3 point increase since 2016.  But a report just released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), says the real number is 12.8 percent — exactly what it was in 2015.

As Obamacare Premiums Soar, Dems Lie.  America has a health insurance problem because politicians would rather lie about it than solve it.  Obamacare regulations caused premiums for people buying their own insurance to more than double between 2013 and 2017, and then soar even higher in 2018.  With huge hikes predicted again in 2019, the Affordable Care Act will have caused premiums to triple in six years.  Ouch.  But instead of telling the truth about why this is happening, politicians are dishing out lies.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is already announcing what he's going to do about the rate hikes.  "We Democrats are going to be relentless in making sure the American people exactly understand who is to blame for the rates."  He means pinning the blame on President Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress.  Don't buy this lie.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc..  [#24] Before Obamacare was passed, Obama promised "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future.  I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.  And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."  However, after Obama signed it, the Washington Post reported that it would add more than $340 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.  In March 2012, the Congressional Budget Office said that over the next decade, Obamacare would cost twice as much as what Obama had promised. [...] [#132] Although Obama claimed that switching to electronic record keeping as part of Obamacare would make health care cheaper, it actually made it more expensive.

Obamacare Bailouts Will Not Save Money and Lower Premiums, Despite Contrary Claims.  Congress appears poised to bail out Obamacare with new federal money in the omnibus package next week.  Advocates of this bailout say it's a good idea that will lower premiums and either "pay for itself" or "lower spending."  These claims are based on estimates that rely on questionable assumptions.  Lawmakers should not be fooled into thinking that throwing money at a problem — Obamacare — will somehow fix it.  Here are three dubious assumptions that form the basis of the Obamacare bailouts argument. [...]

Ezekiel Emanuel: We Don't Need No Stinking Hospitals!  If you had seen a doctor who misdiagnosed your illness, prescribed a remedy that made it worse, and subsequently falsified the record, would you return to him for medical advice?  The legacy media have done precisely that in the case of Ezekiel Emanuel.  Dr. Emanuel is best known as an advocate of health care rationing and a key architect of the "Affordable Care Act."  In other words, he believes the malady troubling American medicine is that we provide too much of it.  The treatment he prescribed — Obamacare — was a disaster and he consistently overstates the efficacy of that cure in writing and on television.  Despite these failures, Emanuel has no difficulty finding media outlets willing to give him space to promote his quack nostrums.  The latest example is the New York Times, which published an op-ed in which he suggests that hospitals are obsolete.

Senate Bill Kills Obamacare's Taxes on the Poor.  It was as inevitable as, well, death and taxes that the Democrats would react to the Senate tax reform bill with public lamentation, rending of garments, and portentous declarations about the death of the Republic.  It was no surprise, then, that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) charged the Republicans with "tearing down our democracy" or that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also accused them of "undermining democracy."  In reality, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is among the best pieces of legislation produced by either house of Congress in decades, not least because it eliminates the individual mandate and medical expense taxes

Progressives Whine about Obamacare Premiums.  It's wrong, of course, to revel in the misfortune of others.  I nonetheless laughed aloud when I read what the editors of the New York Times imagine is a heart-rending tale of several Obamacare supporters who, having ignored years of conservative warnings about the inevitability of premium increases under Obamacare, now lament the financial difficulties they face due to the high cost of health coverage.  It would be easier to feel sympathy for these people if they admitted they were wrong about the "Affordable Care Act."  But progressives don't do that.  Instead, they blame President Trump and the GOP.  The author of the piece takes us to that vortex of progressive virtue, Charlottesville, Virginia, and attempts to tug on our heart strings with the stories of people like Sara Stovall.

Trump's Illegal Alien Crackdown Threatens Obamacare.  Representative Joe Wilson was excoriated in 2009 for yelling "you lie!" about Obama's statement that illegal aliens will not receive Obamacare.  Politifact went through some serious gymnastics to claim that Joe's statement was false.  Of course, we've seen over the years that Joe was correct, and that many states, such as California, have attempted to give illegals Obamacare.

Poll: 68% of Voters Say Dems Own Obamacare.  For a year, the Democrats and the legacy media have waged a relentless propaganda campaign calculated to convince the public that Obamacare's myriad failures — from skyrocketing premiums to stagnant enrollment — are the result of sabotage by President Trump and congressional Republicans. [...] It seems, however, that "the stupidity of the American voter" has been greatly exaggerated.  A new survey shows that more than two-thirds of registered voters believe former President Obama and the Democrats are responsible for the dilapidated condition of the "Affordable Care Act."  The delicious irony here is that this poll wasn't the work of some conservative think tank.  It was conducted by Morning Consult at the behest of Politico, well known for shamelessly pimping Obamacare.

Who Says We Spend 'Too Much' On Health Care?  There's no question that the U.S. devotes far more resources to health care than any other country.  Health spending in the U.S. accounts for more than 17% of GDP.  Among industrialized nations, the next closest is Sweden, where health care is 12% of its economy.  In Canada, health care spending is less than 11% of GDP.  In the U.K., it's 9%, according to the World Health Organization.  So what?  The U.S. is a very rich country, and as a result, Americans spend more on just about anything than any other country in the world.  The U.S. spends more per capita on advertising, more on national defense, more on information and communications technology, more on leisure activities.  The country also gives far more to charities than any other nation in the world.

Sorry Everybody, But Trump Hasn't Instigated The Obamacare Apocalypse.  Eight years ago, much was made of the 2,000-plus page length of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, now simply abbreviated as the "ACA."  But the reason Obamacare weighed in at 2,000 pages is because the law passed by Democrats detailed, in highly specific language, how Washington would run the health care system from here on out.  While the HHS Secretary — in those days, Kathleen Sebelius — would have the authority to determine exactly how to implement Obamacare's rules, the Obama administration was (in theory) bound by the statutory law passed by Congress.  Now, in reality, the Obama administration was highly selective in enforcing the Affordable Care Act as written.

Trump Faithfully Executes Obamacare; Media, Democrats Go Nuts.  Notwithstanding the many outrageous, mendacious things the president says and tweets, the press is aghast that his "fake news" tropes against mainstream-media stalwarts resonate with much of the country.  Well, if you want to know why, this latest Obamacare coverage is why.  What Trump has actually done is end the illegal payoffs without which insurance companies have no rational choice but to jack up premiums or flee the Obamacare exchanges.  The culprits here are the charlatans who gave us Obamacare.  To portray Trump as the bad guy is not merely fake news.  It's an out-and-out lie.  Which is to say:  It's about as honest as the Democrats' labeling of Obamacare as the Affordable Care Act.  The subsidy payments to insurance companies may be "critical" to sustaining the ACA, but they are not provided for in the ACA.  The Obamacare law did not appropriate them.  No legislation appropriates them.  They are and have always been illegal.

Democrats will use any excuse not to give power back to the states or the people.  A major culprit in the ACA, health care mess we have today are the significant majority reporters that just go out and repeat Democrat talking points.  They never cared and still don't that Obama continually lied to get the ACA passed and that the disastrous premium and cost increases are because of Democrats.  The story will be written that Republicans and Trump caused the collapse even though that is demonstrably not true.

Democrats will use any excuse not to give power back to the states or the people.  The Affordable Care act (ACA) was an over 2,000 page bill (that most hadn't read when they voted on it) with massive numbers of mandates and twenty new taxes and I don't recall Democrats asking for definitions let alone on subjective terms like adequate and affordable.  President Obama went around repeating that everyone would be able to keep their plan and doctor if they liked and that premiums would go down an average of $2,500 per family.  These were obvious lies but I don't recall Democrats or reporters questioning Obama.  Jonathon Gruber said that they had to lie to get it passed.  Obama bribed states with 100% Medicaid reimbursements and there were specific kickbacks to buy votes but Democrats and reporters didn't care.  There were no questions about affordability.  The CBO even pretended it would reduce the deficit.

Media on the brink of a nervous breakdown.  President Trump is taking a toll on journalists and political commentators, some of whom are watching angrily as Trump dives into healthcare and foreign policy, while others admit that covering Trump may be affecting their health.  ABC "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host Jimmy Kimmel, who has risen as a prominent voice in the healthcare debate, was angry this week over Trump and Republicans' latest attempt to repeal Obamacare.  He called the new Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill a "scam" that he said is supported by Republicans who "eight years ago ... didn't want anyone to have healthcare at all."

The Middle Class:  Uninsured and Hurting.  The Affordable Care Act added millions of mostly poor people to the insurance rolls.  But the law is driving premiums so high that middle class people can no longer afford insurance.  Several million are expected to drop coverage in 2018. Under Obamacare, poor lives matter — middle class lives, not so much.  With GOP lawmakers paralyzed about how to repeal and replace Obamacare, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) are swooping in with a plan to keep the floundering health law afloat.  Senate hearings begin Wednesday [9/6/2017].  The Senators cloak themselves in the mantle of bipartisan reasonableness, but don't be fooled.  There's nothing bipartisan about their scheme.  The big losers are middle class buyers priced out of the individual insurance market and taxpayers footing the bill for the billions in extra spending these fixers are proposing.

Defining Success Down for Obamacare ... Again.  Obamacare was sold to a skeptical public based on three promises:  It would bend the cost curve downward, provide access to care for most of the uninsured, and improve quality of the care we all receive.  As many of us predicted, and every honest observer now admits, it has failed to deliver on any of these promises.  The "Affordable Care Act" has exacerbated health care inflation, the number of uninsured Americans remains essentially unchanged from the 30 million cited by former President Obama in his September 9, 2009 address to a joint session of Congress, and the life expectancy of the average American has declined since the law was enacted.

ObamaCare, Not Trump, Is Causing ObamaCare's Massive Rate Hikes.  In Iowa, the state's sole remaining insurer announced on Thursday [8/17/2017] that it wants to boost ObamaCare premiums by 57%.  This isn't exactly the vibrant, competitive, low-cost market that Democrats promised.  But it is the inevitable outcome of ObamaCare's government-knows-best approach to health care.  Earlier this year, Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield announced that they were pulling out of Iowa's ObamaCare exchange, leaving only Medica, which was also threatening to leave.  Not surprisingly, Medica has used its newfound monopoly status to push for increasingly higher rates, while trying to pin the blame President Trump for the increases.  The media, of course, are happy to buy into it that claim.  Anything to bash Trump.

Federal Government, HHS, DOJ: Gaming the Freedom of Info System.  In addition to the active lawsuit I have in federal court over the intrusion into my government computers, I have been litigating several of the many failed government responses to lawful Freedom of Information Act requests.  I'm giving up on one of them as of this week.  It's my request for public material the government withheld after the disastrous launch of Obamacare in 2013 when I was reporting on the topic for CBS News.  We have learned, among other things, that federal officials gave incorrect and misleading information to the public and under oath to Congress regarding serious security failures in development and testing of the national website and system, and other important topics.

Obama caught lying by IRS tax audit.  Thursday [8/3/2017], the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released a report on IRS actions in support of the Affordable Care Act — and what they found was a series of lies and misinformation made up by the White House under Obama.  "IRS officials sent the letters to try to prod Americans to comply with the 2010 health law's 'individual mandate' that penalizes them for not holding coverage," according to The Washington Times.  "But as part of the letters, the IRS said most people could find plans for $75 a month or less once government subsidies were figured in."  That was a lie, Thursday's audit found — and Obama knew it.

With Repeal Off The Table, Media Suddenly 'Discover' That ObamaCare Is In Deep Trouble.  After spending months pumping out stories about how great ObamaCare is, the news media are now admitting that, lo and behold, ObamaCare is unsustainable.  What's changed?

Revealed: Whopping 73 Percent of CBO's 'Lost Coverage' Estimate Comes From Individual Mandate Repeal.  Conservative healthcare policy wonk Avik Roy, a strong supporter of the imperiled Senate healthcare bill, wrote an eye-opening analysis over the weekend.  He examined and applied leaked data in order to demonstrate how the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office would score any GOP Obamacare replacement bill as "denying" coverage to at least 16 million Americans.  That's due to CBO's fanatical belief in the power of the existing law's individual mandate tax, an article of faith to which they've clung, despite hard contradictory evidence.  For the first time, Roy is able to reveal exactly how heavily — and dubiously — CBO leans on the strength the individual mandate in producing its coverage numbers.

Unstable: Obamacare bailout in NH.  It's not a tax.  It's not a fee.  It's an "assessment."  The New Hampshire Department of Insurance wants to charge health insurance companies a $36.8 million assessment to fund a reinsurance pool in order to prop up the state's failing health care exchange.  "To call it a tax is misstating what it really is," argues Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny.

Those of us who had decent health care in 2009 have been ripped off.  In 2009, the healthcare system was working reasonably well for around 85% of us.  Instead of trying to address the problems of those that weren't covered, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the American Medical Association, hospitals, and insurance companies chose to rework the system for all of us.  They wrote a 2,000-plus-page law with over 10,000 pages of regulations and 20 new taxes.  On order to pass the bill they continually lied to the people that if they liked their plan and doctor they could keep them and it would lower premiums.  They knew this wasn't true because they dictated exactly what had to be in the policies to please the government.  The CBO dutifully estimated that 26 million would be covered by 2016 and that the 10 year cost would be less than $1 trillion.  Within three years, the estimate was over $2 trillion and only 11 million were covered.  The government bribed the states with 100% coverage of Medicaid expansion for awhile.  The media gladly repeated the lies about Obamacare and supported it every step of the way[.]

Trump calls Obama a liar.  "Obamacare was a big lie," Mr. Trump said in a White House meeting [7/19/2017] with Republican senators seeking to craft a new health care plan.  He went on.  "You can keep your doctor?  Lie."  "You can keep your plan?  Lie."  "It was a lie, directly from the president," Mr. Trump said.

Covering Pre-Existing Conditions?  Call It What It Is.  Welfare, Not Insurance.  Can someonte tell me why should insurance companies have to cover people who got sick and didn't have insurance and now want to get — why should they have to cover that?  Do you realize doing that raises everybody's premiums?  That isn't even insurance.  If we want to provide insurance for people, preexisting conditions, set up a separate entitlement called the preexisting conditions welfare plan.  It isn't insurance, and it raises everybody's premiums.

Why are most of the Republicans in Congress so spineless?  Obamacare was passed in 2009 without a single Republican vote.  Everyone who paid attention to its details knew that it was designed to fail, miserably.  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragged about how getting it passed depended on the stupidity of the American people.  But people would not be able to keep their own doctors as promised.  No one's premiums went down by $2,500.  They all went up and up and up.  Those who are paying for it cannot afford to use it because the deductibles are too high.  It is a monstrosity of catastrophic proportions.  The insurance companies were on board; they knew they would reap billions of taxpayer dollars, and they have.

Free Markets in Healthcare Aren't 'Broken' — Just Not Allowed to Work.  [The] Democrats' script says:  "The U.S. healthcare system is broken.  Free-markets didn't work; we can't go back to what was, even if Obamacare has problems."  This script is on a par with campaign lies, such as "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it," that sold the need for government to "fix" one-sixth of the economy, even when polls showed 85% of people were satisfied with their health insurance and medical care.  Now, millions of Americans have lost their private insurance because it didn't comply with costly, unwanted Obamacare mandates.  Millions have lost their doctors and hospitals with networks "shrunk" to cut insurers' costs.  The entire U.S. healthcare system is NOT "broken" — not yet.  The payment system was "broken" by government intrusion and regulation.  U.S. medical care has remained tops in the world for quality, accessibility, innovation, variety of medications, available diagnostic and treatment procedures, and longevity for the major diseases and for cancer survival.

Obama Is Wrong:  ObamaCare Has Failed to Meet Its Goals.  To start off with, the most glaring problem with the former President's critique is that he calls it "a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America."  This is laughably hypocritical because that is exactly what ObamaCare was.  It was written by and with the support of the health insurance lobby, doled out subsidies to large corporations, allowed for bailouts of the health insurance industry, and reduced competitors in the healthcare market (which means less plans and options for consumers).

Bernie Sanders Attacks Fox News.  Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' office crafted and published a video attacking Fox News commentators for mocking Sanders' claims that the proposed Senate health care bill — which was recently shelved due to a lack of votes — would cause "thousands" of people to die.  Sanders' Twitter account posted the video, which reached almost three minutes in length, with the caption:  "Fox News may not like it, but these are the facts:  Thousands of our fellow Americans will die if the Republican health care bill is passed."

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.

Now We Know:  ObamaCare's 'Guaranteed Issue' Is Another Big Lie.  As Republicans try to figure out how to replace ObamaCare, they are getting viciously attacked by Democrats who claim the GOP plan would take away the law's guarantee to those with pre-existing conditions.  But what use is ObamaCare's "guarantee" if there aren't any insurance plans at all?

Jarrett 'Not Sure' Why Obamacare 'Ever Became a Political Issue'.  Valerie Jarrett, former senior advisor to President Obama, said the Trump administration is "abdicating" the United States' role as the "world leader" and the "beacon of hope" by withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.  "It is unrefuted science that there are man-made consequences that are leading to the degradation of our planet.  And it was unprecedented to have so many countries, nearly 200 countries from around the world, who followed the United States' lead on this issue and came to the table and not just the government leaders but in our country, just hundreds and hundreds of large corporations signed on recognizing that it is not anti-business to care about our climate — it is not an either/or, it is a both and an imperative," Jarrett said during a discussion sponsored by the Raben Group in D.C. last week.

'Free' Government-Funded Health Care.  The rights enjoyed by Americans have undergone a major transformation from rights that constrain government power — for example, the Bill of Rights — to rights guaranteeing tangible benefits.  This shift is especially notable for healthcare as millions have come to view "free" government-supplied healthcare as an inalienable right akin to the First Amendment's protection of free speech.  This is a disaster waiting to happen.  Slowly extending First Amendment rights is one thing; it's quite another to expand a right whose implementation will cost tens of billions.  Unfortunately, this potential calamity grows more likely by the days as liberal pundits denounce President Trump's cost-cutting replacement of ObamaCare as mean-spirited and cruel while almost on cue TV crews discovers a father in a "red" congressional district who implores the president to keep ObamaCare to save his gravely ill son unable to afford expensive medical treatment.

The News Only Gets Worse For ObamaCare — And Democrats.  It is becoming extremely difficult to disguise or defend the Affordable Care Act's collapsing individual health insurance marketplace, but that isn't keeping the left from trying.  For example, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, an ObamaCare architect who used to revel in that fact (and the money the government paid him), recently told Fox News, "Since President Trump has been elected ... premiums are going up and insurers are exiting."  While that claim is true, recent decisions to exit the ObamaCare exchanges are based on years of losses from providing ObamaCare-qualified coverage.

The Media Finally Admit Obamacare Is Collapsing.  [Scroll down]  If Obamacare had actually been "working" for all those years, it would not have suddenly collapsed.  In reality, the implosion of the "Affordable Care Act" began when it was originally implemented.  Moreover, the partisan reporters and editors of the legacy media certainly knew it was a disaster by 2013, when more than five million Americans lost their insurance coverage and Healthcare.gov exploded on the launch pad.  They could not, however, report the truth, because there was no plausible way to blame its failure on the Republicans.

Why Should Anyone Trust What Dems Say About Health Reform?  Republicans who voted for the American Health Care Act are doomed.  The bill will push 24 million off health insurance.  It will be terrible for those with pre-existing conditions.  These are the claims being made about the GOP's plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.  And they are everywhere:  Every time a Democrat speaks, on the nightly news, on late-night television, at town halls.  But wait a minute.  Who exactly is making these claims?  Oh, right, the very same people who predicted that ObamaCare would be a great success.

Unlike ObamaCare, The GOP Health Bill Wasn't Built On Lies And False Promises.  Remember how ObamaCare was sold to the public:  If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  It will lower premiums by $2,500, increase choice and competition, make health care affordable, create jobs, cut the deficit.  None of those promises came true.  In 2013, millions discovered that the "keep your plan" promise was a lie — PolitiFact gave it the "Lie of the Year" award — when they started getting cancellation notices from their insurers.  The Obama administration scrambled to minimize the political fallout by letting some keep those plans.  While Obama repeatedly promised a premium cut thanks to improved efficiency in the health care system, the opposite occurred.  Workplace premiums for family plans jumped 9.4% the year after ObamaCare became law, and rose $4,767 from 2009 to 2006.  ObamaCare premiums are going up at double-digit rates.

The Next Big Lie About ObamaCare.  Insurers are starting to announce their ObamaCare premiums for next year and they're at high double-digit rates.  For journalists and Democratic activists (is there any difference these days?), this is the direct result of Republicans' threat to repeal ObamaCare.  But that's not what insurance companies are telling state regulators.

The Democrats' Pre-Existing Condition Scam.  The House vote on the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill vote is down to the wire, with dozens of Republicans waffling as "undecideds."  What's the hold-up?  Ninety-six percent of people who have to buy their own insurance stand to benefit from this bill, which will likely drive down premiums by double digits.  The remaining 4% — those with pre-existing conditions — will be protected by a federal fund to subsidize their insurance costs.  They won't get priced out of the market, because the fund will pay the lion's share of their premiums.  But some Republicans are running scared.

List of Obamacare Taxes Repealed.  As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama had promised repeatedly that he would not raise any tax on any American earning less than $250,000 per year.  He broke the promise when he signed Obamacare.  With the passage of the House GOP bill, tens of millions of middle income Americans will get tax relief from Obamacare's long list of tax hikes.

Obamacare and the Gutless Wonders of the GOP.  [Scroll down]  In fact, the man whose name is inextricably linked to the failed health-care law recently derided Trump for the failure to get repeal done during his first 100 days.  CNN reported, "Obama noted to an audience in midtown Manhattan that 'the Affordable Care Act has never been more popular — and it's more popular than the current president.'"  This, it will come as no surprise, is another of the former president's trademark whoppers.  Fox News just released a poll three days ago showing that only 16 percent of registered voters support Obamacare as is, while 57 percent of voters want it fully or partially repealed.

Running The Numbers On Mortality Rates Suggests Obamacare Could Be Killing People.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, a.k.a.  Obamacare) has been an utter mess.  From passage in 2010 with procedural gimmicks to implementation in 2013 with unworkable software, from the loss of doctors and health plans millions wanted to keep to escalating premiums and insurers dropping out of the market, Obamacare has fallen short of nearly every conceivable goal of health-care reform.  There's one single exception:  Obamacare has dramatically expanded health insurance coverage.  This single remaining reason explains why it retains the support of progressives and a significant chunk of the electorate.  All other considerations are secondary, if not irrelevant.  More people have health insurance, so more people are benefitting from improved health outcomes and access to care.  There is only one simple flaw in this reasoning.  It does not appear to be true.

ObamaCare's Sudden Burst Of Popularity Isn't Going To Last.  A Gallup survey out this week finds that ObamaCare has never been more popular, with 55% saying they approve of the law. [...] There's no doubt that at least some of this newfound ObamaCare love is the result of the drumbeat of biased news coverage touting its many supposed benefits, while attacking the House replacement plan.  But even as the public grows to like ObamaCare more, it is hurtling toward disaster.  Last year's massive hikes in premiums and insurance defections are turning out to be just a prelude for what's in store this year.

Gohmert: ObamaCare Replacement Bill Was 'Based on a Lie'.  Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said on "Fox & Friends" [3/25/2017] the premise behind part of the failed ObamaCare replacement bill was "based on a lie." [...] Gohmert said that he and his fellow House Freedom Caucus members were told that language repealing ObamaCare's 'essential health benefits' and regulations could not be included in the House bill because it would endanger the ability to pass the replacement with just a simple Senate majority.

Mary Katharine Ham Destroys ObamaCare Lies.  I've been a fan of Mary Katharine Ham for years and absolutely love any chance to see her go toe-to-toe with liberals on healthcare.  She's sharp, articulate and knows how to use the medium of TV effectively.  In a sharp debate, watching her, on attack or defense, reminds me of Olympic Fencing.  Yesterday morning [3/23/2017], Mary Katharine appeared on CNN to discuss the battle to repeal ObamaCare and she lit up show anchor Chris Cuomo.  While it's unclear to me whether she supports the Trump Administration's current SwampCare effort, she is wholeheartedly opposed to keeping ObamaCare intact.  In her segment with Cuomo, Mary Katharine pushed back hard against the idea that conservative opposition to ObamaCare is about "cheap" issues.

Obama Appears on Morning of Obamacare Replacement Vote to Insist ACA Not a 'Job-Killer'.  Former President Obama surfaced this morning to defend the Affordable Care Act as House Republicans tried to wrangle last-minute votes for today's promised vote on the American Health Care Act.  "Ultimately, after a century of talk, decades of trying, and a year of bipartisan debate, our generation was the one that succeeded" in passing healthcare reform, Obama declared in a statement issued by his office.  "We finally declared that in America, healthcare is not a privilege for a few, but a right for everybody."

The CBO Didn't Say Anything About 24 Million 'Losing' Insurance.  One, an individual does not "lose" insurance, like it was robbed or fell out of a coat pocket, if that person voluntarily chooses to forgo it.  Such behavior is more likely when it doesn't carry a fine.  Some people might not want to spend their money on coverage; others might be priced out of purchasing it, the basis for many conservative critiques of the proposal that are beyond the scope of this writing.  Two, those who are potential Medicaid enrollees cannot possibly lose Medicaid if they don't have it in the first place.

The CBO's Flawed Forecast.  Anyone who tells you that the Congressional Budget Office has found that 14 million Americans would lose their health insurance in 2018 under the House Republicans' health-care bill has either misunderstood the organization's report or is trying to spin you.  The report actually concludes that most of the people who would leave the insurance rolls would do so voluntarily, because under the Republican bill they would no longer be fined for taking that step, as they are under Obamacare.

Gingrich: They Should Abolish the Congressional Budget Office.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich slammed the "corrupt" Congressional Budget Office (CBO) after it released its "disgustingly wrong" score for the American Health Care Act.  During an interview on The First 100 Days on Fox News, the former Republican House speaker [said] "They should abolish the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  It is corrupt it is dishonest," Mr. Gingrich said.  "It was I totally wrong on ObamaCare by huge, huge margins.  I don't trust a single word they published and I don't believe them."

2 Words That Spell Doom For The GOP's ObamaCare Replacement Plan.  When selling the House Republican's health care bill, Speaker Paul Ryan says that ObamaCare is failing and must be replaced.  He also promises that the GOP bill will "ensure vital protections for patients with pre-existing conditions."  There is just one problem with this formula.  ObamaCare is failing precisely because of those very "vital protections" Ryan wants to preserve.

Don't Trust Those CBO Health Care Numbers.  Shortly before President Obama signed ObamaCare into law, the CBO announced its findings that the health reform would cut the deficit in the first decade by a modest $119 billion, and possibly slash them by a trillion dollars in the second decade.  The CBO also predicted that 23 million people would be enrolled in ObamaCare exchanges this year, and that the number of uninsured would have gone down by 30 million.  None of that came to pass.  ObamaCare didn't cut the deficit in its first decade — a combination of the failure of parts of the reform to work as expected, unrealistic cuts to Medicare, and politically-motivated changes made unilaterally by the Obama administration.  Now, costs for Medicaid and the insurance subsidies are climbing faster than the CBO had expected.  As a result, the law is on track to add to deficits in its second decade as well, a fact we reported in this space recently.  As for enrollment, the number that actually signed up in the exchanges was less than half the CBO's projection.

Pelosi: Obamacare Drafting Process 'One of the Most Transparent in Recent Memory'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) tweeted on Tuesday [3/7/2017] that the drafting process for the Affordable Care Act was "one of the most transparent in recent memory."  Pelosi defended the health care law the day after House Republicans unveiled their Obamacare replacement plan on Monday night.  Some lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), criticized House Republican leaders for drawing up the bill in a secret fashion.  The House's top Democrat built on this criticism and took to Twitter on Tuesday to argue the Affordable Care Act was crafted in a transparent manner.  She cited the number of hearings and meetings that were held before Obamacare was passed.

No, Repealing Obamacare Won't Kill Off Thousands of Americans.  Among the most popular of the potentially looming tragedies cited by proponents of Obamacare is that thousands of Americans will die if Republicans are successful in repealing it.  David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler at the Chicago Tribune, for example, posit that "repealing Obamacare will kill" as many as 43,000 people every year due to a lack of health insurance.  Note that they don't just suggest that 43,000 people will die as a result of the repeal.  Specifically, their argument is that Republicans, and you that may support the effort toward repeal, will kill them.  It's hard to miss the political currency they're aiming for with the shocking headline.  Their argument is utterly insane.

No, Obamacare Has Not Saved American Lives.  Repealing the Affordable Care Act, Democrats say, will "make America sick again."  Bernie Sanders warns "36,000 people will die yearly as a result."  But as with most ACA defenses, these claims describe an imaginary health-care reform that works, not the legislation passed by Congress in 2010.  In reality, the best statistical estimate of the number of lives saved each year by the ACA is zero.  Some studies do suggest that health insurance can saves lives.  But these focus either on individuals with private coverage or on the Massachusetts health-care reform law of 2006, which primarily expanded private coverage within the Bay State.  The ACA, by contrast, is primarily an expansion of Medicaid; in recent years, the share of Americans with private insurance has declined.

Obamacare Sees Miraculous Popularity Surge.  Having endured years of public scorn, Obamacare is reputedly enjoying a sudden and timely increase in popularity.  USA Today breathlessly reports a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF):  "More people view the health law favorably than at any point in nearly seven years."  The story implies that the threat of repeal has succeeded where years of taxpayer-funded promotional campaigns failed — moving the needle on Obamacare's favorability ratings. [...] If fake news includes a deliberate and obviously concerted refusal to report important data in order to create a false impression about a public opinion survey, then the reporting about the KFF survey certainly qualifies.

Dumbest Ever Defense of Obamacare.  Rational observers of Obamacare's accelerating implosion will be drawn inexorably toward the conclusion that it is, as Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini put it last week, "in a death spiral."  However, as our friends on the left have clearly demonstrated since November, they are anything but rational.  Thus, they continue to delude themselves that "reform" will somehow survive the laws of economics as well as the ire of the electorate.  This fantasy has led to all manner of absurd claims about the law's alleged accomplishments.  The latest miracle they have attributed to Obamacare is a decline in the divorce rate.

Where Did The Uninsured Go Under ObamaCare?  Not Where You Think.  A new report from the Centers for Disease Control shows that the uninsured rate has hit a historic low, or at least it's the lowest it's been in the 20 years the CDC has been tracking it.  This is being treated as trouble for Republicans who want to repeal ObamaCare, since it seems to indicate that the law is working as promised.  But does it?

The Democrats forced this fiasco on the country and they own it.  Shortly following Donald Trump's upset victory in November, the Obama administration and the legacy media began telling us that Obamacare enrollment was skyrocketing due to fear of the president-elect's pledge to repeal the law.  Three days after the election, for example, CNN produced this headline:  "Obamacare sign-ups surge after Trump's election."  Obama himself boasted in December about "the biggest day ever for Healthcare.gov."  Well, like everything else these people told us, this was hogwash.  The actual signup numbers are in, and they are the lowest ever.

How to Defeat Weaponized Empathy.  Weaponized Empathy is everywhere.  Healthcare policy is not judged on how efficient it is, or the quality of care provided, or even the cost of that care.  It is judged solely on how it helps the poor.  If it cost a million dollars per person, per year, but the poor didn't have to pay the bill, Progressives would deem it great success.  Non-Progressives would be pointing out that it's expensive, the quality of the product was poor, and it was bankrupting the country.  The response from the Progressives would be simple.  They would pull out a picture of a child on Obamacare, or whatever government program they were promoting.

Are Those 'ObamaCare Saved My Life' Stories Legitimate?  CNN ran an Op-Ed called "ObamaCare saved my life.  What now?" and Salon one titled "ObamaCare saved my dad's life — and then he voted for Donald Trump."  Another reported on how a "Sedona cancer survivor tells Paul Ryan:  'ObamaCare saved my life.'"  Huffington Post had a piece about how "ObamaCare Saved My Mom's Life."  The list of such stories grows by the day.  They all tell the same tale.  Someone got insurance because of ObamaCare, got treated for a disease, and didn't die.  The stories are meant to build support for keeping ObamaCare in place now that Republicans have the chance to repeal it.  Get rid of ObamaCare and people will perish, is the implicit message.  Were these folks actually saved by ObamaCare?

Before and After Obama: 10 Signs of a Diminished America.  No amount of Democrat spin can conceal the breathtaking disaster of ObamaCare, which spent $2 trillion to achieve the goose egg of net improvement in Gallup's poll.  Remember when the liars who foisted the Affordable Care Act on us claimed it would be revenue-neutral?  The same Democrats who spent the past six years resolutely ignoring the victims of ObamaCare — the millions who lost good health care plans, paid wildly inflated premiums and deductibles, or paid a hefty tax for the privilege of not buying a lousy product they didn't want — will now line up human shields and scream about how they'll lose coverage under any repeal plan.  Never has a more callous group of people pretended to be "compassionate" less convincingly.  ObamaCare is imploding, with so many insurers fleeing its mismanaged markets that many Americans are dealing with functional monopolies.  Nothing close to this desperate situation existed before Obama seized control of the health insurance industry.

Watch Kay Hagan Flee Obamacare Questions.  Today, Kay Hagan (D-ObamaCare) gave a press conference after she filed to run for reelection as North Carolina's liberal Senator.  During the Q&A, Hagan was repeatedly asked when exactly she knew that North Carolinians would lose their existing health insurance plans since she was on the committee that helped write the law.  Hagan had no answer to give reporters, so she dodged their question hoping to end the interview. [...] Hagan has previously said, at least 22 times, that if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  There is no question that she doesn't want to admit that she lied to North Carolinians to help sell President Obama's failed health insurance law.

Just repeal Obamacare.  Nancy Pelosi and Jonathan Gruber and associates created a 2,500-page monstrosity that has tentacles into not only medicine but also real estate taxes and income taxes and abortifacients-in-nun's-health-care plans.  This law is, by design, the Gordian Knot:  there is no way, short of another two-year, closed-door, multi-thousand-page effort to deconstruct that mess, except starting from a blanket rejection of this turkey.  This law did not do anything it purported to address except push towards socialized medicine:  you can't keep your plan, you can't keep your doctor, it costs most consumers more (and growing steadily) and the taxpayers incredibly more than we were paying, and except for increasing government dependence, it does not serve more citizens (and non-citizens:  another lie, by the way).  The Death Panels are the only provision in the whole Act actually designed to control cost.  Flush this whole mess!

Why Obamacare's '20 Million' Number Is Fake.  Liberals are notorious for caring about "groups" of people, but when it gets down to individual persons, not so much.  You're about to see this play out in spades as Democrats cry crocodile tears over the coming repeal of Obamacare.  You hear it over and over again:  "This will be catastrophic for the 20 million people who were previously uninsured but now have coverage!  You can't take away their health care!"  First of all, no one is talking about doing that.  Any repeal legislation will have a transition period for those who got coverage through Obamacare to move to new plans.  And second, they will have more choices and better options.

Obamacare — A Scheme To Defraud?  Republicans had nothing to do with Obamacare!  Their every attempt to have input was stopped cold by Democrats and that's an indisputable fact!  ObamaCare was composed, created and drafted and passed by Democrats behind closed doors!  ObamaCare was conceived based upon fraud and deceit, pushed by the President for his own, illegitimate purposes and doomed to fail from the beginning.  If it wasn't doomed to fail[,] the Democrats would not have had to lie about it, would they?  Jonathan Gruber said on National TV that they "couldn't have passed ObamaCare if they told the truth"!

5 Big Myths About ObamaCare's Repeal — Busted.  Democrats are predicting doom and gloom if Republicans make good on their ObamaCare repeal plans.  Aren't these the same Democrats who promised that ObamaCare would be a huge success?

What to expect from Obamacare's replacement.  Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid paused on his way out the door to warn, "People are going to die" if the health-care law is repealed.  His successor, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, was only slightly less gloomy, warning of "chaos" and claiming ObamaCare repeal would "make America sick again."  New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggested Republicans were preparing to "snatch insurance away from millions," while a CNN report claimed that repeal would lead to the loss of 3 million jobs.  Let's all get a grip.  Initially, any changes will be very small and incremental.  Repeal won't happen overnight, or all at once.  Rather, Republicans are likely to establish a sunset date, three or four years from now, allowing time to craft a replacement.  Still, sooner or later, we'll be living under a very different health-care system.  Therefore, over the next few days, we'll take a look at what it's really going to mean for health-care consumers, patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers, businesses and taxpayers.

Poll: Schumer's 'Make America Sick Again' slogan bombs.  The Democrats' new healthcare slogan, "Make America Sick Again," is a clunker with a majority of voters, according to fresh data from a Republican pollster.  The national survey, conducted for a GOP political group, asked 1,000 likely voters if they agree that, "If Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act, it will make America sick again."  Overall, only 32.1 percent of voters agreed, including, at 57.1 percent, a majority of Democrats; 64.8 percent of Independents disagreed, as did 85.9 percent of Republicans.

Incurable Obamacare.  Democrats are addicted to Obamacare.  It has performed poorly, alienated far more people than it has aided, and been a political disaster.  Yet Democrats can't shake it.  In 2010, it was the issue that delivered the House to Republicans.  In 2014, it gave them the Senate.  In 2016, it was one of the keys to Donald Trump's capture of the White House.  After all this, a rational party would want to scrap Obamacare or modify it significantly.  President Obama has tinkered but nothing more.  Democrats act as if it is as essential to national wellbeing as Medicare and Social Security.  It's been "a big success," House minority leader Nancy Pelosi declared last week, and there were no reports of eye rolling among her colleagues.  "We [had] three goals.  One was to lower cost, [an]other to improve benefits, and the third, to increase access."  That sounds great, but it's only true for those who had no health insurance and now get it free (at taxpayers' expense).  The rest of us pay more and our access to specific policies and doctors is limited.

Nancy Pelosi:  Obamacare Was 'Bipartisan' Legislation.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) now says the process of passing Obamacare in 2010 was "bipartisan," and that only "tweaks" were made to the healthcare law using the reconciliation budgetary process.  Pelosi's comments come as Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump begin the process of repealing President Barack Obama's signature legislation.  Obamacare passed in the House on March 21, 2010 with no Republican votes in favor of it and 34 Democrats voting against it.

The GOP Does Have A Plan To Replace Obamacare.  That's What Scares Democrats Most.  So ["]Make America Sick Again["] is the slogan Democrats cooked up to oppose Republican health-care reform efforts.  That's because, as you may recall, before 2010 America's streets were strewn with the bodies of the neglected and dead.  Since Democrats are focusing their campaign on the myth that Obamacare is working for most Americans, it's imperative they create the impression no viable alternative exists.

Obama: GOP 'Afraid' to Show America What They Will Replace Obamacare With.  Friday [1/6/2017] on a live webcast for Vox, President Barack Obama said the Republicans were "afraid" to show their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.  Obama said,"The strategy of repeal first and replace later is just a huge disservice to the American people."

When we look back on the Obama years, which legacy is worse, failure or scandal?  When Obama became president in 2009 and enjoyed significant Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, he and his colleagues devoted themselves entirely to an issue nowhere in the Constitution — health care.  They did not address other issues dear to them and their base, such as guns, abortion, taxes, war, jobs and civil liberties.  Rather, they sought to alter radically the relationship of the federal government to every person in America by imposing upon each of us the obligation to purchase a product — namely, health insurance — whether we wanted it or not.  The abominable statute they enacted, which has caused millions of folks to lose their primary care physician and millions more to see their premiums skyrocket and still millions more to see their full-time jobs become part-time, has acquired the nickname Obamacare.  Instead of reducing taxes or regulations or spending so more folks would have better-paying jobs, the president and his folks were determined to tell us all how to stay healthy.  Obamacare passed on a party-line vote, with not a single vote to spare in the Senate.

Broken: The Sickening, Stale, and Worn Out Narratives of the Left.  Instead of picking apart mistakes by Trump, let's focus on the damage the Democrats have done. [...] They were on the way to destroying health care, paving the way for massive government control of doctors, insurance companies, and yes, us as patients.  The evidence is in:  Obamacare was a failure.  They lied to get it passed, they lied to keep it, and they are lying about how good it is now.  Thankfully, most people understand they now have a pig in the poke that costs a ton, and they can't use it.

The Scandals That Valerie Jarrett Overlooked.  At the time it [Obamacare] was enacted, the president argued vociferously that the financial consequence of not obtaining health insurance — the penalty for disobeying the law — was not a tax.  He made that argument because he had promised Democrats — many of whom lost their congressional seats for going along with his utopian experiment — that he would not raise taxes to accomplish his purposes.  When the statute was challenged in the federal courts and the various challenges were consolidated before the Supreme Court, the challengers did not dispute the claim that the penalty was not a tax. [...] Yet notwithstanding agreement among the parties before the Supreme Court and notwithstanding the absence of any evidence that the penalty was a tax, the Supreme Court made new law by declaring this non-tax to be a tax and then ruling that Congress can tax anything it wants — so Congress can force you to purchase a product you don't want by taxing you if you fail to make the purchase.

Obama Still Doesn't Get America.  According to the Supreme Court, Obamacare was a tax bill when Obamacare's fines for not buying insurance was an issue before it, but suddenly became not a tax bill when passed by Congress, because it originated in the Senate, while tax bills must originate in the House, according to our Constitution.  Congressional Republicans curled up in fetal positions, and even the Permanent Government in DC, including the CIA, FBI, IRS and DOJ, all failed in keep their reputations for integrity.  Even many states bowed down to the dictates of DC.

President, Dems own ObamaCare disaster despite lame talking points.  A desperate President Obama went to Capitol Hill Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to try and save his disastrous health care law, but all he managed to do was get left-wing lawmakers to back the monumental failure with old, tired and divisive rhetoric.  They want to scare the American people because Republicans want to repeal and replace ObamaCare.  But all they can offer are lame talking points.  "The Republican plan to cut health care wouldn't make America great again, it would make America sick again," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.  Democrats were so proud of the clever play on Trump's campaign slogan that each one rushed to the podium to repeat it.  Over and over.

Obamacare:  Repeal Now Replace Later.  No competent doctor treating a gangrenous leg would allow the mortification to advance while agonizing over what brand of prosthetic should replace the necrotic limb after amputation.  Yet the Democrats, the legacy media, and even some pusillanimous conservatives are urging congressional Republicans to do something equally irresponsible with the disease known as Obamacare. [...] The voters know that Obamacare itself has caused millions to lose their health coverage, created chaos in the individual insurance market, and reduced access to care.  Moreover, they are all too well aware of the fact that the "Affordable Care Act" has rendered their own care less affordable by dramatically increasing their out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Whole lotta lyin' goin' on.  By just about everyone's reckoning, the so-called signature achievements of the Obama years are the enactment of Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal.  They have a lot in common.  Both are ruinous and both were built on an edifice of bald-faced lies.  President Obama is the lyin' king and these are the lyin' years.  We recall the foundational lies of Obamacare:  If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.  If you like your doctor, you can keep him.  Obamacare will save the average family $2500 a year.  Obama enunciated these lies in a manner suggesting that anyone who disputed them was an idiot.  The compilation below documents Obama's incessant reiteration of the lie about keeping your health care plan.  Our familiarity with it should not dull our contempt for the liar, his partisan allies and his mainstream media adjunct.

No, ObamaCare Is Not Suddenly On The Mend.  On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration and the looming repeal of ObamaCare, Democrats are making claims that the law is just now starting to work as promised.  It's a convenient narrative for the left, but totally false.

'Legacy': 10 Ways Barack Obama Broke the American System.  [#$] Obamacare.  The sweeping plan for "universal" health insurance sought, fundamentally, to make individuals dependent on the state, the better to open the door to even more sweeping changes.  But it was the process of passing the bill that caused the real damage.  To pass Obamacare, Obama bent and broke procedural rules; lied, repeatedly, about the policy; disguised a tax as a fee; and bullied the Supreme Court into compliance.  It was the first major entitlement passed without bipartisan support.

5 times Obama lied to your face.  [#4]  As Obama was pushing for support for the Affordable Care act, he attempted to eliminate Americans' hesitation with his repeated promise, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."  But the Obama administration knew this was a false statement as he was saying it.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that millions of Americans would lose their plans — and they were right.  Obama's "keep your plan "statement was dubbed, "Lie of the Year" by Politifact in 2013, and Obamacare has since continued to unravel.

No, Obamacare Repeal Isn't a Tax Cut for the Rich.  Now that the last significant obstacle to Obamacare repeal is finally packing his bags and preparing to vacate the White House, the defenders of the law are desperately casting about for some talking point that will convince the public that the risibly titled "Affordable Care Act" should be left in place.  Having failed to get anywhere with doomsday studies claiming that repeal will render tens of millions uninsured, they have reverted to an old lefty refrain.  The Republicans, they tell us, are in a rush to get rid of Obamacare because they want to give tax cuts to the rich.

Obamacare is an abject failure, time for it to ride off into the sunset.  In retrospect, you honestly must admire the Machiavellian way that the Obama administration sold their health care reform law:  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."  "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."  "We are going to bend the cost curve down."  "No longer will being a woman be a pre-existing condition."  The simplest way to understand the essence of Obamacare is this:  If you already had health insurance, Obamacare would make it worse (more expensive, higher deductible, higher co-pays).  If you did not have health insurance, and it provided coverage for you, then you would benefit.  In rough numbers, 20 million Americans were newly covered, but fully 12 million of them were covered through Medicaid.  They took the health insurance of 75 percent of the country, and made it worse to provide health insurance to another 8 percent.  How could they have possibly sold that?

Obama: 'Principle Of Competition' 'At The Very Heart' Of Affordable Care Act.  During Saturday's [12/17/2016] Weekly Address, President Obama stated, "it's this principle of competition that's at the very heart of our health reform.  In fact, it's the reason we call it the Affordable Care Act; it makes insurance companies compete for your business, which is helping millions afford the care that helps them get and stay healthy."

Did ObamaCare Add 20 Million To The Insurance Rolls?  Not Even Close.  As soon as Donald Trump won the election, left-wing groups were busy predicting that, should he succeed in repealing ObamaCare as promised, anywhere from 20 million to 37 million would lose coverage.  An analysis by the Heritage Foundation shows that these claims are largely based on phony numbers coming out of the White House.

Did Obamacare Really Insure 20 Million?  One of the most frequently heard claims from the Obama administration is that Obamacare is responsible for insuring 20 million adults who were previously uninsured.  But Heritage Foundation research shows the administration's figure is off by a few million.  The Department of Health and Human Services claims that 20 million people have gained health coverage since the enactment of Obamacare in 2010 through early 2016. [...] However, it is important to note that the administration's coverage estimates are based on survey data rather than calculating the actual change in coverage in different markets.

Fake News About Obamacare Repeal.  If you are among the few Americans who still take the legacy media seriously, you probably believe that repealing Obamacare will result in a cataclysm comparable to that which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.  Since Donald Trump won the presidential election, countless "news" stories have appeared in "serious" outlets with headlines such as this howler from the Atlantic:  "Repealing Obamacare Could Leave 59 Million Americans Uninsured" and this balderdash from the Washington Post:  "Hospitals warn Trump, Congress of massive losses with Affordable Care Act repeal."  These are classic examples of fake news from the people who invented the genre.

The Democrats thrive on fear:
Pelosi on Ryan's Medicaid Plan:  People 'Won't Be Able to Go to Their Own Doctor'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) proposal to cut Medicaid spending over time to help balance the federal budget would prevent seniors from seeing the doctor of their choosing.  "And I might add with what they want to do to the Affordable Care Act and what they want to do in the Ryan budget to Medicaid — a trillion dollars over 10 years taken out of Medicaid," Pelosi said.  "Two thirds of that goes to long-term heath care to our seniors."  "They won't be able to go to their own doctor if you take this away," Pelosi said.

Who Killed Obamacare?  Obamacare's individual markets are a twisted wreckage.  Insurers are fleeing them, consumers are shunning them, and Democrats are looking for someone to blame.  They've found their culprit in Donald J. Trump.  To hear Obamacare enthusiasts tell it, the exchanges were and are vibrant marketplaces where young and old, healthy and infirm, rich and poor find affordable coverage that meets their needs.  Then voters went off their meds and elected Mr. Trump.  His pledge to repeal and replace the law threatens to kill these thriving enterprises in their prime.

Don't Let Democrats Define The Obamacare Debate.  Obamacare is one of the great political disasters in recent American history.  It is partly responsible for the wide-ranging losses of the Democratic Party over four consecutive elections, not to mention a fraying of the political order.  You wouldn't know this if you only listened to liberals, who are still trying to dictate the contours of the debate. [...] In the lead-up to the passage of Obamacare, the entire Left kept referring to a bill that blew up the health-care system as "reform."

Gruber Still Lying About Obamacare.  A stable human being, having earned national notoriety by admitting that he participated in a conspiracy to deceive the voters on an important public policy issue, would not expect them to believe anything else he had to say on the subject.  This would be particularly true if he had also said that the deception was predicated on the stupidity of those voters.  Jonathan Gruber committed both offences, of course, but he evidently isn't "stable" in the way psychiatrists use the term.  He not only expects to be taken seriously on the same issue, he's still trying to deceive the public.

'Nobody Believes You, Doctor' — Tucker Carlson SPANKS Obamacare Architect With Facts, Logic.  Tucker Carlson interviewed Ezekiel Emanuel on his new primetime Fox News show Tuesday night, an interview the Obamacare architect probably wishes he skipped.

Obama has just suffered one of the harshest repudiations on record.  Obama's signature legislative achievement — ObamaCare — has been an unmitigated political and policy disaster.  It cost Democrats the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and arguably contributed to Hillary Clinton's defeat last week.  No matter who won the election, the next president and the next Congress face the unenviable task of fixing the enormous mess that ObamaCare created.  Yet at his press conference [11/14/2016], Obama actually said — by way of chastising Republicans for wanting to repeal ObamaCare — that "it's one thing to characterize this thing as not working when it's just an abstraction."

Obamacare's Unconstitutional Origins.  Of all the fraud perpetrated in the passage of Obamacare — and the fraud has been epic — the lowest is President Obama's latest talking point that the Supreme Court has endorsed socialized medicine as constitutional.  To the contrary, the justices held the "Affordable" Care Act unconstitutional as Obama presented it to the American people:  namely, as a legitimate exercise of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.  To sustain this monstrosity, Chief Justice John Roberts had to shed his robes and put on his legislator cap.  He rewrote Obamacare as a tax — the thing the president most indignantly promised Americans that Obamacare was not.

Yes, Obamacare Rate Hikes Do Hurt People with Employer Plans.  Among the most frequently repeated talking points promulgated by the White House and its media allies about Obamacare's latest premium spikes is that they only affect the "small" number of people who buy coverage on the individual market, leaving those with employer-based coverage unscathed.  The New York Times dutifully parrots the party line, "These increases really matter only for those who buy their own insurance."  This is just another in the long list of lies the law's apologists have told to save the President's "signature domestic achievement."  In reality, this premium spike will adversely affect the lives of 177 million Americans.  But before we get to the people with job-based coverage, let's take a look at the actual Americans the Times so lightly dismisses as insignificant.

Obama blames news media for Obamacare's big problems.  President Obama told activists they need to fight through a wave of negative press stories about Obamacare this year to ensure enrollment numbers go up, and said plans are still affordable despite stories saying premiums will rise sharply in 2017.  "We're not going to get that much help from the media," Obama told the more than 25,000 volunteers who joined a White House call with Obama Thursday afternoon.  "This is going to be a ground game."

Democrat Response To Obamacare's Death Spiral Proves They Lied To SCOTUS.  Sure, more Americans will have coverage under the Affordable Care Act — it'll be mandated and subsidized, after all — but we're going raise a bunch of taxes, probably kick you off that plan you love, drive your premiums higher, sue obstinate nuns who refuse to chip in for condoms, and penalize everyone who decides they don't want to participate.  Sound good, America?  One imagines an honest pitch for Obamacare wouldn't have worked six years ago, but this is where we stand today.  Because the law has failed to deliver on its promise of lower premiums, not only for consumers on subsidized state exchanges but for everyone else, millions of young Americans have decided that it makes more sense for them to pay a "tax" than to buy substandard health insurance they won't use.

Lies of Obamacare.  It should be a stunning fact that every proposition on which President Obama promoted the sale of Obamacare was a complete and utter lie. [...] If politicians were subject to truth in advertising laws, Obama would be behind bars.  Obama is incorrigible.  When it comes to lying to advance the cause, he and his Democratic allies simply lack a conscience.  Indeed, they are still lying about it.

Obamacare Architect: 'The Law Is Working As Designed,' 'We Need a Larger Mandate Penalty'.  On Wednesday's [10/26/2016] broadcast of "CNN Newsroom," MIT Economics Professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber argued that "The law is working as designed.  However, it could work better.  And I think probably the most important thing experts would agree on is that, we need a larger mandate penalty."

Flashback To Obama 2010: Under ObamaCare Your Premiums Will Fall "By As Much As 3000%".  As ObamaCare continues to crack up, and premiums are set to soar an average of 22% next year — and as much as 116% in Arizona — it's just good fun to sit back, relax, and press play as we watch President Obama circa 2010 tell us that our premiums are going down by as much as 3000%:  [Video clip]

Pelosi: Obamacare Allows You to Quit Your Job and Become 'Whatever'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that Obamacare facilitates the type of "liberation" that the "Founders had in mind" because it allows you to quit your job and become a "photographer," a "writer," a "musician" — or "whatever."  "As you hear from these stories, this is a liberation," Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday [10/20/2016].  "This is what our founders had in mind — ever expanding opportunity for people.  You want to be a photographer or a writer or a musician, whatever — an artist, you want to be self-employed, if you want to start a business, you want to change jobs, you no longer are prohibited from doing that because you can't have access to health care, especially because you do not want to put your family at risk," she said.

Why Obama Won't Listen to Reason on Obamacare.  One of President Obama's cherished conceits is that disagreement with him can have no rational basis, and it was the theme of his most recent speech in defense of his health-care law. [...] Obama believes that only comprehensive insurance policies are real insurance.  Conservatives generally believe, by contrast, that people should be free to buy cheaper policies that protect them only from financial catastrophes arising from their health needs.

Hillary's Plot Against America.  Barack Obama's oft-quoted promise that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it" has been living up to its dubious distinction granted in 2013 as the "lie of the year."  Actually, it is the biggest lie in decades and he and his people knew it was a lie all along.  Remember that the bill's architect admitted that they relied on the "stupidity of the American people" to help the bill pass and three Obama speechwriters laughed about it on a PBS show.  The lie may have been erased from the Obamacare website after it had served its purpose but many millions are enduring the reality of the disaster.

'I Had Nothing to Do With That!' Obama Dodges Blame For Skyrocketing Premiums.  President Barack Obama offers multiple excuses for why health insurance premiums continue to skyrocket, including blaming Republicans and insurance companies for the problems.  He complains that too many reporters spend more time discussing premium increases than explaining why he isn't responsible for them.  "No, I had nothing to do with that," Obama said, calling it "complicated" despite the "hysteria" that was growing.  Obama traveled to Florida to argue that Obamacare was working well, but needed to be fixed.

ObamaCare Enrollees Face A Rude Awakening In Two Weeks.  President Obama once told the country that ObamaCare was a "great product."  When open enrollment for ObamaCare begins on Nov. 1, millions of Americans will discover just how big a lie this was.

The Clinton Record.  [Scroll down]  Let's look, for a moment, at how successfully Obamacare has helped to cut the cost of insurance premiums.  When the law was being debated and formulated, President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that under his plan, the average family would save up to $2,500 per year in annual premiums.  The reality has been somewhat different:
  •   A 2014 study by the Brookings Institution found that "premiums in the individual health insurance market increased by 24.4 percent beyond what they would have had they simply followed ... [existing] trends."
  •   The S&P Global Institute found that between 2013-15, the average market medical costs per individual increased by 69%.
  •   Premiums for ACA-compliant Qualified Health Plans that were sold to individuals on the Obamacare exchanges, were $2,300 more expensive than premiums for non-Qualified Health Plans, i.e., plans that were in existence before 2014 and did not comply with the mandates of the ACA.
  •   In 2015, premiums for the lowest-cost plans across all tiers — bronze, silver, gold and platinum — increased by a median of 10-13%.
  •   By September 2016, fully 16 of Obamacare's 23 state exchanges had gone bankrupt, with another one — the Tennessee exchange — "very near collapse."
  •   It is expected that by the end of 2016, UnitedHealth Group will have exited 31 of the 34 Obamacare exchanges in which it has participated, while Aetna will have left 11 of its 15 state exchanges.
Meanwhile, Obamacare's insurance policy deductibles are skyrocketing in almost every state.

Fact-Checkers Ignore Hillary's False Claims About ObamaCare.  When a questioner at Sunday night's presidential debate asked about ObamaCare's premium spikes, increasing deductibles and increasingly skimpy coverage, Hillary Clinton quickly ran down a list of great things she claims the law achieved.  Among the alleged benefits were, she said, letting parents keep their kids on their insurance plans up to age 26 (even though most states had this requirement before ObamaCare) and banning pre-existing condition restrictions for employer coverage (which had already been banned or severely restricted for group plans sold in every state).

