Colorado Woman Who Championed Obamacare Loses Insurance Plan
...Wagner and her husband retired early. She was a nurse for 35 years and championed Obamacare, until she received a letter from her insurance company saying it was canceling her policy.
“I was really shocked … all of my hopes were sort of dashed,” Wagner said. “’Oh my gosh President Obama, this is not what we hoped for, it’s not what we were told.’ “
She was shocked further to learn that for the same coverage she would pay 35 percent more and have a higher deductible.
“Our premium for next year is going up to over $1,000 a month for two of us and we’re two fairly healthy individuals,” Wagner said....
Sunday, November 03, 2013
Aides Debated Obama Coverage Promise
...One former senior administration official said that as the law was being crafted by the White House and lawmakers, some White House policy advisers objected to the breadth of Mr. Obama’s “keep your plan” promise. They were overruled by political aides, the former official said. The White House said it was unaware of the objections....
...Richard Kirsch, the former national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, which pushed for the 2010 health law, said the words were reassuring—and true—for the vast majority of the people, and so his group never raised concerns about that claim. Adding an asterisk to note that people who had “shoddy insurance” might need to change plans was not practical, he said....
...One former senior administration official said that as the law was being crafted by the White House and lawmakers, some White House policy advisers objected to the breadth of Mr. Obama’s “keep your plan” promise. They were overruled by political aides, the former official said. The White House said it was unaware of the objections....
...Richard Kirsch, the former national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, which pushed for the 2010 health law, said the words were reassuring—and true—for the vast majority of the people, and so his group never raised concerns about that claim. Adding an asterisk to note that people who had “shoddy insurance” might need to change plans was not practical, he said....
Virginia Democrat Calls For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients
You would think that when your party is burying a hole that is getting harder and harder to get out of, you wouldn't want to that hole get deeper faster. But here is Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Forced by government decree, mind you. ...
Policy cancellations, higher premiums add to frustration over Obamacare
...But people across the country are finding out they're losing their existing insurance plans under Obamacare because requirements in the law, such as prenatal and prescription drug coverage, mean their old plans aren't comprehensive enough.
In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage.
That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she's being offered would run $591 a month -- 10 times more than what she currently pays.
Barrette said, "What I have right now is what I am happy with and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?" ...
Krauthammer: Carney, Obama arguing Americans too stupid to choose for themselves
...It’s precisely why historically centrally-planned economies don’t work. The Soviets had a plan for this much steel and this much concrete and it had no response to what was out there in the market and they overproduced. So, they had a lot of production numbers and they had an economy that was unworkable. Here these people are deciding if you’re a single male in your 60s, you don’t need the maternal care, you don’t — you’ve never smoked dope, you don’t need the substance abuse stuff. You want a catastrophic plan which is very rational, but Jay Carney is saying, you know, ‘you’re too stupid to understand what you want.’ Once you eliminate the market response, which is a lot of people decide I know what I want better than the bureaucrat and they’re eliminating this. That’s the essence of what’s happening and that’s why it’s not going to work....
You would think that when your party is burying a hole that is getting harder and harder to get out of, you wouldn't want to that hole get deeper faster. But here is Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Forced by government decree, mind you. ...
Policy cancellations, higher premiums add to frustration over Obamacare
...But people across the country are finding out they're losing their existing insurance plans under Obamacare because requirements in the law, such as prenatal and prescription drug coverage, mean their old plans aren't comprehensive enough.
In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage.
That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she's being offered would run $591 a month -- 10 times more than what she currently pays.
Barrette said, "What I have right now is what I am happy with and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?" ...
Krauthammer: Carney, Obama arguing Americans too stupid to choose for themselves
...It’s precisely why historically centrally-planned economies don’t work. The Soviets had a plan for this much steel and this much concrete and it had no response to what was out there in the market and they overproduced. So, they had a lot of production numbers and they had an economy that was unworkable. Here these people are deciding if you’re a single male in your 60s, you don’t need the maternal care, you don’t — you’ve never smoked dope, you don’t need the substance abuse stuff. You want a catastrophic plan which is very rational, but Jay Carney is saying, you know, ‘you’re too stupid to understand what you want.’ Once you eliminate the market response, which is a lot of people decide I know what I want better than the bureaucrat and they’re eliminating this. That’s the essence of what’s happening and that’s why it’s not going to work....
Why Won’t The GOP Let Us Have a Normal Debate? Why!?
...Well, let’s see if we can lift the veil of mystery. For starters, Obama’s statements were not ”narrowly untrue.” They were broadly, knowingly and entirely untrue. He repeated them over and over again, often straight into the camera. It’s nice that Greg Sargent concedes now that the president “could have been clearer.” But “could have been clearer” implies that he was a little clear about how this would work and just didn’t clarify enough. The truth is the complete opposite. He wasn’t even deliberately unclear. He was clearly dishonest. Obama was stridently deceitful. Seriously, watch this video compilation of Obama’s repeated and vociferous statements about “keeping your plan” and tell me he was just failing to be sufficiently clear that millions of people wouldn’t be able to keep their plans...
...I agree that everyone in wonkland knew it was b.s. But what does it say about the liberal wonks that they either never said so when the legislation was being debated or said so very quietly under their breaths. I’m genuinely curious, did Sargent or his colleagues at the Washington Post report that what Obama was saying — never mind the impression he was leaving — was a lie, or even “narrowly untrue”? I mean did they report it when it might have hurt the law’s chances of passage, not afterwards when all lies are retroactively absolved as the price for social progress.
Indeed, what is so infuriating to many of us is that now that it’s the law of the land, Obamacare supporters act as if all of the lies were no big deal and no serious person believed them anyway. But as anyone can tell you, if Obama had been honest about the trade-offs in his signature piece of legislation, it would never have become his signature piece of legislation. So please, don’t tell me the lies don’t matter....
...And now, when the Democrats’ lies are proving politically inconvenient, we’re told that if Republicans were smart, they’d accept the law and engage in a sober conversation about the very real trade-offs in the law liberals lied about for years.
I’m not arguing that the GOP shouldn’t capitulate to the law simply out of spite (though spite is underrated in this circumstance if you ask me). But I fail to see why Republicans should simply accept that the law is here to stay and get into wonky discussions about how to improve it at the margins at the exact moment the wheels are coming off the bus. The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law. The Right opposed the law on principle. A single party — the Democrats — own this law in a way that no party has had complete ownership of any major social legislation in a century. They bought this legislation with deceit and the GOP said so....
...Well, let’s see if we can lift the veil of mystery. For starters, Obama’s statements were not ”narrowly untrue.” They were broadly, knowingly and entirely untrue. He repeated them over and over again, often straight into the camera. It’s nice that Greg Sargent concedes now that the president “could have been clearer.” But “could have been clearer” implies that he was a little clear about how this would work and just didn’t clarify enough. The truth is the complete opposite. He wasn’t even deliberately unclear. He was clearly dishonest. Obama was stridently deceitful. Seriously, watch this video compilation of Obama’s repeated and vociferous statements about “keeping your plan” and tell me he was just failing to be sufficiently clear that millions of people wouldn’t be able to keep their plans...
...I agree that everyone in wonkland knew it was b.s. But what does it say about the liberal wonks that they either never said so when the legislation was being debated or said so very quietly under their breaths. I’m genuinely curious, did Sargent or his colleagues at the Washington Post report that what Obama was saying — never mind the impression he was leaving — was a lie, or even “narrowly untrue”? I mean did they report it when it might have hurt the law’s chances of passage, not afterwards when all lies are retroactively absolved as the price for social progress.
Indeed, what is so infuriating to many of us is that now that it’s the law of the land, Obamacare supporters act as if all of the lies were no big deal and no serious person believed them anyway. But as anyone can tell you, if Obama had been honest about the trade-offs in his signature piece of legislation, it would never have become his signature piece of legislation. So please, don’t tell me the lies don’t matter....
...And now, when the Democrats’ lies are proving politically inconvenient, we’re told that if Republicans were smart, they’d accept the law and engage in a sober conversation about the very real trade-offs in the law liberals lied about for years.
I’m not arguing that the GOP shouldn’t capitulate to the law simply out of spite (though spite is underrated in this circumstance if you ask me). But I fail to see why Republicans should simply accept that the law is here to stay and get into wonky discussions about how to improve it at the margins at the exact moment the wheels are coming off the bus. The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law. The Right opposed the law on principle. A single party — the Democrats — own this law in a way that no party has had complete ownership of any major social legislation in a century. They bought this legislation with deceit and the GOP said so....