Dr. Ezekiel "Death Panel" Emanuel blames Republicans for problems With Obamacare.  Obamacare has faced some new problems, including the rising cost of premiums and the shrinking pool of providers participating in the program.  Additionally, not enough young healthy people have enrolled to offset the costs created by less healthy older people.  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the chief architects of Obamacare and the center of controversy over the "death panel," knows who's to blame... Republicans.  You know, the party the Democrats excluded from the law's creation and had nothing to do with its passage.

Obama takes an Obamacare victory lap (with no mention of the lying).  New York magazine published an interview with President Obama Sunday night which is really Obama recounting some of the high profile political arguments of his tenure.  One of the arguments which gets a lot of space is Obamacare. [...] There is [sic] 1,500 words about Obamacare and yet all of it is Obama giving Democrats a pat on the back for pushing it through by any means necessary.  There is not one word about the president lying the American public.

Harry Reid: 'Obamacare Has Been Terrific for This Country'.  The Senate's leading Democrat continues to support the Affordable Care Act, which is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many Americans.  "Obamacare has been terrific for this country," Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told a news conference on Wednesday [9/7/2016].

White House insists everything is OK with Obamacare.  President Obama's chief spokesman said Monday [8/29/2016] that fewer people have signed up for Obamacare than predicted at this point, a few years into its implementation, because private companies did not shed employer-sponsored plans at the predicated rate, not because there are any problems related to Obamacare. [...] [White House press secretary Josh] Earnest was reacting to a string of bad news about the fate of the law, including that fewer people overall have signed up and many of those who have are older and costlier than the healthy people Obama banked on joining.

Massive ObamaCare Rate Hikes Are A Good Thing, White House Says.  Anyone shopping for ObamaCare coverage in Illinois this fall is in for a big shock.  The average increase for cheap Bronze plans is likely 44%.  It's 45% for the lowest-cost Silver plan, and 55% for the cheapest Gold plan.  These are the kinds of rate hikes individuals buying insurance will see across the country, as insurers who've suffered massive losses are getting huge double-digit premium increases approved by state regulators.  Fewer choices and higher costs are not what President Obama promised when he signed ObamaCare into law.  But now, in the face of this market meltdown, the Obama administration put out a report this week that says, if anything, massive rate hikes are good for ObamaCare enrollees.

David Plouffe: 'Public Option' Needed to Save Obamacare.  "How concerned are you that ObamaCare could implode?" Chuck Todd, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," asked former Obama campaign manager and senior adviser David Plouffe on Sunday [8/28/2016].  Plouffe said while "almost all" of Obamacare is working, he believes it's time to consider a "public option" — a government-run health care plan.  "So I think what will happen after this election, though, is obviously you'll have the space to say OK, what is working well?  And I think almost all of it is.  What needs to be strengthened?  I think you'll see a lot of Republican governors now finally accept Medicaid funding."

Obama Knows Obamacare Is Vulnerable.  [W]ith Donald Trump having pulled even — or slightly ahead — in the polls, Obama is genuinely worried about preserving his liberal legacy, particularly the centerpiece of that legacy:  Obamacare.  Obama's speech was a strong one, as he effectively masqueraded as a caretaker of the project that began more than 200 years ago at Independence Hall, rather than as someone who has made "fundamentally transforming" that project his life's mission.  To hear Obama talk about it, one could almost imagine Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and the rest standing around a table and waiting to sign Obamacare, rather than the Constitution.

Keywords:  Ghost writer, plagiarism, illiterate, incompetent, liar, doofus.
New Article on Obamacare is Written by... Obama.  President Barack Obama urged Congress on Monday [7/11/2016] to reconsider offering a government-run health insurance option alongside private plans on the exchanges created as part of his national healthcare law.  In an article published in the online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Obama said the Affordable Care Act had made much progress toward improving access to healthcare and the quality and affordability of care.

Report: Obama Administration Illegally Funded Obamacare With $7 Billion Taxpayer Dollars.  According to a report released today by House Republicans, the Obama administration has unlawfully spent billions in taxpayer dollars to fund an Affordable Care Act program without the prior prerequisite approval from Congress.  The report is the result of an extensive investigation into Affordable Care Act spending.  It reveals that the Obama administration allocated over $7 billion to a cost-sharing reduction program (CSR) without Congressional authority.  "This is stealing from the American people — plain and simple.  To date, the Administration has unlawfully spent $7 billion of taxpayer funding on the CSR program," said Republican Texas Rep.  Kevin Brady, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Regime of Lies.  When Obama was putting all his efforts in passing the Affordable Care Act, he insisted famously that "if you like your doctor or health care provider, you can keep them.  If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too."  The president made such assurances more than 20 times before the law was passed.  Even after the law's signing — and before the full disastrous consequences of the bill were known to the public, Obama was still making such assurances.  "For those Americans who already have health insurance, the only changes you will see under the law are new benefits, better protections from insurance company abuses, and more value for every dollar you spend on health care," he said.  "If you like your plan you can keep it and you don't have to change a thing due to the health care law."

The GOP Plan to Replace Obamacare.  A talking point often heard from the White House, congressional Democrats, and the "news" media concerning Republican calls for the repeal of Obamacare has been that the GOP has no plan with which to replace it.  This has always been fiction, of course, and House Speaker Paul Ryan has once again put the lie to this tired talking point with a 37-page blueprint outlining a clear vision for replacing the widely reviled health care "reform" law.

California's Illegal Aliens Will Qualify for ObamaCare.  Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) was roundly chastised for violating the decorum at a joint session of Congress in 2009, when he pointed out that Obama's claim that ObamaCare would not apply to illegal aliens was a lie.

Seven Giant Scandals That Barack Obama Just Couldn't Keep Undercover!  [#2] The Affordable Care Act:  The dreaded Obamacare.  This was just a horrible, horrible lie perpetrated upon the American people.  "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan!"  He was so adamant about it.  Well, really good liars usually are.  With thousands of peoples healthcare plans dropped, and premiums gone through the roof, it is by far the biggest job-killer today.

This Is Not The America My Parents Immigrated To In 1957.  A massive Health bill affecting about 20% of the US economy is passed despite the overwhelming majority of people against it, and none of the legislators actually aware of what the bill contained until after it was passed.  Does this sound like a representative democracy, or dictatorship?

No, The Public Doesn't Suddenly Support Socialized Medicine.  A new Gallup survey seems to suggest that majority of Americans now back government-run health care. [...] The mainstream press eagerly ran with the story.  The Washington Post, for example, headlined its piece:  "Poll:  Most Americans want to replace ObamaCare with single-payer — including many Republicans."  The ABC News headline blared "Poll Says Majority of Americans Prefer 'Medicare For All' Health Care," and the story led by saying that "A growing number of Americans now support the idea of federally funded health care."  Look more carefully at the poll itself, however, and you see that it doesn't show that at all.

The Pajama Boy White House.  [Scroll down]  Do we remember Jonathan Gruber, the conceited MIT professor and architect of Obamacare, who bragged that he had hoodwinked a supposedly far dumber America in order to ram the Affordable Care Act down its collective throat — while he was paid nearly $300,000 to talk the bill through Congress as a contract analyst for the Department of Health and Human Services?  After President Obama had assured the American people that they could keep their doctors and their health plans, while seeing their premium costs decrease, Gruber high-fived that voters were too stupid to figure out how they had been misled:  "This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes," Gruber crowed.  "If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.  Okay, so it's written to do that. ... Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.  And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really critical for the thing to pass."  Note Gruber's disdain for the public.  Like Pajama Boy, he exhibits a visceral contempt for the supposedly less educated whom he helped to deceive.

Former Obama speechwriters laugh at 'you can keep your plan' promise.  Charlie Rose and a trio of former Obama speechwriters laughed it up this week at the mention of the president's infamous promise that that under the Affordable Care Act, "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan."  The moment occurred during the Monday [5/9/2016] edition of "Charlie Rose:  The Week," as the host and former speechwriters Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau and David Litt discussed the president's writing abilities and his gift for oration.

Rose, Obama Speechwriters Laugh About the President's 'You Can Keep Your Plan' Lie.  Charlie Rose and three of Barack Obama's former speechwriters had a good laugh Monday night while joking about the president's infamous, oft-repeated false promise that under Obamacare, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."  Obama said dozens of times in the run-up to the Affordable Care Act's signing and enactment that no Americans who liked the insurance plan they had would lose it under the Affordable Care Act.  In reality, millions of policies were canceled because of the law's regulations, and Obama was forced to apologize to the American people.  The infamous remark was named 2013's "Lie of the Year" by PolitiFact.

The runt of Rhodes.  Obamacare was built on an edifice of calculated lies.  Some of us could see the propositions on which President Obama sold Obamacare as falsehoods at the time of the selling.  Others have learned from bitter experience after the buying.  President Obama and his team hold a low opinion of the intelligence of the American people.  See, for example, the case of Jonathan Gruber.  Having elected him president twice, we have done much to earn Obama's contempt.

Lies, Lies and More Lies.  Obamacare was passed in 2009 and began to be implemented in 2010.  Obama declared that families could expect $2,500 of savings per year.  I know for a fact my annual medical expenses were $2,000 higher in 2015 than they were in 2010.  The lies of the government and their minions at the BLS are revealed to anyone who cares to open their eyes.  The BLS reported inflation rates for health insurance since 2010 is beyond laughable.  They must have triple seasonally adjusted, massaged, and tweaked these figures to arrive at the absurdly false inflation figures they are feeding to the sheeple.

bamaCare Premiums Rose A Lot More Than HHS Says.  New data out from the Obama administration on Tuesday seemed to suggest that all the hand-wringing over double-digit ObamaCare rate hikes in 2016 was much ado about not that much:  The average exchange premium on plans selected via HealthCare.gov rose a less-jarring 8.4% from 2015.  Yet a close look at the data shows that HealthCare.gov rates actually did rise at least 10% after all, with the average premium rising less, in part, because people were buying less coverage for their money.

Run Against Obama.  As for President Obama's signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, nearly every promise he made regarding the law has proved false.  Remember the assurance that health premiums for the average family would decline by $2,500?  In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, since 2008, average family premiums have climbed a total of $4,865.  The claim that "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" has entered the lexicon of "lying for justice."  What about the promise that the law would not add "one dime to the deficit", or the breezy assurance that signing up on Healthcare.gov would be just like making air reservations on Kayak.com?

Top 10 Misreported or Underreported Stories of 2015.  [#3] Obamacare's Continued Fiasco:  Obamacare's fiascos have never ceased, even if mainstream outlets choose not to cover this legislation's resounding failures.  When news broke that MIT economist Jonathan Gruber's email exchanges with the White House amounted to at least 20,000 pages, this revelation was met with a near complete blackout by the mainstream media.  But when King v. Burwell, a case which could have struck a crippling blow to Obamacare, went before the Supreme Court, the media misled the public and policymakers about this constitutional challenge, claiming it would cause eight million Americans to lose their coverage.  The New York Times falsely cast the words "established by the state" as a drafting error, although that phrase occurs 10 times in the text of the healthcare law.

Obamacare at Six: A Legacy of Deception.  Obamacare just turned six and the president is still attempting to convince a skeptical public that his "reform" law is working.  On the anniversary of its passage, the White House issued a statement from Obama containing all manner of hilarious claims including the following howler:  "Thanks in part to this law, health care prices have risen at the lowest rate in 50 years ... premiums for a family with job-based coverage are almost $2,600 lower than if trends from the decade before the law had continued." [...] The president's claim that job-based family coverage costs less than it would had he refrained from meddling with health care flunks the laugh test.  Employer-based health insurance premiums have continued to rise unabated.

Chelsea Clinton reveals her mom thinks it is 'important' to extend Obamacare to illegal aliens.  [Scroll down]  So the billions of impoverished people worldwide now have an invitation to come to America and sign up for what used to be the finest health care system in the world.  If you can't afford Obamacare, why no problem.  The rest of us will cheerfully pay our taxes and endure further increases in our insurance costs because after all, we owe it to the rest of the world.

ObamaCare's 'Cadillac Tax' Will Hit Chevy-Class Families Hardest, Study Finds.  When it kicks in, it will impose a huge, non-deductible 40% surcharge on insurance premiums above $10,800 for individuals and $29,100 for families.  The tax effectively caps what is today an unlimited tax exemption offered to employer-provided insurance.  MIT economists Jonathan Gruber, who helped design the tax, claimed that only "the top few percent of health plans" would be affected.  The implication of it all was that only the rich would notice any changes.  But a new study published in the International Journal of Health Services shows that middle class families — those with incomes between $38,000 and $100,000 — will bear the brunt of the Cadillac tax.

Why Does John Kasich Keep Lying About Obamacare?  In a January 23 interview with Bill Cunningham on Cincinnati's 700 WLW, Gov. Kasich stuck to his insistence that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion "has nothing to do with Obamacare" and was a decision he made to "get our money back."  States expanding their Medicaid programs in compliance with Obamacare have done so for the promise of vast sums of new federal funding.  Medicaid expansion is central to the Democrats' unpopular 2010 health law.  But according to Gov. Kasich, a Republican, the Obamacare Medicaid expansion is separate from Obamacare and will be funded with Ohio money that would otherwise go elsewhere.

Is Trump The White Obama?  [Scroll down]  Obama's casino gamble was Obamacare.  The folly of taking over one-sixth of the American economy with absolutely no experience in healthcare or economics didn't make a chink in Obama's confidence that his government edict could manage the very bodies of 330 million people.  Even with state exchanges folding, premiums and deductibles soaring, and the very real pain of Americans who can't get the healthcare they want and can't afford the Obamacare they don't want, Obama still declares his healthcare casino a raging success.

Obama is looting the Treasury to pay off insurers.  The Obama administration will tell any lie and break any law to prevent the president's signature health-care program from collapsing.  Insurance companies such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna are losing billions trying to sell ObamaCare plans, and the risk is they'll drop out at the end of 2016.  No insurance companies means no ObamaCare.  In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it.  Now the administration is at it again.

ObamaCare Enrollment Fails To Make It Over Obama's Drastically Lowered Bar.  About 12.7 million people enrolled in ObamaCare plans this year, which is almost 9 million fewer than had once been expected and 1.4 million fewer than the upper boundary of its revised enrollment forecast.  Nevertheless, Health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Burwell declared the year "a success" and claimed that enrollment "exceeded our expectations."  "The marketplace is growing and getting stronger," she said, "and the Affordable Care Act has become a crucial part of health care in America."  In reality, ObamaCare enrollment has hit a wall.

Aetna Joins Growing Chorus Warning About ObamaCare Failing.  ObamaCare was supposed to be on a roll by now, promising 20 million signing up, low cost and stable premiums.  Turns out it's on a roll all right.  It's rolling towards the cliff. Insurance giant Aetna (AET) has joined a growing number of insurers warning that the ObamaCare exchanges are failing in just the way critics said they would.  This year's anemic enrollment won't help.  This week, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini warned that "we continue to have serious concerns about the sustainability of the public exchanges."  Aetna lost more than $100 million last year on the 750,000 enrollees it has through ObamaCare exchanges.

Donald Trump: 'Ted Cruz gave us Obamacare'.  Donald Trump on Wednesday [2/3/2016] leveled a bold accusation at one of his chief rivals for the Republican nomination:  "Ted Cruz gave us Obamacare."  "He'll get up and he'll talk about his relationship with God, his relationship with the Bible, his relationship with all sorts of things and then he'll say Donald Trump loves Obamacare.  It would've been dead if we had a different justice on the United States Supreme Court put there by him," Trump said, referring to conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, whose decisive 2012 vote upheld the controversial health care law.  "He's the one that got Justice Roberts onto the United States Supreme Court," Trump added.  While Cruz vocally supported Roberts' nomination at the time, he was not yet a U.S. senator and therefore could not vote to confirm Roberts to the Supreme Court.

Hillary's Healthcare Lies.  Hillary Clinton is attacking rival Bernie Sanders, calling his plan to replace Obamacare with socialist single payer healthcare a "risky deal" and unaffordable.  She's telling Democrats the survival of the Affordable Care Act depends on her winning the presidency.  "The stakes couldn't be higher," she warned Iowa voters.  Sunday night [1/17/2016] at the primary debate she repeated it, claiming a Clinton presidency is all that stands between Obamacare and its demise.  Not so fast, Clinton.  Obamacare is on the ropes, and it still will be, even if you're elected president.  You're not leveling with the public about the health law's disastrous condition.

Top 10 Lies in Obama's State of the Union.  [#3]  "That's what the Affordable Care Act is all about.  It's about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we'll still have coverage."  That is a cruel joke, given that Obamacare canceled insurance coverage for millions of Americans who did not change jobs.  It also raised deductibles and premiums so high that many insurance companies are leaving the Obama exchanges totally.

More than ten percent of your income is going to Obamacare.  The law that promised to reduce our costs has instead inflated them beyond anything we could have imagined.  Premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and overall health care spending continue to escalate faster than ever, piling increase upon increase, with no relief in sight.  This, of course, on top of the tax hikes needed to subsidize Obamacare for the Taker class so they'll keep on voting Democrat.  Which only means we'll see more stories [...] describing how average Americans can't afford to use their mandatory health insurance.

White House Tries To Put Lipstick On The ObamaCare Enrollment Pig.  The public should know by now to discount the Obama administration's initial enrollment claims for ObamaCare, since they've always been wildly inflated.  This year is no different.  'ObamaCare enrollment spikes," says one news headline.  It's "outpacing last year," says another.  And "young people sign-ups nearly double." [...] But even if enrollment tops 12 million, that's barely more than had signed up last year — when the administration said 11.7 million had enrolled.  Whatever the number is, it's inflated, because the administration counts anyone who went through the process of selecting a plan, not those who have actually paid for it.  It would be like Amazon counting anything anyone put in their shopping cart as a sale.

When factoids rule.  [Obama's] rosy claims for Obamacare are bogus.  Some Americans bought into Obamacare because they had to, or pay severe penalties.  Tens of thousands of employers have limited hiring workers so they won't be forced into the spider web of Obamacare.  Hundreds of thousands have seen their old insurance canceled, rendering the president's famous assurance that "if you like your insurance, you can keep it," nothing more than a cruel lie.  It's not clear that the growth of medical costs is as much a function of expanding technology as it is of inflation, but what is clear is that medical costs are strangling the American middle class.

Did Obama Utter Any Truth About ObamaCare At His Press Briefing?  At his year-ending press conference, President Obama praised the success of ObamaCare, saying that 17 million gained coverage, that the uninsured rate was in the single digits for the first time ever and that health care inflation is at historic lows.  Was any of that true?  It depends on your source.  That 17 million figure comes from a study by the RAND Corporation, which said that by February of this year, 17 million more had coverage than in late 2013.  But Obama's own number crunchers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put the figure far lower than that.  According to the CMS, 8.7 million — or less than half of the RAND number — gained coverage by the end of 2014.  The Census Bureau puts the number at 8.8 million.

Obama shares America's many troubles with another foreign crowd.  President Obama returned from a nine-day, round-the-world tour early this morning.  But not before once again detailing for another foreign audience some of the numerous things wrong with his country. [...] Obama said due to his legislative initiative, millions of Americans willing to pay soaring premiums now have access to healthcare; he called it the Affordable Care Act.  Apparently Obama didn't have time to go into the law's widespread unpopularity, court challenges and collapsing finances.

25 Obama Whoppers for the Media to Chew On.  [#3] "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."  This is the Hydra-headed lie that got Obama re-elected and sent us so far down the road to serfdom we may not be able to turn back.

Democrats Asked for Obamacare but Now Try to Duck Out of Paying for It.  Congressional Democrats led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are quietly working to repeal the "Cadillac tax," a 40 percent excise on certain expensive health-insurance policies enacted as part of the so-called Affordable Care Act, which grows less affordable by the minute.  The Cadillac tax was never going to be long-lived.  It was a lie from the beginning, a part of the great fiction that allowed Democrats to claim that Barack Obama's signature health-insurance initiative would add "not one dime" to the deficit, as the president repeatedly insisted.

America's Soft Tyranny is Hardening.  What is Obamacare if not bureaucratic abuse?  The many lies told in the run-up to its passing are well known now as millions have lost the medical insurance they had.  Those who have signed on are paying as much as 200% more for less coverage.  All the hype about lower costs was lies.  There is no doubt that the administration knew exactly what Obamacare would do to the vast majority of Americans.  It was all part of Jonathan Gruber's plan.  It would submarine them.  It is a massive wealth redistribution scheme but it is failing.  Millions caught in the middle class are simply going without medical insurance.  They have no choice.  Only the people receiving it for free can "afford" it because the rest of us, who cannot afford it, are paying for them.  The media, 90% of which does the administration's bidding, does not report this.

Obama's latest lie: If you like your guns you can keep your guns.  Of course he's lying.  Remember, "if you like your plan you can keep your plan?"  Or, "if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor?"  And, "I'll reduce premiums by $2,500 dollars per year?"  How'd those promises work out for you?  He also "wasn't going" to force you to buy health insurance either.  So have you made your Shared Responsibility Payment yet?  And are you detecting a pattern here?

ObamaCare Enrollment Flatlines As 6th Insurance Co-Op Fails.  With less than a month to go before ObamaCare open enrollment starts, the Health and Human Services Department has massively downgraded how many it expects will sign up.  In a report released Thursday [10/15/2015], HHS said that enrollment will be between 9.4 million and 11.4 million by the end of next year.  In other words, enrollment will be about half what the Congressional Budget Office projected.

Health Premiums Have Climbed $4,865 Since Obama Promised to Cut Them $2,500.  Since 2008, average family premiums have climbed a total of $4,865. [...] "We will start," Obama said back in 2008, "by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family."  That $2,500 figure was Obama's mantra on health care.  You can watch the video if you don't believe it.  And Obama wasn't talking about government subsidized insurance or expanding Medicaid or anything like that.  He specifically focused on employer provided health care.

Strategic Lying and Obama.  [Scroll down]  Essentially, ObamaCare was a manipulation of peoples' emotions in order to initially induce them to accept a set of claims as being true.  Americans were told they could keep their doctors and that health insurance premiums would go down.  Anyone daring to expose the manipulations became an object of scorn and humiliation, via ad hominem attacks.  Yet the Obama White House knowingly mischaracterized the healthcare plan.

Western Civilization: The Final Frontier?  Remember the emotional gambits used to sell ObamaCare?  I do.  I still laugh at the nonsensical stupidity of some of them — like appealing to our heartstrings with examples like the woman who claimed she'd been forced to wear her dead sister's dentures.  Or Sandra Fluke's soulful appeal for her coed friends who didn't have a spare $9 a month for birth control pills.

Turns out Obamacare is a government takeover.  During the legislative debate over the passage of President Obama's healthcare law, supporters of the program were sensitive to any suggestion that it represented a government takeover of the healthcare system.  Back in 2010, PolitiFact branded the charge that Obamacare was a "government takeover" as its "lie of the year."  But as time has gone on, it's become clear that the critics of Obamacare were correct about the government's role under the program — a reality that was reinforced by new federal data.

Health Spending Leaps Upward As ObamaCare Takes Effect.  After trending downward since 2002, national health spending jumped 5.5% in 2014 — the steepest climb in seven years — as ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies took effect, according to the latest data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Spending by the federal government jumped 10.1% last year, compared with 3.5% in the private sector, the report shows.  The finding runs counter to repeated boasts by President Obama that ObamaCare had ushered in the lowest rate of health spending growth in decades.

Remember the 'Affordable' Care Act? Suckers!  You remember how the average family was going to save $2,500 a year on "health care," and how if you liked your plan and your doctor, you could keep them, right?  After all, the president of these United States looked us right in the eye and told us so.  Well, that was then — the baited hook to get us to fall for the scheme — and this is now.

He Lied: Obamacare To Be Opened Up To Illegal Immigrants In California.  When President Obama was pushing Obamacare, he stated before a joint session of Congress in September 2009 that it would not be opened up to illegal immigrants.  Remember what happened next?  Representative Joe Wilson yelled, "You lie!" and it caused quite a stir.  [Video clip]

Ten Broken Obamacare Promises.  Since the passage of Obamacare in 2010, many of the President's famous promises have been routinely broken.  As he so ironically threatened in 2009, "If you misrepresent what's in this plan, we will call you out."  To that end, here are 10 promises of Obamacare that have already [as of 12/18/2013] proved to be broken.

Why Krugman Lies About Obamacare.  We have all known someone who, having paid an exorbitant sum for a car that seems to spend a lot of time in the shop, insists it's the best automobile he's ever owned.  That's Paul Krugman where Obamacare is concerned.  His psychological and professional investment in the perversely titled Affordable Care Act is such that he cannot bring himself to admit that he bought a lemon.  And like the guy with the pricey car that keeps breaking down, his claims about the dysfunctional law are becoming so preposterous that they are literally provoking laughter when he makes them in public.

Obama Tries to Blame Insurers For Coming ObamaCare Rate Shocks.  President Obama is already pointing the finger of blame at greedy insurance companies for what many expect will be huge ObamaCare premium hikes when people go to sign up for their 2016 health insurance.  On his ObamaCare victory tour last week after the Supreme Court ruling on insurance subsidies, Obama bragged at an event in Tennessee about the many wonderful aspects of the law, including the fact that "we're actually seeing less health care inflation."  But then a questioner had the temerity to ask Obama about massive rate hikes in the state: [...]

Obamacare Is Here to Prey.  Saturday morning [6/27/2015], fresh from his latest victory over the rule of law, President Obama delivered his weekly address to the bored technicians and sycophantic aides who make up most of the audience for this anachronistic performance.  His theme was as predictable as it was Orwellian:  "The Affordable Care Act is working, and it is here to stay."  The first half of this assertion fails to pass the laugh test. [...] That it is a failure by every standard set forth by its apologists is of no importance to the President or his fellow Democrats.  They never cared what effect the law would have on the cost, quality, or availability of American medicine.  It was never really about health care.  This is why they have been willing to revise it more than 50 times to keep it alive.

But Did Obamacare Really Save A Kid With A Tumor.  [Scroll down]  "And they've told me that it has changed their lives for the better," the president declared.  "I've had moms come up and say, my son was able to see a doctor and get diagnosed, and catch a tumor early, and he's alive today because of this law.  This law is working.  And it's going to keep doing just that."  After the detailed aside was made, The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to White House press secretary Josh Earnest directly asking for some additional details including the context of the conversation and what were the circumstances leading to the president meeting the mother.  Despite several requests over two days, the White House has refused to substantiate the story.

Obama: 'This Has Never Been a Government Takeover of Health Care'.  In a Rose Garden press conference on Thursday [6/25/2015], President Barack Obama reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding Obamacare subsidies, calling it "a victory for hard-working Americans," adding that "this has never been a government takeover of health care."  "This has never been a government takeover of health care despite cries to the contrary.  This reform remains what it's always been — a set of fairer rules and tougher protections that have made health care in America more affordable, more attainable and more about you, the consumer, the American people.  It's working," said Obama in praising the high court ruling.

Six Times Obama Insisted In His Speech Today That Obamacare Was Working.  As President Obama delivered his remarks today [6/25/2015] in the Rose Garden, he insisted on making one of his assertions clear:  Obamacare was working.  On six different occasions, Obama insisted that his signature healthcare reform law was working.  [Video clip]

From the mixed-up files of Jonathan Gruber.  You have to wonder if the Obama administration has ever uttered a true word about Obamacare.  I say no.  President Obama has shifted the prevarications into overdrive in anticipation of the Supreme Court's imminent decision on the IRS's regulatory revision of the Obamacare law in King v. Burwell.  On the issue before the Court in the case, we await a true word from the Obama administration, but we're not holding our breath.  You may recall that when Jonathan Gruber distinguished himself as the man who dared to tell the truth about the law's exploitation of the stupidity of the American voter and the rationale of the law's design, President Obama and his minions went into "Gruber? Whodat???" mode (to borrow from John Updike).  According to the White House, Gruber had essentially nothing to do with Obamacare.

Obama's grubby deception on Gruber.  Shortly after last fall's election, tapes surfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber smugly describing how deception, "lack of transparency" and "the stupidity of the American voter" had been "critical" in allowing Democrats who controlled Congress to ram Obamacare through in 2010.  This was important because the law Gruber helped write restructured nearly a fifth of the national economy and upended many people's healthcare arrangements.  The Obama administration paid him some $400,000 for his efforts, and he also managed to snag millions more dollars for consulting gigs with various state Obamacare exchanges.  When Gruber's comments surfaced, no one ran away from him as quickly as President Obama, who dismissed him as "some adviser who never worked on our staff."  The president and his officials pretended that Gruber had been a bit player in the passage of the law.

Emails Show Gruber Conspired with White House On Obamacare.  When all of those videos of Jonathan Gruber talking about Obamacare and what suckers the American people were, the White House was quick to throw him under the bus, claiming he wasn't very involved with the creation of the president's signature bill.  But new emails discovered by the Wall Street Journal show that the White House claim was just another Obama lie, Gruber worked with them very closely.  There is even one letter from a senior Obama adviser thanking Gruber, "Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment," [...]

MSNBC roasts White House for downplaying Gruber's role in Obamacare.  Obama's team distanced itself from Gruber last November after it was revealed that Gruber had used phrases such as the "stupidity of the American voter" and noting the "huge political advantage" politicians had in passing Obamacare with little transparency.  Gruber apologized before Congress and called his quotes "glib," the Free Beacon reported.  But emails released to the Wall Street Journal indicate that Gruber was in frequent touch with the White House about the healthcare law and his press interviews about the law.  According to the Journal, Gruber was in touch with the director of the Office of Management Budget, and advisers to President Obama like Joshua Furman and Ezekiel Emanuel.  One email showed Gruber was invited to meet with Obama himself.

Morning Joe Mocks White House for Not Being 'Fully Forthcoming' on Gruber's Reportedly Large Role in Obamacare.  MSNBC's Morning Joe panel Monday [6/21/2015] mocked the Obama administration for not being forthcoming on the large role of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber in the writing and shaping of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.  Gruber, one of the law's architects, caused the Obama administration a huge political headache last November after comments surfaced of him referring to the "stupidity of the American voter" and that it was a "huge political advantage" for the law to be written with a lack of transparency.  Gruber later apologized for the remarks before Congress, calling them "glib."  The White House sought to distance itself from him at the time, with Obama himself calling him "some adviser who never worked on our staff," but the Wall Street Journal revealed "frequent consultations" between Gruber and top Obama staffers.

Controversial MIT economist Jonathan Gruber reportedly played key role in ObamaCare law.  MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who claimed the authors of ObamaCare took advantage of what he called the "stupidity of the American voter," played a much bigger role in the law's drafting than previously acknowledged, according to a published report.  The Wall Street Journal, citing 20,000 pages of emails sent by Gruber between January 2009 and March 2010, reported Sunday [6/21/2015] that Gruber was frequently consulted by staffers and advisers for both the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the Affordable Care Act.  Among the topics that Gruber discusses in the emails are media interviews, consultations with lawmakers, and even how to publicly describe his role.  The emails were released as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legality of federal health insurance exchange subsidies.

20,000 pages of e-mails released showing MIT economist Gruber played key role in Obamacare.  As the Supreme Court prepares to issue its decision in King v. Burwell, whether or not the rewriting of the law's explicit language on state exchanges only being eligible for subsidies is constitutional, embarrassing revelations indicate that deception was indeed part of the strategy of the law's writers.  When videos of Jonathan Gruber boasting to academic audiences that Obamacare passed because of the "huge political advantage" of its lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter," the White House claimed that he was just a minor consultant, not, as some had previously claimed, the "architect" of Obamacare.

Failure Is Woven Into the Fabric of Obamacare.  Obamacare's apologists, tired of being laughed at for claiming "it's working," have adopted a new talking point that they hope will produce less mirth.  They now claim the law is such an integral part of our health care system that it is no longer susceptible to repeal or even revision.  As President Obama recently put it, "This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another....  This is health care in America."  This is a perfectly absurd claim to make about a law that has been in effect for only a year and a half.

The Fantasy that ObamaCare "Is Working".  Sometimes it seems President Obama lives in a parallel universe where facts are floating around to be plucked out of suspended animation.  Never more so than on the effects of the Affordable Care Act.  So let's see whether anything he says on the new law, including that it "is working," comports with the facts: [...]

The Obama Presidency — A Cacophony of Corruption.  [Scroll down]  According the Free Beacon, Obama lied to the American people with his promise, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it" a total of 36 times between 2008 and 2013.  To make matters even worse, last year, Judicial Watch obtained 94 eye-popping pages of documents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revealing that top Obama administration officials knew of, but concealed, security breaches within Obamacare's website in the months leading up to the catastrophic rollout in order to protect Obama's political interests rather than public safety.

Obama's Recent Out-Of-Touch Remarks: What Planet Is He On?  At his news conference closing the G-7 meeting Monday [6/8/2015], Obama declared that ObamaCare's costs "have come in substantially lower than even our estimates about how much it would cost. ... None of the predictions about how this wouldn't work have come to pass."  Everyone here keep the doctor they liked?  Anyone's hours cut to part-time?  Premiums steady?  Everyone get their promised $2,500 health care savings?

Obama Tries To Bully The Supreme Court One More Time.  In Germany on Monday and again on Tuesday [6/9/2015] in a speech to the Catholic Hospital Association in Washington, Obama dusted off the lines he's used time and again to defend ObamaCare. [...] ObamaCare is doing better than expected, the president said, dismissing "the constant doom and gloom predictions" that never "came to pass."  Does he mean "doom and gloom predictions" like "you'll lose your health plan and your doctor because of ObamaCare?"  Oh, wait, that one did come true.  Maybe he meant skyrocketing premium costs.  Oops, looks like that one's happening as well.  We've detailed the many other ways ObamaCare has failed on most of its key promises, so there's no need to do so again.  Except to say each has gotten worse.

Obama Mocks 'Unending Chicken Little Warnings' That Obamacare 'Would End Freedom'.  President Obama defended his signature healthcare law before the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling on Obamacare subsidies, telling the conference of the Catholic Health Association in Washington today [6/9/2015] that "Chicken Little warnings" haven't come true. [...] House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) fired back [...] "For the president to imply that those who oppose Obamacare do so in order to harm our fellow citizens is particularly insulting in light of the fact that it is precisely the president's health care law that is driving up costs for families and businesses and kicking millions of people off of health care plans they had and liked," Price said.

Obama: Obamacare opponents are deeply 'cynical'.  President Obama delivered his sharpest rebuke yet against Obamacare's opponents in a major victory lap speech Tuesday [6/9/2015], as the country awaits a Supreme Court decision that could derail a big part of the healthcare law.  "There's something deeply cynical about constant efforts to roll back progress," Obama told the Catholic Health Association.  "I understand folks being worried before the law was passed and there wasn't a reality there to examine.  But once you see folks having healthcare, you'd think it'd be time to move on."

The White House's Contingency Plan if it Loses on Obamacare at the Supreme Court: Blame Republicans.  The White House has long insisted that it has no contingency plans in place should the Supreme Court rule against the administration in King v. Burwell, a case that challenges the legality of Obamacare's subsidies in the 36 states that opted not to create their own health insurance exchanges under the law.  Even now, with a decision looming, President Obama maintains that there is no ready plan should the High Court side with the challengers.

From ObamaCare to ISIS: The president's fictions of the day.  It's plainly liberating for President Obama to simply deny reality and declare everything just peachy, as he did again Monday [6/8/2015] at the G7 summit in Germany.  Sadly, reality's not cooperating.  One of his fictions du jour:  All's well with Obama-Care.  No joke.  "The thing is working," the president insisted.  "We haven't had a lot of conversation about the horrors of ObamaCare, because none of them have come to pass."

'Successful' ObamaCare Missed 2015 Enrollment Goal By 22%.  Earlier this year, the Obama administration boasted that well over 11 million people had signed up for an ObamaCare plan by the end of the second open enrollment period.  Of course, "signing up" and "paying up" are two different things, which is why the 8 million-plus "sign-ups" Obama was bragging about at the start of last year had dwindled to 6.3 million by year's end.  So now, the White House is saying that 10.2 million have "effectuated" coverage for 2015, which means that they've at least managed to pay their first premium.  This number basically met the goal that the White House set for itself last fall, so it is supposed to be a big achievement.  Except it's not.

Tale of Fail from Coast to Coast.  It's time now for your monthly reminder that Obamacare neither "working in the real world," "proving its critics wrong," nor "blowing away expectations:" [...] Incidentally, every state mentioned in this post was governed by enthusiastic, Obamacare-supporting Democrats during the law's implementation, undermining liberals' excuse that nihilistic and obstructionist Republicans are to blame for the "Affordable" Care Act's myriad failures.

100 Unintended Consequences of Obamacare.  Ever since its passage, supporters of the law have made countless attempts to convince the American people of its viability, dismissing predictions of lost jobs, decreased hours, and rising costs, among others.  Yet from major corporations to local mom-and-pop shops, from entire states to tiny school districts, a wide range of companies and institutions have seen Obamacare's negative impact on their workers, budgets, and production.  Here are 100 examples of how Obamacare is falling short of what was promised.

When elites lie without much consequence, the public follows their examples.  Almost every element of [Obama's] promises about Obamacare — easy online signups, reduced premiums and deductibles, maintenance of current policies and doctors, national savings, and less frequent emergency room use were not just untrue, but realized in advance as simply not possible.

Pelosi: Obamacare, Equal Pay, Amnesty Promote 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Speaking at the Department of Labor to mark National Equal Pay Day, Representative Pelosi said, "The strength of America" is "families, and that means empowering moms and dads.  It means what we did with the Affordable Care Act."  "Our founders," she continued, "they said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Imagine, they put that in a founding document:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  So, all of this with health care and all the related issues, equal pay, all of that, give people a life, a healthier life to pursue their happiness."

Math Is Hard For Obamacarians.  If you are masochistic enough to read the "reporting" of the legacy media on Obamacare, you will have noticed a spate of recent stories with titles like the following from CNBC:  "Health spending post-Obamacare seen $2.5 trillion lower."  This headline is not only awkwardly worded.  It is, like the article over which it appears, misleading.  It misrepresents a new study from the left-leaning Urban Institute concerning projected health care spending in a way that suggests the nation has saved enormous amounts of money thanks to the "Affordable Care Act."  This is absurd, of course, but it highlights an underappreciated element of the health care reform debate — the adversarial relationship that exists between Obamacare's partisans in the press and basic statistics.

Obama's Chicago Presidency.  Some thought Obama's serial untruths about Obamacare would doom the ill-fated program:  Millions really did lose their plans; they lost their doctors as well; Obamacare proved not to lower but to raise costs; it did not shrink the deficit but caused more federal expense.  When Obama picked and chose which parts of the federal law he would enforce, others objected that it was patently illegal for an executive not to faithfully execute laws on the books.  But again, that is exactly the point:  If a president can lie about a program to secure its passage and, when it proves flawed, select elements to discard or delay, then he can do almost anything — and we should appreciate that he can do almost anything.

On anniversary, Obama tells Obamacare critics to 'embrace reality'.  President Obama late Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act while slamming the proposed House GOP budget and calling on critics to "embrace reality." [...] Obama said his signature healthcare reform law in many ways is "working even better than anticipated."

Obamacare's Amazing Wayback Clause.  Obamacare's boosters have made so many implausible assertions about its supposed successes that it's difficult to single out one as the most preposterous.  But any list of their most comical claims would have to include those involving the law's "wayback clause."  Haven't heard of that one?  Well, like the provision authorizing the IRS to issue subsidies via federal exchanges, it's absent from PPACA's text.  Nonetheless, its efficacy is routinely touted by Obamacare's proponents as proof that "reform" works.

5 Big Whoppers Told About ObamaCare On Its 5th Anniversary.  [#1] "In many ways, it's working better than anticipated."  That was how the president characterized ObamaCare over the weekend.  It's hard to know what he could be referring to, since just about every promise used to sell it to a skeptical public is still unfulfilled.  Premiums that were supposed to have dropped by $2,500 went up by more than that.  Millions who were told they could keep the plans and doctors they liked were forced to drop them.  Enrollment has been below expectations, and the share needing subsidies has been much higher.  ObamaCare is covering fewer uninsured than promised, is costing workers jobs, and is hurting part-time and lower-wage workers who have either lost coverage or had their hours cut.

Obamacare 'Doing Even Better Than I Expected' President Says.  President Obama boldly claimed Obamacare is successfully bringing down health care costs, although many of the most problematic clauses of the legislation have been postponed and some of the promises he made turned out to be untrue.  During a speech in Cleveland, Ohio today [3/18/2015], Obama ridiculed Republicans for their "gloom and doom predictions" about his economic policies, including Obamacare.  "Every prediction they've made about it turned out to be wrong," Obama said.  "It's working better than even I expected."

More Phony ObamaCare Numbers From The White House.  The Obama administration says more than 16 million have gained insurance, thanks to ObamaCare.  But a closer look at the numbers shows they're once again playing fast and loose with the data.  A two-page report from the Dept. of Health and Human Services claims the uninsured rate fell from 20.3% to 13.2% since ObamaCare began.  Officials there cheered this news, with one saying that "nothing since the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid has come close to this kind of change."  It's not what it seems.  To get to its 16 million number, HHS uses Gallup poll data — not the Census Bureau's far more comprehensive survey — for its calculations.

Labor Secretary: Reagan 'Was Wrong' About Medicare Leading to Socialized Medicine.  U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says he owns a recording of former President Ronald Reagan claiming that Medicare will lead to socialized medicine and that Reagan "was wrong."  Perez was praising the Affordable Care Act (ACA) at the Consumer Issues Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday [3/13/2015] when he said:  "You know, I've got this thing in my office — it's an album cover of Ronald Reagan in the 60's saying Medicare will lead to socialized medicine."

Among All the Best People.  In 2006 president Obama told an audience that he had "stolen ideas liberally" from Gruber, "one of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles".  Gruber once had multiple contracts worth millions to supply economic modeling to the president's signature healthcare program.  He was riding high.  Then Rich Weinstein an investment adviser from Philadelphia found a series of videos taken at small forums in which Gruber confided to audiences the less than flattering inside dope on Obamacare.  It portrayed an administration laughing at ignorant voters for believing in the promises of the program.  After the videos were publicized Gruber's world began to fall apart.

No, Mr. President, Obamacare Isn't Working.  Last week, the White House took to Twitter for purposes of publicizing its latest Obamacare enrollment blarney.  Far more informative than the tweet's fictitious sign-up numbers was the schmaltzy video to which it was linked.  Staged in the Oval Office, this one-act farce features a simpering HHS Secretary briefing our Thespian in Chief, who then delivers the following soliloquy:  "The Affordable Care Act is working.  It's working better than we anticipated.  It's certainly working a lot better than many of the critics talked about early on."  In Obama's 27-word script, "working" appears three times.  The President doth protest too much, methinks.

Nothing but the Truth.  When challenged, the rank liar distances himself from responsibility for such misremembrances by claiming they were concocted during the fog of war and altered by the passage of time.  But the professional propagandist never revises or defends his fictions, anticipating instead that they will become the new reality.  Indeed, President Obama has never retracted, defended, or justified his comments that "you can keep your doctor and health plan," even though he knew they were false.  It was his intention first to win the public's trust, have millions sign up for ObamaCare, lose their doctors and health plans, and ultimately become part of a single payer system.

11.4 Million ObamaCare Signups Is No Big Deal — Just Ask Obama.  The Obama administration says more than 11 million signed up for ObamaCare this year.  Should anyone believe this number?  Even if it's true, is it a sign of success?  The answer to both is a resounding no.

Shock: Obama Talks Like a Free Marketer on Health Care.  President Obama almost sounded like a free-market health care reformer during a recent interview.  Too bad he can't even imagine letting the private sector fix things.

White House Unaware That 6 Million Americans Will Pay Obamacare Tax This Year.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest described reports that millions of Americans would be getting tax bill because of Obamacare as "inaccurate" just days after the Treasury Department estimated that 6 million Americans will pay about $2 billion in individual mandate taxes this year.  "I don't think it is accurate to suggest that millions of people are going to get a tax bill as a result of this," Earnest said in response to a question Tuesday [2/3/2015] about the millions of Americans who will pay a tax penalty for not having health insurance in 2014.

Healthcare.gov: There Is No Employer Mandate.  Along with the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate has been one of the more controversial aspects of Obamacare.  Implementation of the employer mandate has been delayed twice, and other aspects of the law are being phased in, with "transitional relief" to help businesses cope.  However, according to Healthcare.gov, an employer "mandate" doesn't even exist.

Uninsured Balk at Obamacare Bite.  When it became obvious a couple of years ago that Obamacare would accelerate health care inflation, the law's boosters began claiming that cost control was never its primary goal.  PPACA's promoters had previously promised that it would reduce annual health care expenses by $2,500 per family while improving access and quality of care.  But the facts forced them to abandon that pledge and adopt a safer party line.  As expressed by the New York Times, the new story goes thus:  "At its most basic level, the Affordable Care Act was intended to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance."  A new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation may cause Obamacare partisans to regret retreating to that position.

Report: California's High Welfare Benefits Attract New Immigrants.  In a report entitled "Immigrants Tend to Live in High Welfare Benefit States," published on Jan. 26, 2015, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) determined that "the generous welfare benefits offered by some states have magnetic effects and alter the geographic sorting of immigrants in the United States" — attracting many to California.  The report found that "there is a 'striking and easily observable clustering of immigrants in high-benefit states."  As California rose from offering medium benefit levels in 1970 to "almost the most generous in the nation" by 1990, the benefit levels served as a magnet for less-educated immigrants.

Small Firms Dropping Health Coverage Because of ObamaCare.  When the ObamaCare debate was raging five years ago, advocates insisted that the law would have only a minimal impact on employer-provided health plans.  "A key goal of the bill," explained ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber, "was to leave those who are happy with their employer-sponsored insurance alone."  But a survey by Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., adds further evidence that this promise was completely bogus.

The Greatest Scam in American History Is About to Hit Home.  John Roberts was right:  of course Obamacare was a tax.  And not just a tax, but a massive new welfare program balanced on the backs of the kulak middle class in the guise of "health care reform."  Like all modern Democrat-led expansions of government, it came as a wolf in sheeple's clothing, a nasty measure passed by stealth with malevolence aforethought.

Gruber in 2009: ObamaCare won't be affordable, contains "no cost controls".  Conservatives always knew it was a lie.  Nothing about ObamaCare added up.  Even a cursory glance at the law revealed that it would lead to higher premiums, higher deductibles, less choice, and rationed care.  You didn't have to "pass it to find out what was in it."  The impact of ObamaCare was always inevitable.  But still, the left clung to their self-destructive lies like a drowning man with an anvil.  Now, a new document shows that the administration knew it was shoveling manure all along.

Vermont Auditor Reports Jonathan Gruber Overbilled State by At Least $48,000, Calls in Attorney General.  In a 54-page memo, Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer confirms that embattled Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber overbilled the state in invoices he submitted for work Gruber claims was performed by research assistants.  "The evidence suggests that Dr. Gruber overstated the hours worked by the RA, but we have insufficient documentation to say any more about his inconsistencies and questionable billing practices.  I have referred the matter to the Attorney General for his consideration, which is standard procedure in such circumstances," Hoffer said in the conclusion of his memo, released Monday [2/23/2015].

Five Reasons Why Gruber Deserved Three Pinocchios.  [Scroll down]  To sum all this up, Gruber's claim that he was concerned the federal government might not set up an exchange makes no sense.  The exchange was required by law and he knew it.  But there is also no way to mesh Gruber's claim about a possible delay in federal implementation with what he said on January 10, 2012.  Gruber never mentioned the federal exchange, not as a threat in and of itself and not as a qualifier to the threat of state's [sic] not setting up their exchanges.

Hey GQ, can't find any crazy Democrats? Here are 16.  [For example,] MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber, paid architect/spokesman for ObamaCare:  Tapes emerged of him saying that only the stupidity of American voters allowed ObamaCare to pass.  Then, in Congressional testimony, suffered an unfortunate public episode of schizophrenia as he called himself a liar for all the times he'd previously said he helped write ObamaCare.

The Man Who Discovered the Gruber Vids.  James O'Keefe has just released a video featuring an interview of the man who brought the videos of MIT economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber to public attention.  The interview with "Rich" — the man who — is on camera, but behind a shield of anonymity. During the interview, "Rich" explains that Obamacare enacts a covert agenda:  a two-hundred-and-fifty billion dollar per year tax grab.

James O'Keefe Interviews the Man Who Discovered Jonathan Gruber Videos.  Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe III sat down for an exclusive interview with "Rich" — the man who discovered videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragging about lying to the American voters and taking advantage of their "stupidity" to sell President Obama's unpopular health care law.  After multiple videos surfaced showing Gruber saying more or less the same thing on a number of academic panels across the country, O'Keefe sought out the man behind the releases, now collectively known as 'Grubergate.'

Liar-in-chief.  Senate Democrats rushed to insert language into the healthcare bill to require verification of citizenship to receive government healthcare.  It wasn't in there Wednesday night when President Barack Obama claimed, erroneously, that his bill ensured illegal aliens would not receive the taxpayer-funded healthcare.  Republicans in the House tried to insert language for verification, but Democrats defeated those efforts.  Obama knew this on Wednesday night when he spoke to Congress and the American people.  Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) knew this, too, when he called the president out on his lie during the speech.

10 More "You Lie" Moments On Health Care.  The aftermath of Joe Wilson shouting out "You lie" at a shameless liar in the midst of a shameless lie about health care has turned out to be one of the most Orwellian moments in recent memory.  After Wilson's outburst, liberals, in and out of the mainstream media, rushed to tell us that it was Wilson, not Obama who was wrong.  Why, there was simply no way that illegals would be covered!  But then, a funny thing happened:  the Senate started working to close the loophole that Wilson pointed out.  You know, the one that allowed illegal aliens to get coverage.

You Mislead!  It is a good thing that other congressmen did not follow Rep. Joe Wilson's lead.  If they yelled out every time President Obama said something untrue about health care, they would quickly find themselves growing hoarse.

Vermont Governor Suspends Single-Payer Plans After Breitbart Reporting on Jonathan Gruber.  The shocking news Wednesday that Governor Peter Shumlin (D-VT) has abandoned plans to introduce his long promised single-payer health care system to the Vermont Legislature in 2015 was a huge victory for conservative new media. [...] Though Vermont's two mainstream outlets — WCAX television and Gannett's Burlington Free Press — did little to move the story forward, new media outlets and talk radio were all over it.

MN State Rep Wants $329,000 Refund from Jonathan Gruber for Work With 'Beyond Laughable' Error Rates.  Minnesota State Representative Greg Davids is calling for embattled MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber, the "architect" of Obamacare, to return all $329,000 he was paid by the state of Minnesota as a subcontractor on a 2011 contract to analyze the state's plan to develop its Obamacare health care exchange, MNSure.

The Architect of Obamacare Speaks.  Jonathan Gruber's testimony before Congress last week was a series of apologies, evasions, denials, and outright lies.  The MIT professor widely acknowledged to be the "architect of Obama-care" before it was known that he attributed passage of the law to legislative deception and the "stupidity of the American voter" began his opening remarks by declaring:  "I was not the 'architect' of President Obama's health care plan."  He later refused to say how much money he'd made from his consulting and speeches on Obama-care.  But the most staggering and consequential falsehood spoken by Gruber came when he tried to explain away his previous claim that states do not qualify for subsidies under Obamacare if they do not set up their own exchanges (the subject of a Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell, that could destroy the law).

Gruber Talks About Writing Obamacare; Said Under Oath He Didn't Write It.  When MIT professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber testified in front of Congress earlier this week about the lack of transparency used to deceive the American people about the Affordable Care Act, he claimed under oath, "I am not the architect of Obamacare."  For reference, the dictionary definition of "architect" is "the deviser, maker or creator of anything."  During an exchange with Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis, Gruber said he did not "draft the legislation" and argued he was simply an adviser to the White House before Obamacare was pushed through in 2010.

An Angry Dad's Warning to Dr. Gruber.  As an MIT professor, it is your place to do so, and our place as unfortunate rubes to just deal with it.  This faux superiority is obviously what was rolling around in your head as you made statements about the "stupidity" of the voters and the "lack of transparency" being a plus — not to mention the need to lie about the loss of coverage options and doctors.  These were no accidents.  As Trey Gowdy pointed out in the Issa Committee hearing, you said such things over and over again.  As Darrell Issa added, these statements were apparently popular with your audiences as well.

Jonathan Gruber reveals the arrogance of liberals.  Jonathan Gruber — the source of more smoking guns than the battle of Gettysburg — recently appeared before a hostile House committee.  The good professor, you might recall, is an MIT economist who played a significant (and paid) role in producing and defending the Affordable Care Act.  He also later admitted, in an astonishing variety of settings, that the law was written in a "tortured way" to hide tax increases and other flaws.  "Lack of transparency," he cheerfully conceded, "is a huge political advantage.  And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."

Jonathan Gruber Lied To Congress About Not Writing Obamacare.  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber lied to Congress when he said that he did not write Obamacare.  Gruber said in a heated exchange with Wyoming Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis at Tuesday morning's Oversight hearing that he did not write Obamacare.  But in this video, produced by a man named Philip Kerpen, Gruber tells a classroom of students that he, in fact, wrote Obamacare.  [Video clip]

Gruber subpoenaed over ObamaCare contracts.  ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber has been subpoenaed for documents related to his work on the healthcare law after refusing to give details about his compensation to House lawmakers.  House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issued the order late Thursday, asking for a full account of Gruber's contracts with federal and state health insurance exchanges.

In a new video, Jon Gruber boasted that he "helped write" Obamacare.  Not less [sic] than 48 hours after MIT economist Jonathan Gruber apologized to a congressional oversight panel for his comments on Obamacare, opponents of the health-care law dug up a new video of Gruber telling a class he "helped write" the legislation.  "Full disclaimer:  I'm going to describe it objectively, but I helped write it," Gruber said during a class lecture about four years ago.  "So I'll be objective.  I'll try to be objective, but just full disclaimer, I was involved in writing the legislation, so there is some bias involved here."

Obama's Monomania.  There is a malice and vindictiveness in Obama that has no end.  Everything he touches he destroys.  Each day more damaging news about ObamaCare is revealed and when January 2015 arrives, Americans will not know what hit them.  Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh writes that in northern Virginia a family of four would pay "at any income a deductible out of pocket of $12,600 and a premium of $7,224 per year."  But not to fret, "[i]llegal aliens, who were not 'supposed' to be covered by Obamacare as falsely reported, are getting their premiums for free or $2.71" per month.

Gruber's Pathetic Congressional Testimony.  MIT economist Jonathan Gruber's factually impoverished testimony on Obamacare didn't get nearly the attention it should have, as congressional Democrats cleverly decided to release a report on CIA torture abuses on the same day.  Gruber's stonewalling about videos in which he boasted that the "stupidity" of the American people and their "lack of transparency" had been the key to passing Obamacare was buried deep inside major papers and ignored by the next morning's network-TV shows.

Life in Post-Truth America.  [Bill] Clinton's antics set the stage for a current administration which can never be caught in a lie because it's lying all the time.  Obama and his people don't just lie, they lie about the lies and then they lie about those lies.  Bringing them in to testify just clogs the filters with an extra layer of lies.  Invite Gruber to testify about the time that he admitted that the administration had been lying and the only thing that will happen is more lies being told by a man who is there only because he lied.

Gruber vs. Gowdy, and Other Highlights.  [Scroll down]  Both Gruber and Tavenner oversaw multiple embarrassing seesaw exchanges with their questioners.  For Tavenner, the magical phrase was "I will get you that information."  (She is not the first to use this tactic; Kathleen Sebelius, who resigned as head of the Department of Health and Human Services in June of this year, deferred in exactly the same way when Congress questioned her about Obamacare in October 2013.)  Tavenner used this phrase no fewer than ten times with Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.); Collins finally put a bow on the conversation, saying, "It must be difficult for you to say that over and over again."  Gruber's go-to phrases were "I don't recall" and "you can talk to my counsel."  He used these especially when congressmen demanded information on exactly how much taxpayer money he had received for his work on Obamacare.

Issa subpoenas Obamacare architect Gruber, seeks salary, White House communications.  Clearly unsatisfied with Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber's testimony this week before his committee, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has subpoenaed the former aide to determine what he was paid and for communications with the White House.  "As one of the architects of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber is in a unique position to shed light on the 'lack of transparency' surrounding the passage of the president's health care law, however he has so far been unwilling to fully comply with the Oversight Committee's repeated requests," Issa said in a statement.

Gruber told the truth about Obamacare — then he was sworn in.  The occasion of this philosophical crisis was testimony to the House Oversight Committee by Obamacare architect and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber.  Gruber, who was deeply involved in developing the Affordable Care Act, is now best known for praising its lack of transparency as "a political asset" and cheerfully attributing the law's passage to "the stupidity of the American voter."  But his problems in Tuesday's hearing went far beyond unpopular opinions or bad word choices.  Gruber also had to explain away very explicit and substantive, videotaped comments he had made about the healthcare law in academic forums.