Question for Jay Carney: Didn’t Obama lie when he told people, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”? Update: Obama knew for at least three years
...All that’s missing is a perfunctory “let me be clear.” Carney’s reply to this is, essentially, (a) a lot of people will be able to keep their plan if they like it, even if it’s not quite everyone, and (b) those who are getting dropped from their plans will get more comprehensive coverage on the exchanges. The latter point is like having the CEO of DirecTV tell customers that their monthly bill is about to double but they’ll now receive an extra hundred channels in return, maybe one or two of which people will actually watch. Comprehensive coverage is lovely, but if you’re on a budget basic coverage might be more cost-effective; why pay $1,000 extra a year for a new package that includes substance-abuse treatment, say, if you don’t drink or do drugs? Obama took the option of cheaper catastrophic care away from people because insurers wanted to squeeze healthy middle-class suckers for extra revenue by forcing coverage on them that they don’t need. And yet Carney’s basically selling this as a *good* thing about the law, a sort of upgrade over the basic — but affordable! — plans people have now. Remind me again: Isn’t “affordability” supposed to be a key plank of the Affordable Care Act?
As to the first point, that a lot of people will be keeping their plans, it depends on how you define “a lot.” Sixteen million people being dropped and half of them being forced to pay more sounds like “a lot” too...
Brutal: The “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” compilation clip
...In the same piece, Jonathan Strong quotes Harry Reid as saying it’s true that you can keep your plan under ObamaCare because it’s not the feds who are canceling coverage, it’s the insurers themselves. (“Insurance companies cancel plans. That’s what they do.”) If you’re mad that the rug’s been pulled out from under you, take it up with Blue Cross or whoever. I’ve gotta say: Never did I think they’d be so cornered politically that Valerie Jarrett’s Orwellian defense of ObamaCare’s rules would catch on among Democrats more widely. But, per Reid, apparently it has. They really are seriously going to argue that the cancellations, many of which are compelled by ObamaCare’s new rules on “essential benefits” and disqualified grandfathered plans, are something that insurers are doing somewhat voluntarily, not because America’s new legal framework is driving them to do so. At today’s House hearing, Sandy Levin actually described the cancellation notices people are receiving as mere “transitions” onto the new health-insurance exchange. We’re about three weeks away from Democrats saying, “ObamaCare? What’s ‘ObamaCare’?”
For your homework, via Ace, go read this Patrick Brennan post at the Corner that explains how Obama’s own HHS deputies made the law even more aggressive than it was designed to be in terms of forcing plan cancellations. The math of covering preexisting conditions is such that insurers had little choice but to take certain actions, like raising people’s deductibles, that would disqualify them from “grandfather” status — and O’s team, by writing the regulations for disqualification broadly, compounded the problem. It didn’t have to be this bad. They wanted it that way.
Valerie Jarrett: Obamacare doesn’t force you off your plan; your insurance company does, by complying with Obamacare
...She leaves out the part where Obamacare legally requires all health insurance plans to include a certain number of benefits that was above and beyond what many more, ahem, affordable plans offered, thereby making certain plans illegal. Many of those plans were plans that people liked and were assured they could keep. Obamacare offered a “grandfathering” clause, which the administration later eviscerated after it had served its political purpose, ensuring even more people would lose their current coverage. So, no change is required by you under Obamacare unless your insurance company goes and changes your existing plan to comply with Obamacare....
...Even the most reliably hacky Obamacare supporters have at least conceded that people are losing their old plans because of Obamacare. They spin it with the notion that these new plans are way better, so why would you have liked that dumb old plan anyway (which fit within your family’s budget and served you well)? But the act of spinning requires at least some reckoning with the truth.
What level of denial and/or mendacity is necessary to tweet this? What confidence that the media will be there to cover your lies? This is the mindset of the people surrounding President Obama, and because no one’s ever held accountable for screwing up, this is the mindset of those who are “fixing” Obamacare’s problems....
...All that’s missing is a perfunctory “let me be clear.” Carney’s reply to this is, essentially, (a) a lot of people will be able to keep their plan if they like it, even if it’s not quite everyone, and (b) those who are getting dropped from their plans will get more comprehensive coverage on the exchanges. The latter point is like having the CEO of DirecTV tell customers that their monthly bill is about to double but they’ll now receive an extra hundred channels in return, maybe one or two of which people will actually watch. Comprehensive coverage is lovely, but if you’re on a budget basic coverage might be more cost-effective; why pay $1,000 extra a year for a new package that includes substance-abuse treatment, say, if you don’t drink or do drugs? Obama took the option of cheaper catastrophic care away from people because insurers wanted to squeeze healthy middle-class suckers for extra revenue by forcing coverage on them that they don’t need. And yet Carney’s basically selling this as a *good* thing about the law, a sort of upgrade over the basic — but affordable! — plans people have now. Remind me again: Isn’t “affordability” supposed to be a key plank of the Affordable Care Act?
As to the first point, that a lot of people will be keeping their plans, it depends on how you define “a lot.” Sixteen million people being dropped and half of them being forced to pay more sounds like “a lot” too...
Brutal: The “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” compilation clip
...In the same piece, Jonathan Strong quotes Harry Reid as saying it’s true that you can keep your plan under ObamaCare because it’s not the feds who are canceling coverage, it’s the insurers themselves. (“Insurance companies cancel plans. That’s what they do.”) If you’re mad that the rug’s been pulled out from under you, take it up with Blue Cross or whoever. I’ve gotta say: Never did I think they’d be so cornered politically that Valerie Jarrett’s Orwellian defense of ObamaCare’s rules would catch on among Democrats more widely. But, per Reid, apparently it has. They really are seriously going to argue that the cancellations, many of which are compelled by ObamaCare’s new rules on “essential benefits” and disqualified grandfathered plans, are something that insurers are doing somewhat voluntarily, not because America’s new legal framework is driving them to do so. At today’s House hearing, Sandy Levin actually described the cancellation notices people are receiving as mere “transitions” onto the new health-insurance exchange. We’re about three weeks away from Democrats saying, “ObamaCare? What’s ‘ObamaCare’?”
For your homework, via Ace, go read this Patrick Brennan post at the Corner that explains how Obama’s own HHS deputies made the law even more aggressive than it was designed to be in terms of forcing plan cancellations. The math of covering preexisting conditions is such that insurers had little choice but to take certain actions, like raising people’s deductibles, that would disqualify them from “grandfather” status — and O’s team, by writing the regulations for disqualification broadly, compounded the problem. It didn’t have to be this bad. They wanted it that way.
Valerie Jarrett: Obamacare doesn’t force you off your plan; your insurance company does, by complying with Obamacare
...She leaves out the part where Obamacare legally requires all health insurance plans to include a certain number of benefits that was above and beyond what many more, ahem, affordable plans offered, thereby making certain plans illegal. Many of those plans were plans that people liked and were assured they could keep. Obamacare offered a “grandfathering” clause, which the administration later eviscerated after it had served its political purpose, ensuring even more people would lose their current coverage. So, no change is required by you under Obamacare unless your insurance company goes and changes your existing plan to comply with Obamacare....
...Even the most reliably hacky Obamacare supporters have at least conceded that people are losing their old plans because of Obamacare. They spin it with the notion that these new plans are way better, so why would you have liked that dumb old plan anyway (which fit within your family’s budget and served you well)? But the act of spinning requires at least some reckoning with the truth.
What level of denial and/or mendacity is necessary to tweet this? What confidence that the media will be there to cover your lies? This is the mindset of the people surrounding President Obama, and because no one’s ever held accountable for screwing up, this is the mindset of those who are “fixing” Obamacare’s problems....
CBS: Insurers backing out of the ObamaCare exchange markets
...The proposal to extend the open enrollment period, which has been endorsed by 10 Democratic senators, is a reaction to the well-documented problems with HealthCare.gov in its opening month. With many people having trouble applying for insurance through the website, and the administration setting a Nov. 30 deadline for the site to be fully functional, the senators say people need more time to sign up for coverage. The enrollment period is scheduled to end March 31. The senators haven’t asked for a specific new end date yet.
But expect to start hearing a significant amount of pushback from the industry, with a message focused on the fact that insurance premiums could skyrocket in 2015 if the enrollment period is extended. …
Right now, insurers need to submit 2015 rates to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services between April 1 and April 30, 2014. If the enrollment period ends in March, as currently scheduled, insurers will know exactly what their customer base looks like as they make projections about their 2015 rates.
But if people can still sign up after March 31, either while or after insurers are making those calculations, it creates a few problems. Here’s the big one: Most experts assume that young and healthy people — who are crucial to making the law’s finances work by offsetting the costs of sicker and older enrollees — are more likely to wait till the last possible moment or until they get sick to sign up for insurance.