Jonathan Gruber and the Obamacare memory hole.  Jonathan Gruber is 49 years old, in apparent good health, and by all accounts possessed of a brilliant mind for the economics of healthcare.  But for all his mental powers, Gruber suffered extensive and repeated failures of memory Tuesday [12/9/2014], when he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  Complicating the picture, Gruber's was a specialized type of memory loss: the more difficult and challenging the question about his notorious descriptions of Obamacare's birth, the more tenuous Gruber's memory became.

Still cooking the ObamaCare books.  The ObamaCare lies keep coming.  In two highly publicized announcements last week, top Obama health officials claimed the Affordable Care Act is slowing health care spending and improving hospital safety.  The media parroted these boasts, but the evidence shows they're bogus.  Even as administration figures — from President Obama down — distance themselves from Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare adviser caught calling the public stupid, they're still relying on his playbook:  They assume we're not going to check their facts.

Gruber: 'I Was Not the Architect'of Obamacare.  "I did not draft (Mass.) Governor (Mitt) Romney's health care plan, and I was not the 'architect' of President Obama's health care plan," MIT Economics Professor Jonathan Gruber told the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday [12/9/2014].  Gruber, in his prepared statement, said he "ran microsimulation models" on the health care law to help elected officials "better assess the likely outcomes of various possible policy choices."

Democratic State Rep with Economics Phd: Vermont's Gruber Contract 'Likely... Economic Propaganda'.  Democratic State Representative Cynthia Browning, who has a Phd. in economics from the University of Michigan, blasted the administration of Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, for its lack of transparency and reliance on an expansive definition of executive privilege in hiding the details of its financing plans for Vermont's proposed single-payer health care system from the public.

Executive Amnesty Order? What Order?  So much is happening on the immigration front that it is hard to keep up, but this story is worth at least a mention:  it turns out that President Obama hasn't issued an executive amnesty order after all. [...] The explanation, I assume, is that Obama thinks it will be harder to mount a legal challenge to his unconstitutional usurpation if there is no actual order that defines what he has done.

Gruber Won't Stand By WaPo Quotation in [His] Own Book.  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber refused to stand by a quotation describing him as "possibly the [Democratic] Party's most influential healthcare expert" that he put in his own book on Tuesday [12/9/2014].

The Latest Gruber Video Could be the Most Damaging of All.  I know, another Jonathan Gruber video.  That's so yesterday, like Ebola, you're thinking.  But this one may be worse than the derisive pomposity and shameless admissions of deception that marked Gruber's previous performances.  Because in the new video, Gruber provides stunning evidence favoring the side that is seeking to destroy Obamacare in a case headed to the Supreme Court.

Gruber, the Grey Lady, and Gullibility.  [Scroll down]  Finally, on Nov. 18 (a day earlier online), the Grey Lady cleared her throat and delivered a huffy editorial.  It included nearly as many lies as words:  [For example,] Republicans "were well aware of what was in the bills."  This was not even true of earlier versions, but certainly not of the 11,000-page final version, which had to be passed so we could find what was in it.  In a media-orchestrated campaign, it was hustled through the House as if the health care system would come crashing to the ground in hours if nothing were done.

You can keep your popcorn. Period.  Conservatives warned America that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a merely a power grab by the federal bureaucracy?  We said you would not keep your doctor, you would not keep your plan, and you certainly would not save $2,500.  In fact, a record number of Americans can no longer afford health care because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  It was all so predictable.  We were right.  Don't ever forget that.

Be afraid: This is the real Obama.  The Supreme Court announced Nov. 7 that it will hear a lawsuit that could end up dismantling Obamacare in at least 35 states.  Then a week later, the Obama administration was caught including dental plans in its tally of Obamacare enrollees, inflating the number by nearly 500,000.  And then the Department of Health and Human Services slashed the projected enrollment in Obamacare to fewer than 10 million, well below the predicted 13 million (whatever happened to those 46 million "uninsured" Mr. Obama repeated day after day?)

Obamacare's three-legged stool of deception regarding employer health plans.  The first leg is that the Cadillac tax is paid by insurance companies, when in reality it is paid by employees.  The second leg is that the Cadillac tax is aimed at "lavish" high cost plans, when in reality it is designed to eventually hit virtually every employer health plan (even those with lower-than-average costs).  The third leg is that the Cadillac tax is functionally equivalent to a reform long championed by conservatives:  a cap on the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance.  For reasons explained [in this article], that is the most pernicious deception of all.

Explaining Away Obama.  Every statistic that Obama has produced on Obamacare enrollment, deportation, unemployment and GDP growth is in some ways a lie.  Almost everything he has said about granting amnesty was untrue, from his own contradictions to the congressionally sanctioned small amnesties of prior presidents.  Almost every time Obama steps to the lectern we expect two things:  he will lecture us on our moral failings and what he will say will be abjectly untrue.

Nine Questions Vermont's Health Care Reform Chief Hasn't Answered About Jonathan Gruber Contract.  Lawrence Miller, Vermont's health care reform chief, wants to give the impression that he's fired controversial MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, the "architect" of Obamacare.  Gruber had signed a lucrative $450,000 personal services contract with Vermont before his frank admissions the law was designed to deceive "stupid" American voters became public.

The Gruber Confession.  This October 2013 video shows MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a principal architect of Obamacare, admitting that, in order to get it passed, the law was made deliberately obscure and deceptive.  It constitutes the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.  "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," said Gruber.  "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."  This was no open-mic gaffe.  It was a clear, indeed enthusiastic, admission to an academic conference of the mendacity underlying Obamacare.

Obama: I've Been very Restrained With Respect To Immigration.  President Barack Obama claimed he has been "restrained" on immigration and that his position on executive actions has not changed after he unilaterally granted temporary amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants.  On ABC's This Week [11/23/2014], Obama said that he has "been very restrained with respect to immigration" and has "bent over backwards and will continue to do everything I can to get Congress" to pass a more permanent and comprehensive executive amnesty bill.

Top 5 Whoppers From Obama's Announcement That He's Nullifying U.S. Immigration Law.  [#5] Obama claims he is going to focus on deporting felons.  Yet, he has done the opposite.  36,000 convicted criminal aliens were released last year, 80,000 criminal aliens encountered by ICE weren't even placed into deportation proceedings, 167,000 criminal aliens who were ordered deported are still at large, 341,000 criminal aliens released by ICE without deportation orders are known to be free and at large in the US.  Again, this is cessation of deportations for everyone.

Obamacare enrollment numbers reached 7 million only because they were padded with 400,000 dental plans, HHS admits.  The Obama administration conceded on Thursday that its vaunted Affordable Care Act enrollment numbers from last year were inflated by a whopping 400,000.  That's how many dental insurance plans were included in the final number when the White House boasted in September that 7.3 million Americans had signed up for medical insurance through government-managed marketplaces.  The dental plans should not have been lumped into the overall total because they represented people who also had purchased medical insurance, effectively double-counting them.

Gruber called to testify in Oversight probe on ObamaCare transparency.  For the moment, it's an invitation.  Will Darrell Issa turn it into a subpoena?  It depends on whether ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber decides to accept the invitation to the December 9th hearing, which will probe not just the attempts to deceive the CBO during the original debate but the shifting standards on enrollment data exposed this week.

Obama denies immigration plan is 'amnesty'.  President Obama told Americans Saturday that his action granting legal status and work permits to nearly 5 million illegal immigrants is "certainly not amnesty, no matter how often critics say it."  "Amnesty is the immigration system we have today — millions of people living here without paying their taxes, or playing by the rules," Mr. Obama said in his weekly address.  "And the actions I took this week will finally start fixing that."

Alinsky Does Amnesty.  In Thursday's speech, Obama was not just brazen but remorseless, not deigning to offer a word of explanation for his sudden 180.  Another day, another story line in the soap opera, as if the prior episodes had never happened.  The pundits were aghast and, for once, seemed embarrassed at having covered the solipsist-in-chief's original expressions of humility as if they were, you know, sincere.  This, fittingly, stirred the Obama courtiers to an embarrassing defense of their man.  We were told that the president — heretofore the brightest, most learned ever to grace the office — had previously been uninformed about the extent of his power, but thankfully his lawyers set him straight.

Obama's 'America'.  President Obama told us yesterday that we must legalize millions of illegal aliens because America is "a creed, an idea" — and is not what he calls "a bloodline." [...] Obama buttressed his view by pulling out the line that America is "a nation of immigrants," with only the "idea" to hold itself together and make that nation "America."  In reality, America was founded by a migration, not an immigration — one that took place within what is now a different concrete society: England.  That society sent settlers across the ocean to consolidate and expand its newly claimed territories for itself.  It was a colonial implantation of an existing society, not a nation of immigrants who formed a new society out of nothing but an idea.  Immigrants came later and assimilated into the preexisting society.

Oops: Obama Administration Inflated Obamacare Enrollment Numbers.  In September, federal health officials announced that 7.3 million people had signed up for health insurance on the state or federal exchanges.  This was big news — as it meant Obamacare had beaten the White House's goal of enrolling 7 million people in the first year of the program.  However, it turns out, the real number of people who signed up for medical coverage is actually about 6.97 million.  A report by Bloomberg's Alex Wayne revealed that the administration quietly lumped as many as 400,000 dental plans into the total enrollment number without telling anyone.

Gruber and Obama's Big Lie.  "We had a year-long debate," Obama exasperatedly continued.  "Go look back at your stories.  One thing we can't say is that we didn't have a lengthy debate over health care in the United States. ... It's fair to say there is not a provision in the health-care law that was not extensively debated and was not fully transparent."  This statement is a falsehood, punctuated by deceits, supported by half-truths, in defense of a scam.

Obama's amnesty: Your guide to the gimmicks.  What do the president's amnesty plan and Obamacare have in common?  Both were orchestrated with massive government-funded propaganda.  Barack Obama is repeating the process used by him and by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to enact Obamacare, based on manipulation, deception and the supposed stupidity of American voters, who were told they could keep their plan and keep their doctor.

Why Gruber-gate Is So Devastating to Democrats.  Conservatives continue to consume themselves with denunciations of MIT health care economist Jonathan Gruber. [...] But I'm in a unique position when it comes to Gruber.  My public criticism of him goes back to 2010, when he exhibited precisely the traits of deception and evasiveness that have gotten him in trouble now.  In fact, he has become an avatar of not only Obamacare, but of liberal paternalism, a caricature of the snotty know-it-all technocrat who will make decisions for people without consulting them.  That some of this perspective actually shows up in the health care law is a major reason for its difficulties, and a bigger problem for Democrats going forward.

Obama's deceitful claim illegals will 'pay their fair share'.  The problem with this rhetoric is that very few illegal immigrants make enough money to actually pay taxes.  Instead, their "fair share" will amount to a substantial gift from American citizen and legal immigrant taxpayers who have played by the rules. [...] Not only will they not pay income taxes, many are likely to get a check from the IRS, thanks to the Orwellian-named Earned Income Tax Credit, which send a gift from taxpayers to low income families.

Laws Emanate from the White House Now.  Obama's speech announcing his immigration diktat was the usual pabulum: "our immigration system is broken," can't let illegals "remain in the shadows," "commonsense middle-ground approach," blah, blah, blah. [...] But the speech was notable for some of the things Obama didn't mention.  For instance, he lied about what his non-amnesty amnesty consisted of:  "All we're saying is we're not going to deport you."  As polling has suggested, this is less likely to provoke opposition than the truth:  "All we're saying is we're not going to deport you — and also, here's a work permit, a Social Security number, and a driver's license."

AP Slams Obama for Lies in Amnesty Speech.  Perhaps the president's most notable lie of the night was when he declared, "Although this summer, there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is now actually lower than it's been in nearly two years."  To call the border crisis of 2014 a "brief spike" is not only misleading, but completely inaccurate.

CNN's Tapper: Gruber Claims Contradict What Obama Said ACA Wouldn't Do.  CNN reporter Jake Tapper has found the angle to the ongoing "GruberGate" story that will undoubtedly have serious political implications:  President Barack Obama's initial promises of what the Affordable Care Act are directly contradicted by what MIT professor Jonathan Gruber has repeatedly said the law would do.

Loose-lipped ObamaCare adviser's predictions more bad than bold, analysis shows.  All the millions of dollars paid to Jonathan Gruber by the federal and state governments to help design and implement ObamaCare may have been a bad bargain for reasons other than MIT economics whiz's inability to stop insulting voters.  His predictions, which government agencies used to make critical projections about the heath care plan, have not held up, according to an analysis.  Although President Obama has downplayed Gruber's role in crafting the Affordable Care Act, White House logs show he visited 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. more than a dozen times and was paid $400,000 for his work on the project.

North Carolina fires Gruber after Obamacare remarks.  North Carolina's state auditor on Thursday [11/20/2014] terminated a contract with Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economics professor and health-care expert whose comments on the Affordable Care Act have generated fury among conservatives.

Report: Vermont fires Gruber.  Embattled former ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber has been booted from his healthcare consulting gig in Vermont, according to reports on Wednesday [11/19/2014].  Gruber had a $400,000 contract with the state, where he was charged with helping to create a single-payer system.  But he has faced fierce criticism over the last two weeks for recently unearthed comments saying the "stupidity of the American voter" and a "lack of transparency" aided ObamaCare's passage.

I bet you can't handle this much Gruber in one sitting.  2:25 minutes of Democrats making fools of themselves about Gruber.

This Gruber-gate supercut video is positively enraging.  This video perfectly encapsulates why the imbroglio surrounding Gruber's comments has the potential to blow the debate over the Affordable Care Act wide open. [...] The nut of why this whole episode is so infuriating, when it isn't enervating, are the repeated insults done to America's collective intelligence by those who believe themselves to be members of a superior class.  That condition is made even more insufferable by those Obamacare supporters who are attempting to rewrite the history of the ACA in order to airbrush Gruber out of the picture.

Gruber Earned $5.2 Million from Obamacare Deception.  MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, the Obamacare architect who bragged about deceiving the "stupid" American people to secure passage of the bill, has been paid an estimated $5.2 million by the federal government and 12 state governments for consulting services to assist in the design and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  Breitbart News exchanged emails with Professor Gruber on Tuesday [11/18/2014] in an attempt to confirm this estimate, but Gruber would neither confirm nor deny the amounts.

Gruber Got 24 Times the Average 'Stupid' American's Salary for Obamacare Work.  According to government data, the nearly $6 million in confirmed taxpayer dollars that Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was paid from 2009 to 2014 — about $1 million per year — is roughly 24 times the average salary earned by full-time American workers in the same general time frame.  The average annual full-time U.S. salary was about $41,600 in those years, which multiplied 24 times is $998,400, or nearly $1 million a year.

Barack Obama Lied About Jonathan Gruber Before The World.  This isn't just about Barack Obama.  It's the entire administration.  [Video clip]

Gruber Visited White House 21 Times, President Obama Claims He Does Not Know The 'Obamacare Architect'.  Jonathan Gruber visited the White House 21 times, but President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi still insist they do not know him personally and deny the "Obamacare architect" label given to him.  Gruber called American voters "stupid" on multiple occasions and was recorded talking about a bait and switch plan involved with the Affordable Care Act plan, President Obama's signature legislation.  White House visitor logs reveal that Jonathan Gruber visited the building starting in 2009 through June 2014.

GOP goes after $2M federal Gruber grant.  Republicans are asking the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to defend a multimillion dollar grant given to ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber in light of his controversial comments on the law's passage.  "Recent developments related to Dr. Gruber raise questions about his objectivity and judgment, and thus the utility of his research," Reps. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) wrote in a letter to NIH Director Francis Collins Wednesday [11/19/2014].  "Further, the award of this grant causes major concerns regarding NIH's funding priorities," they wrote.

ABC and NBC Ignore Gruber's Numerous W.H. Visits, CBS Barely Covers.  On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of ObamaCare, made more than a dozen visits to visit the White House since "Democrats began drafting the law in 2009."  Despite the latest developments in the Gruber controversy, which contradicts President Obama's line that Gruber was "some advisor who never worked on our staff," CBS This Morning was the only network morning show to mention the report, giving it a mere 24 seconds during its Tuesday morning [11/18/2014] broadcast.  ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today ignored the Journal's report altogether.

New White House Gruber Spin: The Videos Are Old!  ABC's Jon Karl quizzed White House spokesman Josh Earnest about the Gruber-gate videos during today's [11/18/2014] press briefing.  Earnest re-iterated some of President Obama's spin — that he disagrees with what Gruber said — and then launched into new spin that rests on two hooks.  One, the Republicans want to talk about Gruber to distract America from Obamacare's alleged successes. [...] The second hook is an utter irrelevance, and mostly a lie.  Earnest claimed that the videos are "6 to 8 years old."

University of Rhode Island removes Gruber video after it goes viral.  The University of Rhode Island (URI) removed a video of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber discussing how he exploited the American people.  URI removed a video of Gruber's speech at an Oct. 30, 2012 Honors Colloquium in which the ObamaCare consultant discussed how some details of ObamaCare's design were concealed from the American public.

It's Time For Leftist Gruber Truthers To Give It A Rest.  Jonathan Gruber was a key architect of Obamacare who was intimately involved in the drafting of the legislation.  That is a fact.  It is not arguable.  It is not assailable.  It is backed up by overwhelming contemporaneous evidence long before Gruber became a controversial figure whose loose lips threatened to sink the Obamacare ship.  And the people who pimped Gruber as the all-knowing health care savior who single-handedly built the model that guaranteed a future of health care glory were not Obamacare's critics.  They were its most ardent proponents.

Ex-Obama Aide Destroys Media Narrative, Admits Gruber Was an 'Important Figure'.  A former adviser to Barack Obama on Tuesday [11/18/2014] overturned the media narrative, promoted by the President, that Jonathan Gruber was an unimportant, minor figure.  The New York Times on Tuesday insisted in an editorial, "Republicans are crowing over Mr. Gruber's remarks because he has been portrayed as a major architect of the health reform law.  In truth, his role was limited."  The health care operative has repeatedly bragged about fooling "stupid" Americans.  The paper's editors lectured, "His comments should not be taken as evidence that the reform law was hatched in secrecy and foisted on the public by trickery."  Yet, Steven Rattner, a former Obama administration adviser, countered this narrative on Morning Joe.

Rand Paul: 'Deceitful' Obamacare 'Henchmen' Should Return Money Made.  "The one thing we can do is that this Mr. Gruber... he was paid and now he's admitted he was deceptive and deceitful, I'm going to ask for an investigation from the Investigator General and I'm going to ask that he return his pay," Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on the "Hannity" show last night.  "Because how can you — how can we pay someone to be a consultant to government who's frankly admitting they were dishonest?  So I think he should be made to return his pay."

Insurers 'will strenuously resist Republican efforts to dismantle' Obamacare.  Remember how much President Obama and the Democrats portrayed Obamacare as a broadside to the special interests, especially the health insurers?  Nancy Pelosi said of the insurance companies, "They are the villains in this."  Obama pitched the bill as an improvement on a system that "works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn't always work well for you."

Obama claims Obamacare 'not deceptively marketed'.  When the president was asked whether he had intentionally misled the public in order to get the law passed, he replied:  "No. I did not."  Even the Obama-friendly Tampa Bay Times found that Obama's repeated promise "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" was the lie of the year[.]  We now know that Barack Obama and his advisers knew all along that millions would lose their plans and doctors[.]  But why stop with one whopper?  Premiums soared and are soaring — instead of declining the average of $2500 that Obama promised.  The deficit will leap in future years because of Obamacare.  Abortion will be covered despite promises to the contrary.  In the words of Mark Steyn, Obamacare was passed by a phalanx of lies (and bribes, for that matter, the Louisiana Purchase, among them).  Recently, even liberal journalist Ron Fournier scathingly criticized "Obamacare's Foundation of Lies"[.]

Obama Encouraged Us to 'Pull Every Clip' On Obamacare So We Did.  President Obama issued a challenge to the press corps over the weekend when asked about Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber's remarks that passing the law counted on a lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter."  "Did you mislead Americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan, in order to get the bill passed?" Fox News reporter Ed Henry asked.  "No," Obama said, chuckling.  "I did not."

Jonah Goldberg on FNC: 'Transmission Belt of Liberal Journalists' Reaffirmed Gruber's Mendacity.  National Review's Jonah Goldberg went on a tear on Monday's [11/17/2014] Special Report with Bret Baier, connecting the circles of lies by the White House and Jonathan Gruber that had impact thanks to liberal journalists.  Goldberg charged that, in the lead up to the ObamaCare vote, Gruber was "being touted around through a transmission belt of liberal journalists, who all are all pretending to be objective analysts too, quoting each other, reaffirming each other, all with the help of the White House which went along with this soup to nuts — a process which this guy says was all about lies and misleading the American people."

Obama: I did not mislead Americans about health care to get law passed.  President Obama says he did not mislead Americans to get his health care law passed, addressing for the first time recently unearthed comments from a key backer who said a lack of transparency and the "stupidity of the American voter" were central to its passage.  Mr. Obama is the latest administration official to downplay MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, whose role in crafting the Affordable Care Act has become toxic since his comments came to light.

Krauthammer on Gruber 'Scandal': White House 'Imagined They Would Actually Get Away with It'.  On Monday's [11/17/2014] broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Special Report," Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer explained the timing of President Barack Obama's response to the recent string of candid moments from ObamaCare Jonathan Gruber caught video about the ObamaCare legislation and its passage into law.

MSNBC Reporter: Gruber Comments Confirm 'All The Worst Suspicion Republicans Had' About Obamacare.  The panel of MSNBC's "The Cycle" agreed that the recent flurries of insulting and impolitic videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was horrible press for the law, with MSNBC reporter Alex Seitz-Wald saying it confirmed "all the worst suspicions that Republicans had" about Obamacare.

The Editor says...
Yes, and many of the Republicans' other "worst suspicions" would be confirmed if the news media would look into them.  There are lists of Obama scandals
available.  Pick one.

Obama Never Heard of that Gruber Guy.  This is it, Obama dead-enders.  This is the Big One.  Your leader has demanded some humiliating loyalty tests from you in the past, but now he's expressing nothing less than sneering contempt for your intelligence.

Democrats "should thank God every single day that we are a peaceful, law-abiding people".  You heard Donald Berwick, who flat-out stated that the purpose of government-run health care is to redistribute wealth, is to redistribute services.  Then you heard Obama lie about every aspect of this law that they were constructing and promoting, every piece of it — you could keep your doctor, you could keep your policy, your costs will go down $2,500 a year per family, it would reduce the annual deficit and the overall debt — just absurd.  Now you're going to hear from Gruber, Professor Gruber again with one additional audio, telling you, bragging about how he lied, how Obamacare as told to you was a fiction, and how the statute itself, its complexity, its length, was used to bamboozle you.  And I want to add this — not only was the President of the United States behind this, the entire Democrat party, the entire media, they were all behind it.

The 8 Funniest Gruber Quotes.  [#8] "The stupidity of the American voter is exceeded only by its slovenliness."

Obama: We didn't mislead on health care.  President Barack Obama denied Sunday [11/16/2014] that his signature health care reform law was deceptively marketed, rejecting statements by a consultant on the plan who said aspects of Obamacare were designed to take advantage of the "stupidity" of voters.  "The fact that an adviser who was never on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters is not a reflection on the actual process that was run," Obama declared at a press conference here, speaking for the first time about the comments by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber.

The lies that are central to Obama's agenda:  ObamaCare will cut your premiums? By $2,500 a year?  And reduce the deficit?  While giving gold-plated coverage to tens of millions more people?  Who won't have to pay much?  And none of this will result in anyone losing their current plan? [...] Americans didn't buy it.  Never did.  At no time has approval for ObamaCare hit 50% in the Gallup poll.  So the Democrats pushed the program through anyway, without a single Republican vote, via legislative legerdemain.

Joe Wilson Was Right.  On the night of September 9, 2009, a still highly popular President Barack Obama spoke spiritedly to a joint session of Congress.  He had summoned the members of both parties to introduce his plan to transform American health care.  The promises he made that night were many and, to most in the television audience, at least, sounded fresh.  "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have," said the president.  "Let me repeat this:  nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."  Simmering throughout this litany of disinformation was an obscure five-term South Carolina congressman named Joe Wilson.

Train Wrecks, Lies and Videotape.  An important point has been buried in the avalanche of commentary about Jonathan Gruber's indictment of the electorate as intellectually deficient. [...] The professor's condescending comments can only apply to those people who actually believed the empty promises our President made on behalf of his health care "reform" law.  A large plurality of the voters always knew that Obama, his congressional accomplices, and creepy little hirelings like Jonathan Gruber were lying to us.

Who Lied? Jonathan Gruber Linked to Getting Obamacare to Illegal Aliens.  Jonathan Gruber, Sylvia Burwell and Joe Wilson.  Added to the mix of the two biggest issues of the day — ObamaCare and an expected Obama executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, this is a potent cocktail of political explosives.

Flashback 2013 — Gillibrand: 'We All Knew' Some ObamaCare Claims Were False.  Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) admitted that "we all knew" that President Obama's claim that individuals would be allowed to keep their plans if they liked them under the Affordable Care Act was untrue in an interview on the November 17, 2013 broadcast of ABC's "This Week."

'Doesn't Integrity Matter?' Megyn Slams '180' on Immigration Action.  Megyn Kelly tonight [11/21/2014] took on President Barack Obama's credibility crisis following two major news stories — immigration action and the Jonathan Gruber videos which reveal that ObamaCare was sold with the help of a lie.  Kelly said that the Gruber videos, which show the ObamaCare architect repeatedly calling American voters "stupid," have confirmed "the worst fears of ObamaCare's biggest critics."  "The Kelly File" played older footage of Democrats referencing Gruber's role in ObamaCare.  Now, they're walking back their relationship with him.

Gruber: Obama personally asked me to help disguise unhelpful Obamacare facts.  The video [clip in this article] contains evidence that the president was personally huddling with Gruber on the Obamacare sales pitch, charging him with fashioning accounting tricks that might provide a politically-necessary fig leaf — which Paul Ryan dismantled at the pre-passage "health care summit."  It's impossible for the White House to just divorce itself from this guy.  He was very much their guy.  Not only did they furnish Gruber with $400,000 for his services, they made him a leading point person for "drafting the specifics" of the law with Congress.

Fmr Obama Adviser: When I Was in White House, Gruber was 'Important Figure'.  Perhaps the most interesting bit from Morning Joe's displeasure with the president's GruberGate response came from former Obama auto economics adviser Steve Rattner who said that when he was in the White House, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber was considered "the man."  "Jonathan Gruber was, back in the day in 2009, the guru on health care," Rattner said on the MSNBC show Monday morning, continuing: [...]

Politico Downplays Jonathan Gruber as Obamacare Architect.  Since Politico is now unable to ignore the Jonathan Gruber scandal as they tried to do earlier this week, they have switched gears to craft a story by Politico health reporter Paige Winfield Cunningham to portray him as much less than an architect of Obamacare.  Ironically, this same reporter as recently as July also referred to Gruber as an Obamacare architect.

Obamacare's indecent and long overdue exposure.  [Scroll down]  Of course, nowadays, it seems as though Democrats want you to believe they have never heard of Gruber.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually made that claim, even though she had touted him as an expert in 2009.  Indeed, everyone knew he was an expert on the Affordable Care Act until he had the misfortune of chewing on his own foot in public.  A search of the Internet reveals multiple instances over the past several years where he has been referred to as the "chief architect of Obamacare," but now Democrats are trying to minimize his role as much as possible.

Smug Filled Rooms.  [Scroll down]  You see, Gruber's arrogance revealed that the scheme was not only contrary to the clear language of the statute, but as well to the intent of its authors.  He has gravely undercut the administration's argument to look beyond the language to sustain their expansion of it.  While countless Democrats — including especially Nancy Pelosi  — who credited and relied on Gruber's work now act as if they never heard of him, they can't so easily dispose of him and his role in the creation of Obamacare .

Gruber Who?  Jonathan Gruber? "I don't know who he is," Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday.  To jog the former speaker's memory:  Jonathan Gruber is, of course, the MIT economist widely hailed for his work as the "architect" of Obamacare.  His sudden demotion comes after video surfaced over the weekend of a 2013 interview with Gruber at the University of Pennsylvania, where he told listeners that a "lack of transparency" was crucial to passing Obamacare through Congress in 2010, given the "stupidity of the American voter."  Three more videos have followed, all showing Gruber making substantially similar remarks.

Hill Editor: Gruber Probably Has Emails Showing 'Close Relationship' with Dems.  Bob Cusack, editor-in-chief of The Hill, said he was "sure" ObamaCare architect Jonathan "has many, many e-mails that prove he has a very solid relationship with Democrats" on Monday's [11/17/2014] "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on the Fox News Channel.

Gruber: GOP Governors' Refusal to Expand Medicaid 'Almost Awesome In Its Evilness', Blames 'Racial Reasons'.  Who's up for another Jonathan Gruber video?  On April 9, 2014, Gruber appeared on the "Curbside Consult" interview series with Harold Pollack, at healthinsurance.org; the host introduced Gruber as the "architect of Obamacare", and Gruber made no objection.

The CBO Effectively Used Gruber's Model to Score Obamacare.  Two well-placed sources on Capitol Hill say that the Congressional Budget Office effectively used Jonathan Gruber's model to score Obamacare.  That model favors government mandates over market competition and claims that essentially the only way to achieve a large reduction in the number of uninsured Americans is to impose an Obamacare-like individual mandate.

The Gruber Confession.  This October 2013 video shows MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber, a principal architect of Obamacare, admitting that, in order to get it passed, the law was made deliberately obscure and deceptive.  It constitutes the ultimate vindication of the charge that Obamacare was sold on a pack of lies.  "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," said Gruber.  "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."  This was no open-mic gaffe.  It was a clear, indeed enthusiastic, admission to an academic conference of the mendacity underlying Obamacare.

Thanks to Jonathan Gruber for revealing Obamacare deception.  As of this weekend, there are now seven Gruber videos, in which he mocks the "stupidity" of American voters and boasts of the Obama administration's ability to take advantage of it.  In a new video that surfaced Friday [11/14/2014], Gruber explains that the Obama administration passed the so-called "Cadillac tax" on high-value employer health plans "by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people, when we know it's a tax on people who hold these insurance plans."

Obama Denies Gruber, but Facts Deny Obama.  In the past several weeks, there's been a major uproar in the alternative media — the liberal media doing their usual best to cover up stories damaging to this administration and the cause of progressivism — over recordings that have surfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber essentially admitted that the administration duped the American people, whom he called "stupid," on certain issues and the Congressional Budget Office as to the cost of the legislation.  For a while, the administration and its media lapdogs just ignored the recordings and their damning implications, but that changed Sunday [11/16/2014], when "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell on the matter and Obama broke his silence to issue an insulting denial of Gruber's claims.

Gruber's Deception.  In Washington, D.C. it is said that the cover-up is almost always worse than the crime.  Certainly, the tortured attempts by supporters of Obamacare to explain away the comments of health analyst Jonathan Gruber — that the law only passed because of a "lack of transparency" that became a "huge political advantage" because of "the stupidity of the American voter" — are more preposterous than even the worst parts of Obamacare.  President Obama himself tried to dismiss Gruber on Sunday [11/16/2014] by claiming he was just "some adviser who never worked on our staff."  He insisted his comments are "not a reflection on the actual process that was run."

Limbaugh: Obama 'Sociopathic,' 'A Lying Con Man' On Obamacare Transparency, Gruber.  Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh hit President Barack Obama Monday [11/17/2014] following his remarks to Fox News' Ed Henry about Obamacare and it's [sic] "architect" Jonathan Gruber in Brisbane at the tail-end of his Asia trip over the past week.  [Ed Henry asked, "]Did you mislead Americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan in order to get the bill passed?"  "No, I did not," Obama told Henry.  "I just heard about this.  I get well-briefed before I come out here.  The fact that some adviser who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that I completely disagree with in terms of the voters, is no reflection on the actual process that was run."  "This is unbelievable," responded Limbaugh.  "This little sound bite of 23 seconds may be more jam-packed with lies than any 23-second presidential sound bite I've ever played for you."

Gruber Video #4 — Bragging About Constructing ObamaCare Lies/Fraud "In The Oval Office" With Obama.  During a June 13th 2012 PBS interview with Frontline Jonathan Gruber explains with great and specific detail how the entire construct of ObamaCare came into being. [...] Within the interview he is asked questions about meeting with President Obama.  Gruber discusses meeting with Obama in 2006 as a senator, and then meeting with Obama in the oval office as President when they brainstormed the "Cadillac Tax" and came up with the way to fool people about taxing for healthcare.  There's no longer a way the White House can try to distance themselves from Gruber.

We Do the Lying Around Here.  The White House is incensed, mad enough to spit, and angry as a mashed cat at Jonathan Gruber for saying that the Affordable Care Act had to be sold to the "stupid" electorate by deceptive means.  It seems that once the bill was passed and signed into law Mr. Gruber couldn't stop talking about how his team had put one over on the rubes, sounding at times like any ordinary flim flam man.

The Strategic Failure of Barack Obama.  "A gaffe," Michael Kinsley once said, "is when a politician tells the truth."  Unfortunately for the Obama administration, Jonathan Gruber, an economist hired to design Obamacare, was fecklessly candid about how the Obama administration misrepresented their flagship program to the rubes.  Nancy Pelosi quickly stepped in to show him how pros do it by denying she ever met Gruber, though the Washington Post produced transcripts of the former speaker copiously buttressing her arguments with references to Gruber

Understanding The Scope Of The Obama/Gruber Lies Within ObamaCare.  We pointed out in Gruber video #4 how, according to his own admissions, Jonathan Gruber met with Senator Obama in 2006 — and then again with President Obama in 2009 — in the Oval Office, to construct the tax scheme within the ObamaCare insurance fraud.  However, what's missing amid the new discussion created by the recent Gruber revelations is a contrast, or context, to the historical 'candidate Obama' Campaign commercials.

Caught on Tape: Obama Admits to Stealing Ideas from Jonathan Gruber.  President Obama now dismisses Jonathan Gruber as some guy he barely ever heard of, but that wasn't always his story.  At the Brookings Institution's "Restoring America's Promise of Opportunity, Prosperity and Growth" conference in April of 2006, the future president bragged about using one Jonathan Gruber's ideas.

Is Obama's health care man Jonathan Gruber 'just another guy in the neighborhood'?  How does the White House think it can distance itself from Jonathan Gruber?  As if we needed any more confirmation, Obama's chosen few view the American people as stupid.  Administration officials heaped this rationale for Gruber's moment of truth on the rising dung pile:  "Gruber did not work in the White House or play the same role [as he did in Massachusetts] in developing the Affordable Care Act."

Help! Gruber Keeps Telling the Truth About ObamaCare.  A fourth video emerged on Thursday of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber talking about how Democrats purposely misled the public about ObamaCare.  In this one, ObamaCare architect Gruber explains how the Democrats constantly talked about cost controls in ObamaCare.  Why?  Because as Gruber correctly explains, "what the American public cares about is costs."  So, he goes on, "even though the bill that they made is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control."

New Gruber Video Suggests Obama was in on Tax Deception.  The cute part of this is that, with traditional fully insured plans, it's the insurer who pays the new Cadillac tax, not the employer or the beneficiary.  But, Gruber acknowledged in another video that this is a de facto tax, because the insurer simply raises premiums to cover the cost, which therefore trickles down — pardon the expression — to the beneficiary.  This, he said, was a "very clever, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter."  Here's the latest from Gruber, in which he indicates Obama may have been in on the scheme: [...]

Gruber Video #3 Proves The Financial Funding Trickery Embedded Within Obamacare.  I've been shouting about this from the rooftops for four years and it's just not sinking in to most people.

Jonathan Gruber's payday.  The MIT economist who is the brains behind Obamacare has made quite a stir with his admission that President Obama's health care takeover was built on lies.  Mr. Gruber says he was willing to say and do whatever it took to advance the scheme, and now it's clear why.  Obamacare made Mr. Gruber a multimillionaire, and at the expense of the taxpayers.

President Crafted Obamacare Deception With Gruber At White House Meeting.  President Obama personally crafted a major Obamacare deception with Jonathan Gruber at one of Gruber's numerous White House meetings, according to a 2012 Gruber interview with PBS.  MIT professor Gruber, who served as a top Obama administration consultant during the writing of Obamacare, garnered national condemnation this week after The Daily Caller published a video in which he credited a lack of transparency for Obamacare's passage.

ObamaCare architect mouths off again, as videos cause problems for Dems.  The mouth that won't stop giving — and that has Democrats and the Obama administration cringing — has been caught shooting off yet again on video, this time bragging how the Massachusetts health care system he helped design worked by ripping off millions of dollars from the federal government.  On top of that, another video has surfaced from Vermont showing him mocking a critic of single-payer health care, comparing him to an "adolescent" child.

Schock: Gruber 'Full of Nonsense,' But 'Shame' Is on Democrats for Passing Obamacare.  Although Gruber is "full of nonsense," don't blame him, [Rep. Aaron] Schock said:  "I think first of all, that the shame should be put on the legislators.  I mean, this was legislative malpractice on the part of Democrats who ran the House and the Senate at the time.  They are the ones who refused to read the bill, they are the ones who refused to have hearings to find out what was in the bill, they are the ones who refused to let the American people find out what was in it before they passed it.  And so they are the ones who are really at fault."

GOP's anti-Obamacare push gains new momentum in wake of Gruber video.  The Republican Party's ardent campaign against President Obama's health-care law gained new momentum Wednesday as lawmakers reacted angrily to assertions by an architect of the policy that it was crafted in a deliberately deceptive way in order to pass Congress.

"Accuse others of what you do."  (Karl Marx)
Jonathan Gruber: GOP Trying to 'Confuse People' About Obamacare.  Jonathan Gruber, considered to be the "architect" of Obamacare, got some flak this week for newly discovered video of him saying that the "lack of transparency" and maybe "the stupidity of the American voter" helped get the health care law passed.  Conservatives pounced, and Gruber appeared on MSNBC today to admit that remark was inappropriate.  He made another TV appearance today [11/11/2014] on WGBH in Boston and continued to defend the law.

Pelosi Doesn't Know Who Gruber Is, Says 'He Didn't Help Write Our Bill'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has joined in with the White House's attempt to distance itself from a key figure in the creation of the Affordable Care Act who claimed the bill was passed with help from "lack of transparency" and "the stupidity of the American voter."  MIT professor Jonathan Gruber — who assisted congressional staffers in writing the bill — made such claims last year during an academic conference, but the video only became widely-viewed this week.  He has since appeared on MSNBC to call the comments "inappropriate," but did not deny his underlying point.

Nancy Pelosi says she doesn't know who Jonathan Gruber is. She touted his work in 2009.  [Scroll down]  Pelosi clearly wants to distance herself and Obamacare from Gruber, given Gruber's controversial comments about "the stupidity of the American voter," and Democrats are going to argue that Gruber wasn't instrumental in the bill.  But, as an architect of the Massachusetts health-care law and a consultant to the White House on Obamacare, he's been regularly cited by Democrats as an authority on this issue — including, apparently, by Pelosi.

The Obamacare deception of 'stupid' Americans.  Paternalism is a desperate gamble that lying politicians will honestly care for those who fall under their power.  This axiom has been made stark with the controversy arising from a video of Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare, admitting that the administration conned the American public and blaming dumb voters for the flimflam.

'Climate Change' in the Land of Gruber/Obama.  [Scroll down]  But not as a big a fool as Jonathan Gruber, the MIT professor and putative architect of Obamacare, who has been caught on three videos explaining why it was necessary to overcomplicate and lie about the Affordable Care Act in order to pass it.  (At least he read it.  I doubt Obama did and I know Pelosi didn't.)  Besides the professor's sleazy Gramscian elitism that doesn't do much for the reputation of MIT, Gruber has something unconscious and disconnected about him that suggests a personality disorder.  He doesn't seem to quite get why people might be upset that his deliberate obscurantism completely undermines democracy and the founding documents of our country.  After all, he means well.

The Jonathan Gruber Controversy and Washington's Dirty Little Secret.  Suppose that Congress decides that everyone in America should have an iPhone.  There are two ways it can do this:  [#1] The government could allocate money to buy all Americans iPhones.  [#2] The government could require that everybody buy an iPhone but create a tax credit equivalent to the price of the phone.  To an economist, these things are pretty much identical.  To a politician, they are very different.  The first is a big-spending government giveaway.  The second is a tax cut.  And in that distinction lies the heart of the firestorm around comments by one of the intellectual godfathers of President Obama's health reform law.

ABC-NBC-PBS-NPR-NYT-LAT-AP Censor Gruber 'Stupid' Americans Video.  Just imagine the reaction of the liberal media if a video had surfaced of a George W. Bush administration official admitting that "lack of transparency" was "a huge political advantage" in selling the Iraq war and that they relied on the "stupidity of the American voter" to launch an attack on Iraq?  That video would be everywhere.  However, the clip of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber using those exact phrases in talking about the passage of the Affordable Care Act has yet to be reported on ABC or NBC's evening or morning shows.

Third video emerges of Obamacare architect insulting voters.  A third video emerged Wednesday of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, insulting voters and suggesting their ignorance was exploited by those pushing passage of the health care law.  Neither the White House nor Gruber would comment.  In this one, Gruber was discussing how then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, pushed forward a way to add a tax on expensive health insurance plans, or "Cadillac Plans," that would purportedly tax the insurance companies though Gruber suggests everyone knew the companies would just pass on the additional cost to customers.

Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber: Obama Was In the Room When the Cadillac Tax Was Created.  According to [Jonathan] Gruber, he first met Obama in 2006.  The future president was still a senator, and asked Gruber to come to his office to give him a briefing on the Massachusetts reform.  Obama called Gruber in because at that point it was common knowledge that Gruber had been the architect of Romney's law.  Obama wanted to hear from him about how a national healthcare law might work.

In Third Video, Obamacare Architect Talks About 'Basic Exploitation' Of American Voters.  A third video has surfaced of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragging about pulling the wool over the eyes of the American public in order to help implement Obamacare.  "It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter," Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said during a speech at the University of Rhode Island in November 2012.  He was discussing what is known as the Cadillac tax and how it came into being.

Obamacare's Foundation of Lies.  Appearing on an academic panel a year ago, this key Obamacare adviser argued that the law never would have passed if the administration had been honest about the fact that the so-called penalty for noncompliance with the mandate was actually a tax.  "And, basically, call it 'the stupidity of the American voter,' or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass," Gruber said.  He called you stupid.  He admitted that the White House lied to you.

Democrats Finally Tell Us The Truth About Obamacare.  You might remember that the Senate kept massaging its "conceptual" language until the CBO's estimate met every one of President Barack Obama's preconditions for passage, bringing the price tag under a trillion dollars and allowing advocates to maintain the ludicrous fantasy that Obamacare would pay for itself.  As Gruber notes, a lack of transparency is always helpful when taking advantage of "the stupidity of the American voter."  Well, even with so much obscured, the law had to be crammed through Congress.  And by now there is no sentient being on the planet who doesn't understand that the administration's initial numbers were fraudulent.

Megyn Kelly Tears Into Dem Guest over Obamacare: They 'Lied to Our Faces'!.  Moments after showing new video of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber calling American voters "stupid," Megyn Kelly went off on the "deception" and "fraud" that went in to pushing Obamacare in a clash with Democratic pollster Bernard Whitman.  Kelly said that Gruber's comments basically amount to "It's all BS!  We had to do it to get this law passed!"  Whitman argued that while Gruber might be expert in his field, "he's a political idiot."  He argued that the Affordable Care Act has actually done a lot of what what promised.  But Kelly wouldn't let up, hammering away at the lack of transparency and burying her head in her hands when Whitman told her "everyone knew what they were getting" during the public debate over the health care law.

The Other Gruber Gaffe Matters More.  When one considers the enormity of this whole thing — the fact that an architect of ObamaCare would publicly confess that the only way it passed was by deceiving the public — this "gaffe" has gotten relatively little attention.  But interestingly, I'm about to argue that there is another Gruber gaffe, which has gotten even less attention, and yet is arguably much more significant.

Obamacare's foundation of lies a warning for new Supreme Court case.  A leading architect of Obamacare admitted that Democrats gamed the bill's budget score and misled the public on the bill's taxes in order to pass it, proclaiming that "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage" for Obamacare supporters.  It's not news that Obamacare was built on lies.  We've known it for years.  But as we enter into a public debate over another Obamacare case at the Supreme Court, it's important to keep in the front of our minds the willingness of the law's advocates to mislead for what they believe is a good cause.

Gowdy: 'Keep This in Mind' the Next Time Someone Tries to Sell You 'Comprehensive' Legislation.  Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) says it's ironic that "the most transparent administration since the continent shifted" had to rely on deception to pass its signature piece of legislation.  "Well, I would hope my fellow citizens would keep this in mind and the next time anybody tries to sell them a, quote, 'comprehensive piece of legislation,' whether it's Dodd/Frank or whether it's the immigration bill the President so desperately wants.  Comprehensive is Latin for 'there's lots of bad stuff in here,'" Gowdy told Fox News's Megyn Kelly Tuesday night [11/11/2014].

Meet the guy who found all those Jonathan Gruber Obamacare clips.  The story about Rich Weinstein, an unknown investment advisor who poured [sic] through hours and hours of YouTube videos, radio interviews, and other media featuring Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber is both incredible and inspiring.  It is Weinstein who is responsible for ferreting out Gruber's toxic comments about the "stupidity of the American people" and, more importantly, Gruber's insistence that Obamacare subsidies were limited to state exchanges and should not be made available at the federal level.

Is Immigration Americans' No. 1 Priority?  Overwhelmingly, people are rejecting Obamacare.  They understand that everything promised to them was a lie.  The reality is that when Rep. Joe Wilson from South Carolina shouted out "You lie!" to Obama, when he promised that Obamacare would not cover illegals, Wilson was speaking the truth.  He has now been vindicated, because a $28.8 million dollar award went to 67 community health-care centers around the country with more than $8.5 million earmarked for migrant and seasonal farm workers — money that should be going to benefit American citizens.  Once again, this issue goes to the heart of illegal immigration and its consequences.

Why Obamacare Architect's Admission of Dishonesty Should Matter to Every American.  A list of administration lies might be a good topic for a book.  But to just hit a few of the health care related highlights, we were told that the public option was not a Trojan horse, that it was about choice and competition.  This was a bald faced lie.  We were told we could keep our plans and doctors period, end of sentence.  That was a lie.  We were told Obamacare would reduce premiums by $2,500.  That was a lie.  That Obamacare was not a tax.  Lie.  That the VA was a model of socialized medicine.  True, but not in the way they meant.  All of these lies built upon one another, creating a vision of health reform that was all upside and no downside.

The Myriad Contradictions of Barack H. Obama.  As a part of selling the health care law, we were told by our president that the ACA would cost $900 billion.  On 36 recorded occasions, the president looked us in the eye and told us "If you like your plan you can keep your plan."  "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."  That's how he sold it.  Before deciding to stop estimating the ACA costs altogether, the most recent Congressional Budget Office numbers put the expense of the ACA at $2.6 trillion, and the president was forced to go on national television to retract and apologize for his lie.  Over 5 million people have had their plans canceled, and we now know that he was aware that "keep your doctor" wasn't factual at the time he was saying it.  He was lying.

Maine Sen. Angus King: Who cares if ObamaCare architect Jon Gruber thinks voters were deceived about ObamaCare?  Via Newsbusters, after yesterday's unpleasantness and the Halbig "speak-o" fiasco of a few months ago, I see Democrats (plus independents in name only like King) have finally reached the "Jon who?" stage of their Gruber problem.  This is the game we're playing now, eh? [...] Obama knew "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" was a lie from day one.  He told it anyway because it was useful in selling the law to skeptical voters.  All Gruber's guilty of is summing up the approach that you've seen playing out with your own eyes for the past five years.

Angus King: Gruber Who? — Fox & Friends 'Cruel' to Question ObamaCare.  Such an "independent," that Angus King.  Nancy Pelosi herself couldn't have performed a more partisan hack job of defending ObamaCare and attacking those who dare question it.  Things got ugly on today's [11/11/2014] Fox & Friends. [...] King claimed he had never heard of Gruber, jabbed his finger while instructing the Fox & Friends hosts "don't lecture me," and accused them of being "cruel" for raising questions about ObamaCare.

Jon Gruber finally speaks — to MSNBC.  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber is perhaps Republicans' best weapon in their fight to dismantle the sweeping health care reform law.  Gruber, who forcefully insisted that the basis of the upcoming Supreme Court case King vs. Burwell is based only on a "typo" in the Affordable Care Act, was captured on camera not long ago insisting that the language in the ACA denying federal subsidies to states that do not elect to set up their own exchanges was by design.

5 Ways ObamaCare Hides Its Costs.  Trying to figure out how much ObamaCare costs taxpayers has become an impossible task, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  The CBO initially said that the law would slightly reduce the deficit over its first 10 years.  But earlier this year, the CBO admitted that it couldn't actually verify whether that forecast was accurate.  When asked this summer whether ObamaCare would, in fact, cut the deficit, CBO head Douglas Elmendorf said "We don't know, and I think in some important ways, we will never know."

Megyn Slams ObamaCare Architect Who Declined to Appear on 'Kelly File'.  Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, was on "The Kelly File" to discuss the newly surfaced video where ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber reveals that a "lack of transparency" helped pass the health care law.  "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.  And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass," Gruber said in the video.  "If it takes lying to us to get what they want done, they're willing to do it," Thiessen said.

There Is No Obamacare Briar Patch.  One of the favorite hobbies of liberals is warning Republicans about the supposed political dangers of repealing Obamacare.  The latest iteration of this particular liberal fantasy comes via the communist agitprop rag Salon, which warns ominously that if the Supreme Court eliminates subsidies in the states that do not have their own exchanges, that "SCOTUS could roil the GOP:  How the new threat to Obamacare could backfire on the right."

The Great (and Deliberate) "Typo" Lie.  Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the King v. Burwell challenge to the Federal subsidies in Obamacare, the defenders of the law are busy once again trying to trot the deliberate and intentional lie that the provision in Obamacare that limits the subsidies to those who are on "State" exchanges is a "typo" and that clearly Congress meant to include all exchange customers in the subsidies provision.  Paul Krugman, who is even worse at being a lawyer than he is at being an economist, trotted out a representative sample of this patent dishonesty yesterday [11/9/2014] in the New York Times.

Caught on Camera: Obamacare Architect Admits Deceiving Americans to Pass Law.  "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare.  "And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."

Obamacare Architect: WH Preyed on 'The Stupidity of the American Voter'.  A key architect of Obamacare has been caught openly boasting about taking advantage of, what he calls, "the stupidity of the American voter."  MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber spoke at a panel on October 17 on the political hurdles Obamacare faced in 2009-10.  The video was unearthed and posted on Youtube by American Commitment.

Obamacare Architect: Lack of Transparency Was Key Because 'Stupidity Of The American Voter' Would Have Killed Obamacare.  Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that lack of transparency was a major part of getting Obamacare passed because "the stupidity of the American voter" would have killed the law if more people knew what was in it.  Gruber, the MIT professor who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration during Obamacare's design, also made clear during a panel quietly captured on video that the individual mandate, which was only upheld by the Supreme Court because it was a tax, was not actually a tax.

The truth behind the Obamacare numbers.  As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised that his health reform plan would "lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family."  So it's not surprising that many people are dismayed by the rising costs under the health reform law he subsequently signed.  But the president and the lawmakers who created Obamacare were always far more focused on increasing coverage than on reducing costs.  That's why two of the law's central provisions were expanding Medicaid eligibility and creating new government-run exchanges offering subsidizing health plans.

WaPo Factchecker Gives Obama 3 Pinocchios For Bogus Health Care Claim.  President Obama continued his tradition of blatantly lying to the American people about ObamaCare during his press conference Wednesday and the Washington Post Factchecker has called him out on it giving him 3 Pinocchios.

Our Make-It-Up World.  Do bothersome facts matter anymore?  Not really.  This is an age when Americans were assured that the Affordable Care Act lowered our premiums.  It cut deductibles.  Obamacare allowed us to keep our doctors and health plans, and lowered the deficit.  Those fantasies were both demonstrably untrue and did not matter, given the supposedly noble aims of health care reform.

The Sayings of Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  Obamacare is working exactly as it should, according to Barack Obama — even though people are losing their doctors and premiums are not plummeting, as promised.  Yet Obama says the criticism should stop since "the debate is over."  Why has his repeated promises that 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it' been widely declared to be "The Lie of the Year" by fact-checkers across America?  He and his advisers knew it was false quite early during the passing and rollout of ObamaCare but kept lying.

The Obamacare Fraud.  As millions of Americans struggle with additional increases in their healthcare premiums, loss of their preferred coverage, loss of family doctors, loss of full-time employment and other adverse effects of Obamacare implementation, we are seeing the resurrection of several timeworn arguments from its supporters on social media, advocacy groups, and of course, the modern-day media.  Although many in number, certain stalwart augments of the Left get my attention in that key misrepresentations now seem to be woven into the fabric of the American masses.  Perhaps the most galling of these surviving misconceptions is the phony basis upon which Obamacare was sold, which was in order to aid some "47 million uninsured Americans."  This statistic is simply dishonest.  President Obama, with the help from his friends in the modern-day media, perpetuated this fabricated number knowing it to be false.

The Love Affair With Obamacare.  Americans love Obamacare, the New York Times propagandizes today.  It's not the only media outfit running with this story today, suggesting a coordinated campaign effort a week before the election.  According to the New York Times, it is too soon to tell if Obamacare is working, except with the young.  There, Obamacare seems to be working.  But, here's the kicker.  With the Obama Administration claiming Obamacare would reduce costs, the New York Times finds it only has at the margins.  The paper also speculates that the exchanges will work better next year.  And, most importantly, the paper has to admit Obamacare has not been as affordable as promised.

ObamaCare and the Language of Law.  In the text of ObamaCare there are 58 iterations of the word "behalf," and not a one of them is connected to "State."  In the Halbig dissent there are 18 iterations of the word "behalf" and each and every one of them is connected to "State," such as "on the State's behalf" or "on behalf of the State."  So when the dissent claims that "the Act empowers HHS to establish exchanges on behalf of the States," he's reading his own language into the Act.

Sorry, New York Times: ObamaCare Is Not Working.  The New York Times on Monday featured a huge news package claiming that ObamaCare is delivering on all its main promises. But the Bible of the liberal press has badly misled its flock.  'After a year fully in place," the Times story begins, "the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama's main promises."  So case closed, right?  After all, a team of New York Times "reporters and data researchers" came to that conclusion.  In a word, no.  To claim success, the Times gets things wrong or ignores the law's most glaring failures.

Obamacare Is a Job-Slashing, Deficit-Deepening Disaster.  A report out today from the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee highlights a critical point about Obamacare:  The law's negative effect on labor markets helps explain why it will increase deficits by $131 billion over the next 10 years.  This finding stands in stark contrast to Democrats' repeated assertions that the law will reduce the deficit.  The public dialogue on Obamacare has thus far largely focused on how the law affects premiums and limits access to certain health insurance plans or doctors.  While these side-effects are troublesome, it is perhaps more significant that Obamacare has had — and will continue to have — a substantial impact on labor markets, jobs and the budget picture.

Watch Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber Admit in 2012 That Subsidies Were Limited to State-Run Exchanges.  Earlier this week, a three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that, contrary to the Obama administration's implementation and an Internal Revenue Service rule, Obamacare's subsidies for private health insurance were limited to state-run health exchanges.  The reasoning for this ruling was simple:  That's what the law says.  The section dealing with the creation of state exchanges and the provision of subsidies states, quite clearly, that subsidies are only available in exchanges "established by a State," which the law expressly defines as the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.  Obamacare's defenders have responded by saying that this is obviously ridiculous.  It doesn't make any sense in the larger context of the law, and what's more, no one who supported the law or voted for it ever talked about this.  It's a theory concocted entirely by the law's opponents, the health law's backers argue, and never once mentioned by people who crafted or backed the law.

50 Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong:  [#22]  Even Barney Frank admits Barack Obama shamelessly lied to the American people to get Obamacare passed — and lie, he did.  He promised that Americans could keep their insurance plans, that they could keep their doctors, and that Obamacare would save the average family $2500 per year.  Not only were all of those lies, Obama knew they were lies when he made those promises.  [#23]  Barack Obama has broken the law repeatedly by making at least 23 unilateral changes to Obamacare.  [#24]  Obama has been illegally trying to force Christians to pay for abortifacients via Obamacare.  [#25]  Obamacare has been a disaster that cost millions their insurance and sent health care costs spiraling into the stratosphere.  [#26]  Obama is taking 700 billion dollars out of Medicare to put into Obamacare.

The Reality Behind the Latest Pro-Obamacare Spin.  [T]he truth about Obamacare implementation is far less rosy than the latest round of cheerleading would indicate.  For starters, the federal and state websites remain largely a dysfunctional mess, although the media isn't really covering the story anymore.  The supposed "fix" that allowed millions of consumers to sign up with plans on the exchanges from December through April really wasn't much of a fix after all.  It was a workaround, allowing consumers to access large federal subsidies with minimal verification.