If that’s true and they can’t be accounted for when insurers are projecting their 2015 rates because of extended enrollment, that could lead to an older and sicker pool when those calculations for 2015 are being made. That would likely increase rates. And generally, the uncertainty about the pools could cause insurers to err on the side of caution....
...The proposal to extend the open enrollment period, which has been endorsed by 10 Democratic senators, is a reaction to the well-documented problems with HealthCare.gov in its opening month. With many people having trouble applying for insurance through the website, and the administration setting a Nov. 30 deadline for the site to be fully functional, the senators say people need more time to sign up for coverage. The enrollment period is scheduled to end March 31. The senators haven’t asked for a specific new end date yet.
But expect to start hearing a significant amount of pushback from the industry, with a message focused on the fact that insurance premiums could skyrocket in 2015 if the enrollment period is extended. …
Right now, insurers need to submit 2015 rates to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services between April 1 and April 30, 2014. If the enrollment period ends in March, as currently scheduled, insurers will know exactly what their customer base looks like as they make projections about their 2015 rates.
But if people can still sign up after March 31, either while or after insurers are making those calculations, it creates a few problems. Here’s the big one: Most experts assume that young and healthy people — who are crucial to making the law’s finances work by offsetting the costs of sicker and older enrollees — are more likely to wait till the last possible moment or until they get sick to sign up for insurance.
If that’s true and they can’t be accounted for when insurers are projecting their 2015 rates because of extended enrollment, that could lead to an older and sicker pool when those calculations for 2015 are being made. That would likely increase rates. And generally, the uncertainty about the pools could cause insurers to err on the side of caution....
How the Obama Administration Made Sure People Couldn’t Keep Their Plans
...The Affordable Care Act as written and passed would have protected the grandfathered plans for a longer period of time and with more freedom for adjustment, but the Obama administration filled out the Secretary Shalls in such a way as to make that much harder, if not basically impossible, to do. The Obama administration’s original, June 2010 rules were actually even stricter, and would have, for example, made it impossible for an insurer or company to change the firms it uses to manage and administer the plan (which needn’t affect coverage and is a simple way to lower costs); those ludicrous restrictions were eliminated, but enough rules remain that it’s, again, near impossible to maintain a grandfathered health-care plan.
...The Affordable Care Act as written and passed would have protected the grandfathered plans for a longer period of time and with more freedom for adjustment, but the Obama administration filled out the Secretary Shalls in such a way as to make that much harder, if not basically impossible, to do. The Obama administration’s original, June 2010 rules were actually even stricter, and would have, for example, made it impossible for an insurer or company to change the firms it uses to manage and administer the plan (which needn’t affect coverage and is a simple way to lower costs); those ludicrous restrictions were eliminated, but enough rules remain that it’s, again, near impossible to maintain a grandfathered health-care plan.
Obamacare enrollments got off to very slow start, documents show
...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."
They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.
By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to "approximately 100." By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect "248 enrollments" nationwide....
...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."
They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.
By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to "approximately 100." By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect "248 enrollments" nationwide....
Obamacare: Unfair to the young middle class, punished enough already
...I am being funneled into the closest equivalent plan under the new California health exchange, and my monthly premium is going to rise by nearly 43% to $214 a month.
My old plan was as bare-bones as they came, so I assumed that even though the new plan would cost more, my coverage would improve under Obamacare, at least marginally.
It did not.
Under my old plan, my maximum out-of-pocket expense was $4,900. Under the new plan, I’m on the hook for up to $6,350. Copays for my doctor visits will double. For urgent-care visits, they will quadruple. Though slightly cheaper plans exist if I decide to shop around on the exchange, I will lose my dental coverage should I switch.
Needless to say, I am not pleased.
Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
We just didn’t realize that, unless we had health insurance at work, we’d be the ones paying for it....
...I am being funneled into the closest equivalent plan under the new California health exchange, and my monthly premium is going to rise by nearly 43% to $214 a month.
My old plan was as bare-bones as they came, so I assumed that even though the new plan would cost more, my coverage would improve under Obamacare, at least marginally.
It did not.
Under my old plan, my maximum out-of-pocket expense was $4,900. Under the new plan, I’m on the hook for up to $6,350. Copays for my doctor visits will double. For urgent-care visits, they will quadruple. Though slightly cheaper plans exist if I decide to shop around on the exchange, I will lose my dental coverage should I switch.
Needless to say, I am not pleased.
Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
We just didn’t realize that, unless we had health insurance at work, we’d be the ones paying for it....
IRS' Lois Lerner gave confidential Tea Party tax info to FEC, violating law
...The email chain began Feb. 3, 2009, when the FEC made it’s request to Lerner.
She emailed back 10 minutes later, and said: “I have sent your email out to some of my staff. Will get back to you as soon as I have heard from them.”
According to Judicial Watch, the materials “from the IRS’ files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Forms 990) and request for exempt recognition forms (Form 1024), Articles of Organization and other corporate documents, and correspondence between the nonprofit organizations and the IRS. Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is a felony for an IRS official to disclose either ‘return information or ‘taxpayer return information,’ even to another government agency.”
Lerner, who was head of the unit deciding tax exempt status, quit in the scandal.
“These extensive emails and other materials provide a disturbing window into the activities of two out-of-control federal agencies: the IRS and FEC,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And there is the very real question as to whether these documents evidence a crime.”
...The email chain began Feb. 3, 2009, when the FEC made it’s request to Lerner.
She emailed back 10 minutes later, and said: “I have sent your email out to some of my staff. Will get back to you as soon as I have heard from them.”
According to Judicial Watch, the materials “from the IRS’ files sent from Lerner to the FEC containing detailed, confidential information about the organizations. These include annual tax returns (Forms 990) and request for exempt recognition forms (Form 1024), Articles of Organization and other corporate documents, and correspondence between the nonprofit organizations and the IRS. Under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is a felony for an IRS official to disclose either ‘return information or ‘taxpayer return information,’ even to another government agency.”
Lerner, who was head of the unit deciding tax exempt status, quit in the scandal.
“These extensive emails and other materials provide a disturbing window into the activities of two out-of-control federal agencies: the IRS and FEC,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And there is the very real question as to whether these documents evidence a crime.”
NSA Takes Huge Amounts of Data from Google and Yahoo
The National Security Agency has gained access to Google and Yahoo’s cloud networks and downloaded massive amounts of data including from Americans, according to the latest revelation on leaks from Edward Snowden, this time in the Washington Post.
The project involved, known as MUSCULAR, is operated jointly with the British intelligence agency known as GCHQ, and engages in copying data from an undisclosed interception point outside of the United States from fiber-optic cables that carry information between the companies’ data centers.
Circumventing a court-approved process that allows intelligence agencies to make requests directly from companies, the NSA inhales data as it moves between data centers around the world. Data is shuttled around this as part of regular backup processes at the companies, and to enable you to quickly access your data from anywhere in the world. Google and Yahoo run their own private networks, often passing data between countries and making it vulnerable to NSA taps....
The National Security Agency has gained access to Google and Yahoo’s cloud networks and downloaded massive amounts of data including from Americans, according to the latest revelation on leaks from Edward Snowden, this time in the Washington Post.
The project involved, known as MUSCULAR, is operated jointly with the British intelligence agency known as GCHQ, and engages in copying data from an undisclosed interception point outside of the United States from fiber-optic cables that carry information between the companies’ data centers.
Circumventing a court-approved process that allows intelligence agencies to make requests directly from companies, the NSA inhales data as it moves between data centers around the world. Data is shuttled around this as part of regular backup processes at the companies, and to enable you to quickly access your data from anywhere in the world. Google and Yahoo run their own private networks, often passing data between countries and making it vulnerable to NSA taps....
‘How did they know?’ Jim Angle shares disturbing experience with Obamacare 800 number
...@JimAngleFox called 800 number for Obamacare from unlisted number to ask questions and they REFUSED. They knew he was from the media. Wow. — Stan Darke (@VintageStan) November 01, 2013
Well, that seems newsworthy. We’re sure MSNBC will be all over this one.
Fox News correspondent Jim Angle described what happened when he reached out to the Obamacare call center.
I call the healthcare.gov 800 #, give my name & address, then put on hold. The guy comes back & says you appear to be in the media.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013
I was calling from an unlisted number & gave personal cell as my phone. How did they know? I have no idea but he wouldn't answer questions.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013
He told me a "an advanced resolution specialist" would call me in 2-5 business days. That will be interesting.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013...
...@JimAngleFox called 800 number for Obamacare from unlisted number to ask questions and they REFUSED. They knew he was from the media. Wow. — Stan Darke (@VintageStan) November 01, 2013
Well, that seems newsworthy. We’re sure MSNBC will be all over this one.
Fox News correspondent Jim Angle described what happened when he reached out to the Obamacare call center.
I call the healthcare.gov 800 #, give my name & address, then put on hold. The guy comes back & says you appear to be in the media.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013
I was calling from an unlisted number & gave personal cell as my phone. How did they know? I have no idea but he wouldn't answer questions.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013
He told me a "an advanced resolution specialist" would call me in 2-5 business days. That will be interesting.— Jim Angle (@JimAngleFox) November 01, 2013...
Lerner's Pension Could Be as Much as $102,600/Year, $3.96 Million Lifetime
Even before she retired last week, scandalized IRS official Lois Lerner's compensation was already attracting attention. While on administrative leave, federal rules allowed her to keep collecting a salary, one that reportedly totaled $177,000. So it was no surprise when speculation arose over how much Lerner could collect in federal pension benefits.
Unfortunately, that speculation, which initially projected a benefit of over $50,000, might be off by about half ... and in the wrong direction.
National Taxpayers Union calculations show that Lerner could qualify for a starting pension at the annual equivalent of as much as $102,600, and up to $3.96 million over her lifetime....
Even before she retired last week, scandalized IRS official Lois Lerner's compensation was already attracting attention. While on administrative leave, federal rules allowed her to keep collecting a salary, one that reportedly totaled $177,000. So it was no surprise when speculation arose over how much Lerner could collect in federal pension benefits.
Unfortunately, that speculation, which initially projected a benefit of over $50,000, might be off by about half ... and in the wrong direction.
National Taxpayers Union calculations show that Lerner could qualify for a starting pension at the annual equivalent of as much as $102,600, and up to $3.96 million over her lifetime....
Report: White House exerting ‘massive pressure’ on insurance companies to keep quiet
...“Basically, if you speak out, if you’re quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet,” said CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin on Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday night. Insurance companies executives, Griffin said, ask heads of consulting firms not to criticize the Obamacare rollout debacle publicly.
“They feel defenseless before the White House P.R. team,” Griffin said. “The sources said they fear White House retribution.”
Prior to the Obamacare rollout, insurance companies issued warnings to the White House about the possibility of mass cancellations, which the administration ignored.
Although the mass cancelations are an embarrassment to insurance companies, they are more concerned about losing their biggest customer — the federal government.
“Executives are willing to listen to the White House, because right now, it’s the government that’s the biggest customers of these insurance companies,” Griffin said. “Government-backed plans accounted for about 48 percent of healthcare policies last year, Anderson — a number that’s expected to grow this year, and years to come.”...
...“Basically, if you speak out, if you’re quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet,” said CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin on Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday night. Insurance companies executives, Griffin said, ask heads of consulting firms not to criticize the Obamacare rollout debacle publicly.
“They feel defenseless before the White House P.R. team,” Griffin said. “The sources said they fear White House retribution.”
Prior to the Obamacare rollout, insurance companies issued warnings to the White House about the possibility of mass cancellations, which the administration ignored.
Although the mass cancelations are an embarrassment to insurance companies, they are more concerned about losing their biggest customer — the federal government.
“Executives are willing to listen to the White House, because right now, it’s the government that’s the biggest customers of these insurance companies,” Griffin said. “Government-backed plans accounted for about 48 percent of healthcare policies last year, Anderson — a number that’s expected to grow this year, and years to come.”...
How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American
...First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that "When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them." Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. But we do know that U.S. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States....
...He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administraton's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called "targeted killing" reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was "an easy one." But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.
Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla. Nor was he "an inspiration," as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone "operational," as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all. ...
...ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.
GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business....
...First, it's vital for the uninitiated to understand how Team Obama misleads when it talks about its drone program. Asked how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs replies that "When there are people who are trying to harm us, and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we've taken that fight to them." Since the kill list itself is secret, there's no way to offer a specific counterexample. But we do know that U.S. drones are targeting people who've never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States....
...He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan. Of course, both Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were, at the very least, traitors to their country -- they had both gone to Yemen and taken up with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Awlaki had proven himself an expert inciter of those with murderous designs against America and Americans: the rare man of words who could be said to have a body count. When he was killed, on September 30, 2011, President Obama made a speech about it; a few months later, when the Obama administraton's public-relations campaign about its embrace of what has come to be called "targeted killing" reached its climax in a front-page story in the New York Times that presented the President of the United States as the last word in deciding who lives and who dies, he was quoted as saying that the decision to put Anwar al-Awlaki on the kill list -- and then to kill him -- was "an easy one." But Abdulrahman al-Awlaki wasn't on an American kill list.