Obama's Untruth, Inc.  Did much of anything prove accurate about the Affordable Care Act?  Costs, keeping our doctors and existing plans, the effect on the deficit, the website?  Had the president in 2008 outlined honestly the ACA's provisions, he would never have gotten elected, or had he by 2012 fully implemented them, he would never have gotten reelected.  Lying about Obamacare and demonizing any who objected were smart politics, but the president will never regain the trust of those whose premiums spiked, who lost their coverage and their doctors, and who still do not understand what exactly Obamacare is.

John Kasich's Big Obamacare Mistake.  John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio who may be mulling a presidential bid, stepped in it this week.  He appeared to say that he thought the Affordable Care Act would never be repealed — as many Republicans hope — because it helps too many people.  He then backtracked and said that he was only talking about the expansion of Medicaid that was part of Obamacare, not Obamacare itself.  Kasich is one of several Republican governors trying to do the same balancing act:  opposing Obamacare while taking its Medicaid money.

White House: Decision to Delay Obamacare Enrollment Until After The Election Was Not Political.  The White House is making an astonishing claim that the decision to delay the enrollment period for Obamacare until after the election was not political.  During the White House Press Briefing today [10/14/2014], ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl questioned the administration's decision, pointing out that people shopping for health care would be unable to see premium hikes until after the election.

The Left's fantasy world is no amusement park.  The Obama propaganda machine churns out fantasy to the liberal and Left media outlets, who obligingly publish and defend everything they put out.  And since Fox News is the biggest media source that does not buy into this Fantasy World, they are the ones portrayed as living under false conceptions.  So it's no surprise that on Thursday [10/2/2014], apparently needing to shore up his Fantasy World against a new round of Obamacare bad news, the President said the following:  "While good, affordable health care might still be a fanged threat to the freedom of the American people on Fox News, it turns out it's working pretty well in the real world."

Rationing Is Coming! $2.1 Billion for Obamacare Enrollment System Alone.  According to a Bloomberg Government Analysis, the Obamacare enrollment system didn't cost the roughly $834,000 claimed by our administration.  It cost a whopping $2.1 billion.

Dishonest or discombobulated? With Obama, take your pick.  Either Mr. Obama repeatedly says things he knows are false, or he is completely unable to comprehend information to discern the truth.  There is no third option.  Take his statement during the debate over the Affordable Care Act.  He traveled the country for nearly a year, saying over and over and over, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."  But that turned out to be completely false.

Rep. Chris Smith: Federal Funds Not Being Used for Abortion 'Biggest Lie in 2014'.  At a news conference last week, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) called President Obama's promise that no taxpayer dollars would be used to fund abortions under Obamacare, "the biggest lie in 2014."  Smith, speaking on a new GAO report that indicated public funding of abortion, said, "The president issued an executive order on March 24, 2010 and it said:  'the Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.  It turns out that those promises made both on the floor of the House and in the president's executive order are absolutely untrue."

More about taxpayer-funded abortions.

Obamacare Architect Met with Obamacare Author the Afternoon Before His 'Typo'.  On July 24th, footage surfaced of Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist and the chief architect of Obamacare, discussing the issue at the heart of the latest ACA court cases:  whether subsidies are only available for state-run insurance exchanges or can also be paid as part of a federal exchange.  During a January 18, 2012 videotaped lecture, Gruber said, "I think what's important to remember politically about this, is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits."  The next day, Gruber spoke with Jonathan Cohn, a senior editor at The New Republic, about the video and said the remarks were a "mistake" made while "speaking off-the-cuff."

More Bad News for the Middle Class and Their Health Care.  [Scroll down]  Well, look at what is happening now, with ObamaCare having entered the picture.  A typical plan for a middle-class family will have a $3,500 to $10,000 deductible.  But the crazy bills haven't changed.  The jacked up rates, which were reactions to the whole "look at what we did — you have to pay only 20% of the bill" bloviating of the insurance companies, are still there.  But now the patient has to come up with the whole deductible.  The insanity of the chasm between what is billed and what is actually collected is now complicated by the patient getting thrown under the bus as an "unforeseen" side-effect of the ACA. [...] Seeing the middle class visibly suffer like this when the president told them during the elections that they would see their costs "go down $2,500 per family" is a heinous outcome of a preposterous government overreach.

Barney Frank on Obamacare rollout: 'They just lied to people'.  Former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank questioned President Obama's honesty regarding the rollout of Obamacare in a recent interview.  He told The Huffington Post on Friday that he was shocked at the mishandling of the new health care law.  "The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled — I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," the former Democratic congressman told the website.

The CBO Is Using Enron-Style Accounting On Obamacare.  CBO has always been at the center of a debate about how much we should trust these estimates and how much legislators should rely on them in crafting policy.  The larger the legislation, the more moving parts it has, the more difficult it is to calculate the fiscal and economy-wide impacts.  In the case of Obamacare, the sheer largeness of the measure and its many factors contributed to a higher degree of distrust for the CBO's assumptions about what would come of Obamacare's passage.

Things Obama Just Won't Do.  You will remember the Obamacare debate.  It consumed the entire nation's political energy for almost eighteen months.  Obama campaigned for it relentlessly.  Not only did his lie about "if you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan" dominate the headlines, but his equally important lie was that Republicans had no alternatives to it.  The media, the ideological bit in its teeth, ran with the lie despite the fact that Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), himself a medical doctor, had a vastly better alternative introduced in a bill that would have left medical decisions to doctors and patients and not the government.

Controlling the Past.  Since its official launch, in October of 2013, the architects and salesmen of our ill-conceived phalanx of reforms have been engaged in some of the most pronounced historical revisionism of the modern era — truth being subjugated to expedience; idealism being repackaged in the pathetic language of good intentions; and the past being tweaked at every tricky stage.  Thus has the ironclad promise that insurance premiums would decrease for all people given way to scoffing admissions that "of course" some people's premiums would increase.  Thus has the quixotic assurance that there would be no winners and losers been transmuted into the defensive insistence that there are no perfect plans but that this one was "worth it overall."  Thus has a favored vow that anybody who "liked" their existing plan would be able to "keep it" replaced with the patronizing mantra that people just don't know what's good for them — and need in consequence to be told what they may buy.  Thus has the claim of "universal health insurance" been quickly forgotten, a series of unseemly statistical victory dances being offered in lieu.

Obamacare Architect's Comments on State Exchanges Weren't a 'Mistake'.  During a January 2012 lecture [Jonathan] Gruber said, "I think what's important to remember politically about this, is if you're a state and you don't set up an exchange, that means your citizens don't get their tax credits."  Gruber spoke with Jonathan Cohn, a senior editor at The New Republic, about the video on Friday [7/24/2014] and said the remarks were a "mistake" made while "speaking off-the-cuff."  Shortly after Gruber's excuse, Breitbart News and John Sexton released an article with an audio clip of Gruber making the same "mistake" in a prepared speech in 2012.

Phony numbers still haunt Obamacare, just like immigration.  An update on the misnamed Affordable Care Act is in order since many Americans are likely to face a surge of higher insurance premiums this fall.  Speculation said that President Obama would issue executive actions this summer to delay legal deadlines, hoping to push back premium hikes until after the fall elections.  But he may be deterred by the lawsuit being launched by House Republicans.  They're about to sue him for exceeding his authority when he directed a delay in implementing the mandate for employers to provide health insurance coverage.  That delay and the high costs of Obamacare coverage are part of the reason why the law is only reducing the number of uninsured by half as much as promised, even though costs of the law are now doubling.  In short, it's twice the cost for half the benefit.

Obama's Psychological Tapestry.  There's a marked rigidity, a lack of cognitive flexibility, in Mr. Obama.  He has to be right, he is always right, and so (for example) the president can declare earlier this year — with a straight face — that the Affordable Care Act is "is working the way it should."

I Was Right About the ACA.  Around and after the time that the Affordable Care Act was enacted, many analysts identified problems with claims being made about the law, and we offered explanations of its likely actual effects.  Too often these were brushed aside amid efforts to promote the ACA in the face of growing public opposition. But four years into the ACA, it is remarkable how well our predictions have been borne out.

The Myriad Contradictions of Barack H. Obama.  In September of 2013, the president made an emphatic declaration about delaying the health care law:  "Delay the law [ACA] — that's not going to happen as long as I'm President."  This sentiment was echoed by then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during congressional testimony when she insisted, "Delay of the healthcare law is not an option."  At most recent count, despite the president not having the statutory authority to allow for this, ObamaCare deadlines and implementations have been delayed by the White House and/or Dept. of HHS at least 38 times.

The Media Smears More Lipstick on Obamacare.  Most voters view Obamacare as a bloated, stinking beast.  Yet, if you browse the web for recent news on the president's "signature domestic achievement" your search engine will return countless articles describing it as a spectacular success story. [...] This is no coincidence.  The figures used in the hundreds of articles about the low cost of Obamacare plans, for example, come directly from the administration.

Also posted under Media bias in Obama's favor.

The Federal Octopus.  [Scroll down]  No one has any idea to what degree the Affordable Care Act is working, largely because we do not receive data about how many have paid or are paying their premiums, or how many people are simply transfers into the system from other state and federal health plans.  We still do not know how many lost their insurance because of Obamacare, or what are the actual costs for those forced into new plans.  Data about enrollees are now hopelessly politicized, in the sense that federal employees know that the more they report new signees into the system and the less they disclose about the circumstances of such enrollees, the better off will be their own careers.

Surprise: ObamaCare Costs More Than Predicted.  The Health and Human Services report, released this week, claims that of the 5.4 million people who enrolled in ObamaCare through the federal HealthCare.gov site, 4.7 million got tax subsidies to offset the cost of their premiums.  It goes on to say that once you factor in the subsidy, the average premium was $82 a month.  "Consumers have more choices, and they're paying less for their premiums," boasted new HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.  That claim itself is dubious.  Even with the subsidies, ObamaCare is hardly cheap.  For example, a young person making $22,980 would pay up to $1,450 for an ObamaCare "silver" plan after subsidies.  But that same person would likely have been eligible for cheaper rates before ObamaCare, without any tax subsidies.

Here's a shocker:  The projections weren't accurate.
Obamacare subsidies push cost of healthcare law above projections.  The large subsidies for health insurance that helped fuel the successful drive to sign up some 8 million Americans for coverage under the Affordable Care Act may push the cost of the law considerably above current projections, a new federal report indicates.  Nearly 9 in 10 Americans who bought health coverage on the federal government's healthcare marketplaces received government assistance to offset their premiums.

Obama, Sebelius Blame 'Right-Wing Media,' 'Billionaires' For Obamacare Failures.  Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took aim at her "hostile" right-wing opponents Tuesday [6/17/2014], in her first speech after resigning her top post. [...] "We had right-wing media, leadership in Congress who was determined on the House side to stop this law at any cost, shadow political organizations, hostile governors, hostile legislators, all working to make sure you couldn't do the job that was so important," Sebelius gushed, only once mentioning "our well-known issues with the website" putting a damper on customers getting coverage.

Fictions as Truth.  For the Obamacare scandal, we are asked to believe:  [#1] The Obama administration consistently published up-to-date and accurate information about the number of ongoing enrollees and those who have paid their premiums.  [#2] The president's promises that Americans could keep their health plans and doctors were misinterpreted; in fact, he referred only to those who had existing legitimate health plans, not substandard ones that of course were in need of government intervention and substitution. [...] [#7] The few million who lost their health care plans eventually will come to appreciate the president's leadership, once they discover that they now have more comprehensive ACA coverage at cheaper costs.

5 Obama Officials Who Lied, Then Lied About Lying.  [For example,] Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.  In March 2014, Sebelius testified that she had no information as to how many Obamacare enrollees had actually paid their first premiums.  Sebelius stated angrily, "This is not Medicare or Medicaid, sir, it's a private plan.  People are buying a product in the private market.  Consumers don't pay us, they pay their insurance company, and we don't have that information right now."  But insurers said Sebelius was incorrect.

CBO Quietly Drops Forecast That Obamacare Will Cut the Deficit.  One of the Obama administration's major selling points in passing the Affordable Care Act in 2010 was a Congressional Budget Office forecast that the controversial legislation would reduce the deficit by more than $120 billion over the coming decade.  The CBO has consistently projected that President Obama's overhaul will reduce the deficit, and the agency estimated that the Republicans' 2011 effort to repeal the legislation would increase deficits by $210 billion from 2010 to 2021.

The Hidden Cost Chickens in Obamacare Coming Home to Roost.  Labor unions have been reliable supporters of President Obama and his policies.  Their support for Obamacare was critical to its passage in 2010.  Yet they are continuing to learn that their members will be paying more for their healthcare, not less.  One of the selling points of Obamacare was the lowering of health insurance costs.  Nancy Pelosi promised, "Everybody will have lower rates."  President Obama was more specific, telling us that his signature program would "Bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family."  A year later, however, Mrs. Pelosi, in the face of rising premiums for many, forgot her promise of the previous year, "I don't remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium."

What Else is Obama Hiding?  Though the Obama administration tried to cover up the full extent of the website failure in the days following its launch, the lengthy Judicial Watch document tells a tale of complete collapse.  The document was forced out of this secretive administration by our November 25, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. [...] A simple request — that was stonewalled for over six months.  Now we know why.  This document shows that, on its first full day of operation, October 1, 2013, Obamacare's Healthcare.gov received only one enrollment!  That's one — out of 334 million Americans.  On the second day, 48% of registrations failed to process. [...] As of October 31, 2013, there were 1,319,425 accounts created nationwide — but only 30,512 actual enrollments in Obamacare.

The Obama Administration's Ethics Problem.  Almost nothing that former secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius promised before, during, or after the implementation of the ill-starred Affordable Care Act came true.  She was also cited by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for violating the Hatch Act, as she improperly campaigned for Obama's reelection while serving as a cabinet secretary.

Obama on Benghazi: 'It's Not Serious'.  At a 60-person Democratic fundraiser Monday night [5/19/2014], President Barack Obama told donors that debates over scandals such as Benghazi and Obamacare are pointless.  "The debate we're having now is about what, Benghazi?  Obamacare?  And it becomes this endless loop.  It's not serious.  It's not speaking to the real concerns that people have," said Obama.

The Editor says...
If nothing else is to be learned from this event, we learn that Mr. Obama himself (proudly, publicly) refers to the so-called Affordable Care Act as Obamacare, which is something many Democrats want us all to avoid.

Six months later...
'Obamacare Works,' Obama Tells Voters.  Mired in low approval numbers, President Obama has shied away from campaigning for Democratic candidates before the midterms, but when he spoke at a rally this evening in Michigan, the president made a forceful case for his signature health law.  "I don't know if you've noticed, but Obamacare works," the president said.

The Editor says...
Notice once again that Obama himself calls the program "Obamacare."

Lies of Obamacare.  Reuters reports the filing of a notable Obamacare-related lawsuit against Blue Shield of California: [...] Consumers who purchased new health plans from Blue Shield of California have sued the insurer, claiming they were misled into thinking the insurance would cover their desired doctors and hospitals.  Reuters doesn't bother to point out the similarity of the allegations against Blue Shield to Barack Obama's incessantly repeated falsehoods promoting the enactment of Obamacare.

Barack Obama of the Starship Enterprise.  "You can keep your insurance — you can keep your doctor," may indeed have been statements Mr. Obama and the Democrats rationalized as true during campaign speeches deflecting criticism for the "Affordable Care Act," whether or not staffers told them it might not be the case.  They believe their own propaganda, just as Bill Clinton believed he did not have sex with that woman.  Publicly distorting truth has become the accepted norm.  Even today, despite facts that prove otherwise, Mr. Obama still believes what he said WAS true IF what he said when he said it were examined under the conditions HE considered at the time.

Obamacare Myth-Making.  With enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges now closed, Democrats and their friends in the media are ebullient.  Obamacare is an enormous success, they say, and conservatives have been humiliated.  On closer inspection, however, things seem decidedly less bullish for President Obama's signature achievement.  Among the many exaggerations and inaccuracies the law's defenders are touting, five stand out. [...]

Confirmed: Many of Obamacare's 'Eight Million Enrollments' are Duplicates.  The Washington Post reported back in November that official tabulations were including anyone who's "selected a plan," which is the equivalent of placing an item in a virtual shopping cart online, regardless of whether the check-out and payment steps ever took place.  At Kathleen Sebelius' behest, the House Energy and Commerce Committee contacted every insurer listed as a participant in the federal exchange at Healthcare.gov in order to discern how many of these "sign ups" translated into paid enrollments.  The initial batch of information, based on data through mid-April, revealed a paltry payment rate of 67 percent.

WaPo Concedes Media's ObamaCare Propaganda Campaign Failed.  Any hope the media and Obama had that the endless trumpeting of the phony 8 million enrollment number would turn public opinion around for ObamaCare has just evaporated with this latest round of polling.  The Washington Post has now been forced to concede that media's propaganda campaign failed.  ObamaCare is unpopular and is likely to stay that way.

Question administration's Obamacare numbers.  The Pelosis, Reids and Schumers are going down in flames.  The Obamacare website, which two IT undergrads could have designed around their kitchen table, continues to cost Americans billions because of cronyism, nepotism and plain old ineptitude.  The Democrats complain that the GOP has come up with different data swirling around Obamacare.  The problem is that the Obama administration has never once presented verifiable data to prove a single point that this health care boondoggle has been remotely successful.

S.C. Insurance Director: Residents enrolled through Obamacare lower than federal estimate.  Last week, the federal government reported that more than 118,000 residents in this state enrolled in a policy between Oct. 1 and mid-April.  But S.C. Insurance Department Director Ray Farmer said today [5/6/2014] the true number is actually much lower.  Of the of the 119,784 individuals in South Carolina who applied and selected a policy on the federal exchange, 85,453 — about 71 percent — paid their first month's premium by April 30, Farmer said.  That was the last possible day to make that first payment.  Those who didn't pay by that date aren't actually insured, he said.

Kay Hagan Repeats Dishonest Attack on GOP Opponent.  As previously noted, Sen. Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) has attacked her presumptive GOP opponent, Thom Tillis, as a hypocrite for wanting to repeal Obamacare despite having once described it as a "great idea."  It's completely dishonest.  Tillis did say that, but here's the full context:  "The majority of the stuff that is in Obamacare is bad, because it's not fiscally sustainable.  It's a great idea that can't be paid for."

WH Disputes New Obamacare Enrollment Numbers, Can't Produce Own Data.  We wrote about the House Energy and Commerce Committees new Obamacare enrollment statistics earlier today.  In short, the committee found that of the consumers who'd "signed up" for plans on the federal exchange, only two-thirds of them had completed the enrollment process by paying as of April 15.  Based on that information, the administrations "8 million enrollees" bragging sustains and even bigger credibility blow than even many skeptics had anticipated.  At his daily press briefing this afternoon [5/1/2014], White House spokesman Jay Carney hotly disputed the new findings, but couldn't refute them with any empirical evidence.

The White House's Obamacare victory lap [is] looking more like a false start.  Democrats have been claiming a turning point in the battle over Obamacare for the better part of the last month.  First came the news that 8 million people had signed up — exceeding the law's goals — and then came the Congressional Budget Office report that its cost estimates are decreasing.  President Obama even took something of a victory lap, declaring the debate over his signature health-care law over.  When it comes to the American people, though, there has been basically zero rallying effect.  And in fact, they still expect Obamacare to do significantly more harm than good — in about the same proportions as before.

Great news: ObamaCare's enrollment numbers are only about 33 percent bogus.  No serious analyst believes the ObamaCare "signup" totals pushed by the White House are accurate.  The media makes a pretense of relaying these numbers as though they were valid data, when every single reporter knows they are not. [...] Print reporters usually claim the total of paid policies is "unknown," even though everyone knows the Department of Health and Human Services has the number.  If it was good news, they would of course release it immediately.

The Debate Is Not Over, Mr. President.  President Obama confuses high enrollment numbers with success on Obamacare, ignoring the obvious fact that millions of Americans are signed up but not sold.  "The point is, the repeal debate is and should be over.  The Affordable Care Act is working," the president said while announcing the enrollment of more than 8 million Americans.  That is not the point.  The debate is not over.

The Obamacare Question That Has Democrats Terrified.  With just 191 days until the Nov. 4 midterm elections, nervous Democrats are scrambling to find an effective answer to the Obamacare question they may fear the most:  "Where is the $2,500 in health insurance savings President Obama and Democrats promised me?"

5 Lives Wrecked By Obamacare.  Liberals support cruel policies that decimate people's lives; yet they like to think of themselves as compassionate and kind.  So, they judge programs based on the good intentions they claim to have had, not the actual results.  Liberals started out by telling everyone that, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."  They said, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."  They said it would "save the average family $2,500 on its premiums."  It sounds great, right?  In fact, if all of the wonderful liberal promises about health care had been true, conservatives would have supported Obamacare.  However, we knew they were liars.  Now everyone else knows it, too, even liberals.

2.7 Million ObamaCare Enrollees Still Unaccounted For.  President Obama has for a while been bragging that 8 million people have signed up for ObamaCare.  But the administration still hasn't released the state-by-state numbers to back up that number.  You'd think that with such good news, the administration would want to put out as many details as possible, as soon as possible.  But judging by previous months, the latest Health and Human Services enrollment report is now nearly two weeks behind schedule.  As a result, we still don't know where 2.7 million ObamaCare enrollees came from.

Bad Faith Meets Bad Science.  The attempts of defenders of Obamacare to rouse the American people in favor of the doomed monstrosity have become more desperate and bizarre.  The most recent example is taking place in Florida, where the sudden death of a young uninsured woman is being cited as an indictment of the Republican-controlled state legislature for refusing to approve the Medicaid expansion so generously being offered by the feds. [...] But wait, there's more.  A study is out which demonstrates that Republican legislatures across the country will kill more than 17,000 Americans annually with policies similar to Florida's.

Georgia Numbers Show Obama's '8 Million Enrollee' Claim Is A Fraud.  Not that anything Barack Obama represents as a factual claim should ever be believed, mind you, but last week's chest-thumping surrounding the purported "eight million" number of Obamacare enrollees didn't last very long before it started to fall apart.  That "eight million" doesn't take into account whether the newly-insured have actually paid for anything.  So what percentage of the enrollees in Obamacare actually have health insurance in force?  How many have signed up but not paid?  In Georgia, it looks like the number is about half.

Here's Everything Steve Doocy Got Wrong About Obamacare This Morning.  Now that Obamacare is, in Chris Wallace's generous phrasing this past Sunday, "not an unmitigated disaster," attention is turning to how conservatives will deal with the cognitive dissonance of a law they swore would collapse functioning about according to plan.  While lawmakers are stepping slowly back from repeal rhetoric to find an alternative, some pundits are going with the "pound the table" strategy and amplifying their original, now disproven, claims.  That brings us to Steve Doocy, who managed to cram about as much untruth as humanly possible into one monologue on Fox & Friends this morning: [...]

Wasserman-Schultz: Midterm Election 'Absolutely Not' A Referendum on Obama.  "No, absolutely not," the November midterm election is not a referendum on President Obama and his policies, Democrat Party Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.  "[T]hese elections, particularly the Senate elections, are referendums on the candidates running," she said.  Asked about vulnerable Democrats who have criticized President Obama's flawed healthcare law, Wasserman Schultz said they are running their own race.

The Editor says...
You can believe that if you want, but I don't.  Obamacare is political poison.

Barack Obama and the politics of lies.  That was quite a victory dance President Obama did Thursday while claiming Obamacare is "working" because eight million people have now supposedly signed up for the health care program. He even indulged in some less-than-subtle mockery of Republicans — and by extension the majority of Americans who have disapproved of Obamacare since before it became law.  "The repeal debate is and should be over," Obama said, taking a dig at Republicans who are "going through, you know, the stages of grief ... anger and denial and all that stuff ..."  But a president who is viewed by most Americans as less than honest has no business crowing about a victory that remains anything but obvious.

Obama: Democrats Should 'Forcefully Defend' Obamacare.  President Obama thinks Democrats should not shy away from defending Obamacare.  "Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the fact that millions of people ... we're helping, because of something we did," he said.

Census Survey Revisions Mask Health Law Effects.  The Census Bureau, the authoritative source of health insurance data for more than three decades, is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obama's health care law in the next report, due this fall, census officials said.

Liberals in rose-colored glasses consider ObamaCare a 'victory'.  Yes, it's true that six months after that catastrophe, people can actually sign up for ObamaCare.  It's also likely true that the program's worst possible fate — in which it literally collapses on its own because its overall insurance pool holds far more sick people than healthy people — has been avoided.  But the idea that, by meeting their obligations under the law, those 7 million signers-up have thereby indicated their support for ObamaCare, or their approval of it, or have ensured its success, is simply delusional.  In the first place, we don't yet know how many people who didn't have insurance before now do — which was the entire point of this exercise.

The Debate Will Be Over When the American People Say It's Over.  Shortly after the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare, the CBO projected that 9 million people would buy Obamacare-compliant insurance through newly established government-run exchanges.  Now, after an enrollment period that his administration expanded by about two months — to more than half a year — President Obama says that 8 million people have "signed up" for (but in many cases haven't actually bought) insurance through those exchanges.  The Obama administration's stated goal was to have 39 percent of those who bought such insurance be between the ages of 18 and 34.  Now Obama says the actual percentage is 28 percent.  Only in Washington, D.C. could someone put up numbers like these and then brag about them.

Obama taunts GOP, takes nationally televised victory lap on Obamacare.  The 8 million enrollment number marks a major success for Mr. Obama, who scrambled six months ago after computer glitches nearly left the system stillborn.  But the president nursed Obamacare with a series of delays and extensions  — many of which Republicans said were illegal  — and easily surpassed the initial target of 7 million sign-ups.  Beneath the enrollment numbers, though, are plenty of questions.  Although Mr. Obama touted the 35 percent of federal exchange enrollees he said were younger than 35, the administration acknowledged in a fact sheet that just 28 percent are 18 to 34 — the key demographic insurers need to sign up in order to cover the costs of older Americans with health conditions who no longer can be denied coverage.  Economists said the number needed to prevent premium spikes is close to 40 percent.

Obama: Health care sign-ups hit 8 million.  President Barack Obama called on his fellow Democrats to "forcefully defend and be proud" of the fact that millions of people have signed up for health care insurance through the federal marketplaces, and faulted Republicans who are still angling to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  "I don't think we should apologize for it.  I don't think we should be defensive about it.  I think there is a strong, good, right story to tell," Obama said Thursday during a rare appearance at the daily White House news conference.

The CBO Gets It Very Wrong on ObamaCare.  [T]he CBO's latest report on ObamaCare simply defies reality.  It says, for example, that ObamaCare will cost $104 billion less over the next 10 years than it thought just two months ago.  That drop rests almost entirely on the CBO's belief that premiums will remain virtually flat next year, which then lowers the insurance subsidy costs.  But the CBO somehow missed the fact that the industry is already warning of double-digit rate increases across the country next year.  Right now, in fact, it's pushing for changes to minimize the rate shock.  A sharp spike in premiums will drive ObamaCare's costs up far beyond the CBO's current estimate.

If You Liked the President's Lies, You Can Keep Who Approved Them.  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," Mr. Obama said at least 36 times.  You remember, right?  If not, just click on the video flashback atop this post.  Even Politifact, the leftwing "fact" "checking" organization, grudgingly awarded Obama their "Lie of the Year" last year in the face of this reality.  Guess who proofed at least some of those speeches for the Obama administration, in-between taking credit for shutting down the government last fall?

Let HHS nominee Sylvia Burwell explain Obamacare lie.  The agency Burwell heads, the Office of Management and Budget, is responsible for the president's budget.  But OMB also has another, lesser-known responsibility: fact-checking presidential speeches.  Every proposed presidential utterance is scrubbed for accuracy by OMB.  When speechwriters finish a draft presidential address, it is circulated to the White House senior staff and top cabinet officials in what is known as the "staffing process."  As part of that process, nonpartisan career policy experts at OMB review the speech and are responsible for attesting to the factual accuracy of everything the president says.

7 Blockbuster Obamacare Charts That the White House Doesn't Want America to See.  Remember all those promises that were made to sell Obamacare?  Like lowering premiums for a family of 4 by $2,500 a year, allowing people to keep their plans and their doctors, not adding a dime to the deficit, and all of that?  Well, let's just see how much of a striking success "Obamacare" is based on the numbers so far.  The Heritage Foundation created these charts based on the HHS' own numbers, the CBO's, and the Kaiser Family Foundation's.

Can The ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed?  The 14 state-run exchanges, plus the one run by the District of Columbia, have already put out final sign-ups through March 31.  Sign-ups in these states totaled 2.4 million.  The remaining 36 states relied on the federal HealthCare.gov exchange, which won't release its March numbers until later this month.  At the start of March, however, they had 2.6 million sign-ups, according to the Obama administration's last official count.  So to get to 7.1 million, these 36 states had to boost their numbers 80% in March.

Pharmacy Managers: 43% of Exchange Enrollees Had Drug Coverage Before Current Plan.  You've heard a lot of discussion of how many of those who signed up for Obamacare exchanges were previously uninsured, and how many had insurance, had their plan canceled, and had to sign up for a new one.  Express Scripts is a giant company (Fortune 100) that manages pharmacies and prescription drug processing.  They've got some new data to share on how their customers are purchasing or obtaining prescription drugs: [...]

Kathleen Sebelius STILL can't say how many of the 7.5 million enrollees already had insurance.  Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that 7.5 million Americans had enrolled in Obamacare insurance coverage by the time the dust settled on April 1, but reused to tell senators how many of them were already covered before the law took full effect.  The question is an important one: Republicans claim that most of those who signed up are Americans who lost their existing policies in 2013 because they didn't meet the Affordable Care Act's strict and sometimes bewildering minimum standards.  President Barack Obama promised that his signature insurance overhaul law would dramatically reduce the ranks of the uninsured.  Democrats hope the numbers turn out to show he's delivered on that pledge.

Media Hype 'Good' ObamaCare News, Bury The Bad.  The media are cheering a survey that, they say, shows ObamaCare is working miracles.  It shows nothing of the kind.  Meanwhile, they're ignoring another report that finds ObamaCare-induced premium spikes.

Digging Out From Under the Rubble of Obama's Catastrophic "Success".  Obama asked for a primetime network shot to announce his Big Victory, and the red diaper babies of the networks actually refused him.  I'm not sure if this is just about the bottom line, or if the networks (and especially their news divisions) are feeling a bit used [...] And maybe they've noticed that Obama's people always claim to only know the numbers they're interested in promoting, while claiming to have no idea about the ones that might not be so attractive.

The Premature Obamacare Victory Lap.  President Obama and the Democrats pushed through their signature domestic policy stating the "Affordable" Care Act would cover "every American."  They have used the figure of "48 million uninsured Americans."  To date, Obamacare has then enrolled less than 2 percent of those uninsured Americans.  "It's working!" exclaimed the President.  The Rand Corporation crunched the numbers and discovered only 858,000 people of the 7 million enrollees have actually paid their premiums, which is required to actually be covered.  "It's working!"  You will soon read that many of the applications in the official White House count are actually duplicate and incomplete applications.

Obama's empty boasts.  The country is years from knowing whether Obama's overhaul of the health-care system fulfills the promise of delivering universal coverage.  While large numbers of Americans have found the program very advantageous, including people who were formerly uninsured, many others have been forced to change plans or change doctors — contrary to Obama's repeated promises.  Obama tacitly admits the unintended consequences every time he waives a deadline or mandate in an on-the-fly effort to avoid catastrophe.  Even the sign-up numbers are not necessarily all they were cracked up to be.  Officials failed to say how many of the 7.1 million had paid their first month's premium.  Nor did they say how many of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured.

Obamacare's 7.1 million sign-ups: This year's worst April Fools joke.  In a twist of fate that reflects the dishonesty built into Obamacare, the president took to the White House Rose Garden to proclaim victory for his signature legislation on, of all days, April 1st.  It might have been funny, if Obamacare wasn't premised on falsehoods that are causing problems for the economy, middle class families, and Millennials.  But Obamacare's impending legacy appears to be increasingly tarnished with the deceit that has been central to the law's political viability.

White House now boasts that more than 10 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare.  Three million lower-income Americans have enrolled in the Medicaid program for the poor so far during the rollout of U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, the administration announced on Friday [4/4/2014].  That brings the number of people who have signed up for both public and private health coverage to 10 million since the October 1 launch of Affordable Care Act.  A percentage of those new enrollees includes prisoners in cash-strapped states that have decided to rely on Obamacare for their inmates' health insurance needs.

RAND study: By our estimate, 3.9 million people signed up for ObamaCare, not 7.1 million.  A caveat right off the bat:  RAND's estimate only runs through March 28 whereas the actual deadline for signing up was March 31st.  Given the crush of traffic on Healthcare.gov in late March, many more people could have signed up over those last three days than were captured by these numbers.  On the other hand, the White House was claiming six million sign-ups as of March 27.  There's no way to reconcile that with RAND's data.

Gallup survey suggests sign-ups under ObamaCare not as high as White House says.  A major new Gallup survey suggests the ObamaCare sign-up numbers are not as soaring as the White House claims.  The massive survey, released on Monday, shows the number of uninsured indeed has fallen to its lowest level in years, likely thanks to the Affordable Care Act.  The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measured the share of adults without health insurance.  That shrank from 17.1 percent at the end of last year to 15.6 percent for the first three months of 2014.  The decline of 1.5 percentage points would translate roughly to more than 3.5 million people gaining coverage.

No, The Obamacare Debate Isn't Over.  Last Tuesday, our President swaggered into the Rose Garden to announce that 7.1 million people have signed up for health coverage through Obamacare's exchanges and that all further argument about the future of his "signature domestic achievement" was pointless:  "The debate over repealing this law is over.  The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."  The problem with this claim is that no one with a basic grasp of arithmetic believes Obama's enrollment figures, only about a quarter of the electorate supports his "reform" law, and it is still the target of multiple lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.

13K In Maryland Lost Insurance Thanks to Obamacare and Never Got It Back.  As you probably already know, the President has been boasting about how the Affordable Care Act is succeeding so wonderfully.  Barack Obama is delusional.  Consider his question:  "Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?"  Why indeed!  The question is quite ironic because Obama is the one who has worked very hard for people not to have health insurance.  And now we have confirmation in Maryland that he has taken away the insurance of 13,000 people who remain uninsured.

Obamacare Is Still a Fraud!  What a disgusting amount of self-congratulations we've had to endure from Barack Obama and his cronies, who are now boasting that 7.1 million people had signed up for Obamacare when the first open enrollment period ended on March 31.  "The debate over repealing this law is over," the President declared.  Continuing his outburst of wishful thinking, he added, "The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."  Not so fast, Mr. President.  The issue is not nearly as settled as you'd have us believe, as a closer look at those enrollment numbers will quickly reveal.

Fuzzy math from administration over ObamaCare?  Although the president and his aides trumpeted the ObamaCare enrollment figures as a success, the administration did not always see those numbers as something to brag about.  In his Rose Garden appearance this week, Obama seemed elated to proclaim "7.1 million Americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these marketplaces."  But it remains unclear how many of those sign ups have paid premiums in order to be officially enrolled, or how many were previously uninsured.

The Incredible Obamacare Machine.  The L.A. Times triumphantly reported this week that 9.1 million people who were previously uninsured have signed up for health insurance thanks to Obamacare.  But of that total, 4.5 million have been enrolled through Medicaid and 3 million are 26-year-old "children" who opted to remain on their parents' plans.  That means that, as John Sexton pointed out, you could have achieved 7.5 million of that 9.1 million by just expanding Medicaid and opening young adults to their parents' insurance.

ObamaCare's endless false promises.  A core competency of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is issuing false assurances.  An administration about-face has left the Cabinet official looking like the Baghdad Bob of American health insurance.  When Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) asked her at a hearing two weeks ago whether the administration would extend the Obamacare enrollment period beyond March 31, she responded with a crisp and direct:  "No, sir."  To the uninitiated, that sounded like an unmistakable denial of any intention to delay the enrollment period.  The uninitiated were sadly misled.

Gov't Spent $700 Million Promoting Obamacare.  President Barack Obama contended that the government did not "make a hard sell" for Obamacare, despite his administration spending nearly $700 million to promote the law.  "We didn't make a hard sell," Obama said in the Rose Garden on Tuesday, praising the 7.1 million sign ups for the Affordable Care Act.  "We didn't have billions of dollars of commercials like some critics did."  However, last July the Associated Press reported that Obamacare's marketing campaign would cost at least $684 million.  [Updated later to $684 million.]

The Editor says...
You must purchase insurance from us by March 31 or you will be fined, and the IRS will come after you.  Is that not a hard sell?

'Billions' spent on attacking Obamacare?  A reader asked us about this comment during the president's victory lap on the Affordable Care Act.  Were there really "billions" of dollars worth of commercials opposing the law?  Our initial reaction was that this was just a bit of presidential hyperbole.  On the other hand, the president did make this assertion in a major speech.  So let's see what the data say.

Leftmedia Celebrating Meaningless, Movable O-Care Goalposts.  It's like deciding half-way through a semester that getting a D+ will be OK then pretending you're Einstein reincarnate when you do.  Through the miracle of almost no memory whatsoever, the lefty cheerleaders are celebrating the "[...]-SEVEN MILLION!" number like the parents of the paste-eating kid who finally wrote his name legibly for the first time in the fourth grade.

The Most Un-American Speech Barack Obama Has Ever Delivered.  The 7 million that President Obama touted today is a false number, he knows that it is a false number, and he knows that it is based on the threat of force.  In fact, his administration couldn't even give a solid number until today.  How convenient.  So today, the day after the same administration that has cooked the books on deportations, and cooked the books on unemployment, the same administration that lied about Fast and Furious, lied about Benghazi, lied about "green jobs," lied about last week's meeting with the Pope, and whose IRS abused the president's critics — the leader of that administration touted "7.1 million sign-ups" for Obamacare.  Even going by the administration's official numbers, the president's claim is inflated.

A Slacking Figure.  Yesterday President Obama claimed that "more than 3 million young adults... have gained insurance under this law by staying on their family's plan."  Indeed, the number of young people who can now stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26 — the so-called "slacker mandate" — is one of the most oft-repeated Obamacare statistics. [...] For example, when disputing the Medicaid numbers back in January, Ezra Klein claimed, "The 3.1 million young adults who got coverage through the new insurance regulations is a pretty reliable figure."  Well, no, it's not.

President's celebration skips those asking the hard questions.  [W]hile the president basked in his success and predictably castigated his critics, he took no questions.  Perhaps that's because some of them would have been hard to answer.  For instance:  How many new enrollees have paid their premiums?  The numbers above include everyone who has "picked" a health plan, even if they haven't yet paid for it, sort of like Amazon counting every item a shopper puts in their "cart" as a sale.  Even Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius concedes that only 80 percent of those who've picked a plan have actually paid the first month's premium.  Insurance executives also report that an another 3 percent to 5 percent paid once, but then stopped.  If these numbers hold, it would mean that just 5.6 million Americans (and 312,000 New Yorkers) really bought insurance through the exchanges.

ObamaCare may or may not have met enrollment goal by that fake deadline.  The Obama administration today will tout impressive enrollment numbers for ObamaCare with the confident precision that can only come from the knowledge that no one else is counting.  No one else can count the numbers.  Because the Obama administration controls access to all the numbers.  It's probably a coincidence, but that is exactly the way votes are counted by the Chicago Democratic machine.  And if the Obama crowd is strutting for the media over enrollment numbers, Americans aren't hearing more about his growing list of foreign policy embarrassments.

Covered California Sends Deaf Callers To Hotline Offering 'Hot Ladies'.  On the deadline to sign up for health coverage through Covered California, some hearing-impaired residents were sent to a chat line offering 'hot ladies' instead of an insurance navigator. [...] A Covered California spokesperson declined an on-camera interview, first saying by email, "We've never had the incorrect number on our site."  A screenshot captured by CBS13 shows the incorrect number as it appeared on the site.  Later, we would get another email saying in part, "...After investigating it further, we are reviewing the shop and compare tool as an incorrect number.  We're currently working to correct the problem."

Seven Million? Who Does the Obama White House Think They're Fooling?  President Obama is going to make a statement about Obamacare this afternoon.  He's likely to crow about that number that just magically appeared last night.  That number is so raw and unfiltered that it's meaningless.  Supposing that it's even a real number and not something that this dishonest cabal just made up.  First, there are the cancellations.  Fox counted up all the cancellations in each state that are directly attributable to Obamacare and came up with 6.2 million.  Subtract that from the 7 million sign-ups and we're at less than 1 million.  Some number of those who had their insurance killed by the man who promised they could keep it would have been expected to sign-up for a new plan within Obamacare.

Study shows just 858,000 newly insured Americans have paid up!  A triumphant President Barack Obama declared Tuesday his signature medical insurance overhaul a success, saying it has made America's health care system 'a lot better' in a Rose Garden press conference.  But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.  Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans — nowhere near 7.1 million — have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night [3/31/2014].

A Big ObamaCare Success? Not So Fast.  Seven million enrollees?  That figure fails to discount those who haven't paid their premiums.  Among the eight states releasing this number, about one in five "enrollees," on average, haven't paid.  If that's true nationwide, then only 5.6 million actually will have enrolled in ObamaCare.  Helping the uninsured?  The CBO expected at least two-thirds of exchange enrollees to come from the ranks of the uninsured.  But at best, only a third did so.  That alone is a major failure.  And nobody knows how many of these will pay their premiums.  Support is surging?  Hardly.  The ABC News/Washington Post poll that ObamaCare backers are touting simply shows Democrats rallying behind the law.  Republicans and Independents are more opposed than they were in January.

Making up good news about Obamacare.  The Obama administration is celebrating that it has achieved its (downwardly revised) goal of signing up more than 6 million Americans for Obamacare by 11:59 p.m. March 31.  Mission accomplished!  Not quite.  The administration has not revealed how many of those 6 million people have paid their premiums.  If you have not paid, you have not actually "enrolled."  It's like putting merchandise in your Amazon cart but never clicking "buy."  Besides, the number that matters is not how many Americans signed up for Obamacare but rather how many previously uninsured Americans signed up for Obamacare.

The Biggest Healthcare Scandal You've Never Heard About.  "Bottom Line: We Are On Track To Launch" ranks right up there with "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," as one of the biggest falsehoods in the annals of Obamacare.  The latter quote is the one that President Barack Obama used repeatedly as he lobbied for passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and then as he campaigned for a second presidential term.

Obama's Campaign Manager: This Law Is Working'.  On the eve of the sign-up deadline for Obamacare, no one from the Obama administration went on the Sunday talk shows to urge enrollment.  Instead, the discussion was left to previous administration officials and pundits.  The Affordable Care Act was a "seminal achievement" and the "politics" will improve over time, said David Plouffe, the former campaign manager and top adviser to President Obama.

Obamacare Real Enrollment: Just 1.7% of Uninsured Covered.  Obamacare, the plan purportedly created to provide health coverage for the uninsured, has enrolled just 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured.  News of the disastrous numbers comes as nervous Democrats and President Barack Obama, ahead of the November midterm elections, did their best on Monday's enrollment deadline to put a positive spin on the deeply unpopular Obamacare program.  The latest Associated Press poll finds that Obamacare has now hit an all-time low approval rating of just 26 percent.

Laboratories of What?  Well, this is it.  Today is your last chance to enroll in a medical insurance plan under ObamaCare.  There will be no exceptions, other than people who haven't yet enrolled.  And if you don't have insurance, you will pay a penalty.  Make that a tax.  Unless the tax would be a hardship in any way, in which case just don't pay it and the IRS will be totally cool.

White House Countdown Clock Says You Have Another 16 Days to Enroll for Obamacare .  The last days of the Affordable Care Act's implementation are starting to look like the early ones.  First Healthcare.gov went down late Sunday night after a surge in traffic, and now the White House's countdown clock mistakenly says sixteen days remain in the enrollment period.

HealthCare.gov offline for nearly six hours on deadline morning.  The last days of the Affordable Care Act's implementation are starting to look like the early ones.  First Healthcare.gov went down late Sunday night after a surge in traffic, and now the White House's countdown clock mistakenly says sixteen days remain in the enrollment period.

The Editor asks...
How can anyone assume that any misinformation on the Obamacare web site is a mistake?

5 Reasons Obama's 7.1 Million Number Is Meaningless.  On Tuesday [4/1/2014], President Obama triumphantly announced that, with the power of the mainstream media, Hollywood, and the threat of the IRS, the mission had been accomplished:  7.1 million Americans had selected an Obamacare plan. [... But] the 7.1 million statistic is a meaningless one.  It's meaningless for a variety of reasons:  It Doesn't Measure How Many People Have Actually Paid.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted yesterday that of the 6 million people who had signed up for Obamacare at the time, "What we know from insurance companies... tell us that, for their initial customers, it's somewhere between 80, 85, some say as high as 90 percent, have paid so far."  In other words, about five million people were signed up.

George Washington wanted Obamacare, Pelosi says.  Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi emerged into the sunlight April 1 to applaud a rush of sign-ups for Obamacare, and immediately described it as the long-sought goal of Gen. George Washington and the nation's Founding Fathers in 1787.  "It is really so heart warming for those of us who worked so hard [to make sure] many more people in our country would have access to healthcare," she told reporters at the stakeout position just outside the West Wing portico.

Pelosi: Don't Measure ACA by How Many Uninsured Get Insurance.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says Democrats passed their health insurance law, not to insure the uninsured, but to give people "quality" health care and "affordable" health care.  "Madam Leader, isn't the real measure of success, not the raw number who signed up, but how many of those who signed up were not insured before?" a reporter asked Pelosi at a news conference on Tuesday.  "No, that's not — the measure is twofold," Pelosi responded.  "The message is how many people have access to health care — quality, affordable health care and insurance."

Senator: 'There's No Such Thing as Obamacare'.  Senator Angus King, an independent senator from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, said this morning [3/31/2014] on Fox that "There's no such thing as Obamacare."  [Video clip] [...] "Now, now that's a big — There is no such thing as Obamacare.  You can't sign up for Obamacare.  You sign up for an Anthem policy or an Aetna policy or a WellPoint policy.  It's private insurance," said King.

The Editor says...
It may be private insurance, but the federal government is compelling you to buy it, or pay a fine for your failure to sign up, and potentially face prison time for failure to pay the fine.  So it is government-mandated insurance with a thin veneer of private ownership.

Sebelius: Extra Time To Enroll In Obamacare Is "Not An Extension".  [Video clip]

WH Point-Man on Obamacare: 'This Is a Very Popular Thing'.  Phil Schiliro, the White House adviser for health policy, says there's a surge of demand for Obamacare in the waning days of open enrollment, and that's why the Obama administration will let people complete their applications after the March 31 deadline. [...] "There's tremendous demand.  This is a very popular thing for people.  We want to make sure everyone who's trying to get insurance has the opportunity to complete the process."

Can Rep. Joe Wilson be Vindicated Now?  Breitbart News recently reported that Mexican nationals and others were being enrolled at Mexican Consulates all over the United States.  This now brings into the question if Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) who exclaimed in the House Chamber, "you lie, to President Barack Obama during the 2009 State of the Union when Obama remarked the health care bill would only cover American citizens, was the one who actually told the truth.

6 Big Unanswered Questions About Obamacare.  [#1]  How many people have actually enrolled?  [...] The headline sign-up numbers are often described as enrollment numbers.  They're not.  A significant portion of people who sign up for coverage aren't paying their first month's premium, and are therefore never enrolled.  In California, it's about 15 percent of sign-ups.  In Wisconsin and Georgia, it's closer to 20 percent.  In Nevada and Vermont, it's more than 30 percent.  Until we know how many people have paid, we won't know how many people got covered.

Obamacare's Score of 67 Percent Merits a D.  [Scroll down]  Last February, the CBO downgraded its estimate.  It wrote that, in part, this downgrade reflected its judgment about "the readiness of exchanges to provide a broad array of new insurance options."  In other words, over a year ago, the CBO could already read the writing on the wall:  Obamacare's government-run exchanges weren't going to be dazzling anyone with their technical competence or their product line.  Sure enough, they haven't.  Indeed, last month, the CBO had seen enough of the Obamacare rollout to downgrade its projection still further, to 6 million.  Less than 2 months later, that lowered estimate has now reportedly been hit — and the Obama administration is claiming victory.

Obamacare Enrollment Numbers? 'They Are Lying to Us,' Rep. Blackburn Says.  The Obama administration now says more than 6 million people have signed up for Obamacare, but critical information is missing, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told Fox News on Friday.  "I think that they are lying to us about who has paid, who has not paid, who is getting subsidies...  They don't want to give us the numbers," she said.  "The way they are surveying this (web)site — you know they are trying to cover things up."

Obama White House Continues to Swindle Young People Through "Affordable" Care Act.  During an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last month, First Lady Michelle Obama called young people "knuckleheads" for refusing to sign up for Obamacare.  As the data and numbers on Obamacare continue to be analyzed, especially for young people, it appears the real knuckleheads are those who think millenials can actually afford health insurance under the "Affordable" Care Act.  Forbes Contributor Scott Gottlieb is out with a piece today detailing the cost of Obamacare health plans for young people making between $25,000 and $45,000 per year.  The prices are astounding.

More Obamacare lies, no one is surprised.  At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) asked HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius if she was going to delay the open enrollment period for Obamacare beyond the already-extended deadline of March 31.  She answered very plainly, "No sir."  Rep. Brady didn't ask Sec. Sebelius because he didn't know the answer. The HHS has already delayed various deadlines multiple times.  The question was asked to see if Sec. Sebelius would finally tell the truth.  She did not.  No one was surprised.

Harry Reid lies about his lies about Obamacare.  I realize that's not nearly specific enough, but there are only so many hours in the day.  It's quicker to just show you.  [Two video clips.]

Reid: Obamacare Has 'Dropped Way Down in Significance'.  As he outlined the Democrats' "agenda for the middle class" on Wednesday [3/26/2014], Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told a news conference that "in Nevada and around the country, we have people sitting at their kitchen tables or in their living rooms expecting us to do something to help them."  Reid said the Democrats' priorities "reflect the priorities of the middle class," including "fairness and opportunity for all."  But what about Obamacare?  "So Obamacare — if you do a poll of anyone, that's dropped way down in significance," Reid said.

ObamaCare Is A Fiasco, So Why Don't Media Report It?  How do we know ObamaCare is failing?  Ironically, because those very same "reporters" are doing the opposite of the Bush years.  They're burying the story.  They aren't in denial.  They know the truth.  They're just choosing to ignore it.  They are pretending there are no broken promises about keeping your insurance plan, or keeping your doctor, or lowering your premium by $2,500 a year.  They are pretending, like Ellen DeGeneres told the president, that "everyone" in America loves ObamaCare.  Just how much coverage have they given to this, the most important domestic issue since Ronald Reagan's economic recovery plan?

The ObamaCare Numbers Racket.  Less than two weeks ago, the administration was emphatic that there would be no delay of the March 31 enrollment deadline for ObamaCare.  In fact, the spokesman for the agency in charge of ObamaCare said, "We don't actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014."  The next day, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked point-blank at a congressional hearing if she was going to delay the deadline.  "No, sir," was her response.  The reason ObamaCare imposes a limited open enrollment period in the first place is to prevent people from gaming the system — buying insurance only after they get sick.  So extending the deadline would just encourage abuse.  Nevertheless, this week Obama officials suddenly changed their minds.

Harry Reid: People Aren't Educated on How to Use the Internet.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the fault of struggling to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges didn't lie with the faulty website, but with the people who weren't "educated on how to use the Internet."  Explaining the reasoning behind the latest Obamacare delay, Reid said too many people just didn't know to use their computer properly and needed more time.  Apparently, it had nothing to do with the well-documented failings of the website that have embarrassed the White House for months.

Kathleen Sebelius: Obamacare Extension 'Is Not An Extension'.  Embattled Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that the Obama administration's decision to extend the Obamacare open enrollment period is not, in fact, an extension.  "This is not an extension of open enrollment," Sebelius told Michigan Fox 2.  "It is just saying, like you do on election day, if you're in line to vote, we want to make sure you vote."

Harry Reid: Obamacare Delayed Because 'People Are Not Educated About How to Use the Internet'.  On Wednesday, Obama administration officials announced a two week extension in the deadline to enroll in the Affordable Care Act or face a penalty defined as a tax.  Asked about this "delay" in the implementation of the ACA on Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said that there has been no delay.  He added that some of the users who experienced problems with the website early on need more time, partially because "people are not educated about how to use the internet."  "There's no hiccup or delay," Reid insisted.  "We had hundreds of thousands of people who tried to sign up and didn't get through."

The Editor says...
It almost sounds like he actually believes all this claptrap.  Almost.

Dem leaders: O-Care anger is media hype.  Senate Democratic leaders on Wednesday said the media is exaggerating public concern about ObamaCare and insisted they aren't worried the law will cost them their majority. [...] The Democratic leaders argued President Obama's decision this week to extend the enrollment deadline for the new healthcare law beyond the end of March should not be considered a delay.

After promising 'no delay' in final Obamacare sign-up deadline, Obama administration unveils new 'honor system'.  During a March 12 congressional hearing, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady that there would be no such extensions.  'Are you going to delay the open enrollment beyond March 31?' Brady asked.  'No, sir,' she replied.  On the same day, Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the agency charged with implementing the Obamacare law — told reporters that 'we have no plans to extend the open enrollment period' that began disastrously on October 1.  'In fact, we don't actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014,' she said.

Drudge Exposes Another ObamaCare Lie, Pays 'Liberty Tax'.  Despite White House claims no one has to pay ObamaCare's individual mandate tax until next year, a Web heavyweight points out that self-employed individuals file their estimated taxes this year for 2014.  In what could be the tweet heard around the world, Internet icon Matt Drudge tweeted at 11:09 a.m. Friday:  "Just paid the ObamaCare penalty for not 'getting covered' ... I'M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX!"  A mere 22 minutes later, White House spokesman Jesse Lee tweeted:  "Flat lie, no fee for previous year."  Lee's tweet shows just how little the White House knows about business, particularly small business, [...]

Harry Reid: I don't recall accusing Republicans of lying about ObamaCare horror stories.  Maybe, from moment to moment, this guy just ... doesn't realize what's coming out of his mouth.  Hard to believe he could forget saying on the Senate floor that all ObamaCare horror stories — all of them — are a GOP/Koch brothers fairy tale designed to besmirch the stellar reputation of the Affordable Care Act.

Boxer: Obamacare 'Is a Huge Success'.  "Never in my lifetime have I seen a law that is helping so many people be so vilified, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told a conference call on Friday [3/21/2014].  She talked about the millions of people in her state who are benefiting from the law that Republicans have tried to repeal 54 times. [...] Boxer said that truth is the Democrats' best ally.

Appalling: NY Times editorial distorts, misleads, and lies to readers on HHS Mandate.  With many political debates, I try to give opponents the benefit of the doubt on intentions.  Sure, raising taxes is a bad thing, but some politicians and pundits believe higher taxes will benefit society.  Some people think we need to spend more, and others really fear climate change.  When it comes to the HHS abortifacient/contraception/sterilization mandate, however, I've almost stopped being that generous with the left's media and thought leaders.  [A recent] New York Times Magazine editorial is a prime example as to why.  Almost from start to finish, the piece misleads and misdirects readers about the mandate, its opponents, and religious freedom.

Pelosi Laughably Claims Democrats Are The Jobs Party.  Former House Speaker Pelosi supposedly had been celebrating the fourth anniversary of the enactment of ObamaCare last week. [...] "We just couldn't be prouder," she said of the health reform that has been separating Americans from their preferred doctors, their health plans and lots more of their money in taxes and higher premiums.  But when a reporter asked if ObamaCare is "a political liability for your party" in an election year, Pelosi gave a jaw-dropping reply:  "We're not running on this," she claimed.  "We're running on what the American people want us to run on, and that is job creation."  Then, as if her party had nothing to do with the economic policies of the last five years that have given the country the worst economic "recovery" of the modern era, Pelosi added:  "Show us the jobs.  Where are the jobs?"  She then asked, as if incredulous, "Why are we not here passing a jobs agenda?"  Excuse us, Congresswoman, but we did pass a "jobs agenda."  Your jobs agenda.

Biden: Sign Up For Obamacare So Law Can 'Last Forever'.  To a chorus of cheers, whistles and a standing ovation, Vice President Biden addressed a group of community health care workers — calling them "the moral backbone of the country" and professionals who on the frontline of signing people up for Obamacare.  "For the first time in American history the idea that health care is a right and not a privilege is legislated," said Biden.

Obama Warns of Getting 'Clobbered'.  President Barack Obama warned yesterday at a private home in Miami that Democrats "get clobbered" in midterm elections.  "[T]he problem is not that the American people disagree with us on the issues.  The challenge is, is that our politics in Washington have become so toxic that people just lose faith and finally they just say, you know what, I'm not interested, I'm not going to bother, I'm not going to vote," Obama told donors.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is making a feeble attempt to portray hostility and active opposition as mere apathy.

Ellen Sucks Up to Obama: Obamacare 'Doing Very, Very Well... I Think Everyone's Very Grateful You Did This'.  Ellen DeGeneres was a completely slavish toady to President Obama as he appeared on her show to sell Obamacare — not to young people, but to mothers.  The president made his pitch to "especially all the moms out there who may have young people — 26, 27, do not have health insurance, but they think they're invincible and nothing's ever going to happen to 'em — what we've said is you never know what life is going to throw at ya."  For example, a president who lies about keeping your plan and keeping your doctor.  You didn't see that coming!  But DeGeneres said "everyone's very grateful" for Obamacare.

ObamaCare: Does it really cost less than cell phone coverage?  [I]n courting young people, President Obama is making a simple-yet-questionable pitch — that new health coverage basically costs the same as 4G cell coverage.  "You can at this point get health insurance for $100 a month or less, in some cases less than your cell phone bill or your cable bill," Obama told Ellen DeGeneres this week.  Really?  Monthly cell phone plans on major carriers like Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T cost anywhere from $80-$90.  The weighted average cost of the lowest "bronze" plan on the new health insurance exchanges costs $249.

New emails released on Dem senator's resistance to Obamacare cancellation numbers.  New emails have been released about whether Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall pressured a state agency to change its estimate of Obamacare cancellations.  Udall wanted the state Department of Insurance to downgrade its estimate of Obamacare-related insurance cancellations from 250,000 to just 73,000, because some Colorado residents were offered replacement plans.

Exercising Your Right to Choose a Doctor You'd Never Choose.  Originally, ObamaCare's goal was to insure 30 million uninsured individuals.  What America didn't know was that the goal would be accomplished through lies, contradiction, and coercion.  Now, because of all the negativity associated with health care reform, Barack Obama is on the hype-ObamaCare circuit with the message that 4.2 million formerly uninsured Americans now have health insurance.  It's probably closer to the truth that the 4.2 million are part of the six million people who lost their insurance as a result of the health care mandate, and signed up out of fear.  It also appears that President Obama is including in the 4.2 million number those who might have merely logged on and off the website.

Obamacare Hits Another Make Believe Milestone.  Obamacare "enrollment" in qualified health plans has now reached 5 million according to an announcement posted on the HHS website Monday.  As with all the previous "enrollment" milestones, we know for certain this one isn't true.  What we don't know is how far off the mark it is.

6 Arguments Only A Liberal Could Believe.  [#3]  (Before Obamacare was passed)  Everyone should support Obamacare because it will cover all of the uninsured, it'll save you money on health care, you'll get to keep your doctor and it'll be super convenient!  It's going to be the greatest thing ever!  (Now)  Sure, Obamacare mostly insures people it knocked off of their existing insurance, it costs a lot more, you can't keep your doctor and the website is insanely difficult to deal with, but it's the greatest thing ever!

No, Obamacare Hasn't Reached 'Five Million Enrollments'.  You know the drill by now.  The Obama administration releases an enrollment figure, the media credulously repeats it, then we bring you the facts. [...] Back in reality, the generally-accepted estimate of the nationwide non-payment rate is 20 percent — meaning that one-fifth of the "newly enrollment" are not, in fact, enrolled.  The administration "counts" anyone who's placed an Obamacare exchange plan in their virtual shopping cart as signed up.  Kathleen Sebelius again testified last week that HHS is not keeping track of who checks out and pays their first month's premium, which are necessary steps to becoming fully enrolled.

The Editor says...
If a private business were run so sloppily, and the CEO couldn't give federal investigators accurate information about the number of its paying customers, that business would either collapse or it would be "regulated" to death by the feds.

Jonathan Tobin on Obamacare 'fake enrollment numbers'.  Note how quickly the administration announced the 5 million enrollee number.  This is in stark contrast to how other information about Obamacare has been forthcoming from the White House.  They are treating most enrollment information as it it was a nuclear secret.

No, House Republicans haven't voted 50 times to repeal Obamacare.  For more than a year, Democrats and their advocates in the press have been ridiculing the GOP's anti-Obamacare efforts.  "The House Republicans have voted more than 30 times to repeal Obamacare," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in March 2013.  "The House has wasted weeks voting more than 40 times to repeal Obamacare," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in October of last year.  "If at first you don't succeed, try 50 times — Republicans [are] holding a 50th vote to repeal Obamacare," MSNBC's Al Sharpton said last week.  Many others have said similar things.  The only problem is, the truism isn't true.  The House has actually voted to repeal Obamacare in its entirety six times.  Certainly Democrats think that is six too many.  But it is not 50, or even close to 50.

The Party of Work.  The Democratic party has long prided itself on being the party of workers.  But an extraordinary thing happened the last few weeks in the debate over Obamacare.  When the Congressional Budget Office said the law would reduce the number of full-time-equivalent workers by 2.5 million by 2024, Democrats considered it not a bug but a feature.  The law was liberating people from the constraints of working.  This tack suggests an opening for Republicans.

Fake ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers.  The administration is claiming a limited victory by saying the number of those enrolled in ObamaCare has now hit 5 million with two weeks to go until the March 31 deadline. [...] But before the president and his team start popping the champagne corks to celebrate their achievement and their faux hipness, it's time once again to point out that the administration's Potemkin enrollment figures should be read with a truckload of salt.  As the New York Times reported last month, as much as 20 percent of all those enrolled had not actually paid their premiums, meaning they were not covered by the program.

We completely overhauled American health care — to insure 4.2 million people?  The number bounced around for years — 46 million.  President Obama said it in August 2009:  "I don't have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today.  In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage."  He said it dozens more times, including in June 2013:  "We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children." [...] So, he created Obamacare.  The crux of the biscuit:  The United States would completely change its entire health care system to make sure those 46 million got insured. [...] But last week came word that with just 15 days left for people to enroll for federal coverage, just 4.2 million had.  The math is simple:  That's just 9 percent of the supposedly 46 million uninsured.

This is Obama's explanation for why you might not get to keep your doctor.  During the health care debate, President Barack Obama said people can keep their doctor if they wanted.  Now he's explaining why that might not be the case.  Don't blame his health care law, Obama suggested in a Friday interview with WebMD.  He said it comes down to narrowing provider networks, a health care trend that predates Obamacare.

Obamacare Enrollment Down 18% in Feb; HHS: 'We Don't Think We Had a Decline'.  In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon [3/11/2014], Health and Human Services officials said February was a "short month," and that may explain why more people enrolled in Obamacare in January than signed up in February.  But don't call the 943,000 February sign-ups a decline from January's 1.146 million!  The 203,000 fewer people who enrolled in Obamcare in February than in January was a drop of 17.7 percent.

President Admits Obamacare Might Mean Losing Your Doctor.  While sitting in front of a portrait of George Washington Thursday, President Obama admitted that the average person might have to lose their doctor under his signature healthcare law.  Obama's statement is a 180 degree turn from the "If you like your doctor then you can keep your doctor" mantra that he so often repeated during his promotion of Obamacare before the law took effect on October 1.

Obama: Enough people have joined to make ObamaCare 'stable'.  President Obama said Friday enough people have already signed up for ObamaCare that he is "confident" his signature legislative accomplishment will function properly.  "At this point, enough people are signing up that the Affordable Care Act is going to work," Obama said in a WebMD interview.  "The insurance companies will continue to offer these plans.  We already have 4 million people, over 4 million people, signed up."  The president said he expects "a larger number" still to be enrolled by March 31.

Obama: You Might Lose Your Doctor Under Obamacare.  President Obama is warning Americans that they might have to change doctors because of Obamacare:  [Video clip]  "For the average person, many folks who don't have health insurance initially, they're going to have to make some choices.  And they might end up having to switch doctors, in part because they're saving money," said Obama in an interview with the medical website WebMD.

Progs start to realize the disaster ahead, but still are in denial.  The progressive dream, of a benevolent state led by the best and the brightest caring for a grateful population unable to fend for itself, is dying a painful death.  And it is starting to dawn on some of the smarter Democrats — people like David Plouffe — that they face an electoral Armageddon in November. [...] Plouffe just cannot get himself to admit the obvious:  that Obamacare, the Great Progressive Project, sold with lies and bribes, has become the Waterloo of the Left.

GOP: Another broken Obama promise to America's seniors.  Four years ago today, President Obama came to our state and promised our seniors that his health care law would protect their benefits.  He said this:  "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  I don't want to interfere with people's relationships between them and their doctors."  Now, the reality is, not only is the president's health care law interfering with these relationships — it's ending them altogether.

ObamaCare not to blame for election loss, says White House.  ObamaCare is not to blame for the loss that Democrats suffered in Tuesday's special election in Florida, according to the White House.  Press secretary Jay Carney said the healthcare law was "not the decisive factor" in the narrow defeat of Democrat Alex Sink to Republican David Jolly in the race for a seat left vacant by the late Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.).  "Any fair assessment of the role that the debate about the Affordable Care Act played reaches the conclusion that at best for the Republicans, it was a draw," Carney said.

White House: Sink's Loss Not Tied to Obamacare.  Democratic congressional candidate Alex Sink did not lose a Florida special election Tuesday because she supports President Obama's health reform law, the White House maintained Wednesday [3/12/2014].  "Any fair assessment of the role that the debate about the Affordable Care Act played reaches the conclusion that, at best for the Republicans, it was a draw," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.  "And I think that's evidenced by the fact that the Republican candidate himself didn't even mention it in his victory speech."

Obama Just Guaranteed ObamaCare's Failure.  Almost two years ago, President Obama's solicitor general told the Supreme Court that without the individual mandate, ObamaCare would fail.  But after winning that victory, the administration itself has effectively killed the mandate.  In his oral arguments before the court, Donald Verrilli made it abundantly clear that, without the individual mandate, ObamaCare would "make matters worse, not better."

ObamaCare is dying.  Some people insist ObamaCare is here to stay.  Nonsense.  President Obama is dismantling it himself, lawlessly hacking off provisions as they become unpopular in order to minimize Democratic losses in the fall election.  Health reform [notwithstanding].

White House: Only President Obama can change Obamacare.  The White House late Tuesday said President Obama would veto a House bill that would delay for a year the individual mandate in the president's health care law.  The House Rules Committee was set to debate the measure at a 5 p.m. meeting, setting it up for a floor vote as early as Wednesday.  The bill isn't likely to pass the Senate, however, since Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., usually keeps from the floor anything the White House opposes.

Big Brother vs. Little Sisters.  Despite straight-facedly promising that he would protect the religious liberties of people and groups and would not violate their conscience rights by forcing them to provide or support contraceptive or abortion services, President Obama has vigorously engaged in a scorched-earth campaign to do just the opposite.  It's not enough that Obama has imposed a mandate on a formerly free America to compel people to purchase health insurance under his woefully inferior new health care scheme.  He is insistent on gratuitously forcing it on those whose faith-driven consciences object to the mandate, even when exempting them surely wouldn't impair the workings of his already chaotic law.

It's Not an Obamacare Tax: It's an "Individual Shared Responsibility Payment".  Here's your Orwellian Phrase for the Week:  Individual shared responsibility payment.  Yeah... Go ahead and try to wrap your brain around that amalgamation of contradictory concepts.  The phrase is not gleamed from some glossy DNC spin-office, or a Harvard professor's latest psychobabble posing as an academic paper.  Apparently the phrase is the IRS's fancy (new) term for the Obamacare Mandate tax that individuals will have to pay if they fail to get health insurance this year.

Joe Biden: Obamacare not a jobs killer.  Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday [2/25/2014] denied that Obamacare would cost many Americans their jobs, insisting that it gave workers, in particular women, more employment freedom.  In an interview on ABC's "The View," Biden was asked by host Barbara Walters if the health law was a "jobs killer."  A recent Congressional Budget Office report projected that the health law could cost the equivalent of more than 2 million workers over coming years, a finding the Obama administration has pushed back against.

Sebelius' Jobs Claim Debunked, Again.  A week ago, President Obama's top health official declared there was no evidence ObamaCare was costing any jobs.  This week provides fresh evidence of how wrong she is.  'There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.  As we pointed out in this space last week, her claim is demonstrably false.  IBD has been tracking public and private entities that publicly blamed ObamaCare for cutting worker hours or jobs.  The current count is 401.

Joe Biden: Obamacare not a jobs killer.  In an interview on ABC's "The View," Biden was asked by host Barbara Walters if the health law was a "jobs killer."  A recent Congressional Budget Office report projected that the health law could cost the equivalent of more than 2 million workers over coming years, a finding the Obama administration has pushed back against.  Biden said that a closer reading of the report showed that President Obama's health care reform law would actually help struggling workers.

Obama's Claim About Medicaid Enrollments Under Obamacare Gets 'Four Pinocchios'.  President Obama's remark that "We've got close to seven million Americans who have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid expansion" achieved the dubious assessment of Four Pinocchios from "The Fact Checker" (a.k.a. "The Truth Behind the Rhetoric" by Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post).  Four Pinocchios designates the highest form of prevarication one can commit on The Fact Checker scale.  Simply put, Obama told a "Whopper."

It's Official: 65% of Small Firms Face ObamaCare Premium Hikes.  Released into a news black hole last Friday, an official Obama administration report finds that ObamaCare will push premiums up for two-thirds of small businesses.  Cross off another ObamaCare promise.

Fact Checker: Obama's claim that 7 million got 'access to health care for the first time' because of his Medicaid expansion.  It is dismaying that given all of the attention to this issue, the president apparently does not realize that the administration's data are woefully inadequate for boastful assertions of this type.

Sebelius: Administration Never Set 7 Million ACA Enrollment Goal — CBO Did.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday [2/25/2014] dismissed the goal of 7 million Obamacare enrollees by the end of March as something that the Congressional Budget Office made up, but that statement contradicts what she said in September.  "First of all, 7 million was not the administration.  That was a CBO Congressional Budget Office prediction when the bill was first signed.  I'm not quite sure where they even got their numbers.  Their number's all over the board, and the vice president has looked and said it may be closer to 5 to 6," Sebelius told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill.

Democratic whip urges vulnerable Democrats not to 'hide' from Obamacare.  House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., reminded vulnerable Democrats that they can't "hide" from the Affordable Care Act in the 2014 elections, after a fundraising trip on behalf of one colleague whose allies portrayed her as an Obamacare whistleblower in a recent campaign ad.  "The Affordable Care Act is ours," Hoyer told the Arizona Republic.  "You're not going to hide.  You're not going to duck.  It is ours.  We promoted it.  We believe in it.  Sell it.  It is good for the country.  It is good for Arizona."

Sebelius Denies Well-Documented ObamaCare Joblessness.  Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sebelius claims "there is absolutely no evidence" that health reform is killing jobs.  Liars are legion in politics, but they usually stop short of claiming the sun didn't rise this morning.

MN Dems Laugh When Asked Why Obamacare Doesn't Save Families Money.  During a panel at South Central College in Mankato, MN Wednesday, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Tim Walz and Collin Peterson fielded questions on a range of issues, including the farm bill, the national debt, and immigration reform.  But the most notable question was on Obamacare.  "I thought the Affordable Care Act would save $2,500 per family," a constituent asked.  "What happened?"

Sebelius claims there's 'absolutely no evidence' Obamacare will cost jobs, defying CBO estimate.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on Monday [2/17/2014] that there is 'absolutely no evidence' that the United States will lose jobs as a consequence of implementing the Affordable Care Act.  But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office declared on February 4 that the Obamacare law would suck the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs out of the U.S. economy by 2024.

Kathleen Sebelius: No job loss under Obamacare.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says there is "absolutely no evidence" that the Affordable Care Act will drive down employment, despite a report from the Congressional Budget Office released Feb. 4 predicting fewer people would be working.  "There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job-loss related to the Affordable Care Act," Sebelius told reporters in Orlando, Fla., on Monday.  "Part-time physicians [sic] are actually down since 2010, not up.  The number of full-time workers continues to increase.  I know that's a popular myth that continues to be repeated but it just is not accurate."

Dems' new 2014 plan: Neutralize Obamacare.  Democrats know their biggest problem in this year's midterm election is Obamacare.  So top party operatives have settled on a strategy to try blunting the GOP's advantage:  Tell voters Republicans would make the problem worse — raising prescription drug prices, empowering insurance companies and even endangering domestic violence victims.

64% Of Americans Say ObamaCare Would Never Have Passed If The Truth Had Been Known.  A new poll puts Obama's false promise, "if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it," in perspective:  64% of Americans say ObamaCare would've never passed if Americans had known the truth in 2009.  Moreover, the Fox news poll found the sentiment to be spread across all party lines, with 74% of Republicans, 68% of Independents and 54% of Democrats saying Obama's unpopular healthcare program would never have passed.

Pelosi: the Founding Fathers Would Totally Support Obamacare.  America's Founding Fathers fiercely held to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — values which Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) claimed align seamlessly with Obamacare.  Pelosi explained why the law is "very sound policy" during a press conference Friday:  [Pelosi quote omitted for brevity.]  This argument should be added to the montage of lies being promulgated by the Obama administration.

The Editor says...
The Founding Fathers would never have allowed women to run for Congress — or even vote.  Thus the Founding Fathers made no provision for people like Nancy Pelosi to have political power.  I'm a little surprised how proudly (and falsely) she attributes ideas to the Founding Fathers.

Obama had talks with HHS Secretary Sebelius 18 times before disastrous Obamacare roll-out.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in direct contact with President Barack Obama at least 18 times between October 2012 and October 2013, including seven occasions where her draft calendar showed Obamacare as the topic of conversation.  The news appears to contradict her insistence that Obama was in the dark about problems plaguing the ill-fated healthcare.gov website in the months leading up to its October 1, 2013 launch.

Before O-Care debacle, Sebelius made many trips to White House.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in frequent contact with President Obama and senior White House aides before the disastrous launch of the federal ObamaCare exchange last year.  While Sebelius has said the president was not aware of HealthCare.gov's problems, more than 750 pages of documents obtained by The Hill through a Freedom of Information Act request show she made scores of visits to the White House.

Politico Proclaims Obamacare a Success.  Politico is claiming that Obamacare has "cleared the tower" and is now a success.  With the release this week of the administration's latest enrollment claims, Politico has decided that Obamacare has at least reached "competence," noting that the purported three million enrollees are "way ahead of the disaster scenarios that had looked possible during the worst months of the troubled rollout last fall."

ObamaCare's Potemkin Enrollment Figures.  As the New York Times reports, of the millions who had purchased ObamaCare prior to last month a staggering 20 percent did not pay their premiums.  Though these people are still being counted among the total of those who are enrolled, they are, in fact, not covered and won't be until the bill is paid, assuming that ever happens.  That means the figures the administration has been proclaiming as good news are entirely fictional.

Scores of White House visits and Sebelius never mentioned ObamaCare troubles?  You may also recall that claiming cluelessness about trouble like the ObamaCare launch or, say, the IRS scandal over intimidation of Obama political opponents just in time for the 2012 election, is a familiar refrain for this prevaricating president.  He also claims ignorance about lying when he promised Americans some three dozen times that they could keep their insurance plan and family doctor under ObamaCare.  But as usual with Obama story-lines, turns out, there's more to it.  Much more.

Fact-Checker: 'Four Pinocchios' for Latest WH Obamacare Claim.  Democrats are picking up where they left off in 2013, lying to the public about Obamacare.  The president says his signature program has signed up more than nine million Americans so far through the state exchanges and Medicaid expansion.  He's made this claim on numerous occasions, including last month's State of the Union address, and during his Super Bowl Sunday conversation with Bill O'Reilly.  We've noted that the president's math doesn't add up; his exchange enrollment figures don't factor in a substantial subset of non-payments, which experts estimate to be in the vicinity of 600,000. [...] An independent study has concluded that less than one-third of new Medicaid sign-ups are a result of the 'Affordable' Care Act.

Seattle Children's Hospital Sues State over 'False Promise' in Obamacare.  The Seattle Children's Hospital is suing Washington state's insurance commissioner over a "failure to ensure adequate network coverage" in the insurance exchanges established as part of the Affordable Care Act.  "We're seeing denials in care, disruptions in care.  We're seeing a great deal of confusion and, at times, anger and frustration on the part of these families who bought insurance thinking that their children would be covered," a doctor with the hospital said.  "And, in fact, it's a false promise."

Socialism, not access to health care, is Obama's prize.  The big ruse Obama and his henchmen manufactured to sell this sham in the first place was the myth that 50 million Americans were uninsured.  (I won't go into the details again to prove how that was a deliberate fabrication.)  That was deceitful enough, but their real hat trick was to conflate insurance coverage with affordable and quality care, which are not necessarily the same.

ObamaCare Disaster May Deliver Mortal Blow To Liberalism.  The fact that ObamaCare is prompting early retirement among doctors and reduced medical school applications, while also creating 16,500 new IRS enforcement agents, reveals just how fundamentally wrongheaded this reform was from the get-go.  Additionally, if more people had understood that ObamaCare was essentially a redistributionist entitlement program that would add to the national debt while turning the American health care system upside down, it would never have passed.

An Obamacare Report Card.  Promise #1:  Universal Coverage. [...] Even when Obamacare is fully implemented in 2017, it will cover only 92 percent of the nonelderly population who are not unauthorized immigrants (nearly everyone age 65 and above is already covered by Medicare), and 84.7 percent of that group already had coverage in March 2009, a full year before Obamacare was signed into law.

Number of Obamacare sign-ups is greatly inflated.  Democrats from President Obama on down have been touting Obamacare's sign-up numbers.  Even after the system's disastrous rollout, they like to point out, roughly three million people have signed up for private insurance, while 6.3 million have signed up for Medicaid. [...] But there is strong new evidence to suggest the administration's claims are grossly exaggerated and deeply misleading.  Obamacare is not doing nearly as well as the president wants you to believe.

Obama's Failure in State of the Union Marks Decline of American Leadership.  Readers are entitled to candor:  Though I sugared it a bit for the television viewers, I thought the speech was a disaster and an embarrassment.  The president showered down on us a sequence of whoppers so astounding I thought at times that, in Margaret Thatcher's phrase, "my ears were deceiving me."  The unmitigated shambles of his health-care reform, which has failed to deprive scores of millions of Americans of any insurance coverage only because the schedule of its application has been altered, he represented as a great leap forward for the average person.

Reid: Obamacare Doesn't Cost Jobs, It Turns Workers Into 'Free Agents'.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the Congressional Budget Office report that shows Obamacare will make the labor force lose 2.3 million full-time workers by 2021 is positive because it lets Americans be "free agents." [...] The CBO report primarily looked at how employers would respond to the penalty for not offering health insurance to employees working more than 30 hours per week.  Businesses could respond by cutting people's hours, hiring fewer workers and offering lower wages to incoming workers.

White House Responds to CBO: Claims That Obamacare 'Hurts Jobs' Not Supported by Facts.  On Tuesday afternoon [2/4/2013], the White House responded to the Congressional Budget Office's new annual budget projection, arguing that the details of the report did not support claims that Obamacare was eliminating jobs.  "Claims that the Affordable Care Act hurts jobs are simply belied by the facts in the CBO report," the statement read.  "CBO's findings are not driven by an assumption that ACA will lead employers to eliminate jobs or reduce hours; in fact the report itself says that there is 'no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the ACA."

Vapor Lock.  News that Obamacare would cause the economy to shed 2.3 million jobs is being greeted with jubilation by some quarters.  This was foreseen long ago.  FactCheck.Org pointed out even in 2011 that unemployment is not the right word for the loss of remunerative activities caused by the program.  The word's not "unemployment".  "That's a distortion.  CBO said some Americans would work less or leave their jobs if they can get health insurance outside the workplace."  It's not a bug.  It's a feature.

The Left's Lamest Defense Of ObamaCare Yet.  The Congressional Budget Office determined that ObamaCare would discourage work, in large part because many middle-income families will find themselves in what amounts to a 50% marginal income tax bracket as ObamaCare subsidies tail off.  As a result, there'd be 2.5 million fewer "full-time equivalent" jobs and a 1% drop in overall compensation.  This doesn't sound so good.  But to liberals, it's supposed to be music to our ears.  As the New York Times explained, it's "a liberating result of the law."

How The GOP Should Handle The Implosion Of ObamaCare.  The twin objectives of ObamaCare, as stated in the Affordable Care Act's text, are to provide near-universal health care coverage while reducing costs.  ObamaCare will manifestly fail on both counts, as costs increase for millions of Americans, and the number of uninsured rises sharply from 47 million (including illegal immigrants, who are exempt from ObamaCare's mandates).  President Obama promised that Americans would save an average of $2,500 per year, that the rolls of the uninsured would drop by 30 million (presumably leaving only 17 million uninsured) and that those who enjoy their current coverage can keep it.  "Period."

Should Americans believe anything Obama says?  Healthcare.gov was a disaster from day one, but even more serious were Obama's three most important promises concerning Obamacare.  He said Americans could keep health insurance policies they liked.  He said they would be able to keep the doctors they liked.  And he said they would save thousands of dollars on health care costs.  Not long after Obamacare's launch last fall, millions of Americans began receiving cancellation notices on insurance they wanted to keep.  Many also quickly learned their preferred doctors would no longer be able to treat them.  And they found that Obamacare would cost them much more than their old policies.  Most disturbing, it turned out that top officials in the the Obama administration knew all along that the president's promises weren't true, even as he repeated those promises over and over.

WaPo Fact Checker Gives Obamacare Enrollment Numbers Three Pinocchios.  Lately, President Obama's political action group, Organizing for Action (OFA), has claimed that six million Americans have successfully signed up for Obamacare.  However, even The Washington Post Fact Checker finds this assertion to be suspect.

Coverage Expansion Fail: Less Than One-Third Of Obamacare Exchange Enrollees Were Previously Uninsured.  At the end of the day, for all of the rhetoric and promises about what Obamacare would achieve, the health law's most ardent supporters have stuck to their guns because of one thing:  coverage expansion.  But new data suggests that Obamacare may fail even to achieve this goal.  Instead of expanding coverage to those without it, Obamacare is replacing the pre-existing market for private insurance.  Surveys from insurers and other industry players indicate that as few as 11 percent of those on Obamacare's exchanges were previously uninsured.

They Lied: Obamacare's 12 False Premises and Broken Promises.  Obama's broken promise that people who liked their health plans could keep them only scratches the surface of the administration's health care mendacity.  As the following list illustrates, it was one of at least a dozen false or misleading statements that senior administration officials and ranking Democrats made before, during, and after Obamacare was signed into law.  The persistent misrepresentations and outright lies were in fact integral to the law's passage, to its implementation, and to the damage-control phase that began with the botched launch of the online insurance exchanges in October.

How Obamacare will hurt doctors.  A study just published in the prestigious journal Science reveals that new Medicaid patients in Oregon were 40% more likely to use the emergency room than the uninsured were.  This finding is not a surprise to me or most physicians — we have known that truth for years.  But it does undermine one of the basic philosophical and practical underpinnings of Obamacare:  the notion that expanding insurance will invariably unclog ERs, improve primary and preventive care, prevent diseases and lower costs.

HHS: 5.6M of 6M Who Signed Up on Exchanges Will Get Federal Funding.  In their first three months of operation, the federal and state health-insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act — AKA Obamacare — have signed up 5,572,305 people who qualify to get federal funding for their health care, either through Medicaid or through an insurance premium subsidy, according to data released by the Department of Health and Human Service.  Those 5,572,305 are part of the "6 million Americans" HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today have used the exchanges to sign up for health insurance or Medicaid.  However, some of these people, as noted by CNNMoney, were already on Medicaid.

Obamacare Questions the White House Won't Answer.  The Obama administration's signature domestic policy achievement has been marked by an unwillingness to directly answer basic questions about the law and its implementation.  When it comes to Obamacare, the most transparent administration in history is anything but.  Months after the launch of the exchanges, key questions about the law remain unanswered.  First among those is how many people have actually enrolled.  Not merely signed up, but enrolled, by picking a plan, requesting a bill, and paying the first month's premium.

Issa: Sebelius May Face Perjury Charges Over Obamacare Testimony.  Wednesday, in a letter sent to HHS Kathleen Sebelius, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., suggested the secretary may have perjured herself when she appeared before Congress.  He pressed for an explanation for the false and misleading statements she made about the security risks present on HealthCare.gov and requested the documents and communications that were made in preparation for Sebelius's congressional appearances after October 1, 2013.

Pelosi to Reporter: Um, Don't Call it "Obamacare".  Names have connotations, so perhaps that's why Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) corrected a reporter Thursday [1/9/2014] for referring to the Affordable Care Act as "Obamacare."

Obama Bullying Nuns (Part 1).  PolitiFact has crowned the promoter in chief's sound bite for Obamacare the "Lie of the Year" for 2013:  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."  And let me make a prediction that among his top 10 falsehood contenders for 2014 will be a reversal of what he emphatically stated back on Sept. 9, 2009:  "Under our (health care reform) plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." [...] Of course, we didn't have to wait a year before we discovered that federal funds were in fact being funneled to provide for abortive services in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.

Sen. Mark Udall tried to 'trash' independent Obamacare cancellation numbers.  Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall's office tried to "trash" independent numbers about Obamacare-related insurance cancellations in his state, according to emails from inside the Colorado Department of Insurance (DOI).  "Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong.  They are not wrong.  Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people.  They want to trash our numbers.  I'm holding strong while we get more details.  Many have already done early renewals.  Regardless, they received cancellation notices," according to a November 14 email COI director of external affairs Jo Donlin sent to her colleagues.

It may be 'the law,' but Obamacare deserves no respect.  Fans of the law say it was passed fair and square by both houses of Congress, declared constitutional by the high court of the country and reaffirmed by President Obama's election in 2012.  Of these things, only the second is accurate, as polls now make clear that Obama would not have won in 2012 had people known what was in his pet project — and pains were taken to ensure this was so.

Exposing the world's great lie about ObamaCare and socialized medicine.  In health care, 2013 was a year of great irony.  In the United States, the Obama administration bullheadedly forged ahead in advancing the most controversial and expensive law in recent memory, the deceptively named Affordable Care Act.  The law, opposed by a clear and consistent majority of citizens, immediately caused millions of Americans to lose their health insurance along with their choice of doctor and hospital, and millions more to pay far higher insurance premiums.

Health Care Law Threatens Individual Rights & Privacy.  2013 was the last year that Americans could live and breathe in the United States legally without being compelled to insurance packages from private corporations.  Should a person fail or refuse to purchase insurance, he will be subjected to some hefty fines from the federal government, enforced by the IRS.  The fines have been subject to quite a bit of disinformation, and are more significant than most people realize.  A common talking point is that the fines are "only" $95, being spread by disinfo agents on the internet and even official radio ads released by the government.  The part that is being omitted by these people is that the $95 fine is only valid for a small group of low-income taxpayers, for the first year (2014) only.  The fines increase dramatically if the person has an average income or has a family, as well as increasing in stages in 2015 and 2016.

How the Obama administration dismantled American government.  Obamacare is a flea bitten dog that never would have been enacted without wholesale and deliberate falsehoods said over and over again by Barack Obama and every Democrat cheerleader.  It never would have been enacted without legislative sleights-of-hand and backroom bribes offered to key Democrats.  It never would have been enacted and Barack Obama would likely not have won a second term without the willing negligence of a toothless "watchdog press" who refused to independently investigate or report obvious lies.

The Perverse Exemption.  In a Dec. 19 letter, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius informed Virginia's Mark Warner and five other members of the Democratic Senate Caucus that what she called a "small number of consumers" would be granted an "exemption from the individual responsibility requirement" of ObamaCare during 2014.  "Individual responsibility requirement" is HHS jargon for what is commonly called the "individual mandate" and is legally not a requirement or mandate at all but an additional tax on the income of Americans who lack medical insurance plans that comply with ObamaCare's multitude of actual mandates.

Obama's Other Big Lie.  "We will keep this promise to the American people:  If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.  Period."  (Barack Obama, June 15, 2009, with variants repeated many times since).  Today, any American who isn't willfully blind knows this "promise" is a very big lie.  A lie which was deliberately told by fundamentally-dishonest pushers of Obamacare, because if the truth were widely known at that time the Affordable Care Act would never have become law.  It's a lie that is so egregious, even the dinosaur media can't ignore it or cover it up.

Is Obamacare a giant churn operation?  Obamacare was supposed to insure the uninsured.  It is doing that, in relatively small numbers.  But it appears a large part of the Democrats' national health care scheme is a kind of giant churn operation, forcing Americans out of existing coverage into Obamacare coverage and then touting the number of new Affordable Care Act enrollees.  The real numbers will take a while to sort out, but with Obamacare, it's safe to assume the administration's claims are less than they seem.

ObamaCare's latest whopper.  In 2013, the American people learned what whoppers the key promises of ObamaCare turned out to be.  But the biggest whopper about the Affordable Care Act is yet to be exposed:  the tightening grip the federal government will have over your doctor — even if you're paying with private insurance.  Like so many other parts of ObamaCare, the reality flies in the face of promises.  In this case, it was the one where the president assured us that "you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making."

NBC News' Happy Obamacare Customer is a Dem Candidate, Operative.  NBC News senior health reporter JoNel Aleccia told the story of a woman described as "Joyce Moore, a Pennsylvania financial planner" who "runs her own retirement and estate planning business."  NBC said Moore was actually happy her existing insurance was canceled due to Obamacare. [...] What NBC News Senior Health Reporter JoNel Aleccia failed to mention is that Joyce Moore is a longstanding Democratic activist who, in November 2013, ran as a Democratic candidate for Upper Milford Township Supervisor in Pennsylvania.

Barack Obama's Presidency Is A Complete Failure By His Own, Self-Imposed Standards.  [Obamacare] was sold to the public as creating universal coverage.  But not only has CBO scored it as leaving 30 million Americans uninsured 10 years after full implementation.  The real world effect of Obamacare so far has been to increase rather than reduce the uninsured, by millions of Americans with Obamacare's cancelled policies.  Also directly contrary to Obama's often repeated promise, on which he sold Obamacare to a gullible public, that "if you like your health insurance plan you can keep your health insurance plan," that has now been formally recognized even by the Democrat media as the Lie of the Year.  But which year?  It now turns out that what Obama really meant was that if he likes your health plan, you can keep it.  Obama's promise that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, has fared no better.

No, 2.1 million haven't enrolled in Obamacare plans.  With President Obama's health care law scheduled to begin in earnest when the new year kicks off, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius claimed on a Tuesday [12/31/2013] conference call that as of Dec. 28, "2.1 million people have enrolled in a private insurance plan" through the program.  Later in the call, Sebelius emphasized that enrollments wouldn't be completed until individuals paid their first month's premiums.  But HHS officials still won't disclose how many of the 2.1 million they claim enrolled through the federal healthcare.gov website or one of the state-based exchanges actually paid for coverage.

White House Insults Nation's Intelligence by Pretending Obamacare Enrollment Goal Never Existed.  Appearing on MSNBC on Tuesday [12/31/2013], White House health care adviser Phil Schiliro asserted that the White House never had a target number of Affordable Care Act enrollees.  The widely circulated figure of 7 million — a figure which has been cited and repeated regularly by the press and members of the administration, was never their number, Schiliro asserted.

Joke's on us: WH now says 7M never 'target number' for Obamacare.  Brushing aside Obamacare's ongoing problems, the president's top health official said Tuesday [12/31/2013] that 2014 marks a "new day in health care for millions of Americans," with more than 2 million people having enrolled as of Saturday and nearly 4 million learning in the first two months of the rollout that they're eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program.  The White House also sought to rewrite longstanding goals for sign-ups on the health exchanges, disputing the 7 million enrollees target that's long-been accepted as the number of Americans needed by March 31 in order for the economics to work.

Dem. Rep.: Obamacare enrollment low Because People Think Law is Repealed.  The lower-than-hoped-for enrollment numbers on the federal exchanges are due to Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.) argued on Monday.  Norton blamed a "negative propaganda campaign" by Republicans that confused Americans into thinking that the law was no longer in effect.

ObamaCare Misreporting Underscored Mainstream Media's Malfeasance.  No better example of this mainstream-media malfeasance exists than the case of ObamaCare and thousands of liberal "journalists" at the networks, cable networks, newspapers and radio outlets who chose — out of loyalty to the president and his naively utopian nanny-state beliefs — to shill for a program they knew to be built on a foundation of lies from day one.  Worse than knowing it was built on a foundation of deceit, most also knew it would decimate our health-care system, increase costs for tens of millions of Americans and put doctors in an untenable position.  They knew it, and they still hid the truth.

Dem Congresswoman: Obamacare Sign-ups Low Because Millions Think GOP Repealed the Law.  Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) joined MSNBC host Richard Lui on Monday to discuss the number of Affordable Care Act beneficiaries released by the Department of Health and Human Services over the weekend.  She offered a novel suggestion for why enrollment figures fell short of projections:  the GOP successfully convinced the public that the law was repealed.

The Editor says...
Name the Republican politician(s) who said Obamacare had been repealed.

Massachusetts, the model for Obamacare, has highest health costs in the United States.  In his October remarks, Obama used the Massachusetts experience to argue that Obamacare could work, despite what the naysayers claimed.  "All the parade of horribles, the worst predictions about health care reform in Massachusetts never came true," Obama said.  "They're the same arguments that you're hearing now ... Care didn't become unaffordable; costs tracked what was happening in other places that wasn't covering everybody."  Yet a new report from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission reached a different conclusion.

The biggest ObamaCare lie.  The biggest ObamaCare lie is NOT that you can keep your doctor or your insurance plan, it is that more health insurance automatically means more health care.

Obamacare's War on Civil Society.  [Scroll down]  Among the people highlighted in the [New York] Times article was attorney Barbara Meinwald, who was receiving coverage through the New York City Bar.  Now her $10,000 policy is gone.  A temporary plan is available, costing $5,000 more but including fewer doctors.  Moreover, reported the Times, she "also looked on the state's health insurance exchange.  But she said she found that those plans did not have a good choice of doctors, and that it was hard to even find out who the doctors were, and which hospitals were covered."  Well now!  Whatever happened to all the improved coverage that the president talked about?

Pelosi: Obamacare will be 'glorious'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday [12/23/2013] defended Obamacare amid fellow Democrats' concerns, saying that while the politics may be tricky right now, eventually having voted for the health care law will be a boon.  "We'll ride this out," the California Democrat said on a conference call with reporters.

Obama to 'Sign Up' for Insurance Today.  Valerie Jarrett just announced to the press that President Obama will "sign up for for Health Insurance on the marketplace by the end of today to lead by example."  We can safely assume if the site is "down for maintenance" today, it is not planned.  This is actually not necessary for the president, as "the President, while in office, has access to treatment by military hospitals and doctors as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.  His family, as his dependents, also shares in this benefit.

The Editor says...
Does anyone in the world believe for one second that Barack H. Obama is going to open up an internet browser on an ordinary phone line, type in healthcare dot gov, slog through the web site, type in all his personal information and hope for the best?  If he does, will anyone other than Valerie Jarrett and Pete Souza witness the event and attest to its authenticity?

Update:
President enrolls in ObamaCare.  President Obama enrolled in a "bronze" ObamaCare plan over the weekend in a move the White House described as a "symbolic" gesture designed to promote enrollment.  According to a White House official, the president enrolled in the District of Columbia marketplace and selected from among the lowest-cost options available.  The White House said the president's plan costs less than $400 per month.

Another update:

Politico: While Obama vacationed, his staff signed him up for ObamaCare by visiting the D.C. exchange in person.  [Scroll down]  Granted, he waited until the very last second to do it despite pleading with people for months not to wait.  And sure, okay, his special status allowed him to bypass the website and delegate to his subordinates the aggravation of enrollment, unlike the millions of poor saps who had to be patient and keep trying during the Great 404 Meltdown of 2013.  But there is one way that O's walking the walk here:  Now he'll be paying hundreds in monthly premiums for coverage that he'll never actually use, just like millions of "young invincibles' who are being forced by the mandate to enroll.

The Editor says...
The announcement earlier in the day was that Mr. Obama would sign up for Obamacare.  That was a lie.  His staff took care of the whole matter, and, as I predicted, Mr. Obama never had to touch a keyboard or move a mouse.

Obama 'symbolically' enrolls but has to send aides to file papers in person.  Unlike millions of ordinary Americans, the President of the United States didn't have to test his patience with an error-prone website or spend hours on the phone with a volunteer 'navigator' in order to sign up for new health insurance.  A White House official confirmed Monday that Barack Obama simply dispatched his aides to the Washington, D.C. insurance exchange's office, where they filed his papers in person — while Obama himself luxuriated in his annual Hawaiian vacation with his family.

Obama Hawaii Vacation: Day 3.  White House officials announced that Obama signed up for health coverage through a new insurance exchange for the District of Columbia.

The Editor says...
The Associated Press, in the article immediately above, announces that Mr. Obama signed up for Obamacare.  The same day, the Associated Press, in the article immediately below, admitted that "he didn't actually sign up for it himself."  Whether or not that amounts to deception depends on what the definition of "he signed up" is.

Obama Enrolls for Health Coverage, Won't Use It.  He won't use it, and he didn't actually sign up for it himself, but President Barack Obama has enrolled for health coverage through the new insurance exchanges.

Obama Tried to Sign Up for Obamacare But "System Couldn't Verify His Identity".  This is just [...] hilarious.  I guess the databases didn't recognize his fake SSN, or [care] about the spiced up joke of a birth certificate that Obama posted on line as real.

The Editor says...
I'm sure a fraudulent Social Security number would make it difficult to sign up for a government program.

Staffers Enroll Vacationing Obama in Obamacare, Bypassing Lousy Website.  You may have heard that President Obama has finally "signed up for Obamacare," thus participating in the healthcare overhaul that colloquially bears his name. [...] Americans may have glanced at headlines like this and envisioned the president taking a timeout from his Hawaiian getaway to plop down at a secure computer and enroll online like everybody else.  That mental image would be mistaken.

Obamacare watch: latest rules openly trampling on the uninsured.  [I]f you were uninsured before, you still have to buy a policy or be hit with the tax.  If you were insured before, you don't have to buy a policy.  In other words:  the only people not getting relief from the ongoing walking incompetence carnival that is Obamacare are the very people that we were told that Obamacare was set up to 'help.'  And why is that?  Because that second class of people is rather smaller than the first class, and the first class of people are a). very, very angry and b). more likely to vote.

White House Damage Control: Obamacare Repeal Will 'Cost too Much'.  Over the last several weeks the Obama White House has been executing a media blitz meant to sell Obamacare to the nation — again.  As the final maneuver in that plan, the President is releasing several reports on how Obamacare will affect the states.  His message:  repealing Obamacare will just be too expensive.

The Editor says...
After squandering billions of dollars on stuff like this, the party of infinite spending (to paraphrase Jack Hunter) is in no position to say that the repeal of a trillion-dollar boondoggle would "cost too much."

Obama Claims He Met Regularly with Website Team Before Obamacare Launch.  President Barack Obama told reporters Friday [12/20/2013] that he met as frequently as biweekly with employees responsible for the Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov, in the time leading up to its October 1st launch.

Story of the year.  The keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan ruse was a way of saying to the millions of Americans who had insurance and liked what they had:  Don't worry.  You'll be left unmolested.  For you, everything goes on as before.  That was a fraud from the very beginning.  The law was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay — forced to purchase government-mandated services they don't need — as a way to subsidize others.

ObamaCare fibs make Obama the year's biggest liar.  The fact-checkers called Obama's claim that "if you like your health-care plan, you can keep it" the biggest whopper of 2013, and 59 percent of its mostly liberal readers agreed.  But hold on, that's discrimination.  Think of all the other known ObamaCare lies that got overlooked.  His promise that you can keep your doctor — that wasn't true.  Nor was it true that, if you get your insurance at work, nothing will change.  As for the "affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans already discovered the privilege of enrolling will cost them more money, not less.

45 States Still Haven't Hit 10% of Enrollment Goals for Obamacare.  Check out that runaway Obamacare enrollment over on EnrollMaven.com!  In Arkansas, its up to 1,404!  Well along the way to the state's goal of 51,000 paid enrollees by the end of March.  In Delaware, it's up to 793!  The state's goal is 35,000.  In New Hampshire, they hit 1,569.  Getting close to that goal of 19,000!  In West Virginia, it's up to 775!  They'll hit their goal of 24,000 in no time!  In Hawaii, all the way up to 444!  That goal of 9,000 is in sight! [...] Note all of the above states have Democratic governors.  The Obamacare fan's usual dodge or whine that the rollout is impeded by uncooperative Republican governors does not apply in any of those states; the difficulties in these states indicate that the problems with the program do not stem from insufficient enthusiasm from GOP lawmakers.

Obamacare's internal logic can't be fixed.  The website — which, in its original incarnation was a risible example of government incompetence — is, after all, fixable, given a sufficient combination of time and effort.  The same can't be said of the internal logic of Obamacare.  Regardless of whether the website is fixed, it remains the case that Obamacare's expansive mandates will cause millions of Americans to lose their existing insurance plans, violating the president's pledge that Americans who are happy with their coverage can keep it.

The biggest Pinocchios of 2013.  Our general rule of thumb held:  the more complex a subject is, the more tempted politicians are to make misleading claims.  President Obama ended up with three of the most misleading claims of the year.

Poll: Americans Blame Obamacare for Inferior Coverage, Higher Costs.  Note well, Democrats:  These complaints are unrelated to Obamacare's failed roll-out, and are being driven by the vast majority of Americans covered on the employer-based market — whom the White House has falsely claimed will not be affected by the law's changes.

The Death of Obama's "Noble Lie".  [Scroll down]  New York Times editorialist David Firestone, in a piece with the sneering headline "The Uproar Over Insurance 'Cancellation' Notices," referred to Obama's lie as "President Obama's unfortunate blanket statement."  The paper's editorial board averred that Obama "clearly misspoke," then claimed the canceled policies were "not worth keeping."  House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters: "I don't think the message was wrong.  I think the message was accurate.  It was not precise enough."

Rep. Phil Gingrey to Sebelius: Prove You Met with President About Obamacare.  In a move sure to spark consternation inside the White House, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) sent a letter Tuesday [12/17/2013] to embattled Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting she produce a list of the one-on-one meetings she and President Barack Obama allege to have held in the over three-and-a-half years leading up to Obamacare's calamitous rollout — meetings that do not appear on the White House's own official calendar.

Carney jeers, sneers at study saying Obama ignored Obamacare developer.  The White House is scoffing at a new study which shows there's no public record that President Barack Obama ever met with the top official responsible for developing the Obamacare network.  But White House spokesman Jay Carney declined today to cite one example where Obama met with Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Health and Human Services department.

HHS: Obama, Sebelius Met... After GAI Report Released.  The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department on Friday [12/6/2013] claimed that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius meets frequently with President Barack Obama and just had a meeting with him on Thursday, one day after a report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute revealed that Obama and Sebelius have not had a one-on-one meeting since Obamacare passed.

Politico Destroys White House Claim of Secret Obama-Sebelius Meetings.  Late Friday afternoon [12/6/2013], Politico Magazine published an update dismantling White House claims that President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held "dozens" of unrecorded one-on-one working meetings over the last three-and-a-half years leading up to Obamacare's unveiling.

NBC, ABC News Press White House on Secret Sebelius Meetings.  During Friday's White House briefing, Jonathan Karl of ABC News and Peter Alexander of NBC News both pressed White House spokesman Jay Carney on a Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report that found President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had met only once during the three and half years after the passage of ObamaCare.

Former WH Speechwriter: Records Would Exist if Obama Met with Sebelius.  Addressing a Government Accountability Institute report that found that President Barack Obama has not had a single one-on-one meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius since Obamacare passed over three years ago, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush said that if Obama and Sebelius met as regularly as they claimed, the White House would have the records to prove it.

Obama Hardly Meeting With Sebelius Explains A Lot.  Now we find that President Obama met with Sebelius to talk business just once in the three and a half years before the ObamaCare launch.  Will Press Secretary Jay Carney soon suggest Obama met Sebelius lots of times, just furtively?  Why would a president who claims to believe that "transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing" do that?

White House denies report Obama, Sebelius rarely met.  The White House dismissed a report suggesting that President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did not meet ahead of the botched rollout of Obamacare. [...] The report from Politico Magazine noted that a Government Accountability Institute analysis of the president's public schedule showed zero one-on-one meetings between Obama and Sebelius from mid-July 2010 to November 2013.  The report showed 277 private meetings with other Cabinet secretaries during that timeframe.

When Barry Met Kathy.  "Nothing frustrates me more than when people aren't doing their jobs," Obama has said.  So, with so much riding on the line, one would assume he held weekly, if not daily, one-on-one meetings with his Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to isolate problems, challenge assumptions, apply executive pressure where needed and successfully manage a project of scale.  Nope.  That did not happen, at least not according to Obama's own official White House calendar.

Pat Caddell: Obama's Failure to Meet with Sebelius Shows 'Inexperience'.  Former President Jimmy Carter adviser Pat Caddell said the shocking Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report that found President Barack Obama has held no one-on-one meetings with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius since the passage of Obamacare has revealed Obama's "inexperience in handling crisis."

Sack Sebelius.  One of the things for which I'm thankful this Thanksgiving is that I'm not Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  That Ms. Sebelius is still HHS secretary is remarkable.  If they'd presided over a fiasco like the Obamacare rollout, the CEO of every corporation anywhere in the world would have been fired long ago.  Ms. Sebelius is fortunate she works in government, where there is no accountability.  And in the Obama administration, where there is no integrity.

Sebelius Testifies: The Obamacare Enrollment Hub 'Has Worked Beautifully from Start to Finish'.  On Wednesday [12/11/2013], Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke before a congressional hearing on the issue of Obamacare and under heavy questioning, insisted that the Obamacare enrollment hub "has worked beautifully from start to finish."  Of course, Sebelius' assertion directly contradicts experts who have testified to the contrary, admissions by numerous politicians to the contrary, and the experiences of millions of Americans who have become utterly frustrated with healthcare.gov and the apparent inability of the federal government to manage a website that is incapable of providing any semblance of reliable service to users.

Lies of Obamacare: Lie of the year edition.  Jonah Goldberg devotes a column to the foundational lies of Obamacare with special attention to the third — the one that promised billions of dollars in savings.  "This lie took several forms," Goldberg notes, and looks at a few of them, all of them false.  "Obamacare may have been sold on a trinity of lies," Goldberg concludes, "but it turns out it's also lies all the way down."

Congratulations, Barack Obama, on winning PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year"!  As my pal Nathan said, this might be the first award he's gotten that he truly deserved. [...] One question, though:  Why is this the 2013 Lie of the Year instead of the 2009 Lie of the Year?  That's when he first started pushing the "if you like your plan" crapola, and that's when conservative health-care wonks started calling B.S. on him for it.  The final dimensions of ObamaCare weren't settled at the time but the general scheme was clear enough — the sick would be covered and the poor would be subsidized with new revenue raised by forcing "young invincibles" to buy coverage and transitioning middle-class people to more expensive "comprehensive" plans.  "If you like your plan, you can keep it" had to be a lie or else the law would have no chance of working.

Obama's Achievement: Politifact Designates His Broken Obamacare Promise 'Lie of the Year'.  It's certainly no secret that President Obama lied when he said, "If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it."  Though he and his minions have scrambled to try and explain his lie as a simple misunderstanding, there is no room for ambiguity in his statement that he repeated over and over again.  In fact, as conservatives challenged this obvious lie, Obama became testy, even adding "period" at the end of his promise on occasion.

Lie of the Year: 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'.  It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America's health insurance system.  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," President Barack Obama said — many times — of his landmark new law.  But the promise was impossible to keep.  So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama's breezy assurances were wrong.

Obamacare Disinformation Runs Deep.  'Obamacare was sold on a trinity of lies." [...] Most people know the first deception in the triumvirate of deceit:  "If you like your health insurance you can keep it, period."  The second leg in the tripod of deception was "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."  But the third plank in the triad of disinformation hasn't gotten much attention:  Obamacare will save you, me, and the country a lot of money.  This lie took several forms.

PolitiFact rewrites its own history in Obamacare 'Lie Of The Year' decision.  In an impressive display of chutzpah, the Tampa Bay Times' fact-checking organization PolitiFact has designated President Obama's promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" as their "Lie of the Year" for 2013 while simultaneously distancing itself from its own years-long record of failing to identify it as a lie.

Sebelius Frustrates GOP Rep. by Insisting Obamacare Enrollment Hub 'Has Worked Beautifully'.  A tense exchange erupted during a congressional hearing into the problems associated the Affordable Care Act's online insurance exchanges.  Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) probed Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius over whether the ACA's payment and enrollment systems are functioning, given reports which indicate they are not.  He let out a heavy sigh when Sebelius insisted that "The [Federally-Facilitated Marketplace] hub has worked beautifully from start to finish."

Shimkus on Sebelius: 'It's Like Talking to the Republic of Korea'.  In a contentious exchange with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over her repeated claims that mandated health services do not raise costs for consumers in the form of higher insurance premiums, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) waved his hand in apparent surrender and said to her, "It's like talking to the Republic of Korea or something."

Issa Accuses Sebelius, Health Department Of 'Criminal Obstruction'.  Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, stated in a letter to Sebelius that the Health and Human Services Department instructed Creative Computing Solutions — a contractor that worked on HealthCare.gov — not to comply with the committee's investigation.

Juking the ObamaCare Stats.  Most of Washington seems to have bought the White House claim that the 36 federal exchanges are finally working, and glory, glory, hallelujah.  But if that's really true, then what explains the ongoing secrecy and evasion?  On Wednesday [12/11/2013] the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November.  Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment.

Krauthammer: ObamaCare Pitfalls Revealing 'a Vast Deception' by President.  On Fox News Channel's "Special Report" Monday [12/9/2013], Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer unleashed a scathing critique of the Obama administration as more and more of the flaws of ObamaCare are brought to the forefront.  Krauthammer explained that as we learn many promises of the laws promotion are being left unfulfilled, it is clear a "vast deception" was at play.

Does Obama Think He Is Lying?  While Obama claimed that Americans "could keep their health insurance" many chose to ignore the parenthetical "until I, President Obama, decide to change that promise."  Instead of recognizing the inherent danger in governmental takeover of the health industry, too many people put their faith in a man they fervently wanted to project all their hopes and desires upon.  But "liars have an advantage only for a while.  Truth always wins, in the end."  No matter how much Obama and his minions "beat around the bush," prevaricate or warp the information, truth has a way of finally revealing itself — if only we pay very close attention.  As more light is shed on the massive damage and "unimaginable suffering" of ObamaCare, the American people must speak out.  The fabrications are there for all to see and the lying has been exposed.

No, You Can't Keep Your Drugs Either Under Obamacare.  The President famously promised that you could keep your health plan and doctor.  For many people, both of those pledges are turning out to be false.  And now, you might not be able to keep your medicine, either.  There are two reasons why.

No Extremists Here.  The trick isn't finding a pronouncement by a liberal politician which — in a way nearly unique to politics — simultaneously brings a grimace, a giggle, and a groan, but figuring out whether the speaker is an outright liar or just living in a liberal echo chamber [...] Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is a reliable representative of the outright liar camp:  No echo is loud enough to make her actually believe that Democratic candidates will run (and win) on the issue of Obamacare, but she says it repeatedly, hoping that the Big Lie strategy will work just one more time.

Wasserman Schultz on Not Yet Enrolling in Obamacare: 'I'm a Little Busy, So'.  Four days before the legal deadline, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said she had not yet signed up for Obamacare, but was still mulling over the plans and what might work best for her family.  As of Dec. 9, the deadline for members of Congress, Wasserman's office had not responded to CNSNews.com's inquiry on whether the lawmaker had enrolled.

Are Republicans Sabotaging Obamacare with Fraudulent Websites?  Progressives, usually content to wait a few years to start their revisionist history, are now revising on the fly.  In their alternative reality, they've found a way to blame Republicans for (arguably) the most epic website failure in the history of the internet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: 'Obamacare' a 'Derogatory Term' Conceived by 'Wealthy White Men'.  MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry opened her program over the weekend with a commentary about the Affordable Care Act's colloquial moniker:  "Obamacare."  She said that the word was originally created as a "derogatory term," designed by white men as a way to delegitimize President Barack Obama and his achievement.  However, she said that the term will soon be synonymous with all of Obama's accomplishments and she urged her audience to use the term with pride.

Hilarious: MSNBC host likens word 'ObamaCare' to n-word.  MSNBC is the gift that keeps on giving, serving up propaganda intended to benefit the far left, but which in its absurdity repels people grounded in reality.  Now, one of its hosts, Melissa Harris-Perry, [...] has played a race card so bizarre that it self-discredits.

Harry Reid: No One Can Technically 'Keep Their Plan,' If You Really Think About It.  This has to be the lamest spin to date in defense of Obama's most famous mega-lie, and it comes from an appropriately lame source.

Obamacare 'Strike Team' Member: People Losing Their Plans Is a 'Good Thing'.  "Because a lot of those people, they did have policies that didn't meet the minimum standards.  That's just not a theoretical discussion.  There's a reason you have minimum standards.  There are people out there who have insurance that's really an illusion of coverage.  They have immense deductibles, they have annual and lifetime caps. [...]"

Obamacare Reg Treats Congress That Spent $3.5 Trillion as a 'Small Business'.  An Obamacare regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management in October treats the U.S. Congress — which employs more than 11,000 staffers and which spent $4,329,000,000 on its own operations and $3,454,253,000,000 to fund the full government in fiscal 2013 — as a "small business."

No talk of affordable health care in Obamacare PR push.  The White House's numbers are vastly overstated.  In 2010, Rep. Henry Waxman and other Democrats then in control of the House Energy and Commerce Committee tried to determine how many people had been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition.  They did not come up with an definitive number, but they found that in the previous two years, the nation's four largest for-profit health insurance companies had denied coverage to 651,000 people based on pre-existing conditions.  Around the same time, conservative analysts James Capretta and Tom Miller examined the issue and noted estimates that the number of Americans who might be denied such coverage was between two million and four million, and quite possibly far smaller than even the low end of that range.  That is a significant number of people, with a real problem that needs addressing.  But it's not 129 million.  It's not even a small fraction of that number.

The Liars Club.  It is now apparent that our President has lied to us.  He lied when he crooned soothingly about improving the healthcare of millions of Americans through vast changes in health policy that would actually lower their costs.  Those costs are now going up, and they are going up for almost everyone.  They will not come down.  He lied when he said we could keep our present healthcare policy.  Those policies are rapidly disappearing.  He lied again when he said we could keep our doctors.  He lied when he said his plan would not involve rationing.  I could go on, but in sum he is lying about most aspects of the most massive social policy in American history.  It is also the greatest disaster in social policy in the history of social policy.  President Barack Obama is a rank amateur.

Obama and the Suspension of Disbelief.  Adding straws of scandal — Fast and Furious, the Associated Press monitoring, the IRS fiasco, and the NSA spying — on any presidential back except Barack Obama's would have long ago broken it. [...] Yet Barack Obama on more than 20 occasions assured the American people that they could keep their existing health care coverage and their present doctor — and still save $2,500 a year per family.  He knew those fables were absolutely untrue when he repeated them serially in the reelection cycle of 2012.  Yet Obama has not faced any of the fallout of the sort that greeted his predecessors, even as the wreckage of the Affordable Care Act will affect the health of Americans in ways that transcend taxes or Oval Office sex.

Obama: 'This Law Is Working'.  President Obama repeated on Tuesday that he will work with anyone who has "good ideas" about how to improve the Affordable Care Act.  "But we're not repealing it as long as I'm president. I want everybody to be clear about that.  (Cheers, applause.)  "We will make it work for all Americans.  If you don't like this law — so, if, despite all the millions of people who are benefiting from it, you still think this law's a bad idea, then you've got to tell us specifically what you'd do differently to cut costs, cover more people, make insurance more secure.  You can't just say that the system was working with 41 million people without health insurance.

WSJ Editorialists Do the Obamacare Reporting the Establishment Press Won't.  As has so often been the case since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the editorialists at a major national business newspaper are reporting facts that the wire services and broadcast networks should have relayed to the American people weeks or months ago.  In this case, it's the Wall Street Journal.  A Friday evening [11/29/2013] editorial published in Saturday's print edition directly refutes the Obama administration's key Obamacare memes involving affordability, choice, and the nature of the once-free health insurance market.

Obama's 'Tech Surge' Consisted of Six People.  President Obama stood in the Rose Garden and promised a "tech surge" to fix healthcare.gov.  In reality, the surge was a tiny influx of "about a half-dozen people."

Howard Dean: Employers Have No Right to Make Health Decisions, But Gov't Does.  Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a liberal Democrat, says decisions about health care should rest with the federal government, not with individual employers who pay for their workers' health insurance.  "So, you know, this is one country," Dean told CNN's "State of the Union" with Candy Crowley on Sunday [12/1/2013].  "We all have to live by a set of things that are passed in Washington and agreed to by the court.  We'll see what the court does, but I don't think a particular employer has a right to decide what kind of health care their employees are going to get.  That's now in the hands of the federal government, and that's where it should be."

White House Misses HealthCare.Gov Fix Deadline.  The Washington Post reports that the White House will announce Sunday that it has met its self-imposed deadline to fix the federal ObamaCare exchange known as HealthCare.gov.  The Post also reports that, like everything else surrounding ObamaCare, this announcement is not even close to true.

Carney: President Will Enroll in Obamacare.  As with his predecessors, Obama's health care is provided through the Defense Department as a federal benefit that also affords security for the nation's commander-in-chief.  The U.S. Navy provides doctors who staff the White House Medical Unit and serve the president and his family around the clock.  Specialists at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center perform periodic physical examinations, and Obama's last such exam there took place in October 2011.  The president also underwent a battery of fitness tests in January at a Pentagon health clinic.

The Editor says...
I find it hard to believe that Mr. Obama will spend two or three hours of his own time fighting a web site to sign up for Obamacare.  It is fairly obvious that he'll have one of his minions enroll for him.  It is also difficult to believe that after being treated like royalty for several years, Mr. Obama will stoop to the Medicaid level when he wants to see a doctor, which is what he's telling the rest of us to do.

White House: Obama hasn't yet signed up for Obamacare.  President Obama has yet to make good on the administration's promises that he would sign up for health insurance on the new government exchanges, the White House acknowledged on Monday.  White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Obama has not signed up for Obamacare and that he did have a reason for the delay.  A reporter pressed Carney on whether the White House would make it an open-press event if and when Obama does enroll.  "I'll get back to you," Carney replied.

The Editor says...
"I'll get back to you" obviously means "I'll try my best to forget we had this conversation, and you should, too."

Update:
Obama has yet to enroll in health insurance under Affordable Care Act.  The White House said Monday that President Obama has yet to sign up for health insurance through a federal website created by his signature health care law.  "The president will purchase insurance on the exchanges," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.  "When we have an update on that, we'll provide it to you."

Does Obama Think He Is Lying?  While Americans are shocked by the apparent misleading misrepresentations in Obamacare, were they actually lied to or did they merely engage in profound self-deception?  Didn't Obama tell us who he was from the beginning?  Is he really lying, from his vantage point?  He is clearly a product of a socialist/Marxist background.  He has vilified capitalism from the outset.  He publicly stated that he favors a single-payer health-care system.  Is he not fulfilling the total transformation of America as he promised from the outset?

The Editor says...
Obama's perception of himself is immaterial.  It doesn't matter if he thinks he isn't a liar.  Lies are not ameliorated by "vantage points."

Morality, Anti-Morality, and Socialism.  During the ObamaCare enslavement, Speaker Pelosi made a statement of utmost dopiness, which captures the essence of humanist anti-morality.  She said to the effect that if young people had government healthcare they would be freed to be artists and musicians.  It expresses the delusion that self-actualization means being an artist, and implicitly denigrates most work and the virtue of diligence.  If everyone is to be a government-supported artist, who is left to make things, to raise children, to pay the bills?

Still More ObamaCare Lies.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, Obama puts a happy face on ObamaCare by claiming it is already slowing health spending.  "Thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years," he said recently.  "Employer-based health care costs are growing at about one-third the rate of a decade ago."  This, too, is false.  Yes, the rate of growth in national health spending has slowed in recent years.  It was just 3.9% in 2009, 2010 and 2011.  And employer premium growth had been on the downtrend.  But these have nothing to do with ObamaCare.

The Bad Faith Presidency.  At the end of the day, the root of President Barack Obama's mendacity on Obamacare was simple:  He didn't dare tell people how the law would work.  He couldn't tell people how the law would work.  Forthrightness was the enemy.  It served no useful purpose and could only bring peril, and potentially defeat.  It had to be banished.  Instead, President Obama made the sale on the basis of dubious blandishments and outright deceptions.

Obama's 'Sham-Wow' Presidency.  Let's say a TV pitchman promised free health insurance.  Let's say he promised "If you don't like mine, you can keep your current health insurance... PERIOD!"  Then millions of Americans, thinking they had nothing to lose, took him up on it.  And then, because of this conman's lies, fraud and misrepresentations they found the policies they liked and their families depended on cancelled.  When they went to his web site for help, to try to save themselves, they found it not only defective, but deceptive as well. [...] Can you imagine if this happened at a private sector company?  Or at a publicly-traded company?  Can you imagine the outrage and criminal accusations coming from consumer protection advocates?  Can you imagine how quickly the federal government would shut down the business?

Michelle Obama on Barack: 'He Keeps His Promises'.  ABC's Barbara Walters did another in a series of sycophantic gushing and fawning interviews with the Obamas Friday [11/29/2013].  In the wake of the President's fallacious claim that people could keep their health insurance plans if they liked them, the most preposterous part of the interview was when Michelle Obama said her husband "keeps his promises" without any pushback from Walters.

New plan on Healthcare.gov: Declare victory, and fix it later.  Well, I guess it beats explaining why the Obama administration failed to meet yet another of its deadlines in getting a 42-month web-portal project to work.  According to the Washington Post, the White House will announce tomorrow [12/1/2013] that the Healthcare.gov site has been fixed, even though the site won't actually be fixed — not even by the administration's own metrics.

Stunning hypocrisy from Democrats in wake of ObamaCare's broken promises.  During the debate over the deeply flawed bill in 2009 and 2010, voters were repeatedly assured by President Obama and his congressional allies that everyone who liked their current health care plan would be able to keep it.  "Period."  Now, as the new law implodes before our eyes, millions of Americans have received letters of cancellation.  With approximately five million people across the country expected to lose their current plan and millions more to follow, when all the smoke clears, it's clear that the Democrats broke their promise to the American people.

Obama's Orwellian Thanksgiving.  The idea that politics must be brought into every family discussion and every personal relationship has been a hallmark of Obama's style since the 2008 campaign, when he told his supporters to confront their neighbors, to get "in their face."  During the debate over Obamacare in 2009-10, the White House did the same — and provided an email address, flag@whitehouse.gov, to which people could report "lies" among their friends.  One of those "lies" was that people could lose their insurance coverage due to the new law — a "lie" that has since proven true for millions of Americans.

Medicaid Fraud: Obamacare promise of free quality healthcare.  It may be the biggest Obamacare lie of all.  Not that you can keep your health care plan if you like your plan.  Not that you can keep your doctor if you like your doctor.  Not all of the phony cost estimates and supposed efficiencies.  The biggest lie of all is that 15-30 million additional people who will be enticed or shoved onto Medicaid will receive quality health care.  In reality, they will receive health care "insurance," but there will be few doctors willing to see them because the reimbursement rates are so low.

Brit Gov Health Care Website: Nine Years, $15 Billion and Counting, Site Scrapped.  ObamaCare is a disaster.  It is doing incredible damage to our nation — well beyond just the health insurance sector.  Just about everything President Barack Obama and his fellow zealot ideologue cheerleaders promised it would deliver was an exact-opposite lie.

The Magnitude of the Lie.  Let's think for a second about the immensity of what was done to the American people.  The lie that was told.  And continues to be told.  And the resulting, awful, and unavoidable conclusion that your government cannot be trusted.  Obama's claim, stated ad nauseum, that you could keep your health insurance, your doctor, your hospital, your proctologist, and so forth, was not just untrue.  It was about as far from the truth as Harry Reid is from being a Martian.

A health care lemon.  In the real world, it is frequently possible to gain legal relief in the case of a fraudulent deal, but in the case of Obamacare, we are being told that it is the law of the land and that you simply must live with it.  When you place misdeeds by the government beyond the reach of normal mechanisms of recourse, you establish a condition ripe for abuse.  If a bill is passed under false pretenses, shouldn't we question its legitimacy and, at the very least, reintroduce the bill after disclosing the aspects that were hidden previously?  If the bill still passes after such disclosure, it would then become legitimate.

Obama Breaks 'Keep Your Doctor' Promise With Seniors.  Nearly four in 10 seniors worry ObamaCare will cause them to lose doctors they like, despite President Obama's repeated promise to the contrary, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll.  That translates into nearly 16 million people age 65 and over.  Their concerns appear to be justified.  Many seniors are, in fact, already losing access to their doctors, and more than half a million are losing access to plans they liked this year, as $200 billion in ObamaCare-mandated cuts to the popular Medicare Advantage program start to take effect.

Obama's Hollywood Supporters Resort to Fiction to Prop up Presidency.  The Hollywood community rallied on behalf of then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 despite the politician's lack of credentials. [...] Five years later, some of the president's Hollywood boosters are resorting to pure fiction to prop up a failing administration.  Last week hip hop mogul Russell Simmons rallied Obama's base around his "signature" health care debacle, claiming ObamaCare had "already saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives."

CBS's Sharyl Attkisson: Gov't Knew All Along Millions Would Lose Employer-Based Insurance.  CBS News journalist Sharyl Attkisson reported on Tuesday [11/26/2013] that not only will millions of Americans who receive their health coverage through their employer be losing their current coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government always knew this would be the case.  "We've learned that the government estimated all along that millions of workers will be dropped from their employee insurance under the Affordable Care Act and, for some, it's already happening," Attkisson revealed.

If You Like Your Tyranny, You Can Keep It.  "If you like your plan, you can keep it" gives clear expression to one installment in the multigenerational bait-and-switch strategy with which progressivism has undermined modernity.  First of all, to state the obvious, the fact that Obama spoke those words, or words extremely like them, a thousand times during the ObamaCare debate proves they were carefully scripted, and not a throwaway remark.  And to state the equally obvious, Obama knew — or at least his strategists knew — that he was making a promise he would not keep, for at least three reasons: [...]

3 Problems with Today's Obamacare Excuse.  The latest, and probably most durable defense of Obamacare's launch trouble appeals to the ancient liberal urge to redistribute.  Pushed by semi-official Obamacare spinner Jonathan Gruber, this line most recently suffused a piece by John Harwood on the New York Times front page.  The idea is basically that Obamacare is secretly redistributive.  Obama can't use the term lest he scare the right, says Harwood.

The Next ObamaCare Mirage.  Supporters of President Obama are working overtime to backtrack from his promise that "If you like your health-care insurance, you can keep it.  Period."  While the president has conceded that this statement was inaccurate, the administration doesn't seem to have learned its lesson.  The damage control plan is to spread another falsehood about the Affordable Care Act.  The claim this time is that the health-care "cost curve is bending, and the ACA is a significant part of the reason."

Russell Simons: Obamacare Already Saved Thousands, Perhaps Millions of Lives.  To the average American, ObamaCare is part web site disaster, part shattered campaign promise writ very, very large.  Millions of Americans have already been forced out of their existing health care policies, a number that may skyrocket in the new year.  Russell Simmons sees it differently.

Daily Kos Diarist: My College Betrayed By ObamaCare "Marketing Slogans".  Mike Convente, a left-wing Daily Kos diarist and a representative on the University of Pennsylvania health care committee, took to the pages of Kos to complain about the "law of unintended consequences" of ObamaCare.  Convente is also upset that Obama's "marketing slogans ... turned out to be not so correct."

The Scheme behind the Obamacare Fraud.  To be sure, it is the fraud — the individual false statements, sneaky omissions, and deceptive practices — that grabs our attention. [...] The incontrovertible record — disclosures by the Obama administration in the Federal Register, representations by the Obama Justice Department in federal court — proves that Obama's promises were systematically deceitful.  The president's audacity is bracing, and not just because he lies so casually while looking us in the eye.  Obama also insults our intelligence.

The Fundamental Dishonesty of Obama and Obamacare.  It's hard to overstate how disconcerting the news about our government has been since Obamacare debuted on October 1st.  The HealthCare.gov rollout for consumers, utterly disastrous and demoralizing as it has been, is in the grand scheme a far-down-the-list annoyance.  Its most beneficial result has been to teach Americans with their eyes even remotely open that our government has devolved to the point where it can't carry out even the simplest of tasks.

Obama administration KNEW days before launch that healthcare.gov could only handle 500 users at a time, emails show.  Emails released late Thursday [11/21/2013] by a Republican-led congressional committee show that healthcare.gov was unable to handle more than 500 simultaneous users in the days before its disastrous October 1 launch.  And in the final, frantic pre-launch days, the website's software failed when engineers simulated activity from 2,000 users over a three-day testing period.  Meanwhile, President Obama was boasting that the online health insurance exchanges would work as advertised when they debuted.

Obamacare-Speak.  The president and his advisers apparently knew long ago that millions of the insured would face cancellations or premium hikes once Obamacare was fully implemented.  Yet to get the 906-page bill passed, they had to convince the public of the very opposite scenario.  So they repeated ironclad guarantees that no one would lose their coverage or doctors — "period!"  Now the administration explains the deception by going after both the ethics of the insurers and the intelligence of the previously insured.  That task required language to be altered.

Time Breaks From Media: Reports On Future ObamaCare Debacles.  While the mainstream media have had no choice other than to report on ObamaCare's ongoing smoking guns of failure, something the media have adamantly refused to do is look ahead and report on what horrors ObamaCare will bring next.  Time Magazine broke with that three-year media tradition Wednesday to warn its readers that Obama's promise about keeping your doctor will not live up to reality.

Obama and the Limits of Schadenfreude.  [Scroll down]  Then there is the central drama revolving around President Obama.  "If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.  Period."  He said that, or variations of that, over and over again.  This video complication capture 36 separate occasions when the president publicly made that promise — a promise, we now know, he knew he could never keep, had not intention of keeping, didn't want to keep anyway, since the two-fold goal of Obamacare is to destroy private insurance and bring all us plebs under the wing of an all-encompassing "single-payer," i.e., the federal government.

New Obamacare marketing — 'Sign up and shut up or the IRS will be calling'.  As the truth about Obamacare reveals itself, President Obama has admitted that he will have to "remarket and rebrand" his plan.  How does the White House think they will "remarket" Obamacare to voters?  Telling the truth could not possibly achieve good results.  The truth reveals that under Obamacare, you can't keep your current insurance plan unless Obama's Washington likes it, you can't keep your doctor or local hospital unless you are lucky, and that you will pay higher premiums and higher deductibles to get fewer choices.  Of course, there will be no chance for appeal.

CNN: HHS lied about "Anonymous Shopper" delay in Healthcare.gov.  The ObamaCare website forced Americans to create accounts before looking at prices and plans, which for the first several weeks they couldn't access anyway.  HHS officials told Congress that the part of the website that would have allowed people to see plan and pricing data wasn't provided because it failed its tests, but documents obtained by CNN show it was one of the few functions that actually worked as planned. [...] Ironically, the Anonymous Shopper function actually would have spared the White House a lot of bad press, had HHS turned it on.

Key part of HeathCare.gov passed test, but Anonymous Shopper shelved anyway.  When the troubled federal health care website came online, the key "Anonymous Shopper" function was nowhere to be found — even though it passed a key test almost two weeks before HealthCare.gov launched.  That successful test, noted in documents obtained by CNN and confirmed by a source close to the project, contradicts testimony from an Obama administration official overseeing HealthCare.gov, who told lawmakers earlier this month the function was scrapped because it "failed miserably" before the October 1 launch.

Lies, [More] Lies and ObamaCare.  Last week I was informed by the agent who handles my firm's health-care insurance that, come 2014, our group plan will be cancelled and replaced with an ObamaCare plan.  Never mind that President Obama, his spokespeople, and Democratic Congressional leaders all stated over and over that Americans happy with their health-care plans would be able to keep them.  Never mind that none of that was true.  Now those same leaders — not to mention all sorts of political talking heads — are saying that the only plans being cancelled are subpar plans that don't meet the minimum requirements of ObamaCare.  They're saying the cancellations will only affect a small percentage of individual plans.  None of that is true, either.

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.

Love It or Hate It, Obamacare Redistributes Americans' Wealth.  If the program was going to fulfill all that Obama pledged, not everyone was going to come out ahead — someone was going to have to pay the freight.  Some subgroups of Americans were going to be worse off than they were before.  Obama didn't say that in July 2009 — or any time while the program was being debated in Congress.  He couldn't.  He couldn't stand up before the American public and say that the only way to achieve the program's goals was to reallocate money within the health insurance market.

Mr. President, Tear Down This Website.  Many Americans have experienced the ill effects of Obamacare.  That's because the President's broken promises are piling up.  He promised that if you like your health care plan you can keep it.  But for millions of Americans, that's not true.  He said that the law would make health insurance more affordable.  But across the country, Americans are seeing their premiums go up, not down.  And when launching Healthcare.gov, the Obama administration said that the website was safe, secure and open for business.  We now know that isn't true, either.

New Whopper: Obama Claims 'More than 100 Million Americans' Have Enrolled in Obamacare.  His claim that 100 million have enrolled in Obamacare, which was probably believed by his worship team, just like his other lies, is simply an attempt by Obama to cover up one set of lies with even a bigger one.

Obama Trashes America to Save ObamaCare.  The U.S. is hugely generous to those who can't afford to pay for health care.  Hospitals spend more than $40 billion a year doing so.  Doctors generously provide billions of dollars worth of free or discounted care to those who need help.  There are various philanthropies that raise billions each year for charity care.  And that's to say nothing of the existing government programs.  Taxpayers fork over $415 billion a year so Medicaid can provide health care for the poor, and another $500 billion for Medicare.  There's the VA for veterans and various state-run programs as well.  So, no, the health care system isn't now and never has been the cold, cruel, heartless disaster that the Obamas make it out to be.

Sen. McCaskill: GOP 'Misleading People' about 'Free Market' ObamaCare.  Sen. Claire McCaskill (D- Mo.) says Republicans are "misleading people" about ObamaCare, which she calls a "free market solution".  McCaskill told MSNBC viewers on Nov. 14 that ObamaCare, which mandates that people buy only government-approved insurance and has resulted in the cancellations of millions of policies, is a "free market solution".

Pelosi Breaks with Reality: Dems 'United' on Obamacare, 'Couldn't be More Thrilled'.  While many Democrats, in an effort to save themselves, have jumped from the Obamacare ship and acknowledged the very-real shortcomings and disastrous effects the law is already having on the American people, Rep. Pelosi remains tone deaf and refuses to acknowledge the realities that remain so obvious to millions of Americans.

Obama says Republicans share some blame for health-care law's failures.  President Obama on Tuesday [11/19/2013] sought to redirect some of the political blame for the botched rollout of the federal health insurance exchange to Republicans, characterizing GOP lawmakers as rooting for the law's failure.

Oprah, Obama, and the Racism Dodge.  Since Democrats steamrolled the Affordable Care Act into law, its defenders have acted as if any opposition to the law is irrational, extremist, absurd, and, of course, racist.  They gave themselves license to dismiss all inconvenient facts simply by impugning the motives of those who point them out.

Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Admits: 'We All Knew' Obama was Lying About Obamacare.  In what should be considered a shameful admission, Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand admitted on ABC's This Week [11/17/2013] that all democrats knew that Obama was lying when he fraudulently repeated over 30 times that, "If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it, period." When asked by host guest host, Martha Raddatz, if Gillibrand felt misled by Obama's promise to Americans of being able to keep their current health insurance plan, Gillibrand responded, "He should have just been more specific.  No, we all knew."

Incoherence: Democrats offer contradictory excuses over 'keep your plan' lie.  As the White House flails and fumbles, Congressional Democrats have been left to their own devices to engage in freelance damage control.  The yarn they're spinning is a tangled web, indeed.  To hear people like House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand tell it, of course they knew that 'keep your plan' wasn't exactly accurate.  The president employed "imprecise" language, Hoyer allowed last month.  Hey, "we all knew" Obama's categorical pledge wasn't quite right, Gillibrand added over the weekend, lamenting that Democrats hadn't adequately explained all the details.

'More than 100 million Americans already successfully enrolled'.  President Barack Obama told a conference-call audience of progressive volunteers on Monday evening that 'more than 100 million Americans' — in a nation of less than 314 million — have successfully signed up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act.  And at a time when his signature legislative initiative's website has made the White House the butt of jokes, the website hosting the conference call was plagued with its own connection errors and other malfunctions.

Obama's Obamacare deception: You may not know the half of it.  The entire country — at least that portion that is not brain dead or brainwashed — knows Obama lied to all Americans to deceive them into supporting his plan for the government to absorb one-sixth of the economy.  In his non-apology, Obama dug himself a deeper hole.  He told us that only some 5 percent of the American people would lose their plans.  Most people, he assured us, get health insurance through their employer and won't be affected. [...] Too bad for Obama that his problems don't end with this inconsistency, which exposes his hypocrisy and opportunism.  He was lying about the 5 percent figure, as well.

Obama Blames Republicans for Obamacare Mess.  On Tuesday, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans for the Obamacare mess that made him concede he would have to "rebrand" and "remarket" Obamacare, ignoring that the law was passed with legislative gimmicks and no Republican support in the House.

Obama Shifts: 'We've Always Understood' That Enrolling by Website Isn't for Everyone.  "It turns out that purchasing insurance, for a lot of folks, is complicated," Obama told his supporters in a Monday night in an online conference call.  "What I want to do is make sure everybody on the phone call understands, we've always understood that we're going to have enroll people by mail, we're going to have to enroll people on the phone, we're going to have to enroll people in person," he said.

More Obamacare promises are going up in smoke.  The president, along with the many other Democrats who made the same promise, is now paying a political price for his words.  But the keep-your-coverage promise was just part of the Obamacare sales job.  Obama, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and top Democrats made all sorts of claims in their effort to convince a skeptical public to accept a complicated, far-reaching national health care scheme.

"We All Knew" Obama Was Lying.  On Sunday [11/17/2013], appearing on ABC's This Week with fill-in host Martha Raddatz, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) admitted that Democrats knew full well that Americans would be booted from their health insurance plans as an effect of Obamacare implementation.

In 2010, Administration Predicted 'Majority' of Employer-Based Health Plans Would Disappear.  The Obama administration has repeatedly said that the health-insurance-plan cancellations receiving so much attention in the news in recent days will affect only the 5 percent of Americans who purchase insurance on the individual market.  The Department of Justice, however, in a brief filed in federal court last month, conceded that the number may be much higher.  According to the administration's numbers, nearly 80 million additional Americans, "a majority" of those on employer-sponsored health plans, may also be out of luck.

Sebelius says the ObamaCare marketplace 'is working'.  "The marketplace is working, people are enrolling," claims Sebelius, who's from Kansas.  If by "enrolling," Sebelius means a total of 777 people in each of the 35 state exchanges being run by the feds during enrollment's first 33 days.  Even by adding the 79,000 enrolled on only 15 exchanges run by states and the District of Columbia, that falls somewhat short of ObamaCare's first month enrollment goal.  If by falling "short," you mean 394,000 off the planned pace of 500,000.

President Obama and His Gang That (Still) Isn't Shooting Straight.  Incompetence is one thing.  Secrecy is another.  The administration that promised to be the most transparent ever settled on the "80-percent-is-better-than-nothing" construction without making it public.

Somewhere snake oil salesmen are blushing.  In June of 2009, when what became Obamacare was in its earliest discussion stages, we noted that deception and tyranny were the key to health care reform.  We are seeing how that is being exposed through the knowingly false sales pitch that you could keep your plan and doctor.  It was just a sales pitch, as was so much of the rush to pass a bill without knowing what was in it.  As sales effort befitting a carnival barker selling snake oil.

The Affordable Care Act is not 'Incomprehensible'.  Granted, most people who aren't getting paid to write legislation don't want to spend their weekends reading 2,000-page bills.  It is absurd to claim, however, as Peggy Noonan does, that the ACA is "2,000 pages of impenetrable paragraphs." [...] It's clear on page one that the Act mandates "immediate improvements."  You don't need an advanced law degree to be concerned about possible cost increases accompanying increased coverage.

The True Face of Collectivism.  When you take up the mantle of individual freedom you become not selfish but responsible.  You live not by following orders but by voluntary exchange:  of work, of favors, of property, of trust.  And everything is done by agreement, by "sober, yet cheerful earnestness," and not by force.  All this has been codified into political philosophy, limited government, property rights, and settled science.  But liberals insisted that they knew better.  Oh dear.  Now it looks like liberals didn't know anything after all.  Except how to brazenly lie to the American people.

Presidential Liability.  Presidential speeches are written and re-written by White House political and legal staff.  Obama did not merely "misspeak" in an off the cuff remark twenty-nine times.  The Federal Register is the government journal that contains most routine publications and public notices of government agencies.  In 2010 a report in the Federal Register estimated that by 2013, 93 million people would lose their insurance due to ACA regulations.  The White House clearly knew that.  Now Obama's political operatives still claim that he merely "misspoke" twenty-nine times.  Obama relies on his belief that we are all fools.  He may be right.

Obamacare Is Whatever Obama Says It Is.  There has been a sort of Talmudic debate over the meaning of the word "enroll" — should we count folks who had chosen a plan and asked to be invoiced, or should we count only those who paid? [...] The Barack Obama administration resolved this debate by choosing a third metric:  They counted everyone who had put a policy in their online shopping cart, even if they hadn't actually gone ahead and signed up.  By this logic, I am the proud owner of 28 items in my Amazon.com cart, [...] And everyone with a Match.com profile is married.

Why insurance companies who follow the ObamaCare 'fix' could face legal troubles.  Obama's Wednesday press conference was filled with false claims from the number of people who have actually signed up for ObamaCare to lies about insurance companies.  But the lies that worked so well in getting ObamaCare passed depend on people trusting the messenger and most Americans now believe Obama "tried to deceive" them about ObamaCare.

House Democratic leaders won't apologize for Obamacare promise.  "There's nothing in the Affordable Care Act that says that your insurance company should cancel you," [Nancy Pelosi] told reporters.  "That's not what the Affordable Care Act is about.  It simply didn't happen."  She continued that she did not make a similar statement to her constituents, noting that she "would have if I ever met anybody that liked his or her plan, but that was not my experience."

Nancy Pelosi Shocked at Obamacare Outrage: I've Never Met Anyone Who Liked Their Insurance Plan.  Democrats are terrified, but Pelosi, an old pro, never wants to let them see her sweat.  To that end, during a press conference with her fellow Democratic leaders on Friday, Pelosi attempted to convince the media that there is very little outrage being directed at the Democrats to begin with.

The Editor says...
Ms. Pelosi is a California leftist.  Thus she has probably never met anybody who goes to church on Sundays, or anybody who has shot a deer, or anybody who can live their lives without help from the government for years at a time.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: 'We all knew' Obama's health care pledge wasn't accurate.  Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand wasn't surprised when Americans began to get letters saying their health insurance policies had been canceled.  Mrs. Gillibrand, New York Democrat, said Sunday that President Obama simply should have been "more specific" when he declared that those people who liked their insurance could keep it, a pledge that clearly has been broken amid growing reports of Americans being booted from their plans because the insurance policies don't comply with the standards in Obamacare.

Another ObamaCare talking point is dead and gone.  It's astonishing how long that trail of exhausted lies stretches back behind us.  September seems like a thousand years ago.  Just a few weeks back, Obama dead-enders were loudly insisting that nobody was losing their insurance at all — it was just a ruse cooked up by Republicans.

27 Democratic senators who promised you could keep your health coverage.  President Obama has taken a lot of heat for promising that if Americans liked the health coverage that they had before Obamacare, they would be able to keep it under the new law.  But the president wasn't the only Democrat in Washington who made that false promise.  Many, many other Democratic officeholders said the same thing.

Why Obama lied about health care.  [E]very lie is planted for a single end:  to justify increasing the power of the federal government, and with it the clout of its Number One champion, the Democrat Party.  That's why it's important to remember that it wasn't just Obama who told the Noble Lie about ObamaCare, it was the entire Democratic party.  Every member of Congress who voted for the Affordable Care Act knew its provisions would be a disaster for ten of millions of Americans already holding health insurance policies.  They knew the idea that people would be allowed to keep their existing policies was a fiction, just as they knew that far from making health care "affordable" ObamaCare would send insurance premiums skyrocketing — an average of 43 percent around the country.

President's Untruths Go Well Beyond "Keep Your Plan".  In its latest embarrassment, the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services finally provided the public with the ObamaCare enrollment numbers.  Remember the 47 million uninsured that liberals were calling a national disgrace before "Change We Can Believe In" took over the executive branch with promises of getting them covered?  Here it is over five years later and since sign-ups began last month not even 27,000 people obtained coverage from HealthCare.gov, with only 79,000 getting insurance through the state-based exchanges.  Meanwhile, the Manhattan Institute's Avik Roy warns the loss of employer-based insurance grandfathering status, thanks to ObamaCare rules, may mean up to 93 million Americans will lose health insurance.

Obama's Phony Cancellation Solution.  [Scroll down]  Let's put aside for the moment the question of whether Obama can even do this legally.  This is a president who, after all, has already arbitrarily changed and postponed various parts of ObamaCare — such as the congressional opt-out, the employer mandate, various enforcement rules, cuts to Medicare Advantage, out-of-pocket caps — when they would have proved politically hazardous.  The question is:  Why should anyone trust Obama's latest "you can keep your plan" promise?  It turns out, no one should.

The Obamacare Lie That Can't Be Fixed.  Obama's promise on insurance wasn't just injudicious, it was completely impossible.  It wasn't an incidental falsehood but ran counter to the central premise of his own health care law.  People losing their current insurance isn't an unintended consequence of the law; it is an intended consequence without which much of the law doesn't work.  In short, Obama's lie runs so deep that perhaps even [Bill] Clinton — who had his law license suspended for dissembling under oath — can't fathom all of its implications.

Was Benghazi Not Enough? Obama Should Resign over Obamacare.  If I were Barack Obama, I would resign as president.  Forget all the temporary fixes and limited hangouts, I would be too ashamed of myself for having lied so blatantly to the American people — and on matters of such great significance. [...] One thing is certain.  He will never recover from this.  Even if his numbers go up, even if the Democrats win in 2014 or 2016, he is an immoral person and will only be seen that way by honest historians.  He has stained himself immutably.

Obama's Big Lie is destroying his credibility.  It ranks as one of the biggest presidential lies of modern times, all the more so because Obama repeated it 30 times.  The fallout of millions being forced from their policies, an experience exacerbated by the hapless Web site, has created a crisis of confidence so vast, it threatens to swallow the second term.

The Editor says...
The headline on the article above is amusing:  The writer evidently believes that all of Mr. Obama's previous lies didn't harm his credibility, but the Big Lie did.

Byron York: Sympathetic Journalists All Knew Cancellations [were] Coming.  In a Friday editorial mainly taking aim at President Obama and Democrat lawmakers, The Washington Examiner's Byron York argues that the wave of millions of insurance cancellations were in fact not a surprise for many who are now claiming it was.  They knew, knowingly lied and they were not the only ones.  York points out that "sympathetic journalists" also knew what was coming and remained silent.

Obama in the Dark.  [Scroll down]  But you can't let Congress off the hook for the underlying driver of this calamity:  the lie that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it.  Period." [...] Moreover, even though the legislation may go by the moniker "Obamacare," the fact is the president didn't write the law.  Congress did, specifically congressional Democrats, with virtually no Republican input.

Obama's fallen and he can't get up.  The "you-can-keep-your" lies about insurance policies and doctors are only the first stage of deception.  Obamacare was sold to the American people on the premise that it would not add "one dime" to the deficit, a lie that was perpetrated with the help of gaming the scoring rules used by the Congressional Budget Office.

Dems Make Lame Duck Obama Start Quacking.  President Obama meant for millions of insurance policies to be cancelled, but told voters otherwise.  When confronted with evidence of his deception, the president confessed, but said it was the best thing for the country.  It would be too damaging to turn back now.  But when the political heat got to be too much, he did the about face anyway.  He deceived you for your own good, but now he won't even let you have that.

Boxer: Obama's Keep-Your-Plan Pledge 'Absolutely a Fact'.  Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that President Barack Obama's oft-repeated pledge that under Obamacare people would be allowed to keep their health care plans if they liked them was "absolutely a fact" — so long as the plans "met the standards" set by Obamacare, that is.

Obama Misled Public About Number Of Uninsured Too.  In Maryland, which has 785,000 uninsured and was one of the first states to enthusiastically embrace ObamaCare, just 4,700 had enrolled as of Nov. 10, according to Avalere Health.  Connecticut's exchange has enrolled only 4,100, although it has more than 340,000 uninsured.  Washington, D.C., home to 63,000 uninsured, has signed up just 300 people since Oct. 1.  Experts have long known that the number of uninsured bandied about by reformers was misleading.  But a careful look at the uninsured populations also reveals that ObamaCare may not help them much.

The Editor says...
There are those who are uninsured because they prefer not to buy insurance.  The "experts" don't seem to understand that.

10 Senate Dems Who Should Apologize for ObamaCare.  Last week, President Obama apologized for misleading the American public with his false claim that "if you like your insurance, you can keep it."  Without this assurance, it is unlikely ObamaCare would have passed.  Obama was not the only politician fudging the truth.  Most Democrat lawmakers repeated this claim on the campaign trail and in meetings with constituents.  If Obama apologized, they should as well, as they are equally culpable.

The Upton Bill Is No Small Matter.  Some 3 to 4 million people have already received notices from their insurers that their policies have been terminated, effective January 1, 2014, due to the provisions of Obamacare.  These cancellations make it absolutely clear that the president's signature Obamacare pledge — that no one will be forced out of insurance plans they like — is not true.  The broken pledge has been made worse by the utter mismanagement of the Obamacare enrollment system.  People with cancelled plans can't even find out what their options are under the new law.

CBO: Insurance Cancellations Just Beginning.  Dozens of times (that we know of) over his campaign to pass ObamaCare and to win re-election, President Obama lied to the American people about being able to keep the health insurance they like.  But that lie has only been replaced with another:  the lie that these cancellations will be limited to the 5% of Americans in the individual marketplace — when the truth is that these cancellations have only just begun.

Health care fiasco highlights Obama's broken promise.  You know you're having a tough week when you're essentially being called untruthful by, of all people, Bill Clinton, who knows a thing or two about stretching the truth.  At the very least, Clinton insisted that Obama — in trying to sell Obamacare to the American people — should not have broken his promise that, if they liked their doctor and health care plan, they could keep both.  For millions of Americans, perhaps tens of millions, this hasn't been the case.  Their policies were cancelled.

Obama retreats on Obamacare, allows existing low-cost policies to continue.  President Barack Obama has decided to save his endangered Obamacare law by suspending for one year enforcement of the law's critical but unpopular elimination of roughly 15 million low-cost insurance plans held by Americans who buy insurance on their own.  The plan sets up the insurance companies to take the political blame for the Democratic-designed Obamacare plan during the 2014 election.  Officials explained the president's decision as a prerogative of the nation's chief law-enforcement officer.

The Editor says...
The Attorney General is frequently described in the press as "the nation's chief law-enforcement officer."  In this case, Mr. Obama isn't enforcing the law — he's changing it week by week.

'Fairy Tale' Continues as Obama Proposes Extralegal Obamacare Fix.  The president is not proposing that the law be changed to allow all health insurance plans grandfathered into Obamacare's eligibility requirements.  No, instead the White House is saying that it will use "enforcement discretion" to allow illegal health insurance plans to be able to still be sold.  That is, the Obama administration will not enforce the penalty on individuals for not having eligible health insurance plans and they'll allow the insurance companies to still sell so-called bad plans — plans they technically can't sell under Obamacare.

POTUS Blames the Media, Scolds Press for Not Touting Obamacare Positives.  Without the tea party and Ted Cruz to use as a piñata, the President attacked the folks whom he once joked was "his base."

When Nudge Comes to Shove.  Unfortunately, the Rube Goldberg machine known as Obamacare went wrong, and badly wrong, from the word go.  And it didn't get any better as one new unintended consequence after another revealed itself as the machine kept whirring along.  No, you could not keep your health insurance, or your doctor, or your hospital.

Dem Senator Disables Embedding for Health Insurance Pledge Video.  In 2010 Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) took to YouTube and promised the people of Virginia that he was "not going to support a health care reform plan that's going to take away health care that you've got right now or a health plan that you like."  Just like President Obama's multiple assurances that "if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance," Warner's YouTube assurance is coming back to haunt him.

CNN's Sanjay Gupta: Millions Losing Health Plans a 'Red Herring'.  Desperately spinning on behalf of President Obama's huge lie that Americans who liked their health insurance plans could keep them, CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta told Piers Morgan on Tuesday night [11/12/2013] that it was no big deal if Americans lost their insurance plans.

Why the President Will Euthanize HealthCare.gov in 2014.  The launch of the health exchanges has produced diverse images of failure:  blank screens, improperly released Social Security numbers; a White House official undermining congressional oversight on September 6, 2013, with a phony security certification; and political appointees blaming their failures on unexpected enthusiasm for the exchanges — a fiction reminiscent of Cold War Soviets touting food lines as evidence of enthusiasm for a five-year agricultural plan causing widespread starvation.

Small Business and ObamaCare.  One of President Obama's proudest boasts about the Affordable Care Act is that it helps small business.  The White House website says the health law "makes it easier for businesses to find better coverage options" and "stops insurance companies from taking advantage of you, giving the consumer and business owner more control and making health-care coverage more affordable."  Small businesses aren't buying it.

Obama's Hometown Chicago Tribune Wonders If He Lied About Obamacare — So Why'd They Endorse Him Twice?  The Chicago Tribune slammed its hometown hero in a Monday [11/11/2013] editorial:  "The American public is having a credibility-shattering debate about the president:  Did he not bother to learn the details of the law before he told us we could keep our doctors and our insurance, or did he know the truth and flat-out lie?"  Perhaps a better question: Why did this same Chicago Tribune editorial board endorse this accused liar or dilettante — twice?

Ed Schultz: 'The Mainstream Media Wants ObamaCare To Fail'.  This really is one of the funniest things I've seen all year.  As such, readers are warned to make sure there isn't any food or fluids in their mouths that could damage their computers.  On MSNBC's The Ed Show moments ago [11/12/2013], host Ed Schultz actually said, "The mainstream media, I believe, wants ObamaCare to fail".

Think ObamaCare Is Bad Now? It Gets Worse Next Year.  'Substandard" and "cut-rate" is what President Obama calls the health plans that millions of Americans have lost, even though they wanted to keep them.  Backpedaling on his promise that "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan," Obama is now telling Americans another whopper:  The insurance they can get on ObamaCare exchanges is a better deal.  Don't believe him.  On the exchanges, you may no longer be able to use the doctors and hospitals you prefer.

NY Daily News Editorial Attacks America's 'Immaturity' for Showing Anger Over Obamacare's Lies.  We were just asking for it.  This is, essentially, what Century Foundation fellow Michael Cohen took to the pages of the New York Daily News on Monday [11/11/2013] to say.  In a profound scolding, Cohen diagnoses America's "immaturity" as demonstrated by the backlash against President Barack Obama over to his oft-repeated and false claim that every American who was happy with their health insurance would be able to keep their health insurance.  This was never true.  The president and his staff were aware this was not true as early as February, 2010.

Dems Seek Cover From Obamacare's Promise of Keeping Health Plan.  After former President Clinton called on President Obama to "honor the commitment" that if you like your health insurance you can keep it, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer admitted today [11/12/2013] that the president and other Democrats were "not precise" as they stumped in favor of the health care overhaul.

Obama's "Apology" — Substituting New Lies for Old.  On November 7 President Obama was forced to "apologize" to the millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance because of ObamaCare, something he repeatedly promised would never happen — "no matter what."  "Period."  He was forced into a public display of faux contrition by a convergence of political realities, including a panic in his own party, led especially by the 21 Democratic senators who are facing reelection battles next year, in the vortex of the growing ObamaCare maelstrom.

WH Count of Obamacare Enrollees Will Include Those Who Haven't Bought, Paid For Plans.  With the Department of Health and Human Services to release its first official estimates of the number of people who've signed up for health plans on the federally run exchange this week, one important question has now been answered:  What counts as an Obamacare enrollee?  Someone who's applied for and purchased a plan for which he's eligible, but not necessarily who's paid for it.

Who counts as an enrollee? The Obama administration settles on a definition.  Health insurance plans only count subscribers as enrolled in a health plan once they've submited a payment.  That is when the carrier sends out a member card and begins paying doctor bills.  When the Obama administration releases health law enrollment figures later this week, though, it will use a more expansive definition.  It will count people who have purchased a plan as well as those who have a plan sitting in their online shopping cart but have not yet paid.

You May Already Be an ObamaCare Enrollee.  The number of people who have actually bought an ObamaCare plan is slightly lower than the number of people who voted for the Communist Party candidate for president.

The unspoken success of ObamaCare.  Despite what you are being told, the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA), commonly known as ObamaCare, is already proving to be a resounding success. [...] First, it is vital to understand that the ACA is not now, nor never was, about providing affordable health care.  It is merely disguised as such.  Rather, it is the vehicle that is being covertly used to conduct the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that this nation has ever experienced.  It is being done methodically and for a specific purpose.  It is the vehicle that will ultimately disassemble and destroy significant parts of the United States Constitution and further enslave United States citizens.

Intentionally punishing Americans.  [Scroll down]  Now that the shutdown is over we are learning that Obama knew about people losing their personal health insurance and the president's rhetoric has morphed from "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" to "If you get a letter, just shop around, that's what the exchanges are for."  This loss of existing health insurance was known in June 2010 as shown in the federal register. [...] Soon the employers will probably start canceling and/or changing these existing plans.  Americans will then learn the truth about the deceit that has been practiced upon them.

Obamacare: Who's Crying Now?  It is wrong, of course, to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.  Still, I must confess that I have derived no small amount of schadenfreude from news stories about Obamacare advocates who have been adversely affected by the not-so-Affordable Care Act.  It would take a stronger man than yours truly to suppress a smile as the law's media pimps pule about their canceled health plans, when smug urban progressives get mugged by the reality of "reform," and lifelong Democrats publicly denounce President Obama as a brazen liar while declaring their intention to become foot soldiers for the Republican Party.

ObamaCare Lies and Incompetence May Be Enough To Bring It Down.  By now, many Americans are all-too-familiar with Obama's 29 videotaped assertions to Americans that, "If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan."  Obama's message was unmistakably clear:  When implemented, ObamaCare will leave the choice of which insurance to buy completely up to the consumer.  In other words, ObamaCare is being created to benefit other people, but it won't impact you.  Millions of voters took the President of the United States at his word, which is exactly what Obama wanted and needed.

Obama's Republic of Lies.  "If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan.  Period."  That's what President Obama said, repeatedly (at least 36 times), when selling ObamaCare to a skeptical public.  "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  Period"  Turns out, of course, that when he said "period," he meant "gotcha."

Is Abortion at the Root of the ObamaCare Chaos?  Since October 1, a health care law that was promoted as necessary to insure 30 million Americans has suddenly morphed into an all-out effort to un-insure those who had health care policies they liked and could afford.  The excuse given for the cancelations is that certain policies are not meeting health care reform bill criteria — a minor detail the president has been well aware of since 2010.  What is criminal about all this is that despite his knowledge of the unstoppable cancelation tsunami headed our way, Barack Obama continued to stress that "if [Americans] liked their insurance they could keep their insurance."

Barack Obama's Pants are on Fire.  Irreparable damage on the national level aside, after hawking the Affordable Care Act like a snake oil salesman, barking "Step right up, if you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan," some gravely ill Americans are finding out that the cure-all the merchant of "Hope and Change" peddled was pure quackery.

Obama's Massive Fraud.  "If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan.  Period."  How serious was this lie, repeated by Barack Obama with such beguiling regularity?  Well, how would the Justice Department be dealing with it if it had been uttered by, say, the president of an insurance company rather than the president of the United States?  Fraud is a serious federal felony, usually punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment — with every repetition of a fraudulent communication chargeable as a separate crime.

A Dishonest Presidency.  It's not easy to get a lie into a presidential speech.  Every draft address is circulated to the White House senior staff and key Cabinet officials in something called the "staffing process."  Every line is reviewed by dozens of senior officials, who offer comments and factual corrections.  During this process, it turns out, some of Obama's policy advisers objected to the "you can keep your plan" pledge, pointing out that it was untrue.  But it stayed in the speech.  That does not happen by accident.  It requires a willful intent to deceive.

When will They Stop Lying about Healthcare?  Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, despite repeated questions from congressmen, found it extremely difficult to answer a very simple question about whether or not she would be willing to participate in the Affordable Care Act exchanges.  In fact, her first response that it was "illegal" for her to use the exchange was not "just" deceptive, it was absolutely false.  She knew full well the implication of the question.  Would she, as a federal employee, be willing to subject herself to the same system that she feels so comfortable inflicting on the American people?  With the help of her advisor she uttered a technically legal response to a very moral question.  This deception by elected and appointed leaders reflects an ever-increasing trend on the part of politicians to lie, deceive, and distort reality.

Adding Another Lie To The Pile.  At the very moment President Obama was supposedly saying sorry for his "keep your plan" lie, he told a brand-new one when he claimed that just 5% are at risk of losing the health plans they like.

Media Pans Obama's "Apology".  The president's passive-voice expression of vague regret was so half-[heart]ed and self-serving that conservatives can simply sit back and let the mainstream media tee off on its inadequacy.  He's not sorry for lying repeatedly in furtherance of his political goals, and he's certainly not sorry that people are losing their coverage.  His law required that outcome.  His promise was an intentional lie.

Dispute Over Obamacare Tech Official Not Testifying.  The White House declined this week to make Chief Technology Officer Todd Park available to testify at a House Oversight hearing next Wednesday on the rollout of Healthcare.gov.  White House Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs Donna Pignatelli said Mr. Park is currently too busy helping fix the troubled healthcare website to appear, and suggested he testify in early December instead.

The Editor says...
I find Mr. Park's excuse to be feeble and incompetent.  Appearing before a congressional hearing would be part of fixing the website's problems.

Barack Obama's Multiplying Deceptions.  It was, I think, the most brazenly mendacious claim an American president has told since Bill Clinton's finger-wagging insistence that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."  I have in mind Barack Obama's statement, made earlier this week, in which he said this:  "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed."  (Emphasis added.)  That is not, in fact, what the president said.  Not by a country mile.

Democrats Spin Obama's Debunked Promise.  President Barack Obama's emphatic pledge, repeated at least 36 times, that nobody who liked their health insurance would lose it under the Affordable Care Act has been proven false, yet loyal Democrats have continued their attempts to spin his statement in television interviews.

2010 Video: Obama Admits Millions 'Might Have to Change Their Coverage'.  So even though the president knew that eight to nine million people "might have to change their coverage" way back in February of 2010, afterwards, for three-plus years — especially while running for reelection — Obama continued to reassure the American people that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.  Period.  End of story.

NBC's Chuck Todd: Obama 'Does Not Believe He Lied'.  NBC's Chuck Todd scored a huge interview with President Obama Thursday and opened things by immediately drilling down on the president's relentlessly repeated lie that under ObamaCare you can keep your current insurance plan if you like it. [...] Even after he elicits a "sorry" from Obama, Todd keeps after the point for almost ten minutes.  Ultimately, though, Todd came away with the impression that Obama doesn't believe he lied.  And Todd is probably right, which is a little unnerving.

'Pretty Good at Killing'.  It has been disclosed in a recently published book about the 2012 campaign, Double Down by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, that the president told aides that he is "really good at killing people" with drones.  I think the president is being far too modest.  Drones aren't the half of it.  He's really good at killing lots of things. [...] He has certainly killed any shred of accountability in the Oval Office.  Gone for the last five years has been any hope of a truth being uttered by an American president or his spokespersons, and it isn't coming back until he is gone.  What we have seen in the last few weeks regarding ObamaCare has been mesmerizing, with endless replays of the president uttering lies which evidence shows he knew were lies when he said them.

The Bad Apple President.  Turn on your television.  Keep flipping the channels past the infomercials, the reality shows and the music videos and you'll hear it.  The problem only affects a small (millions large) sliver of the population.  The plans being cancelled were substandard.  Health plans aren't lost; they're transitioning to new health opportunities.  The private marketplace was an unregulated Wild, Wild West where villainous deductibles went around with guns blazing through the office of the town sawbones.  The insurers decided to cancel the plans for reasons having nothing to do with the government.  These were "bad apple plans" that the insurers didn't even want to sell anymore.

What do lying Democrat President Clinton and lying Democrat President Obama have in common?
Why Obama's non-apology won't work.  When President Clinton apologized for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, he was able to argue that it was ultimately a personal matter and successfully urged the public to move on.  But President Obama's current problems are not of the personal nature.  Instead, over a period of five years, he repeatedly told Americans that under his health care legislation, those who liked their current health care policies could keep them.  And now that millions of Americans have been receiving cancellation notices from their health insurers, the media has finally awakened to the fact that he was lying all along.

Obama's Second, and Continuing, Big Lie.  By now, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of insurance cancellation notices that have been sent, it is well known that President Obama's repeated assurances that if you like your current insurance and doctor you can keep them were not true.  And thanks to the recent reporting of CNN (where were they and the other media three years ago, when we needed them?), more people will realize that shortly after the passage of Obamacare the Obama administration implemented rules specifically designed to ensure that millions of people [...] would not be allowed to keep their current insurance.  Thus not only were Obama's assurances untrue; they were purposeful deceit in which a supine press was complicit.

Obama Lies Like a Marxist.  A week after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama went on a road trip to Portland, Maine, to boast and prevaricate about what he had just done. [...] "They'll have to finally acknowledge that this isn't a government takeover of our health care system," he said.  "They'll see that if Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor.  And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it.  No one will be able to take that away from you.  It hasn't happened yet.  It won't happen in the future."  Anyone who actually read the law — or even just a small part of it — would have known this was untrue.

A lie from day one.  Florida Blue cancelled policies for 300,000 Floridians. Kaiser Permanente dropped 160,000 individual plan holders in California, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina mailed out 160,000 cancellation notices.  It's happening nearly everywhere.  People were promised they could keep their health insurance plan.  That was a lie.  They were duped and dropped.  The liar is none other than the president of the United States.

Another ObamaCare Lie: Mother's Dispute With Insurer.  The You-Can-Keep-Your-Insurance line isn't the only ObamaCare whopper the media never checked out.  There's also the tall tale about President Obama's mother's deathbed fight with her insurer.  In several speeches, as well as debates, Barack Obama claimed a heartless insurance company denied his mother, Ann Dunham, health care coverage because of a pre-existing cancer.  Her medical bills mounted while her health failed, he said.  Though she died a bankrupt woman in 1995, her nightmare inspired him to keep fighting for health care reform.  The heart-breaking anecdote was used to beat up insurers over denying pre-existing conditions and was key to selling ObamaCare.  Except it wasn't true.

The White House effort to blame insurance companies for lost plans.  [Scroll down]  Blaming the insurance companies can only go so far.  First of all, the administration wrote the rules that set the conditions under which plans lose their grandfathered status.  But more important, the law has an effective date so far in the past that it virtually guaranteed that the vast majority of people currently in the individual market would end up with a notice saying they needed to buy insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.  The administration's effort to pin the blame on insurance companies is a classic case of misdirection.

The Obama Facade Cracks at Last.  The president has engaged in a pattern of lying to the American public.  He has often repeated the ObamaCare mantra, "We will keep this promise to the American people.  If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.  Period."  He added, "Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."  Now, NBC News, no less, informs Americans that the president knew that he was not telling the truth about his healthcare plan.  The NBC report quoted healthcare experts who expect more than half and perhaps as many as 80 percent of those with individual plans will have their policies terminated and have to buy new policies with expanded coverage they don't need or desire due to the requirements of ObamaCare.

Obama promised on Sept. 26 that people in individual market would keep their plans.  It was less than a week before Obamacare's exchanges launched that President Obama gave a speech in Maryland about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.  Using a community college in a friendly county as a backdrop, Obama pushed back against Obamacare critics, charging them with "fear-mongering" and mocking them for "crazy" predictions about the law.  In that speech, he repeated the promise that the law's changes would not affect those who already had health insurance.

Obamacare Is Obama Unmasked.  It is inconceivable that Obama merely misspoke when he promised that Americans could keep their private plans and doctors if they liked them and when he said the premiums for an average family of four would decrease by $2,500.  Those were cold, calculated lies designed to defraud the American people and their representatives into supporting Obama's "signature" legislative dream, which was never about increasing access, reducing costs, increasing quality and preserving choices.  Rather, Obamacare has always been nothing less than the linchpin in Obama's bigger dream to fundamentally change America into a nation he could like instead of resent — a socialist utopia rather than the land of the free, of the brave and of equal opportunity.

Who Sabotaged ObamaCare?  One of the excuses for the technical incompetence of ObamaCare is that the president and his team were the victims of "sabotage" by congressional Republicans. [...] The idea that Republicans have "sabotaged" ObamaCare is ludicrous on its face.  Sabotage entails destroying or damaging something by subverting it — by stealthily undermining it from within.  Republican opposition to ObamaCare has been neither stealthy nor "within."  Every Republican member of Congress has opposed ObamaCare consistently, openly and honorably.

'Keep Your Plan' Can't Be Negated By Further Untruths.  The far-from-conservative New York Magazine's website features a priceless video montage titled "Keep Your Plan:  A Retrospective."  It shows 23 occasions, from October 2008 to September 2010, in which Obama solemnly promises the American people that (to use the July 2009 wording) "if you've got health insurance, you like your doctor, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan."  Unlike Benghazi, there is no convoluted timeline to detangle here, or one person's word to weigh against another's.  All who see the president make those claims now know they were being fed calculated lies necessary to get government control of health insurance.

Obama's big lie.  "All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it....  I'm infuriated because I was lied to," one woman told this newspaper, as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of Obamacare.  And that lie looks like the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president.

Nearly 1.5 Million Lose Health Insurance Due to ObamaCare.  During his sales job to pass his signature health insurance plan, President Obama repeatedly and without qualification promised the American people that if you liked your insurance plan, you could keep it.  Obama also promised everyone that their premiums would decrease and that he would never raise taxes on the middle class.  Already 1.5 million have had insurance they were happy with stripped from them.  If the Congressional Budget Office is correct, this will happen to millions more.

Obama: The Most Dangerous of Morons.  The big lie of the Obama presidency is "you can keep your insurance."  Barry thinks Americans are just too stupid to realize he lied.  Why wouldn't he?  He's been right before.  He actually believed that Americans would be so enamored of his signature achievement that they would forget about his promise.  Only a moron would think most Americans would willingly pay more for less to ensure a minority of people could pay less for more — and then afterward, forgive him for lying to them in order to pass the legislation.  After all, it had his name on it.  He felt that should be enough.

Lies of Obamacare, Documented.  [Scroll down]  The baleful consequences of Obamacare that we are now seeing — there are many more to come — were known and foreseen in 2010.  The Democrats voted down the Republicans' effort to preserve the health care plans that Americans already like on a party-line vote.  The Democrats knew that Obama had been lying through his teeth, and they voted unanimously to sustain his lies.

Was Rep. Joe Wilson right? Proof Obama made health care promise 23 times.  With President Obama's approval ratings plummeting, White House aides labored Tuesday to explain his broken promises about Obamacare in the face of videos showing the president repeatedly stating untruths about the law.  Rather than admit Mr. Obama was wrong when he told consumers regularly and emphatically that everyone could keep their health insurance, White House officials gave their third variation in a week about what the president really meant to say.  This time, they said the president was giving the public "a statement about the overall promise" of the law.

Obama's bogus claims pile up.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans are being notified that their health insurance policies will be canceled, notwithstanding Obama's endlessly repeated assurance that "if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."  But that claim, voters now realize, was also untrue.

Obama further alters 'you can keep your plan' pledge.  President Obama continues to alter his signature promise in selling the Affordable Care Act back in 2009 and 2010.  "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan," he said back then.  But that simple pledge has had to change as the Affordable Care Act has been implemented and a small percentage of Americans, albeit millions of people, have received cancellation notices from their insurance companies.

That's a mighty big 'if' Mr. President.  President Obama now says he never promised voters they could keep their health insurance plans, "period."  Talking to top backers of his permanent campaign arm, Organizing for Action, at a Washington meeting Monday night, the president made a new claim:  "What we said was, 'You could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed.'"

Obama revises history.  Yesterday, President Barack Obama claimed that when he promised Americans that they if they liked their health care plan they could keep it, he also stated "if it hasn't changed since the law passed." [...] The fact that video exists of at least 23 instances in which the president added no such limitation clause, and in some of which he added the emphatic "Period" after claiming you can keep your health plan seems to not register with him.

Obama health lie freaks Dems.  Many of the president's supporters are in barely concealed panic over the fact that he didn't tell the truth when he was selling the Affordable Care Act.  In an oft-repeated vow, he told the country that "if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period.  No one will take it away, no matter what."  This was, by any common-sense measure, a lie.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: 'Nothing' Obama or I Said About Obamacare 'Was Not True'.  Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) joined MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing on Tuesday [11/5/2013] where she insisted that "nothing" she or President Barack Obama said about the Affordable Care Act prior to its passage or implementation "was not true."

Obama's Lies Threaten the Liberal Project, and His Media Support.  The President of the United States has been caught in an egregious lie.  Or, as the New York Times editorial board likes to think of it, the president "misspoke"... repeatedly.  More than 20 times, in fact.  Over the course of three election cycles... But why nitpick?

Democrat Harkin: Government Forcing Us to Pay for Products We Don't Need Is America's New 'Values System'.  Obamacare forces young men and old people to pay for maternity coverage in their health insurance.  It's a ludicrous requirement that makes everyone's health insurance cost more.  But to rich, old leftist Sen. Tom Harkin, that's not a bug in Obamacare.  It's a feature, because it imposes his values on everyone else.

Race is Obama's "Get Out of Jail Free" card.  The nation is struggling with the notion that President Obama completely deceived us all on his signature policy, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Over the past week we learned that millions of Americans are receiving cancellation notices of their private healthcare plans, something Obama promised over and over again would not happen, "period."  We now know that to be false.

White House on honesty in the Age of Obama: "What difference does it make?".  The White House claims the negatives are minor because "only" 10 to 12 million Americans with individual policies will lose their current insurance, and that these are dwarfed by a vast number who get government subsidies under Obamacare.  But official numbers show 93-million people could lose their current coverage.  That's because many employer-based policies will also be cancelled as inadequate under Obamacare.  Until that next wave of bad news hits, Obama's team is pushing the notion that presidential truth-telling doesn't really matter.  Only results count, they say, and Obamacare's winners will outnumber its losers.  That's another way of saying that honesty is now unimportant to too many politicians, too many in media, and too many voters.

President Pinocchio: He clearly lied about ObamaCare.  "All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it. ... I'm infuriated because I was lied to," one woman told the Los Angeles Times as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of ObamaCare.  And that lie looks like the biggest lie about domestic policy ever uttered by a U.S. president.

Health Reform Breaks Bad:  The deceptions and disasters of Obamacare.  Notwithstanding a campaign pledge to "always be honest with you about the challenges we face," candidate Obama offered Americans the moon:  He would cover most (albeit not all) of the uninsured; to the degree higher taxes were required to deliver on this promise, every penny would come out of the pockets of "rich" Americans; not only would middle-class Americans not have to pay a penny in new taxes for this dramatic but expensive new entitlement, the "typical" family of four would save $2,500 a year in premiums (before the end of his first term); and the plan would not add a dime to the deficit.

Broken Promises/Broken Presidencies.  Today, we see millions, yes, millions of Americans, losing their health care coverage.  These are the folks who were promised over and over by President Obama "if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her; if you like your health care plan, you can keep it."  Well, it turns out that millions of Americans cannot keep their doctors or their plans.  They have been betrayed.  They are outraged.  They should be.  Many of these rejected and dejected millions are Obama voters.

Aides Debated Obama Health-Care Coverage Promise.  As the president pushed for a new federal health law in 2009, he made a simple pledge:  If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your plan.  But behind the scenes, White House officials discussed whether that was a promise they could keep.

They knew! Obama aides debated 'you can keep your plan' lie.  In a bombshell report, the Wall Street Journal has gotten Obama advisers — some on the record, others anonymous — talking about the internal debate over the president's false guarantee that Americans could keep their insurance plan if they liked it, under Obamacare.  In the end, politics trumped the truth.

Obama loyalists head up 'tech surge' for Obamacare website.  Administration loyalists from the technology community are being tapped to join the "tech surge" designed to rescue the malfunctioning Obamacare website.  Originally, the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services pledged that Silicon Valley's "best and brightest" were being mobilized to save the botched website.

Carney slams reporter, to hide another Obama deception.  ABC News' Jon Karl highlighted another Obamacare deception Nov. 4, prompting White House spokesman Jay Carney to retaliate with mockery, mimicry and misdirection.  Carney is having a tough few weeks because he volunteered to defend President Barack Obama's catastrophically mismanaged rollout of the Obamacare network.

Obama: 15.8 Million Insignificant.  During the past few weeks, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans have been notified that they are being dropped from the health insurance coverages they have now.  Some may remember President Barack Obama's promises, made over and over again, that if you like the insurance you have, Obamacare will let you keep it.  He lied.  Now, he and his minions are attempting to minimize the outrage.  Why, the number of people involved is only "5 percent of the population," White House spokesman Jay Carney said the other day.  Five percent of the country's population is 15.8 million people.

Video Flashback: Obama Promises 'If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It' at Least a Dozen Times.  As far back as 2009, Pres. Obama and Team Blue had repeatedly told voters that, under the Affordable Care Act, "if you like your current plan, you can keep it." [...] A look back at the last several years shows that Obama did, indeed, make this oversimplified guarantee over and over and over again.  [Video clip]

AP Fact Check: Sebelius is Lying About Obamacare.  [Scroll down]  What's ironic about Sebelius' erroneous comment is that her boss has displayed scant hesitancy in unilaterally delaying other portions of the law that actually are set in stone.  In this case, the administration genuinely had some legal discretion to play with, but chose not to exercise it.  Sebelius either doesn't realize this (head-spinning incompetence), or she's actively lying [...]

More Lipstick on the ObamaCare Pig.  The White House PR machine keeps trying to put lipstick on the ObamaCare pig.  According to Whitehouse.gov, "there's some great news from a Department of Health and Human Services report...  Thanks to Obamacare, half of young adults between age 18 and 34 who are single and uninsured can get health coverage for $50/month or less."  There are two problems with the claim.  First, the actual percentage, according to HHS figures, of 18-34 year olds who qualify for the $50/month rate is not "half" but 2.9%.  The numbers are 1.3 million out of 44.2 million.  Secondly, the $50/month rate is not a market price but one that is subsidized by an expanded government entitlement.

As Obamacare Takes On Water, The Electorate Wakes Up To Its Horrors.  The Obama administration is clearly in full-defense mode over the rolling disaster of ObamaCare, and it is making every effort to deflect criticism to others.  But the deflections won't hold because they are not based on fact.

Obama's health promises backfire.  Health insurers will terminate coverage for up to 250,000 Pennsylvanians as Obamacare unfolds with a troubled website that has prevented many from enrolling in plans online, the state Insurance commissioner said.  "It's a Kafkaesque nightmare," said Michael Consedine, the state's chief insurance regulator.  Such cancellations are occurring nationwide, despite "promises that were made" by President Obama that people could keep plans rather than change them, Consedine said.

Obamacare makes Republicans look like sages.  During the public debate over health care, no matter how tightly you may have shut your door, there was one piece of information it was impossible to avoid:  the president's promise that if you liked your doctor and your health care plan you would be able to keep both.  So it was a surprise to many people to get a letter like the one Independence Blue Cross sent its customers weeks ago.  It said that as a result of the Affordable Care Act, "your current plan will be discontinued effective January 1, 2014, and you will need to select a new plan by the end of December to avoid any interruption in coverage."  That wasn't what the president promised.

Accountability means making Obamacare voluntary.  The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" was on full display during HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday [10/30/2013].  The television showed a split screen.  On one side was the Secretary proclaiming that Healthcare.gov has never crashed.  On the other side was an image of the crashed Obamacare website, which was down for the duration of her three hour testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  The split screen picture said it all:  The Obama administration says one thing; the facts say the opposite.

If America blames Obama, Obamacare dies.  Democrats will not be satisfied with anything short of full government control of healthcare.  Like good disciples of Saul Alinsky, they will use any means necessary to get to this desired end.  In order to achieve the holy grail of single-payer healthcare, Democrats must do three things, almost simultaneously:  First, Obamacare must fail; second, destroy the private insurance market by putting private health insurers out of business; third, in conjunction with their partners in the mainstream media, they must persuade America that private insurance companies, not the federal takeover of healthcare, are responsible for rising premiums, lack of access, and the cancellation of tens of millions of Americans' healthcare plans.

Obamacare "Success Story" Is Democratic Progressive Politician, Pictured With Obama In 2008.  Michael Cadigan has a lovely story, trumpeted after the initial Obamacare roll out and beamed around the country, including on the site of Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi where she is pushing "success stories".  He allegedly signed up himself and his employees in his law firm in 15 minutes on the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange and supposedly saved a [sic] $1000 on their prior plans.

Obamacare Failed Promises.  "If you like your plan, you can keep it."  This lie has been perpetrated for years and continues to be said by Obama and his administration to this day.  They knew Americans would lose their current coverage, affecting millions of people, and yet they went forward nonetheless.  This shows that they are not really serious about the effects on the American people but are driven by an ideological pursuit of big-government, socialized medicine.  Amazingly, the administration seems to have been caught flat-footed by deluge of stories showing how millions of people are losing coverage.  It's as if they didn't believe it would actually happen or they believed the American people would just roll over and accept it, assuming the Obama-mania media would be reluctant to report on it.  Well they assumed incorrectly.

The First Hustler Runs the Big Con.  All along, it had been a bait-and-switch by the first hustler.  In Boston, Obama could no longer evade the truth.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans who had purchased health insurance in the private market were getting notices their plans were being canceled.  That this revelation had blown a hole in his credibility did not seem to trouble Obama.  Indeed, the president appeared impatient with the complaints.  These were "substandard" plans anyhow, he said, the lousy offerings of "bad-apple insurers."

ObamaCare: Socialist Trojan Horse in a Free-Market Troy.  There's no mystery why ObamaCare won't work.  It won't work because it's an absurdity.  The only mystery is why anyone ever thought it would work.  But maybe that's no mystery either.  Maybe its proponents didn't care whether it worked.  Indeed, maybe they didn't even want it to work.  It's no secret what ObamaCare's principals really want.  They want a Cuban healthcare system in which the state is your provider, your doctor, and your hospital.  They won't call that what it is — a socialist system.  Instead, they call it a "universal single-payer system" because that sounds better.

WH: We Have 'Rough Estimate' of Enrollment Figures, But Won't Release to Public.  White House press secretary Jay Carney revealed that the administration has "rough" Obamacare enrollment numbers, but that it is waiting to release them to the general public until they're more reliable. [...] Carney's comments come a day after reports that just six people enrolled on the federal exchanges when the Healthcare.gov website launched last month.

Flashback: JournoList Journalist Admits Lying to Get Obama Elected, Obamacare Passed.  This fun little clip popped up on Twitter.  It's from 2008.  In it, Washington Post Wonkblogger Ezra Klein admits that Obamacare would have to be passed, indeed Obama's own election would require, a "sneaky strategy" because Democrats had been beaten roundly every time they had tried to pass anything close to a single-payer healthcare system in America.  "At some point, you just have to win," he tells the Netroots audience.  None of those present seem to have a problem with what he says.

Obamacare's Falsehoods: Replace Obama's teleprompter with a lie detector.  Every statement made by the President and his press people has become suspect.  President Barack Obama and press spokesman Jay Carney would each need to pass a great many polygraph tests to restore even a slight level of public trust.  Could there be a greater contrast than this:  After the first day of the Obamacare website being live, www.healthcare.gov, the White House bragged that it had 4.7-million visitors.  Now CBS News reports the total number of people who actually signed up that day was six.  Single digit.  Six.

White House Caught in Outright Lies, Media Yawns.  CBS News has caught the White House in an outright lie.  It's a lie that administration officials stood by and disseminated through the media.  Stated more clearly, the White House used many credulous members of the media to misinform the public.  Now, after having been made fools of by their Democratic allies in the executive branch, one might be excused for expecting the press to push back against their abusers forcefully.  Instead, the race is on to make excuses for the embattled White House.

A President Manqué.  President Obama traveled to Boston on Wednesday to qualify his promise that you can keep your health plan, but as usual he had to do more.  Forced to concede (implicitly) that his famous claim is false, he accused ObamaCare's opponents of spreading "a lot of confusion and misinformation" and "being grossly misleading, to say the least."  Some of us have been saying for years that the law was a bad idea in part because it was designed to force the cancellations of millions of insurance policies.  This has now turned out to be true.

Insurance Industry Finds It's Sleeping With The Enemy.  Four years ago, the insurance industry decided to get in bed with President Obama to help him get his health reform passed.  But as soon as things started to go wrong, guess who Obama blamed? [...] In a speech in Boston on Wednesday, for example, Obama said that people "are getting notices from their insurance companies suggesting that somehow, because of the Affordable Care Act, they may be losing their existing health insurance plan."  Not so, Obama insisted.  The blame rests instead with "bad apple" insurers who'd been offering "cut rate plans" or had decided to "downgrade or cancel" their "substandard" policies.

Internal notes indicate only 6 people signed up for ObamaCare on first day.  Notes from an Obama administration meeting about the problem-plagued ObamaCare website indicate only six people signed up for the health care law on its first day, according to documents released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  Fox News' Ed Henry told Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File" Thursday that the documents, released by committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, are not official enrollment numbers, but say that as of the morning of Oct. 2, "six enrollments have occurred so far with five different issuers."

Document: Just Six People Enrolled in Obamacare Plans on Launch Day.  As recently as Wednesday [10/30/2013], Sec. Sebelius refused to say how many people have signed up for new insurance using the Obamacare exchange.  The excuse has been that the numbers are not available.  But the documents obtained by CBS show that the administration was keeping track at "twice-a-day 'war room' meetings" at CMS.  The notes from these meetings reveal that 6 people signed up on day one.  By the end of Wednesday (the 2nd day) the total was 248 nationwide.

Obamacare enrollments got off to [a] very slow start, documents show.  For 31 days now, the Obama administration has been telling us that Americans by the millions are visiting the new health insurance website, despite all its problems.  But no one in the administration has been willing to tell us how many policies have been purchased, and this may be the reason:  CBS News has learned enrollments got off to an incredibly slow start. [...] The website launched on a Tuesday.  Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours.  But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say "six enrollments have occurred so far."

Obamacare laid bare.  Hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters went out to people who had been assured a dozen times by the president that "If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan.  Period."  The cancellations lay bare three pillars of Obamacare:  (a) mendacity, (b) paternalism and (c) subterfuge.

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  Obama might be able to weather many controversies — from IRS-gate to the NSA's spying on Americans to the disastrous operation of the Obamacare website — by claiming he knew nothing about what was going on.  But his promise that people would be able to keep their insurance policies and doctors is hitting people on a much more personal level.  The administration is desperately trying to counter by arguing:  1) you might be losing your insurance policy that you liked so much, but you will actually be getting a better (if more expensive) one and 2) the cancellation of existing policies is really the fault of those irresponsible insurance companies.  The president and his defenders don't want to recognize that those two arguments contradict each other.

WH: No security risks on HealthCare.gov.  The White House insisted Thursday that consumer information is safe on HealthCare.gov, despite a warning the site was at "high risk" for a security breach because of inadequate testing.  White House press secretary Jay Carney said that "consumers can trust that their information is protected by stringent security standards."  But a memo, obtained by Reuters, warned that sensitive data — like social security numbers and birth dates — could be compromised by security flaws that had not been discovered because the website had not undergone sufficient testing before it was launched.

You Can Keep Your Health Plan*.  President Obama has intoned "if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" hundreds if not thousands of times.  Sometimes he has even added that "no one will take it away, no matter what" or "nothing will change, period."  But now that reality is repudiating the President's unequivocal promise, Democrats want you to know that there was always a secret footnote:  If you're losing a health plan you liked, the President didn't mean your plan.

Can We Finally Stop Pretending?  The president is incapable of telling a truth, and what conservatives have been predicting for three years about ObamaCare has been entirely correct. [...] We've seen a website and estimates of premium and deductible figures which have been panic-inducing all on their own.  There is not one single fact about this monstrosity that has been truly presented by the president, and his law, its destruction of lives and fortunes, and the pattern of fraud that have accompanied it rest solely and squarely on the Democratic Party.  They did this to the United States of America and they did it on purpose.

The unraveling of Barack Obama's 'Potemkin' presidency.  Like other false constructs ("shovel-ready jobs" and "leading from behind"), the mythic promise of Obamacare stands revealed now upon a foundation of lies.  It turns out that regulations not drafted in 2010 or shared before the November 2012 election really, really do matter.  Despite strenuous efforts by the Obama Administration to keep essential truths hidden, clear and unambiguous evidence emerged starting on October 1, 2013 showing that the Affordable Care Act is anything but.  You cannot keep your health plan-period.

Obama Cancels 'You Can Keep Your Plan' Promise: 'Just Shop Around'.  In a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall on Wednesday afternoon [10/30/2013], President Barack Obama discarded his now-infamous broken promise:  "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance."  Instead, he offered a new promise:  "You will be getting a better deal," the president told health insurance consumers.  He blamed insurance companies, not Obamacare, for the canceled policies.

Obama blames 'bad apple insurers' for canceled insurance plans.  President Obama tried a new tack Wednesday as he fought back against criticism of his Obamacare claims.  Fact-checkers and journalists have ruled that Obama wasn't being truthful when he claimed that people who liked their insurance could keep it.  Obama during a speech in Boston sought to cast the issue Wednesday [10/30/2013] as trying to weed out "bad apple insurers" who don't provide enough coverage.

The Biggest Lie? 'Keep Your Plan'.  In the face of millions of cancellation notices, Democrats want to downplay the president's "keep your health plan" pledge as standard political hyperbole.  It was, in fact, a calculated lie that got ObamaCare enacted.

Washington Post Gives 'If you like your plan' Promise Four Pinocchios.  Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post does a nice job explaining why the President's oft-made claim "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" is not remotely true and why the administration's current excuses are not believable.  Kessler points out that even back in 2009 the GOP and the Associated Press argued that the President could not possibly keep the promise he had made about people holding on to insurance plans they liked.  Nevertheless, the President ignored his critics and kept making the same simplistic promise over and over.

Sebelius: 'Men Often Do Need Maternity Care'.  During Wednesday's congressional testimony, a heated exchange occurred between Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over one of the still-unexploded controversies in the ObamaCare law: the fact that ObamaCare's so-called "robust" coverage is in reality your government forcing you to pay for coverage that includes expensive services millions will never need.

CoveredCA chief: Up to 900,000 will lose health plans on 12/31.  Covered California executive director Peter Lee told the Chronicle editorial board that he expects 800,000 to 900,000 people to lose their non-grandfathered private insurance policies on Dec. 31, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.  (This figure — which is higher than past numbers reported — does not include small business coverage.)  "The individual market is changing dramatically," Lee said.  What about President Obama's promise that if people liked their plan, they could keep it?  "I think it was not well stated," Lee answered.  Obama's rhetoric "may have been an inarticulate way of describing what the realities are."

CMS Administrator on Obamacare: 'We Have a System That's Working'.  Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on Tuesday [10/29/2013] that the Obamacare enrollment system is "working."  "So what I can guarantee is we have a system that's working.  We're gonna improve the speed of that system," she said at the hearing on Obamacare enrollment.

The Editor says...
No, the system is not working, was never going to work, and will never work.

CNN: Sebelius Falsely Claimed She's Not Eligible For Obamacare.  Under intense grilling from two Republican Representatives, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claimed that it would be "illegal" for her to get insurance through the ObamaCare exchanges.  Her claim is that, since she is eligible for insurance through her federal employer, she cannot opt-out of that insurance to sign on to ObamaCare.  As CNN points out, that is simply false.

The Mendacious Mr. Obama.  [Scroll down]  Beyond that, it's helpful to bear in mind the characteristics of the Obama White House.  This is the group that for weeks knowingly misled the public on the events surrounding the lethal attacks on the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  That claimed that the Affordable Care Act was both a tax and not a tax, depending on what the circumstances required.  That hatched the sequestration idea, then denied it, and then blamed Republicans for it.  That has perfected the art of stonewalling.  That is lawless.  And that ran a campaign in 2012 that was unusually vicious and dishonest, up to and including blaming Mitt Romney for the cancer death of a steelworker's wife.

ObamaCare Site Crashes Minutes Before Sebelius Testimony.  During her testimony before Congress Wednesday, Secretary Sebelius claimed, "The website never crashed.  It is functional, but at a very slow speed and very low reliability." [...] The site was still down thirty-minutes into Sebelius' testimony.

Obama: GOP 'grossly misleading' about people losing health plans.  President Obama in a speech in Boston on Wednesday accused Republicans of being "grossly misleading" about Americans being dropped from their health insurance plans because of Obamacare, the latest controversy surrounding the president's signature domestic achievement.

Sebelius says 'Obamacare website never crashed' — Obamacare website promptly crashes.  The website is a disaster.  It's full of slow downs, glitches and crashes that are an apt metaphor for a healthcare reform that is forcing people to upgrade to more expensive plans, leaving others confused and employers considering layoffs.  Needless to say, the government knew about the technical problems long before the roll out began.  The Obama administration at first denied this, despite a) complaints from insurance companies and b) that it actually crashed during a pre-launch test.

NBC hides its bombshell that Obama knew millions would lose health insurance.  An NBC investigative internet story that has upended the administration's oft-repeated promise that Americans will be able to keep their health care plan under Obamacare was largely ignored on the network's premier TV shows, NBC Nightly News and Today, according to a media watchdog group.

Waxman: Selling Individual Insurance is 'Abuse'.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who serves as Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, called the private sale of cheap health individual insurance plans "the worst abuses of the insurance industry" and said that Obamacare would halt those abuses. Waxman was defending the new standards Obamacare established for individual plans, which is causing the cancellation of millions of plans.

The Outrage Arrives.  The White House has issued a clarification.  When the president said if you like your insurance plan you can keep it, what he meant was you can keep it if he likes it.

'We're not getting that reliable data:' The most important moment of the Sebelius hearing.  Sebelius reiterated what Jeff Zients told reporters late last week:  that fixing data files sent to insurance companies, known as "834" files, is at the top of the administration's "punch list" for fixing the Web site[.]  "We have prioritized that specific fix," Sebelius said.  "Believe me, insurance companies [want] to get reliable data."  There's a reason that this item is getting such high priority:  Without a fix, insurance plans won't know who actually signed up for their health plans.  That means they can't send out membership cards or start paying claims for doctor visits.

Sebelius and the Arrogance of Power.  At one point early in her appearance before a House committee this morning [10/30/2013], Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave the country a moment of clarity in response to a question.  "Hold me accountable for the debacle.  I'm responsible."  Yet almost every other thing she said in her testimony was aimed not only at evading her own responsibility for the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare but also to obfuscate the lies the administration has told about the program as well as the utter lack of accountability about the expenditure of vast sums on a website that is not only dysfunctional but insecure.

Dems: It's Good That Obamacare Doubles Health Premiums.  [Scroll down]  What's new is that liberal columnists, facing reality, are conceding that premiums will go up for most people in the individual market.  But they're justifying it by saying that "rate shock" will help a tiny minority of people who can't get insurance today.  If they had said that in 2009, would Obamacare have passed?

'If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It.' Well, Not Exactly.  President Obama repeatedly promised that people would not lose their existing coverage as a result of his health-care plan.  This lay somewhere between an oversimplification and a falsehood, as millions of Americans are facing exactly that prospect right now as the individual-insurance market complies with the law's new regulations.

ObamaCare Apologetics.  [Marilyn] Tavenner's (obviously nonsensical) implication is that because ObamaCare didn't cause all rate increases and policy cancellations, it didn't cause any of them.  It is actually more reasonable to count all post-ObamaCare cancellations, even those that didn't result from changes in the law, against the president, whose promise that "you can keep it" was unqualified.

Media Knew Obama's 'Keep Your Plan' Promise Was Phony.  NBC News on Monday [10/28/2013] claimed to have uncovered evidence that President Obama knew all along that his promise that "you can keep your health plan" under ObamaCare wasn't true.  The story came out just as millions across the country are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.  "Buried in ObamaCare regulations from July 2010," NBC said, is an estimate that shows "the administration knew that more than 40% to 67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them."

I Lost My Health Insurance Because Of Obamacare.  Barack Obama made a lot of promises when he was selling the Affordable Care Act to the American people.  The most famous one was, ["]If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."  Well, that promise turned out not to be true and I can tell you that from personal experience.

Obamacare is a River of Lies.  How many Republican votes were for it?  Zip, zero, nada, zilch.  In either chamber of Congress.  The Democrats, and their little sycophants, own this.  They were all prepared to bask in the glory, set up a permanent Democrat majority, and pulverize the Republican party.  But ObamaCare is a river of lies, with headwaters in hell.  It was falsely conceived, falsely legislated, falsely adjudicated, falsely reported, falsely coded, and, unexpectedly, enjoyed a false rollout.

Obama's politics of oppression and lawlessness.  As pundits and politicians dissect the carnage of ObamaCare, a serious question demands an honest answer:  At what point did the president know his plan to nationalize one-sixth of the national economy was not ready for the October 1 launch?  If, as he pleads with every controversy swirling around his administration, he did not know, his incompetency demands his removal from office.  But it is inconceivable that Barack Obama would not know the status of his signature legislation, his very legacy.

The Single-Payer Fantasy.  As Obamacare declines toward a possible fall, the assembled denizens of the professional Left are scrambling in earnest to register their excuses with the public.  Thus far at least, the award for the most creative contribution goes to former labor secretary Robert Reich, whose Saturday paean to single-payer health care managed to combine all of the most dishonest talking points that have bubbled up since October 1 while constructing in tandem a counterfactual so dazzling that only the truest of apostles could be persuaded by it.

Obama accused of breaking promise to consumers as health plans cancel policies.  A new controversy over the president's health-care law is threatening to overshadow the messy launch of its Web site:  Notices are going out to hundreds of thousands of Americans informing them that their health insurance policies are being canceled as of Dec. 31.  The notices appear to contradict President Obama's promise that despite the changes resulting from the law, Americans can keep their health insurance if they like it.

As Americans lose coverage, Democrats say Obama too rosy about health care law.  As millions of people receive notices that their health insurance is being canceled, the White House said Tuesday [10/29/2013] that President Obama didn't mislead the public when he repeatedly and emphatically promised that everyone could keep their plan under Obamacare.  Top aides to the president said that, although Mr. Obama never mentioned it specifically, his promise referred only to people who have had uninterrupted health insurance coverage dating back to before the law's enactment in 2010.

Analysis: On healthcare, spying, questions on what Obama knew and when.  "If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period," he told the American Medical Association in Chicago on June 15, 2009, a mantra he has repeated regularly — including during his 2012 re-election, when Republicans were saying that the law would force millions of Americans to lose their insurance.

The Thuggery of Obamacare Czarina Kathleen Sebelius.  U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is allergic to the truth.  She is the ruthless enforcer of Obamacare's Jenga tower of lies upon lies upon lies.  Now that this fatally flawed government edifice is collapsing, you can expect Sebelius to do what she has done her entire career:  blame, bully and pile on more lies.

Valerie Jarrett: Obamacare doesn't force you off your plan.  It's just one tweet, but the sheer mendacity requires its own post.  With the media finally in "now it can be told" mode since Obamacare passed and President Obama was reelected, pretty much everyone is admitting what all of us knew four years ago — that no, not everyone would be able to keep their plans if they liked their plans.  And, yes, the Obama administration knew it just as sure as its critics did.  It was a lie and an obvious one, but the administration, much of the media, and Obamacare supporters happily acted as if it were true and happily smeared those who suggested otherwise.  Tonight, the president's right-hand woman tries the lie again, even as it's demonstrably unraveling before the nation's eyes.

Obama admin changed language of Obamacare regs to hide loss of private insurance.  The Obama administration knew years in advance that Obamacare's "grandfathering" regulation would wipe out many Americans' existing health insurance plans, according to a leaked draft of a 2010 administration document.  "As noted earlier, deciding to relinquish grandfather status is a one-way sorting process:  after some period of time, most plans will relinquish their grandfathered status since plans rarely stay exactly the same.  These interim final regulations will likely influence the time frame over which plan sponsors decide to relinquish grandfathered status," according to a June 2010 copy of "grandfather plan" regulations that was leaked to the public domain before the administration was prepared to release it.

Obama Lied, Healthcare Coverage Died.  Although federal officials have known for at least three years that Obamacare would cause millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage, that didn't stop President Obama from lying repeatedly, reassuring voters the law would not adversely impact their existing coverage. [...] For years President Obama has told the public over and over again that after Obamacare took effect, those who were satisfied with their current health coverage would be able to keep it.  Obama's constant reassurances anesthetized skeptical voters, downplaying the government takeover of the healthcare system.  The president told Americans their health care premiums would fall $2,500 per year and they would retain their choice of medical providers.

Megyn Kelly Explodes at Dem Guest Over Obamacare.  Megyn Kelly was completely shocked, to say the least, about the news that the White House knew as far back as 2010 that many people would lose their health care plans when Obamacare kicked in, and confronted Democratic guest Mark Hannah when he attempted to defend how the rollout's been going so far.  Kelly asked, "Was he intentionally misleading, or was there some argument that he was grossly mistaken?"

Mind-Boggling Attempts at Blame Shifting.  During the Bush 43 administration, leading lights on the left arrogantly christened themselves "the reality based community."  Many of the same people who claimed at the time to base their assertions and beliefs "more on observation than on faith, assumption, or ideology" have hysterically concocted reasons why HealthCare.gov, surely in size and scope the most disastrously incompetent website rollout ever, cannot possibly be more than partially the Obama administration's fault.  Other nefarious people and shadowy forces, particularly Republicans and conservatives, who in reality "didn't cast a single vote in favor of the ACA and had no control over its 42-month rollout," somehow deserve the lion's share of the blame.

ObamaCare's Liberal Greed.  When Obama promised Americans that if they liked their health plan, they could keep their health plan, that everyone would somehow get more while paying less, it should have triggered all those "If it's too good to be true" alarms.  You can't get something for nothing.  Insurance companies are not about to go out of business or even take a serious hit to their profits.  So where was all that extra free stuff going to come from?  The mandate was another element of the con.  Those who had health insurance assumed that forcing lots of healthy people into paying for policies they didn't want and wouldn't use would cover the costs for those who did.  But that was a distraction.  The only way that the numbers would really work was by cancelling policies and hiking premiums.

Top Dem Admits: 'We Knew'.  House Democratic whip Steny Hoyer conceded to reporters today that Democrats knew people would not be able to keep their current health care plans under Obamacare and expressed qualified contrition for President Obama's repeated vows to the contrary. [...] Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren't "misleading," Hoyer said, "I don't think the message was wrong.  I think the message was accurate.  It was not precise enough ... [it] should have been caveated with 'assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.'"

Where was the media when "open secret" of ObamaCare problems arose?  Where does one go to get some objective reporting on public policy?  One unmentioned aspect of the "sticker shock" and "exchange collapse" stories, which the media now reports well, is that these problems were readily apparent before October 1, too — as the NYT admits in the second half of its Friday [10/25/2013] article.

The Editor says...
The "mainstream" news media only began to "report" Obamacare's flaws after the whole world was aware of them.

Republicans Allege Obama Deception on Health Plan Cancellation.  "This is government-run health care because virtually every policy that is sold has to be approved by the government," [House Speaker John Boehner] said.  "That's why you've got 1.5 million Americans who are already gotten these notices that they're going to lose their health coverage because it doesn't meet the minimum standard."  Some health insurers across the country have begun notifying consumers that their existing plans are being discontinued because they don't meet minimum requirements under the Affordable Care Act.  The notices require those consumers to purchase a different plan, often for a higher premium than was previously paid.

More than 2 million people getting booted from existing health insurance plans.  CBS News has learned more than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current insurance policies — more than triple the number of people said to be buying insurance under the new Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

MSNBC's Chuck Todd: Obama Made Promises He 'Hoped Insurance Companies Would Keep'.  MSNBC chief political analyst Chuck Todd told Morning Joe Tuesday morning [10/29/2013] that President Barack Obama's claim that people would be able to keep their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act was a poor promise to have made from the start, as it relied on insurance companies' compliance, and was made even worse by the fact that the administration knew as early as 2010 that it would not be the case.  "They put themselves in the hands of the insurance companies," Todd said.  "They were making promises that they were hoping the insurance companies were going to keep!"

Mad About ObamaCare?  At least 146,000 Michigan residents are losing their plans, according to the Detroit News.
  •   More than 800,000 New Jersey residents will learn the same thing, according to the New Jersey Association of Health Plans.
  •   Kaiser Permanente canceled 160,000 — about 60% — of its policies in California.
  •   Florida Blue terminated 300,000 policies — about 80% — because they didn't comply with ObamaCare.
  •   In the Philadelphia region, 24,000 Independence Blue Cross members are getting cancellation notices.
Gerry Kominski, UCLA's director of public health policy, calculates that about 7 million people who buy insurance on their own won't be able to keep their plans, thanks to ObamaCare.  And many, if not most, will end up paying more, sometimes a lot more, for ObamaCare-approved policies.

Under Obamacare: Your Home is a Hospital; Your Doctor is a 'Team'.  President Obama's former health policy adviser says the law is changing the nation's health care system for the better, as more people are treated by a health care "team," in their homes instead of in hospitals.  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, helped to design the Affordable Care Act, and he defended it Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley.

The Editor says...
You remember Candy Crowley, the woman who turned the 2012 presidential debate into a two-against-one tag team match.  Where else but CNN could she retain a position as an ostensibly objective reporter?

Can This Website Really Be Saved?  [Scroll down]  The administration may also know less than it is claiming to know.  It is astonishing that [Jeff] Zients, after only three days on the job, could make the assurances he did without having conducted a full technical review of the system, including requirements, architecture, design, and implementation.  The scope of Healthcare.gov is staggering.  Its 500 million lines of code dwarf the size of almost all known IT projects.

Axelrod Admits Obama's 'You Can Keep Your Insurance' Promise Isn't True.  This is the first admission (I am aware of) from a top administration official that President Obama's relentlessly-repeated solemn promise to the American people that "If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it," was and is not true.

The Editor says...
Mr. Axelrod is no longer a 'top administration official."

Obama accused of misleading voters on Benghazi, Obamacare, Merkel. There's a pattern here.  NBC says that the Obama administration misled Americans when it claimed that, after the introduction of Obamacare, people who wanted to keep their existing health insurance plans could do so. [...] The implication is that Obama tried to reduce popular concerns about Obamacare by fudging its true impact.

Don't Like Obamacare? It Was the Republicans' Idea, Says Liberal Democrat.  Not a single Republican voted for the Democrats' Affordable Care Act, but one liberal Democrat is nevertheless blaming Republicans for the system that's debuted to so much criticism.  "While Republicans plot new ways to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, it's easy to forget that for years they've been arguing that any comprehensive health insurance system be designed exactly like the one that officially began October 1st, glitches and all," said Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary.

WH Responds to Online Petition: You 'Should' Be Able to Keep Your Plan.  Distancing itself from President Obama's oft repeated assurance that "if you like your plan you can keep it," the Obama administration is now executing a strategic retreat from this promise.

ObamaCare: The Media's 'Better Coverage' Hoax.  Now that the fable of ObamaCare is meeting reality, one of the biggest political problems for the president is that 1.5 million families have already lost the insurance Obama repeatedly promised them they could keep.  And millions more are going to.  To push back against this outrage, a new fable developing among the left and media is that those losing their insurance are going to be better off because they will receive "better coverage" under ObamaCare.  That is complete and utter nonsense.

Everyone won't keep health care plan under Obamacare, White House admits.  The White House acknowledged for the first time Monday [10/28/2013] that President Obama's oft-repeated promise that everyone can keep their health insurance plans under Obamacare just isn't true.  For more than three years as he worked for enactment of the Affordable Care Act and encouraged people to enroll, Mr. Obama routinely pledged that people could keep their doctors and their plans if they liked them.

White House pushes new Obamacare cost figures for young Americans.  The White House tried to woo young Americans into the new health exchanges Monday night [10/28/2013], releasing a study suggesting nearly half of eligible Americans between 18 and 34 can purchase coverage for less than $50 per month.  The study also helps to push back against consumer tales of Obamacare sticker shock and frustration of some Americans that their current health plans can't continue under the new law.  But one insurance industry source told CNN the vast majority of Americans on the individual insurance market will see modifications to their existing plans, or even cancellations.

Obama administration knew millions could not keep their health insurance.  President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it.  But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Report: Obama administration knew millions wouldn't be able to keep insurance.  Before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, President Barack Obama promised Americans they could keep their health care plans if they liked them.  But already hundreds of thousands of citizens are receiving notification that their plans are being canceled because they don't comply with the new law, and, according to NBC News, the Obama administration has known for at least three years the cancellations were coming.  While campaigning for health care reform in 2009, Obama went out of his way to make one thing perfectly clear:  If you like your current health care plan, you will be able to keep it.

Rep. Joe Wilson Vindicated.  [A]s we look back on 5 years of Barack Obama, we see that Obama and his Administration do lie.  And they lie a lot. [...]
  •   "If you like your current insurance plan, you can keep it.  Period."
  •   "If you like your current doctor, you can keep that doctor."
  •   "Your premiums will go down an average of $2500 per year."
  •   "The cost of this national healthcare program will be less than $1 trillion."
  •   "Obamacare would not cover illegal aliens."
  •   "Obamacare would not cover abortions."
These are not just lies.  These are [...] lies that the Administration knew would be such, but still foisted them on the American public to divert attention away from the truth about Obamacare and the impact it would have upon us all.

Obama knew all along you could not keep your existing health plan.  You know how under ObamaCare, if you like your health plan, you'll be able to keep it?  That's the swell-sounding promise President Obama has made scores of times since signing into law his grandiose transformation of American healthcare 43 months ago.  Turns out, like so many Obama promises, it's not true.  Because of the law's complexities and thousands of pages of accompanying regulations, many Americans are already losing the health insurance plan they like because it does not meet coverage requirements.  Now, NBC News is reporting that Obama and his healthcare sales team knew all along that would happen.

NYT: Obama, WH rosy claims belied "open secret" of poor ObamaCare performance.  What did the President know about ObamaCare, and when did he know it?  The New York Times raised that question yesterday [10/25/2013], offering a video montage of pre-rollout claims about the Healthcare.gov exchange from White House officials, including Barack Obama himself at the Clinton Global Initiative one week before the launch.  However, behind those rosy predictions were big red flags being raised — and now the question is whether the White House didn't see them, didn't want to see them, or purposely ignored them.

Sebelius suggests Republicans to blame for ObamaCare website woes.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took a swipe Friday at those calling for her to resign over the botched ObamaCare website rollout, suggesting that Republican efforts to delay and defund the law contributed to HealthCare.gov's glitch-ridden debut.  During a visit to a community health center in Austin, Sebelius conceded that there wasn't enough testing done on the website, but added that her department had little flexibility to postpone the launch against the backdrop of Washington's unforgiving politics.

ObamaCare: More policy cancellations in 3 states than enrollees in all 50.  Despite hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars invested, the website still does not work for most.  At a time when we can do everything from ordering a pizza, flowers, or airline tickets, or banking and paying bills, they expect the same reliable service from healthcare.gov — and it's still not ready for primetime.  Over the months leading up to the October 1 launch, top administration officials and lead contractors appeared before this committee, looked us in the eye, and assured us repeatedly that everything was "on track."  Except that it wasn't, as we now know all too well.

CBS: Horror Story Discredits Obama's 'Reassuring Phrase' About Keeping Health Plans.  Thursday's [10/24/2013] CBS Evening News poured cold water on President Obama's now-infamous "if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it" promise.  Scott Pelley noted how the President has "repeated one reassuring phrase" about the American people being able to hold onto their health insurance, and bluntly pointed out that, contrary to the Democrat's vow, "hundreds of thousands of Americans ... are being told that their health plans are being cancelled."

Insurance CEO Defends Obamacare: 'We're Not Cutting People, We're Transitioning People'.  Florida Blue CEO Patrick Geraghty appeared on Meet the Press Sunday morning [10/27/2013] and defended Obamacare, telling host David Gregory that the 300,000 figure — the number of people being dropped from the insurance rolls, a number being used as evidence that President Barack Obama was not correct when he said people would get to keep their insurance — was not an accurate representation of the Affordable Care Act's effects.  "We're not cutting people," Geraghty said.  "We're actually transitioning people. [...]"

Top Democrat says those aren't 'cancellation notices,' they're 'transitions' into Obamacare.  Insurance companies aren't sending out cancellation letters, they're helping people "transition" into Obamacare, according to a top Democrat.  "If [the companies] changed [the insurance plans] then they have to notify the people who have to have the opportunity to have another policy," said House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Sander Levin, D-Mich.  In fact, according to Levin, the "so-called cancellation notices" merely "help people transition to a new policy."

The Editor launches into derisive mockery:
Oh, no, you're not being fired, we're helping you transition to a new employer.  You're not being evicted, we're allowing you to transition to a new home.  Words mean something to most people, but not to the lying left-wing socialist Democrats.

Sebelius: 'Don't believe what you've heard'.  Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday [10/25/2013] urged potential healthcare consumers to disregard ObamaCare website horror stories and partisan bickering over the law.  Speaking at a panel in San Antonio, Texas, Sebelius was asked what advice she would give to those seeking federal healthcare plans.  "Sign up," she said.  "Don't believe what you've heard.  Just check it out, look at the prices, look at the plans."

The Editor says...
"Don't believe what you've heard."  Indeed.  Especially if you heard it from Barack H. Obama.

Megyn Kelly Grills Zeke Emanuel on Obamacare Promises: Was Obama Lying or 'Grossly Mistaken'?  Megyn Kelly took on Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, on Friday night [10/25/2013], grilling him on the colossal trainwreck of the health care law's rollout and asking whether President Obama's failed promises were "intentionally misleading or grossly mistaken."

Obamacare's Majestic Failure Is About Much More Than 'Glitches'.  [T]he government is far outside its area of expertise here.  While already costing well over $500 million of taxpayer money and still counting to develop this website — more than Facebook and Twitter combined spent to develop, more than the cost to develop Apple 's iPhone — this administration is at the very least underscoring its incompetence and highlighting its pattern of reckless spending, the level of which cannot be overstated but somehow continues to be excused by a fawning media and a large proportion of an unquestioning public.

Obamcare Takes Away Woman's Health Care Choices.  Is it possible to characterize the president's promise as anything other than intentionally misleading?

The Fall of Barack.  Everything Barry has touched in four years and three quarters has turned to dog excrement.  He has the reverse Midas touch, although there is always plenty of gold for friends, associates and cronies.  Take ObamaCare, for instance — the ACA is a metaphor for the entire Obama presidency.  Despite polls showing that 85% of Americans were happy with their health insurance, Barry insisted that there was a healthcare "crisis."

Millions of Americans Are Losing Their Health Plans Because of Obamacare.  While the Affordable Care Act was making its way through Congress in 2009 and 2010, President Obama famously promised the American people over and over again that if you like your health plan, you can keep it. [...] But the president's promise is turning out to be false for millions of Americans who have had their health insurance policies canceled because they don't meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

Nancy Pelosi: Republican 'sabotage' hindering health care law.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi believes the new health care law should move forward without delay and said that "sabotage" by Republicans, and not just computer glitches, is hindering implementation.  Pelosi said the offices of some Republican lawmakers "are not giving information to constituents for how they can avail themselves" of the new program.  Republicans are withholding the information, Pelosi said, "to undermine the Affordable Care Act."  Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the GOP had nothing to do with the troubled rollout.

Obama is always the victim.  "Nobody's madder than me," Obama declared while trying to explain why three weeks into the enrollment period, most consumers still can't enroll.  "I think it is fair to say that no one is more frustrated by that than I am."  Wait a minute — the president's mad?  And he's frustrated?  At whom?  Himself?  Obamacare is his signature and singular accomplishment, the thing that will define his legacy.  His own administration was charged with designing the website and making sure it worked.  And it doesn't, despite spending $640 million on the healthcare.gov technology.  Now, in typical government fashion, new contracts costing millions more are being awarded to fix it.

Is Obamacare's 'tech surge' real?  On Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a major "tech surge" to save the health-care exchanges.  "Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov," they promised.  This is exactly what most everyone wanted to hear:  The Silicon Valley cavalry is riding to the rescue.  But in the days since, the White House has been extraordinarily secretive about who, exactly, is involved in this surge.

WashPost's Milbank: 'Couldn't Be the Case' That Some Lost Insurance Because of ObamaCare.  On Monday's PoliticsNation, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank claimed that it "couldn't be the case at this time" that ObamaCare is already causing people to lose their current health insurance plans, in spite of all the documented cases insurance companies canceling plans as they struggle to comply with ObamaCare regulations.

No one is responsible.  The president was just as surprised as anyone else, as health secretary Kathleen Sebelius attested to CNN.  She told the network when the chief executive received reports of unexpected problems with his flagship website only after it had been launched. [...] It just inexplicably went bad.  However as soon as the president learned of the site's problems he swung into action, taking the opportunity to ask his many supporters for money to fix it.

In July, HHS bragged that Obamacare and its website would be ready 'on schedule'.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius bragged in July on her agency's health care blog that 'we're on track with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  It's signed, sealed, and it's delivering — on time.  Eleven weeks later, Sebelius and the rest of the Obamacare rollout team came under fire when its flagship website crashed, flubbed and gaffed its way into the historical annals of failed launches.

The high cost of ObamaCare deception.  President Obama's Rose Garden press conference on the ObamaCare disaster featured a group of 13 human props, lined up on stage behind him to put a face on the alleged virtues of his health care scheme.  It turns out none of them had actually purchased an ObamaCare insurance plan, and only three of them had even completed the application process.  What a perfect summary of the disastrous incompetence and fundamental dishonesty of Barack Obama's "signature achievement!"

Sebelius: A Liar Or Just Inept?  No wonder HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is reluctant to testify about the ObamaCare disaster.  She has to decide whether to admit that she willfully misled Congress for months or was completely out of touch.  Back in May, amid a flurry of news reports about problems with the ObamaCare exchanges and talk of a "train wreck," Sebelius' agency spun a story in USA Today about how all was well.  According to USA Today, HHS officials said it had "met its deadlines (and) tested its system."  What's more, they said exchanges "can support expected large volumes of traffic."  It was all completely bogus.

Woman who fainted in Rose Garden loves Obama, unlikely to benefit from Obamacare.  Karmel Alon Allison, the pregnant diabetic woman who fainted in the Rose Garden Monday, has claimed that the Affordable Care Act would drive down her health care costs.  But there's almost no circumstance where the UCSD grad student and sometime entrepreneur would pay less for her health insurance under Obamacare.  And, according to a leading health care expert, Allison's situation as a grad student and spouse of a tech executive is "irrelevant" to Obamacare.  Additionally, both Karmel and her husband, David, are longstanding progressive Obama supporters, according to their Twitter feeds.

Ryan blasts Sebelius' silence on ObamaCare implementation inquiries.  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has repeatedly rebuffed requests by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to testify on ObamaCare implementation, Fox News has learned, raising more questions about what the administration knew about problems with the site in advance of the troubled launch.

'Marketplace:' Where People Buy Compulsory Insurance With Other People's Money.  When President Barack Obama spoke in the Rose Garden on Monday to justify and explain the problems at the website his administration has created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to sell government-approved and subsidized health insurance plans, he used the word "marketplace" seventeen times.

HHS chief: President didn't know of Obamacare website woes beforehand.  In an exclusive interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked when the President first learned about the considerable issues with the Obamacare website.  Sebelius responded that it was in "the first couple of days" after the site went live October 1.  "But not before that?" Gupta followed up.  To which Sebelius replied, "No, sir."

GOP: Did Obamacare site hide prices?  The House's top investigators want to know if the Obama administration made a political decision to get rid of an online tool that would have allowed uninsured Americans to comparison-shop among private health plans on the federal Obamacare website before registering for an account.  Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote to the administration's top information technology officers on Tuesday [10/22/2013] to demand answers about the purported maneuver.

Obama Disassociates from Reality.  About President Obama's remarks on Monday in the Rose Garden on the matter of the problems plaguing the Affordable Care Act and, specifically, healthcare.gov, it seemed to me that they served a valuable purpose, at least to this extent:  They distilled the Obama presidency to some of its core qualities:  (a) detachment from reality; (b) misleading in its claims; (c) deeply polarizing and partisan; and (d) filled with lame excuses.  But there was another noteworthy element to what the president said.  I have in mind the pitiable quality of his remarks.  Speaking about the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama kept insisting — over and over and over again — how good the product is, how really and exceptionally good it is, how popular it is, and how things really and truly will work out.

Waxman Claims Private Sector Responsible for Obamacare Glitches.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) blamed the private contractors retained by HHS to build and administer healthcare.gov for the website's extensive glitches Tuesday on MSNBC.  Waxman said Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was not aware of all of the "technicalities" pertaining to the Obamacare website and thus should not be held responsible for its failure.  "She's done a terrific job," Waxman said, "I have a great deal of confidence in her."  The private sector, according to Waxman, failed to live up to their contractual obligations "even with all of the money they got."

Oblivious Obama was totally clueless of ObamaCare troubles, Sebelius asserts.  According to Kathleen Sebelius, Barack Obama knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the fundamental problems with the Oct. 1 roll-out of his namesake legislation that will affect nearly one-fifth of the nation's economy.  He didn't know about the last-minute test of the website expected to handle millions of customers and how it had crashed when only a few hundred samplers tried to get on at the same time.  He had no idea that IT people had been expressing deep concerns for months that the site costing hundreds of millions of dollars was being constructed like an "Our Gang" clubhouse.

The Editor says...
It is almost impossible to believe that Barack H. Obama wasn't getting updates at least once a day about the progress on his signature achievement.  There is a chance, however, that the people around Mr. Obama knew there was trouble ahead, but were afraid to deliver the bad news.  But it sounds like there is a coordinated effort to protect Mr. Obama's reputation (and his legacy) and insulate him from the Obamacare fallout by falsely pretending that Mr. Obama was left uninformed.

Sebelius Admits She Needed Four Year Delay.  Obama knew he couldn't be re-elected if people learned what Obamacare was.  He also knew it was not ready to be launched.  The White House tactic was to keep the Obamacare regs and prices secret from the public, which meant the website could not be constructed properly.  Each day brings more news proving the administration's political motivations that made failure inevitable and acceptable to them.

Death Panels: Yeah, That's the Ticket!  It is hard not to enjoy the spectacle of Obamacare crashing on takeoff, but it is also important not to lose sight of the real issues.  The essential problems with Obamacare have nothing to do with IT.  A web site can be fixed, and presumably will be, but Obamacare can't be.  The fundamental problem with Obamacare is that Obama promised the impossible:  more people having broader insurance coverage for less money.  It can't be done.  The Democrats babbled about "bending the cost curve," but that was pure BS.  Obamacare does nothing to bring about efficiency in the delivery of medical services.

Carney: Obamacare 'system is not failing'.  White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday said Obamacare is "not failing" in the face of criticism that the administration botched the rollout of the new website responsible for enrolling consumers in the insurance exchanges.

Root cause of Obamacare website crashes is red tape, not technical glitches.  The history of information technology acquisitions by the government is a bit like the history of helicopters.  You spend a lot of money on something and most of the time, it lifts off the ground.  But more frequently than you'd like, it crashes, and when it does, it leaves a big fiery mess.  HealthCare.gov is but one of those fiery crashes.

Poynter Offers Media Guide to Gloss Over Millions of ObamaCare's Victims.  Because the media are as desperate as Obama to see ObamaCare succeed, the faulty federal website is getting all kinds of attention.  One thing that isn't, though, is that millions among the working and middle class are losing insurance they are happy with and seeing their monthly premiums spike, sometimes by as much as 150%.

The True Purpose of ObamaCare: A Single Payer Trojan Horse.  In all the discussion about ObamaCare, many people are missing the point about the true purpose of the law.  Supposedly, the purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to lower health insurance costs and provide better health insurance plans for people to purchase.  Far from it.  The actual purpose of the ACA is to prepare the ground for a single payer system to come later.

The Administration knew Healthcare.gov would be a disaster.  Healthcare.gov crashed under the burden of only a few hundred users, but they launched it anyway, and two thousand connections was enough to kill it.  And they've been admitting the system was only designed to handle 50,000 users at most, spread across all fifty states, even though it cost half a billion dollars to create, and Obama's propaganda has stridently insisted there were forty or fifty million uninsured in the country, plus he knew (but lied repeatedly about) the millions more who would lose their existing insurance under his scheme.

Even Liberals are Gagging on the Bitter Taste of Obamacare.  The Obama administration's incompetent half-billion-dollar rollout of its incompetent multi-trillion-dollar signature achievement is but a tragic metaphor for this man's entire presidency.  (It's not hyperbole when it's true.)  Nearly three weeks in and the utopian promise of "affordable care" for all has yielded but a handful of folks who've even been able to sign up for this clinic in socialism.  That Obamacare — something billed as a health-care panacea for the collective — is something that the collective neither asked for, nor wanted, is now the back story.  That it has failed so fantastically in every respect, has taken center stage.

Government propaganda: 'The Site Was Very Easy to Use'.  The Obama administration is even deeper in denial about the ObamaCare fiasco than the president's shockingly bewildered speech yesterday indicated.

White House Obamacare team: Best, brightest — and a mystery.  The "best and the brightest" also appear to be the cloaked and elusive.  President Barack Obama insists he's culled the country's tech elite to help repair the mangled Healthcare.gov website.  But the administration hasn't made its smart new crew public, and any of the tech companies or federal contractors involved remain tight-lipped.

Conyers: Obamacare Just A 'Very Small and Modest Bill'.  Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) calls Obamacare a "very small and modest bill," even though he previously said he failed to see the point in reading it "if it's a thousand pages" and required lawyers to decipher it.

Barnicle: Obama Administration Lying About Enrollment Numbers.  Obamacare came under fire Monday morning [10/21/2013] on Morning Joe, with the panel pointing out that the Obama administration has been too secretive about the healthcare program.  "They are lying about the numbers of who have enrolled, the numbers of people who have made the process complete, the numbers of people who have actually signed up," said show mainstay Mike Barnicle.

ObamaCare a Planned Disaster for Political Reasons.  Politics has driven the ObamaCare launch failure from the beginning.  Political consideration number one was the 2012 presidential election.  The Democrats did not want voters to know there would be a huge jump in the price of insurance for most people not being subsidized.  They didn't want us to know about the four- and eight-thousand dollar deductibles, and the limits on what hospitals you would have access to and what doctors you could see.  They knew voters would flock to the Republican ticket to stop it.  In order to hide ObamaCare from voters, the administration didn't reveal the details of the law to the companies building the exchanges either, until safely after the election.

HealthCare Dot Commie.  The most surprising thing about the botched launch of Obamacare's "online insurance marketplace" is that the failure surprised anyone.  From the moment, during the 2008 presidential campaign, that Barack Obama began promising to reform our medical delivery system, conservatives have repeatedly warned the public that his view of the issue was distorted by tired statist shibboleths.  We pointed out that Obama's closest friends and most influential mentors were communists and that, for him, "reform" was a euphemism for "federal take-over."  Based on these realities, we predicted that Obama's brave new health care system would be a government-dominated, command-and-control disaster.

Contractors See Weeks of Work on Health Site.  Administration officials approached the contractors last week to see if they could perform the necessary repairs and reboot the system by Nov. 1.  However, that goal struck many contractors as unrealistic, at least for major components of the system.

AP's Julie Pace: White House Is Lying About ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers.  The media, specifically MSNBC, believe the White House is openly lying to them about not having the numbers on those who have enrolled for ObamaCare.  Monday [10/21/2013] on Morning Joe, the AP's Julie Pace said that on a daily basis she is being told by the Obama administration that "we don't have the number yet."  A few sentences later, Pace reveals that she knows the administration is lying to her, "We know that they have these numbers."  Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle agreed with her.  Rather than being outraged over being lied to, though, Pace seemed amused by the whole thing.

No More Apologies.  While Obama could probably continue to tell Americans that the Obamacare rollout is little more than an iPhone app in need of an update, his health care law actually needs uninsured people to choose to sign up or it will fail.  And so the spin can no longer stand.

'Let me be clear, there is no option to keep my current plan.'.  I would take that complaint up with the local congressman, Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., who voted for Obamacare and still supports it.

Why Obama should be freaked out by Obamacare.  The White House has tried to position the failed first days of Obamacare as mere hiccups caused by the site's popularity.  Obama called them "kinks."  An administration spokesman told the Washington Post on Sunday [10/20/2013] that the "main driver of the problem is volume."  This is intentionally misleading.  The White House has heard complaints from insurance companies, consumers, and health policy experts about issues embedded deeply in the online system.

For thousands, keeping your old health insurance policy isn't an option.  Health insurance companies are sending notices of cancellation to hundreds of thousands of people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more expensive policies.  Insurers say the cancellations are necessary because the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1.  Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010.  At least a few are canceling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

WH Official Blames Republicans for Obamacare Website Problems.  An unnamed Obama administration official claimed that the White House feared GOP subpoenas would slow their work on the Obamacare website, leading to keeping its design in-house with "trusted campaign tech experts" that seemed to have spectacularly failed at creating a successful commerce website.

Obamacare: Mind-Boggling Incompetence.  On September 30, the day before HealthCare.gov's disastrous debut, and after almost four years during which he and his employer danced around and avoided the topic, Calvin Woodward at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, acknowledged in the sixteenth paragraph of a "fact check" about "slippery claims" that Obama's "if you like the health care that you have, that you currently have, you can keep it" pledge "was an empty promise, made repeatedly."  Further, Woodward noted:  "Nothing in the health care law guarantees that people can keep the health insurance they already have."  Translation:  "We've all known from the start that Obama has been lying to the American people about this, and now that lie has reached the end of its useful life. [...]"

Sebelius to Attend Gala, but Unable to Testify About Obamacare.  [Video clip]

The Obamacare Disaster.  [Scroll down]  The Affordable Care Act was passed in a dubious manner.  The 60-vote level in the Senate was obtained by the subornation of Arlen Specter in that tainted window between his rejection by his own party and his defeat by the Pennsylvania voters, and by Al Franken's questionable win in the Senate election in Minnesota, where partisan, county-by-county recounts overturned the people's choice.

Baghdad Bobs of Obamacare.  The technical issues that have bedeviled the rollout of Obamacare don't go to the root of the law's evil.  Nonetheless, the dishonesty with which the administration has publicly addressed them is endemic and representative of the foundational lies of Obamacare. [...] Characterizing Sebelius as the Baghdad Bob of Obamacare is unfair.  She is only one among many, including President Obama and Obama flack Jay Carney.  They repeatedly assure us, for example, that Obamacare is doing no damage to employment, though the evidence to the contrary is deep and persistent.

'Obama Lied, My Heath Care Died'.  The letter bringing the news the president told me would never come arrived in Thursday's mail.  It said, in part, "Among other things, these (Affordable Care Act) requirements will cause your benefits to change to include federally-mandated Essential Health Benefits.  Since your current benefit plan does not conform to these new mandates, your current health plan will cease upon your anniversary date."  There it was, in black and white, notification that I would not be able to keep my current health care plan — whether I liked it or not.

Democrats to America: We own the government!  Contrary to Obama's promises, it turns out:  You can't keep your doctor, you can't keep your insurance — you can't even keep your job.  In other words, it's a typical government program, but this one wrecks your health care.  Also, the president did raise taxes on the middle class in defiance of his well-worn campaign promise not to.  Indeed, Obamacare is the largest tax hike in U.S. history.

Lies of Obamacare.  [Christopher] Conover addresses these foundational lies as five deceptions:
    Deception #1:  universal coverage
    Deception #2:  no new taxes on the middle class
    Deception #3:  annual premium savings of $2,500
    Deception #4:  no increase in the deficit
    Deception #5:  you can keep your plan if you like it
Conover exposes these "deceptions" as blatant falsehoods.

Behind the talking points on Obamacare.  The strategy was perfect:  talk about need, but not why that need was to be paid for by everyone else.  Talk about how hard it is for people with pre-existing conditions to get health insurance, without examining why that makes sense.  Talk about benefits, without mentioning costs.  And wrap the whole thing up under the IRS, and don't say it's really the biggest tax this nation has ever seen.  Now, some of the public is waking up, but only around the details:  the website doesn't work.  So, it has already cost some $600 million, according to sources quoted on the news (since the government either doesn't know or won't say, officially), and it doesn't work.  People are used to things that don't work, coming from the government.  This time, though, more people are paying attention.

ObamaCare Glitches Are A Sign Of Things To Come.  The White House says it will fix all the ObamaCare glitches and soon everything will be working fine.  That's about as believable as all the other ObamaCare promises.  If anything, problems are getting worse.

I Signed Up for Obamacare and All I Got Was Screwed.  ObamaCare is a ginormous disaster zone that has not one little bit of a chance of working.  29 states have not even set up ObamaCare exchanges, ObamaCare websites that don't work, and promised savings on healthcare insurance is nothing but a big, fat lie.

Obama's hometown government proposes dumping 400 part-timers from health plan.  Part-time government employees working for Cook County, Illinois — President Obama's home county — may soon lose their employer-funded health insurance and instead have to move onto Obamacare's healthcare exchanges.  That move would once again directly contradict President Obama's promise that Americans who like their health plans could keep them.

Obamacare Snake Oil.  Don't look now, but as Obamacare's critics are focusing incessantly on the abortive rollout of the law's health-care exchanges, the Left is moving the goalposts in the broader debate — and rather spectacularly, too.  Obamacare, recall, was sold with a specific set of political promises:  The new regime, advocates insisted, would reduce the deficit, cover the needy, and reduce total health spending — all while lowering the premiums of those who were already insured.

Salt Lake City mayor lies about successfully enrolling his son on Obamacare exchange.  Earlier this week, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker claimed it was "relatively easy" to sign one of his adult sons up for Obamacare on the exchange website.  Well, as it turns out, he lied.  His son isn't enrolled yet.

Astroturf: Media's Obamacare Poster Boy is OFA Volunteer.  "Surprise:  Media's Obamacare health insurance exchange poster boy is OFA volunteer" — that's Organizing for Action, spun-off from the Obama presidential campaign, as spotted by Twitchy: [...]

$175 premium for a young, healthy student? Thanks, Obamacare!  American media outlets were finally able to track down a mythical creature — a person who actually signed up for the Obamacare exchanges online.  But that person, Chad Henderson, admitted to the Washington Post that the premium for the plan he enrolled in was $175.  Ouch!  Wasn't Obamacare supposed to lower premiums?

Who shut down Yellowstone?  From Social Security to civil rights to Medicaid to Medicare, never in the modern history of the country has major social legislation been enacted on a straight party-line vote.  Never.  In every case, there was significant reaching across the aisle, enhancing the law's legitimacy and endurance.  Yet Obamacare — which revolutionizes one-sixth of the economy, regulates every aspect of medical practice and intimately affects just about every citizen — passed without a single GOP vote.  The Democrats insist they welcomed contributing ideas from Republicans.  Rubbish.  Republicans proposed that insurance be purchasable across state lines.  They got nothing.  They sought serious tort reform.  They got nothing.

Why Is President Obama Lecturing Me?  President Obama accused Republicans on Tuesday [10/1/2013] of launching an "ideological crusade" to hold the "economy hostage" over "ideological" and "reckless" demands to dismantle his health care law.  "In other words," he said, "they demanded ransom just for doing their jobs."

Fact-Checking Obama on Health Care.  Never one to let anything speak for itself, the president made his case for the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, the day its exchanges launched.  To listen to his speech, the health-care law has fixed the U.S. economy, will save tens of thousands of lives, and has solved the U.S.'s long-term debt problem.  Needless to say, none of these things are true.

California: So, Obamacare exchange traffic wasn't actually 5 million; it was 700K.  California's lie about its first official day of failure in administrating Obamacare is just a preview of what (even more) politicized health care looks like.  Some states, to their credit, did release statistics from opening day that they've not yet had to retract. [...] Look forward to many years of stalled FOIAs to find out anything about the massive amounts of health care data, performance stats, and patient care results Obamacare collects, and how they're using them.  Look forward to strategic release of statistics that serve each administration's narrative and donors.

Five Game-Changing Questions on ObamaCare.  This is an unpopular law that is being promoted with empty slogans and outright lies.  But tough questions must be asked. [...] Question 5:  "How could you have been so wrong in promising a $2,500 annual drop in healthcare premiums for a typical family of four under ObamaCare?"  President Obama mentioned this figure many times throughout his 2008 campaign, and in the months preceding the passage of the law.  President Obama may claim that he was making a good faith projection, but the reality is that when he repeatedly made this promise he was way off.  Instead of going down, most family's healthcare costs are going up.

The government decides that non-fatal cancer isn't really cancer.
Why The Federal Government Wants To Redefine The Word 'Cancer'.  By redefining the term "cancer," the National Cancer Institute hopes to reduce patient anxiety and reduce the risks and expenses associated with supposedly unnecessary medical procedures.  In technical terms, the government hopes to reduce "overdiagnosis" and "overtreatment" of cancer. [...] Given the increasing government control over US health care, how the government defines medical terms can have serious economic and policy implications.

The Editor says...
This is what you get when you put medical decisions into the hands of pencil-pushing bureaucrats whose primary goal is to make their programs look good on paper.

Don't Like Obamacare? Just 'Opt Out,' Sharpton Shrugs.  If Obamacare is as glorious and transformative as its most vocal proponents claim, why do they skirt the truth about it?  The state-run health exchanges mandated by the legislation take effect today — and coinciding with their appearance are laughable claims about the law from its chief apologists in media.  Seeing how so-called health reform was enacted more than three years ago, and its supporters have obsessed on it ever since, all the while demonizing its opponents as ignorant racists akin to murderous jihadists, one wonders if bogus claims about Obamacare at this stage of the game are based on deliberate efforts to deceive and not on honest mistakes.

Obama: Transforming America.  Little need be said about Obamacare, an orphan now disowned by most of its parents.  The purpose of this vast new entitlement was not to ensure all Americans better health care (if it had been, then pro-Obama business owners, unions, and congressional staffers would have wanted in), but instead a sort of health-care TSA bureaucracy, with more dependents, more federal workers, and higher redistributive taxes — in short, larger government.

Sen. Dick Durbin gave false facts about his own daughter in Obamacare speech.  Sen. Dick Durbin movingly described his sick child's preexisting condition as a reason to support Obamacare last week, but the Illinois Democrat neglected to mention that his late daughter was easily covered by existing insurance, and that he used taxpayer money to reward the hospital that treated her.  Despite her preexisting condition, Christine Durbin, who suffered from a lifelong heart condition and died at age 40 in 2008, was eligible for coverage under existing laws in multiple states, including the senator's state and the state she ultimately settled in.

President: 'ObamaCare is life-or-death'.  "This is life-or-death stuff," Obama said in a Rose Garden appearance, adding that tens of thousands of Americans die each year for lack of health insurance, and others go bankrupt.

The Editor says...
People die every day, with or without medical insurance.  That has been the case for thousands of years.  Apparently Mr. Obama hopes you're stupid enough to believe that Obamacare will bring immortality.

Ten states where Obamacare wipes out existing health care plans.  President Barack Obama famously promised, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."  He later got even more specific.  "If you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have," Obama said.  But as Obamacare's rollout approaches, we have learned this is not true.

How to Make Obamacare Obsolete.  Republicans are falling into the trap the Democrats have set for them.  By repeatedly voting to overturn Obamacare without proposing any effective alternative, House Republicans are allowing Democrats to brand them as "enemies of the poor."

Extremely Extreme Extremists.  Democrats and their media allies have spent the past week labeling Republicans "anarchists," "fanatics," "radicals," and "terrorists" who are wholly to blame for the situation that we are told will soon lead to a government shutdown.  And if all you know about this situation is what you get from the media, you might actually believe that this is a crisis created by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his fellow conservatives who sought to use the vote on a short-term spending bill as a means of preventing implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare.

Obamacare launch will be ugly.  Premiums will vary widely depending on where you live.  In a few places like New York City, which have long suffered from dysfunctional insurance markets, some people may pay a bit less than before, especially those getting subsidies.  But elsewhere — upstate, for example — many will pay considerably more.  Yes, the federal Health and Human Services Department recently said ObamaCare premiums are "lower than expected," but that "expected" means Congressional Budget Offices projections — which were that insurance costs would rise.

CBS's Bob Schieffer Falsely Claims 'Polls Say That Most People Favor' ObamaCare.  In defiance of reality illustrated in numerous polls, on Sunday's Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer scolded Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn when she correctly asserted "there is only partisan support" for ObamaCare.  Schieffer cut her off:  "Well now Congresswoman, that's not entirely true.  The polls don't suggest that.  Polls say that most people favor it."

The One Word Missing From All Those ObamaCare Ads.  In a speech at a Maryland community college last week promoting his namesake health reform law, President Obama mentioned the word "benefits" 10 times.  Free preventive care, coverage for children up to age 26, a better drug plan for seniors.  "We're giving more benefits and protections," he said.  But there was one word Obama didn't mention once in his entire 51-minute talk.  And that word was "mandate."

Obamacare Website Quietly Deletes Reference to 'Free Health Care'.  Even as President Obama and his administration are making a last minute push to encourage enrollment in Obamacare, a quiet change was made on the Healthcare.gov website regarding those who will still not be able to afford coverage after the program kicks in.  From at least June 26, 2013 to as recently as September 15, under the topic, "Where can I get free or low-cost care in my community?" the following statement appeared:  "If you can't afford any health plan, you can get free or low-cost health and dental care at a nearby community health center."

Sen. King: Conservatives dissuading people from Obamacare 'guilty of murder'.  Conservative groups advising Americans not to sign up for the Obamacare exchanges "are guilty of murder," according to Maine independent Sen. Angus King.  King, who caucuses with the Democrats, told Salon in an interview published Monday [9/30/2013] that efforts to dissuade young people from signing up is a "scandal," and a deadly one.  "That's a scandal — those people are guilty of murder in my opinion," King said in a Friday interview with Salon's Brian Beutler.  "Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don't have health insurance."

Barrasso: 'Duct tape and chicken wire' holding ObamaCare together.  Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday that ObamaCare insurance exchanges set to go live this week "are being held together right now with duct tape and chicken wire."  The physician said on CNN's "State of the Union" that consumers are in for a case of sticker shock, adding that Americans will have difficulty finding a doctor to care for them.  "The president made a couple of promises.  One with the exchanges, and he said it would be cheaper than a cellphone bill.  And I don't expect a lot of people to be able to find something less than $71 a month on the exchanges," he said.

10 things Obamacare won't tell you.  [#3]  "Expect to be confused."  While the exchanges are the centerpiece of the health care law — the mechanism for bringing health insurance to the uninsured — they have long remained an abstract concept.  Health officials and advocates have compared the exchanges to brick-and-mortar institutions such as shopping malls, farmers markets and a stock exchanges, leaving many Americans with the wrong picture of what the marketplaces will actually be.

Obama: One Third of Americans 'Already Have New Benefits'.  Obama claimed yet again he would not blink on the Affordable Care Act if the government shuts down.  "That's not going to happen," he said.  "More than 100 million Americans currently already have new benefits and protections under the law.  On Tuesday, about 40 million more Americans will be able to finally buy quality affordable health care just like anybody else."

President Obama lied to us — he told America some real whoppers about ObamaCare.  "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise," President Obama told the American Medical Association in 2009.  "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."  That statement turned out to be a lie.  Period.

NBC to Air Obamacare Advertising Series as 'News'.  NBC News has announced that it will air a special series that will "help Americans get the most out of the Affordable Care Act."  A press release reports that NBC News will "help" Americans get all they can out of Obamacare.

The Cost of Obamacare: Health Insurance Premiums Versus Health Care.  [Scroll down]  But the biggest confusion of all may be between the price of insurance premiums and the actual health care costs for the buyer.  Those who pushed Obamacare had reasons for acting as though health insurance was the same as health care itself, and now they have reason to pretend that health insurance premiums are the same as health care costs.  But of course they are not.

Opposing Obamacare Isn't Anarchy.  "It's the law of the land."  This is rapidly becoming the preferred shorthand argument for why criticism of Obamacare is just so, so wrong.  It also serves as the lead sentence of a larger claim that all attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act are really symptoms of a kind of extremist right-wing lunacy.

Obamacare insurance premiums 'lower than expected,' White House says.  An apple a day keeps the doctor away, and the White House said Wednesday [9/25/2013] that insurance premiums under Obamacare at least will be more appealing for consumers than a wormy apple.  The nauseating analogy came as the administration released cost projections for the government-subsidized health insurance program that is set to start on Tuesday, in the midst of a furious sales job by President Obama.

Rising Premiums Expose Obamacare 'Bait and Switch'.  With the rollout of the Affordable Care Act individual exchanges less than a week away, the Department of Health and Human Services finally got around to announcing what consumers will have to pay.  Their press release put a positive spin on the data, heralding the "significant choice" that consumers will find in these exchanges — and at "lower than expected premiums."  This, however, is nothing but what Forbes analyst Avik Roy calls "happy talk"[.]  Note well that the HHS release doesn't claim to have lowered premiums.

IRS failed to account for $67M in ObamaCare costs, report says.  The Internal Revenue Service is unable to account for $67 million in spending related to the implementation of ObamaCare, according to an IRS watchdog report released Wednesday.  The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the money was part of a $488 million fund established to cover implementation costs between 2010 through 2012.  The $67 million in unaccounted-for spending was associated with "indirect" implementation costs, which can include providing employees with workspace and information technology support.

Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women.  For months now, we've been waiting to hear how much Obamacare will drive up the cost of health insurance for people who purchase coverage on their own.  Last night, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finally began to provide some data on how Americans will fare on Obamacare's federally-sponsored insurance exchanges.  HHS' press release is full of happy talk about how premiums will be "lower than originally expected."  But the reality is starkly different.

Obama the Storyteller.  Perhaps the most disturbing fabrication in Obama's book ["Dreams from My Father"] was the tale that he routinely used when pushing ObamaCare and while on the campaign trail of his own mother's death.  He blamed insurance companies for denying treatment.  This was a blatant lie that he knew was a lie since he served not just as her son but as her lawyer.

'Is everybody wrong' about health care except Obama?  You can't keep your own health care.  The president spent the past four years assuring Americans that "if you like your plan, you can keep it."  Not so, said doubters, but he castigated them as obstructionist naysayers playing politics.  Except they turned out to be right:  You can't keep your plan.  But the media say:  wrong.  Companies are killing coverage they once offered to employees and heading into government exchanges.  Huge companies like Home Depot.  More — many more — will follow.  What does it mean?  Millions of workers will soon be forced to choose only from government policies.

"If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep Your Plan".  It's once again time to remind President Obama of the unambiguous promise he made to the American people during his (largely unsuccessful) healthcare misinformation campaign.  [Video clip]

Obamacare will tighten doctor pools.  President Barack Obama's 2009 guarantee was emphatic.  "We will keep this promise to the American people:  If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period."

If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.  [Video clip]

Obamacare Reminder: Even If You Like Your Plan, You Can't Necessarily Keep It.  Let's begin with a verbatim quote from President Obama from July of 2009, touting the legislative perfection that would be Obamacare:  "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."  This unambiguous, clearly-stated pledge was demonstrably false when it was first uttered and has remained so to this day.

About That Whole "If You Like Your Health Care Plan, You Can Keep It" Thing...  Anyone remember those infamous words that were ejaculated from Barack Obama's mouth on July 16, 2009 when he addressed the American Medical Association in Chicago while promoting the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare?  Let me refresh your memory.

Obama AMA Speech.  "[N]o matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise:  If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period.  If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."

Barack Obama promises you can keep your health insurance, but there's no guarantee.  At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Aug. 11, 2009, President Barack Obama repeated a line he's used many times in describing his health care proposal:  "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

Airbrushing Away The Numerous False Promises Of Obama Care.  President Barack Obama spent an entire year fighting a Blitzkrieg culminating in the signing of Obama Care on March 23, 2010.  He drummed two unambiguous promises into the public consciousness:  "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  If you like your current health insurance plan you can keep it."  Without these two presidential pledges, Obama Care would have stood no chance.  By and large, people were happy with their doctors and with their insurance plans.  They would not have given up something that is working for the vague promises of Obama Care.

Underside Of The Bus *IS* Your Healthcare Plan.  See, you're going to have a plan that you can keep.  All of the angst hinges around you learning to LIKE the thing.

Submit to Obamacare or you'll get Cervical Cancer and Die!  Suddenly, when it comes to Obamacare, "My body, my choice" goes right out the window — and anyone who disagrees is pro-cancer!

Little Media Lies About ObamaCare.  [Scroll down]  Obama signed House bills to kill a costly ObamaCare reporting rule, terminate its long-term care insurance program and repeal the "free choice voucher" program.  He also signed bills cutting funds for the so-called CO-OP program, a public health slush fund and other ObamaCare programs.  Two other House-passed bills — one to end the Independent Payment Advisory Board and another terminating the medical device tax — have strong bipartisan support.  Another simply codified the employer mandate delay Obama himself had already ordered.  Yet the media pretend these things never happened.

Americans Are Right To Oppose ObamaCare.  Everybody who dislikes ObamaCare is being duped by GOP propaganda, says President Obama.  That must include all those unions calling it a disaster, and all those who've lost jobs and pay because of the law.  Telemundo, the only news outlet that appears willing to ask Obama a tough question, pressed him this week about polls showing most Americans oppose ObamaCare.  "Is everybody wrong?" the host asked.  Yes, they are," Obama responded.

"If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."

— Barack Hussein Obama,            
June 15, 2009.            

Obamacare: Walgreens Dropping Current Coverage for 160,000 Workers.  Like the president said, "of you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.  Period.  No one will take it away.  No matter what."  Well, unless you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who can't.  Including, it turns out, lots of Walgreens employees.

Sebelius Goes from 'Will Get Covered' to 'Can' to 'May'.  Sebelius's words recall President Obama's confident pledge that Americans will be able to keep their doctors under Obamacare, a pledge that changed to "may" on the HealthCare.gov website just this summer.

OFA Propaganda: GOP should stop opposing Obamacare.  President Obama's campaign-turned-"advocacy" arm Organizing for Action has apparently been busying itself this summer with organizing poorly attended rallies concerning such political duds as climate change and gun control, but their most mainstream effort has gone toward helping the Obama administration with the oncoming "soft launch" of the Affordable Care Act by spreading the news about how totally awesome the whole thing is.

ObamaCare's Desperate Defenders.  Liberal opinion writers who feel duty-bound to defend President Obama's signature health-care reform law have been quite creative in trying to blame the GOP for the flaws in what was a law passed by Democrats against bipartisan and public opposition.  The most recent narrative, that Republicans are "sabotaging" the law, is quite clearly nonsensical.  But they are opinion writers, so we can understand their efforts to spin the policy failure.  Yet there is really no excuse for supposedly impartial reporters to not only infuse their news writing with such silliness but even openly rant about it as a prelude to the facts.

GOP: Obama promised health premiums would drop $2,500; Fact: They're up $3,000.  There's no question we needed real reform — reform so that people could get the care they needed, at lower cost.  Americans now know that's not what President Obama's health care law delivered.  What we got is higher taxes and bigger government, without the lower costs or quality care.

Creative Destruction.  Nancy Pelosi waxed rhapsodic in 2010 as she imagined the benefits of Obamacare:  "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."  Well, that was the economy we used to have.  But as Obamacare begins to kick in, artists, photographers, writers, and other members of the "creative class" who have access to health insurance programs through numerous professional organizations will lose that coverage.

New Obamacare rule uses terms 'shared responsibility payment' and 'penalty' instead of 'tax'.  The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) final rule on Obamacare's individual mandate, released this week, uses the term "Shared Responsibility Payment" more than 50 times to describe the mandate's non-compliance penalty, which the Supreme Court in 2012 defined as a tax.  The IRS also used the term "shared responsibility penalty" in the rule, which does not identify the individual mandate as a tax.

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."

ObamaCare's Gift To Lobbyists.  For years, Obama complained about "the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely" and use their time in government "to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people whom they serve."  Now, the Hill reports how Obama's signature law is making former government officials fabulously rich as corporate lobbyists and consultants.  As the news site explains, "the voracious need for lobbying help in dealing with ObamaCare has created a price premium for lobbyists who had first-hand experience in crafting or debating the law."  Thus, ObamaCare reveals the gap between Washington and the rest of us.

Obama's Long List of Broken Promises.  Let's not forget the president's promise to bring down health care premiums by $2,500 for the typical family (they went up) ... allow Americans to keep the health care coverage they currently have (many can't) ... refuse to fund abortion via the Affordable Care Act (it did) ... to respect religious liberties (he has violated them) ... and the insistence that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was not a tax (it is).

No Evidence That ObamaCare Will Bring Down Health Care Costs.  The liberal premise for ObamaCare can be distilled into a couple of key hypotheses regarding health care costs:  (1) health care costs are being driven up at rapid rates because of the high private-sector profit-driven component of the American health care system, and (2) increasing public-sector involvement in the health care system and government regulation will stabilize or decrease costs.  If these foundations for justifying ObamaCare were true, what we should find when we compare trends in American health care costs to those of other nations with socialized medicine/universal health care coverage is that American health care costs are increasing at a more rapid rate than those of all these other countries.  Such is most definitely not the case.

Joe Wilson Was So Right.  Joe Wilson Day will acknowledge and applaud the Congressman's bold declaration of the truth about our president, Barack Obama.  Four years ago next month, at Mr. Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on his health care proposal, Mr. Wilson cried out "You lie!" at one of the numerous false statements in the president's speech.  Today, after having had several years to study this president's truthfulness, objective observers recognize that Mr. Wilson's verbal volley could serve as a suitable response to virtually every proclamation of our current president.

Free Cheese in a Socialist Mousetrap.  Public Citizen.org, self-described as "advocates for a healthier and more equitable world," sent a fundraising letter to Democrat voters, claiming that "millionaires who run the largest corporations on Earth want to slash the social insurance programs the rest of us rely on."  By slashing, they are referring to the logical proposal to increase eligibility age for Medicare, to correlate Medicare to income, and to modernize/privatize it.

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.

Dem Senator: I'm Embarrassed to Go to Europe Because Some Americans Lack Health Insurance.  Democratic senator Mary Landrieu says she's embarrassed to go to places in Europe like France and Spain because some Americans do not have health insurance.  Landrieu, who is up for reelection in 2014, represents the state of Louisiana.

The Editor says...
Nobody in Europe cares if "some Americans do not have health insurance."  If you are ashamed of this country, resign from the Senate.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz: Only 'phony Christians' oppose Obamacare.  MSNBC host Ed Schultz blasted "phony" Christian conservatives who oppose Obamacare, saying the new health care law "is the most moral thing this country has ever done."  "This is good for America and I won't let them lie," Mr. Schultz said, according to the Blaze.  "They're phony Christians.  Phony Christians when they say that they are Christian but then they want to take away from their next-door neighbor.  They don't want to be their brother's keeper.

No alternatives to ObamaCare? Republicans rebut White House claim.  President Obama has tried to defend his health care plan lately by criticizing Republicans for trying to roll back ObamaCare without offering any alternatives — despite the fact that Republicans have offered several.

CRS Report Reveals Administration Has Missed 50% of Obamacare's Implementation Deadlines.  An 'Employer-Mandate Delay' here and a 'Cap-on-Costs Delay' there are apparently only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Obama Administration's inability to effectively implement deadlines for Obamacare.  According to a Forbes' exclusive, an unpublished Congressional Research Service report reveals that [the] Obama Administration has failed to meet half of the deadlines legally required by the Affordable Care Act.

Ridiculous: Dem Congressman Compares Obamacare to the Constitution.  On Tuesday [8/13/2013], MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski asked Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) if Obamacare was becoming difficult to defend.  His response — to compare the implementation of Obamacare to the implementation of the United States Constitution!

The liar in chief.  [Scroll down]  Then just last month the White House — again with no congressional input to actually change the law — simply announced a one year delay in the requirement that large employers offer health care coverage to full time employees or face a penalty.  Individuals faced with a similar dilemma and similar penalties are also demanding relief — thus far without success.  But this week the administration announced yet another delay — until 2015 — on perhaps the most consumer-friendly aspect of the Affordable Care Act.  The law was supposed to limit out-of-pocket expenses, including deductibles and co-pays, to $6,350 for an individual or $12,700 for a family.

ObamaCare ugliness that O can't admit.  President Obama continues to insist that under the law, as he said in his pre-vacation press conference, people are going to be able to "sign up for affordable quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market."  This has been his sales pitch for his health-care law from the beginning, and it's never been true.

Rep. Gohmert: President Lied about Republicans and Obamacare.  What Obama said about the GOP and Obamacare at his press conference on Friday was despicable.

Obama's Political Incompetence.  Obamacare, enacted more than three years ago, has been unraveling for over a year.  And there's a good reason for that:  it was never intended to become law at all.

The President's ObamaCare Straw Man.  In a Friday afternoon presser before his vacation getaway, the president called efforts to defund and repeal ObamaCare the Republicans' "holy grail" and an "ideological fixation."  Which is not to be confused with Obama's own fixation on passing health care despite sustained opposition by more than half the country.

Obama Says Insurance Will Be 'Significantly Cheaper' Under Obamacare, But That Isn't True.  At a White House press conference Friday afternoon, President Obama said that health insurance plans offered under Obamacare will be "significantly cheaper" than plans currently on the market, but a string of recent reports say that isn't true.  "What happens on October 1, in 53 days, is for the remaining 15 percent of the population that doesn't have health insurance, they're going to be able to go on a website or call up a call center and sign up for affordable, quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market," Obama said on Friday.  But, as CNN reported this week, rates will be 35 percent higher in Florida and 41 percent higher in Ohio on average under Obamacare.

Obama on Obamacare: Promise the impossible, confess impotence, point fingers, repeat.  I've been putting off unpacking President Obama's answer on Obamacare at his press conference today, so packed full is it of straw men and misrepresentations and fantasy and smears and straight-up lies. [...] Every time he talks about Obamacare, he assures everyone they'll like it because it's going to work.  But the reason people don't like it is they've had three years to show people it's working, and it has brought nearly nothing but headaches and apprehension to a majority of Americans while breaking every single major promise the president made.

Obama Urges Veterans to Defend Health-Care Law Against Cuts.  President Barack Obama urged military veterans to defend his signature health-care law and press Republican lawmakers to end budget cuts that threaten future spending on benefits.  In remarks to the Disabled American Veterans National Convention in Orlando, Florida, Democrat Obama said critics of the health insurance expansion that he championed are spreading "misinformation."  Veterans benefits won't be affected by the Affordable Care Act, he said.

The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama has no room to complain about "misinformation."

ObamaCare Poses a Massive Privacy Risk.  As far back as December 2012, Obama administration officials were insisting that the data hub at the center of the ObamaCare exchanges was nearly finished.  Yet all the while, they were pushing back deadlines or missing them altogether, to the point where, unless ObamaCare's launch is delayed, millions of people's privacy will be at risk.  Obama officials may, in fact, have flat-out lied to lawmakers about the data hub's progress.

Civil War: Dem Compares Obamacare Fight to Gettysburg.  Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) compared those who oppose Obamacare to the South in the Civil War saying, "This is Gettysburg, this is the big battle and after this the Civil War was pretty much down hill for the South.  That's really what's happening here for the forces against Obamacare."  McDermott appeared on C-Span's Washington Journal on Wednesday [7/24/2013].  The host asked if President Obama would compromise spending in other government departments in order to continue funding the implementation of Obamacare.

Still More Lies On ObamaCare.  Why should anyone believe what the president says about ObamaCare?  Last week he touted nonexistent rate cuts and rebate checks.  And the White House now admits his promise about keeping your doctor was false.

A union cloud over Obamacare as broken promises infuriate the president's base.  As the details of Obamacare become more known, Americans become more concerned, and for good reason.  President Obama promised that if you were happy with your health care, you could keep it.  As with so many other government promises, this, too, turns out to be an empty one.  Even people you think would be solid Obama supporters are waking up to the more damaging aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

Is Obamacare Falling Apart?  Despite a host of delays, legal challenges, and complete implementation failures, the Senate Majority Leader says "Obamacare has been wonderful for America."  The Administration says it's simply implementing the law "in a careful, thoughtful manner."  And right after the Administration announced it was delaying Obamacare's employer mandate — one of its main provisions — HHS released a video saying Obamacare is "ON SCHEDULE."

Fact Check: Obama Spins Health Insurance Rebates.  Another year, another round of exaggeration from President Barack Obama and his administration about health insurance rebates.

ObamaCare Will Now Add To Deficits In First 10 Years.  According to the Congressional Budget Office's initial forecast made in March 2010, ObamaCare was supposed to cut the deficit a total of $124 billion in its first decade.  Democrats seized on this to show Obama had lived up to his promise.  Almost as soon as Obama signed the law, however, his administration started making changes that added costs and cut revenues.  The most recent was the one-year delay in the employer mandate.  The result is instead of a $124 billion deficit cut from 2010 to 2019, ObamaCare will likely add about $18 billion in red ink over those same years.  And that assumes nothing else changes in the years ahead.

Obamacare's panicked Democrats.  Poor Democrats.  An election looms and their Obamacare train wreck is deservedly being called the worst law in American history.  Voters hate it, and why shouldn't they?  The Democrats' promises — that patients could keep their doctors and current insurance and that the law would reduce premiums, lower the deficit and create millions of jobs — have been exposed as outright lies.  Now a central tenet of the fundamentally flawed law, the employer mandate, is collapsing.

White House: If You Question the ObamaCare Delays, You're 'Willfully Ignorant'.  Jay Carney just smeared a majority of the American people, along with several Democrats, when he dodged a question about the Obama administration's decision to delay the employer mandate by at least a year.  Among the "willfully ignorant" is Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin, quoted in the New York Times wondering how the Obama administration can unilaterally change a law passed by Congress.  Joining Harking in "willful ignorance" is Democrat Rep. John Barrow, who just wants to scrap the mandate entirely.

Cloward-Obama.  By now it's abundantly clear that there is not an honest bone in the Obama administration's body; [...] Everything with these people is a bait-and-switch, and nothing more so than their "signature achievement," the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.  From the start, it was clear that the "health care" law had nothing to do with health care.

Obamacare Job Double Counting and Other Economic Distortions.  Reader Tim Wallace provided another excellent series of charts on the employment situation.  These charts compare June employment in 2013 to June in prior years.

Cost of ObamaCare subsidies has increased dramatically, critics say.  The cost of subsidies for those seeking government aid through ObamaCare has increased dramatically, critics say — even before a single dollar has been collected.  Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah wrote a letter to the administration asking why the president is already requesting 107 percent more than three years ago to pay for subsidies.  "They low-balled everything, and they knew they were not asking for enough money to actually do this," John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis said.

Another Obamacare Fumble.  The White House says the decision, announced last Tuesday, to delay implementation of Obamacare's employer mandate was made because "a dialogue with businesses" revealed the need to reduce the reporting burden it placed on employers.  This tale is enough to make a cat laugh.  This crew doesn't do "dialogue."  Your BS detector badly needs a tune up if it didn't start buzzing when Valerie Jarrett blogged, "We're listening."  The delay is obviously due to the ineptitude of the Obama administration, and this is the fourth major provision of PPACA to be repealed or delayed for the same reason.

Obamacare's Invitation to Fraud.  [Scroll down]  Other states clearly shared this worry about how they were supposed to confirm eligibility for subsidies.  But on Friday, the Obama administration answered their question with what is becoming the familiar refrain of Obamacare implementation:  "never mind."  Buried in a massive 600-page rule released without fanfare the day after July 4, the administration announced that it would effectively delay the requirement to verify eligibility in the state exchanges.

Pelosi On Affordable Care Act: 'Captures the Spirit of our Founders'.  Independence Day is the perfect day to remember that liberal Democrats want Americans to be dependent on government.  Nancy Pelosi reminded Americans of that on June 27 with her remarks to the press about the national holiday, where she essentially argued that the Founding Fathers would have loved ObamaCare.  "[W]hen we celebrate Independence Day we'll also be observing health independence.  This week marks one year since the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act.  It captures the spirit of our founders, the spirit they wrote in the Declaration of Independence:  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Pelosi said.

Is America in a Pre-Revolutionary State this July 4th?  We are two-thirds of the way into the most incompetent presidency in our history.  People everywhere are fed up.  Even many of the so-called liberals who propelled Barack Obama into office have stopped defending him in the face of an unprecedented number of scandals coming at us one after the other like hideous monsters in some non-stop computer game.  And now looming is the monster of monsters, ObamaCare, the healthcare reform almost no one wanted and fewer understood. [...] Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal warns the costs of ObamaCare are close to tripling what were promised, and the number of doctors in our country is rapidly diminishing.

Immigration: If the Bill Passes.  There are lots of reasons to believe that most of what is promised in the current so-called comprehensive immigration-reform bill won't be honored if it is passed by the full Congress and signed by the president.  First, this administration does not have a reliable record of living up to its policy promises.  Obamacare — a similarly huge bill that few had read — was sold to Congress and the public on the assurance that its enactment would lower insurance premiums.  As it begins to take effect, even its principal architect, Senator Max Baucus, has called the program a "train wreck."

Still More Evidence That ObamaCare Is Costing Jobs.  'It's about jobs."  That was how then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described ObamaCare shortly before President Obama signed it into law.  Turns out she was right, although not in the way she meant.

Audit Finds ObamaCare Train Wreck Ahead.  After months of reassurances that the ObamaCare exchanges would be running by Oct. 1, it turns out they're well behind schedule.  Truth becomes an even rarer commodity in the Obama administration.  'Yes, we will be ready," said Gary Cohen, who is spearheading ObamaCare implementation at the Department of Health and Human Services.  That was in January.

ObamaCare Trail of Tears.  Set aside the IRS or the National Security Agency — the most secretive part of the government is the Health and Human Services Department and the black box that is implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  For years HHS has stonewalled the congressional oversight committees about its progress, and now we're starting to learn why.  On Wednesday [6/19/2013] the auditors at the Government Accountability Office released the results of two investigations and optimistically conclude that it "cannot yet be determined" if ObamaCare will be ready for enrollment a mere four months from now.

Jan Brewer's Obamacare Deception.  At least for now (although a statewide referendum may be pending), Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, has succeeded in her efforts to implement a key part of Obamacare in her state.  Brewer has very aggressively — and entirely voluntarily — spearheaded the charge to implement Obamacare's massive Medicaid expansion on her watch. [...] The CBO projects that Obamacare's Medicaid expansion will cost federal taxpayers about $750 billion over the next decade (2014 to 2023).

5 Lies the Democrats Told To Sell Obamacare.  [#2]  Obamacare will not increase the deficit.  Calling for a massive new government program to cut costs is sort of like moving to Death Valley for the reduced air conditioning bills. [...] [#3]  "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.  Period."  Soon, many Americans will be happy if they can find A DOCTOR, much less THEIR DOCTOR.

Unions and the Democrats.  Joseph Hansen, President of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, recently opined in an op-ed for The Hill newspaper that the union will withdraw support of Democrats in 2014 if Obama isn't able to deliver on his promise, made in 2009, that union members could keep their existing insurance.  Hansen wrote, "The President's statement to labor in 2009 is simply not true for millions of workers."  In other words, Hansen is saying that Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrat gang lied to the unions — and therefore the union members — regarding what would happen to them under ObamaCare so as to gain their support to get the legislation passed.  As a union member, why would you then vote for someone in the next election who essentially looked you square in the eyes and lied to you?

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.

Also posted under health care is not a right.

Pelosi: 'You're Mandated to Have Health Insurance, Yes, You Will Have An Increase'.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday [6/6/2013] that health insurance premiums will go up under Obamacare because people who did not buy insurance before, and thus had no premium at all, will now be forced to buy insurance.  She also urged people to be "optimistic" about Obamacare.  "You just see," Pelosi said.  "I mean be optimistic about it.  It is a very, very exciting enterprise."

California Schemin'.  Golden State officials misrepresent their Obamacare exchanges and the press parrots the lies.

What If Healthy People Don't Want to Buy Obamacare?  With less than a year until the Affordable Care Act starts to really kick in, there is a growing concern the group of people who are most needed to make the plan work properly are the ones most likely opt out.  One of the key promises of the ACA has always been that it would lower costs for health insurance.  The trick to making that happen was to get everyone to buy health care, which is why the law came with an individual mandate.

Democrats' New Argument: It's A Good Thing That Obamacare Doubles Individual Health Insurance Premiums.  For a while now, independent analysts — and conservative critics — have raised concerns that Obamacare will dramatically increase the cost of individually-purchased health insurance for healthier people.  This would, of course, contradict President Obama's promises that "if you like your plan, you can keep it" and that the cost of insurance would go down "by $2,500 per family per year."  What's new is that liberal columnists, facing reality, are conceding that premiums will go up for most people in the individual market.

ObamaCare Bait and Switch.  Liberals have spent years claiming that "rate shock" under the Affordable Care Act — the 20% to 30% average spike in insurance premiums that every independent analyst projects — is merely the political imagination of Republicans and the insurance industry.  So they immediately claimed victory when California reported last month that the plans that will be available on the state's new insurance exchange next year would be cheaper than they are today.

Democratic Congresswoman: It's 'Un-American' Not to Fund Obamacare 'Outreach'.  During Tuesday's [5/21/2013] hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) declared that failing to encourage people to sign up for government-mandated health insurance is downright "un-American."  Speier was referring to Congress's refusal to fund the Obama administration's Obamacare "outreach" efforts with taxpayer dollars (although the administration will still be running lots of taxpayer-financed pro-Obamacare propaganda ads later this summer with money that it has managed to cobble together from various sources).

Pelosi: ObamaCare 'largely responsible' for bringing down deficit.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday [5/13/2013] that President Obama's landmark healthcare reform law is helping to bring down the deficit.  "Many of the initiatives that he passed are what are coming to bear now, including the Affordable Care Act," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Hayes.  "The Affordable Care Act is bringing the cost of health care in our country down in both the public and private sector.  And that is what is largely responsible for the deficit coming down."

Obama: $1 trillion in Obamacare spending is historic 'tax cut'.  As part of a Mothers' Day weekend defense of his signature legislative accomplishment, President Obama claimed that the law represented the "largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history."  His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a "tax cut."  But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in "Exchange Subsidies and Related Spending."

Obama orders top aides to praise Obamacare during commencement speeches.  President Obama has ordered his Cabinet officials to praise Obamacare when giving speeches at college commencement ceremonies, even as the president's aides fear that poor implementation of the law will tarnish his legacy.

Obama On Obamacare: 'You're Benefiting From It, You Just May Not Know It'.  Flanked by a group of women in the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama touted the benefits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly referred to as "Obamacare."  The president said, while some of the law's benefits have not yet been implemented, many of the provisions that protect patients have already kicked in.  "You're already benefiting from it, you just may not know it," Obama said.

Obama: GOP telling 'tall tales' about Obamacare — don't read blogs!  President Obama urged Americans not to read "some blog" or rely on Republicans to describe Obamacare, because they are telling "tall tales" about the law's provisions.  "Don't just read a blog or some commentary from some pundit that has a political agenda, make sure you know what the actual facts are," Obama said today, moments after saying that Republicans are "still telling tall tales about [Obamacare's] impact."

The Editor says...
Remember, Obama 'Hates' 'Internet Media and Social Media' -- probably because they are beyond his control.

ObamaCare Is Blocking Job Creation, Economic Growth.  On Friday the government will release its unemployment report for April.  The jobs numbers last month were a huge disappointment.  Americans can't afford more bad news.  Washington needs to break the cycle of weak job growth month after month.  To do that, we need to honestly deal with one of the main roadblocks to job creation:  President Obama's health care law.  At a press conference this week, the president proved once again that he doesn't understand how his law threatens Americans' jobs, their care and their paycheck.

The Only Question That Matters.  Once you understand that the radical Left's stated reasons for any given program or legislative initiative are entirely bogus, and that the corrective mechanism they propose has absolutely nothing to do with the putative social ill they purport to address, we are left with one simple question:  Why?  Why was the legislatively unconstitutional seizure of one-sixth of the U.S. economy in the name of "reform" really necessary?  Not a single honest argument in favor of it came from the likes of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid at the time and a not a single honest argument in favor of it has been made since.

Obama Expects States to Pick Up Obamacare Tab.  President Obama's health care law was projected to spend $898 billion over ten years when it was passed.  That price tag largely masked the true ten-year cost because of the delayed implementation of the law, and the CBO revised its cost estimate in 2013 to show that the law will spend $1.85 trillion in the next ten years.

The Latest Broken Promises of Obamacare.  In the last few days there has been a litany of information dropped on the continued failings of government health care and the implementation of Obamacare.  Remember, this law was supposed to bring costs down and provide coverage to more Americans, get rid of government waste and do it all without adding anything to the debt.  Well, three years into this law what are we finding out?

5 Ways the Immigration Bill Is Like Obamacare.  The Government Accountability Office now projects that under the most realistic scenario, Obamacare will add $6.2 trillion to the primary deficit over the next 75 years.  That's a staggering figure, especially considering the fact that President Obama pledged in 2009, "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future." [...] Remember President Obama's promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it"?  That's just one of the most famous (or infamous) broken promises of Obamacare.  The Congressional Budget Office projects 7 million people will lose their employer-sponsored coverage by 2022 because of the law.

Buyer's Remorse: Democrats having second thoughts about Obamacare.  The only Republican in Congress to support Obamacare was Olympia Snowe and even she eventually voted to repeal it.  The Americans didn't want it either.  But, the Democrats told America it was the greatest legislative achievement in history.  It was going to make healthcare better, cheaper and easier to use in every way.  If you listened to the Democrats, there were no downsides to Obamacare because it was all good news.

Look Out Below, The Obamacare Chaos Is Coming.  The biggest political problem faced by so-called "liberals" and so-called "progressives" in President Obama's second term is how to prevent voters from holding them politically responsible as the public comes to realize how badly they were lied to during the first Obama term to win passage of Obamacare.  Most supporters of Obamacare embraced it because of a principled belief that everyone should have access to essential healthcare.  But even the establishment, still Democrat dominated, CBO admits that after 10 years of implementation, Obamacare will still leave 30 million uninsured.

ObamaCare's Nasty Surprise: Surging Premiums For Many.  Last week, one of the world's leading consulting firms, Milliman, warned about sticker shock ahead for individuals and families buying health insurance.  How did the White House respond?  In its usual Orwellian fashion, it said, "Health care costs are falling, thanks to the reform law."  Falling is correct only if you're standing on your head.  President Obama repeatedly promised that insurance exchanges would save families up to $2,300 a year.  He couldn't possibly have believed it.  From day one, it was obvious the law would push up premiums.

And so it begins: ObamaCare kills jobs.  When Democrats passed ObamaCare, they told us it wouldn't affect the private insurance coverage any of us already had.  "If you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage," is what Obama said.  Just one problem.  You can't keep your coverage if, thanks to ObamaCare, it no longer exists.

Obamacare: The World's Ugliest Toddler.  On Saturday [3/23/2013], President Obama marked the birthday of his "most important domestic achievement" with a statement in which he catalogued the miracles this prodigy has already performed in its first three years.  Among these, you may be surprised to learn, is that it is saving us money:  "Most importantly," he said, "the growth of health care costs is beginning to slow."  He made the same claim in his SOTU address, and his toadies in the establishment media dutifully repeated it, but the facts reveal this to be just another example of Presidential prevarication.

Top Ten ObamaCare Horror Stories the Media Are Covering Up.  Three years ago, Obama, Democrats, and his media lied to us about cutting the cost of health care, being able to keep our insurance, and not taxing the middle class.  Today, those lies and what ObamaCare is and will do to the working and middle class are the biggest untold story in America.  The media is currently engaged in an ObamaCare cover-up every bit as big, corrupt, and damaging as the ongoing Libya cover up.

Senate Republicans Willfully and Knowingly Lie to Their Constituents.  Readers from Texas, Kentucky, Utah, South Dakota, and Georgia all had the same story.  They'd called the offices of Senators Chambliss, Cornyn, Hatch, Thune, McConnell, and Isakson to object to those senators funding Obamacare.  They were all told by these Senate offices that these Senators had voted to defund Obamacare or, in the case of Senator Cornyn's office, that there had been no vote on defunding Obamacare.  These Senators and their staffs are lying.  They voted to fund Obamacare.  More troubling, they know they did it.

Feds begin lowering expectations on Obamacare.  A month before the final passage of his health care law, President Obama convened a summit the Blair House.  During the staged event, which was aimed at resurrecting the bill, he touted the legislation's insurance exchanges.  Obama said, "[I]f you join one of these exchanges, you will have choice and you'll have competition.  You will have a menu of private insurance options that you'll be able to purchase ... " [...] Three years later, and just months before the exchanges are set to be operational, the Obama administration is starting to lower expectations.  Dramatically.

Obamacare official: "Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience".  With time-running out before the major provisions of President Obama's health care law are set to be implemented, the official tasked with making sure the law's key insurance exchanges are up and running is already lowering expectations.

The Nation Will Reexamine Obamacare.  The weasels who wrote the Obama health law postponed the pain until after the 2012 presidential election.  Popular provisions were put into effect immediately, such as allowing children to stay on their parent's plan until age 26, offering "free" colonoscopies and mammograms (in truth, forcing you to pay for them in your premium, whether you get them or not), and giving women the thrill of getting contraceptives at the drugstore without paying anything.  The White House also granted 1,472 waivers to certain companies and unions exempting them from insurance reforms so they would not drop coverage for employees and members before the presidential contest.

Pelosi: Obamacare Means 'You Could Be A Photographer or Writer'.  Marking the third anniversary of Obamacare's passage, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the health care law fulfills the promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because it allows people to leave jobs that include health insurance as a benefit:  You can become a "photographer or writer."  "I've always said that the Affordable Care Act is something that was transformative," Pelosi said Wednesday during a press conference on Capitol Hill marking the upcoming anniversary of the law on March 23.

The Most Open Administration in History.  Obama's lies about Obamacare are legion.  For years, Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, has been warning of the coming disaster known as Obamacare.  In her latest book Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Health Care Law, we learn about all the dire consequences of a law that Obama hailed as good for America.  Obama lied when he claimed that Obamacare would actually reduce premiums; the IRS now explains that Obamacare will cost families at least $20,000 per year.

GAO Report: Obamacare Adds $6.2 Trillion to Long-Term Deficit.  Obamacare will increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today [2/26/2013].  Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), who requested the report, revealed the findings this morning at a Senate Budget Committee hearing.  The report, he said, "confirms everything critics and Republicans were saying about the faults of this bill," and "dramatically proves that the promises made assuring the nation that the largest new entitlement program in history would not add one dime to the deficit were false."

Rep. Corrine Brown: 'Don't Confuse Me With Any Facts'.  As part of a discussion with voters about Obamacare funding, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) told one man, "Don't confuse me with any facts."  "This is part of the problem," Brown told an audience member who had asked about the billions of dollars cut from Medicare under the Affordable Health Care Act.

Obama's Gangster Government.  Health and Human Services has stated that the federal government can fund health-insurance exchanges run by the feds for states that refuse to create their own exchanges.  But nowhere does the Democrats' hastily crafted Obamacare legislation say that.

Rubio's Thirstiness Trumps Obama's Untruthfulness.  Why does a re-elected chief executive, dubiously claiming a mandate from the people, insult the intelligence of millions of Americans struggling to stay afloat in a contracting economy during the worst economic recovery on record with ludicrous contentions like this:  "After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over 6 million new jobs"?  Why does he present an electorate that just returned him to power with the wild claim that "already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs"?

Like Your Plan, Lose Your Plan Under ObamaCare.  Who believed President Obama when he swore that under the Democrats' health care overhaul, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan"?  No one should have.  The promises of ObamaCare have been empty, cynically made for political expediency with the understanding that the public has a short memory.  But this one lingers, as it should, because it was so obviously faithless the moment it was uttered.

CBO: Obamacare Will Force 7 Million Off Private Insurance.  In 2009, President Barack Obama promised Americans that Obamacare would not threaten citizens' individual healthcare plans.  "No matter what you've heard, if you like your doctor or healthcare plan you can keep it," said Obama in 2009.  "And everyone will have the stability and security that's missing today."

The GOP's ObamaCare Flippers.  As D-Day looms for ObamaCare, one big question is how many states will sign up for its Medicaid expansion.  The recent and spectacular flip-flop of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is a case study in the political pressure and fiscal gimmicks designed to get states to succumb.  It's also a study in the arcane and perverse ObamaCare incentives that are intended to gather ever more health-care spending under federal control.

CBO Forecast: 1.4% GDP, 8% Unemployment, 7 Million to Lose Health Insurance.  The Congressional Budget Office's just-released economic forecast for 2013 is dispiriting, to say the least.  The GDP is expected to grow by only 1.4%, the unemployment rate will "stay near" 8%, the deficit will reach $845 billion, and ObamaCare will cost 7 million their health insurance.  The CBO says things will improve after that, but after three years of being told by the government and its media that "prosperity is just around the corner," you'll just have to pardon my cynicism.

Obama's health care lies.  Say what you want about Nancy Pelosi, she got one thing right about Obama's Affordable Care Act:  We had to pass the law to find out what's it in it.  Now that some have actually bitten into this Tootsie Roll Pop, they are discovering that its crunchy outside was more palatable than the chewy center.  Even labor unions, still euphoric from their love affair with Obama, are starting to see some very disturbing writing on the wall.

ObamaCare's Broken Promises.  As the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation.  In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds — all of which have become increasingly implausible.

Health Care Market Was On the Mend, Until ObamaCare.  The latest government report on national health spending provides more evidence that ObamaCare will act as poison to a health care system that was already on the mend.  In 2011, the last year for which data are available, spending on health care climbed just 3.9% for the third year in a row.  The press is dismissing it as the result of the recession, while the Obama administration claims ObamaCare deserves credit.  Neither is true.

Now Media Can Tell Us The Truth About ObamaCare Costs.  The media that endorsed ObamaCare as a cost-control watershed are now beginning to actually report on its effects.

Networks Ignore Obama's Lie About Mom's Cancer.  This level of dishonesty from the national networks is not merely disgraceful, it's dangerous.  Without a free and HONEST press, the Republic can't survive.

Appeals Court Oral Arguments Signal Trouble for Obamacare HHS Mandate.  After repeated assurances that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not mandate abortion or people of faith violating their religious beliefs, the Obama administration issued a mandate requiring both, when Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) saying that a vague provision in the ACA requiring employers provide "preventive care" means that employer healthcare policies must cover birth control, abortion-related, and sterilization services.

Dems' Medicare lie.  Attention, New York's 3 million seniors:  Don't be fooled.  It's the Obama health law that destroyed Medicare, though the impact will not be felt for another year or more.