Nor was he a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla. Nor was he "an inspiration," as his father styled himself, for those determined to draw American blood; nor had he gone "operational," as American authorities said his father had, in drawing up plots against Americans and American interests. He was a boy who hadn't seen his father in two years, since his father had gone into hiding. He was a boy who knew his father was on an American kill list and who snuck out of his family's home in the early morning hours of September 4, 2011, to try to find him. He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all. ...
...ADAMSON: ...It's an American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial. And, he's underage. He's a minor.
GIBBS: I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business....
Are Men Society's Scapegoats?
...Men, of course, aren't the only ones who can do damage; statistics show that women can be just as violent as men. But while the Violence Against Women Act provides millions of dollars for shelters for abused women, you don't see too many shelters -- any, actually -- for abused men. "It's often been taken for granted that women can't really do that much damage, so it's OK to maybe slap your boyfriend or do something of that nature," says Kellie Palazzolo, an assistant professor at Arizona State University's Hugh Downs School of Human Communication who is overseeing research on how college students perceive female and male perpetrators.
That may be why so many women applauded Elin Nordegren's alleged golf club attack on then-hubby Tiger Woods -- we just don't like to think of women being violent except in self-defense. He cheated on her; he made her do that!...
..."Men are about 19 more times more likely than women to say they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse. About 85 percent of these abuse allegations are made by women during battles over parent time, during the throes of divorce, or when a live-in situation is failing. ... "(A) sex-abuse charge -- even if false -- often costs the father his job, his health, his friends, his reputation, and his relationship with his child." ...
...When it comes to custody cases, however, the odds are often stacked against dads. "Some women are coached to make false allegations of domestic violence, rape and child abuse," says Dr. Tara Palmatier, the no-nonsense founder of A Shrink 4 Men, in an email exchange with me. "Their attorneys may file baseless restraining orders to raise the stakes on men in the divorce or custody cases. These tactics don't just hurt men: they create widespread cynicism about the family court and the efficacy of the justice system."...
...Men, of course, aren't the only ones who can do damage; statistics show that women can be just as violent as men. But while the Violence Against Women Act provides millions of dollars for shelters for abused women, you don't see too many shelters -- any, actually -- for abused men. "It's often been taken for granted that women can't really do that much damage, so it's OK to maybe slap your boyfriend or do something of that nature," says Kellie Palazzolo, an assistant professor at Arizona State University's Hugh Downs School of Human Communication who is overseeing research on how college students perceive female and male perpetrators.
That may be why so many women applauded Elin Nordegren's alleged golf club attack on then-hubby Tiger Woods -- we just don't like to think of women being violent except in self-defense. He cheated on her; he made her do that!...
..."Men are about 19 more times more likely than women to say they have been falsely accused of sexual abuse. About 85 percent of these abuse allegations are made by women during battles over parent time, during the throes of divorce, or when a live-in situation is failing. ... "(A) sex-abuse charge -- even if false -- often costs the father his job, his health, his friends, his reputation, and his relationship with his child." ...
...When it comes to custody cases, however, the odds are often stacked against dads. "Some women are coached to make false allegations of domestic violence, rape and child abuse," says Dr. Tara Palmatier, the no-nonsense founder of A Shrink 4 Men, in an email exchange with me. "Their attorneys may file baseless restraining orders to raise the stakes on men in the divorce or custody cases. These tactics don't just hurt men: they create widespread cynicism about the family court and the efficacy of the justice system."...
In health care mess, Obama reaps what he sowed
...There's a story about First Lady Hillary Clinton's attempt to pass a national health care plan back in 1993 and 1994. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the old Democratic senator, told her that such far-reaching legislation had to pass with a really big majority to make sweeping changes in American life. "They pass 70-to-30, or they fail," Moynihan told Clinton, according to a recent account by Todd Purdum in Politico....
...Now, Obama is suffering the consequences of relying on just one party. When problems arose with his signature legislative achievement, he had no Republican support to help him out. None....
...There's a story about First Lady Hillary Clinton's attempt to pass a national health care plan back in 1993 and 1994. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the old Democratic senator, told her that such far-reaching legislation had to pass with a really big majority to make sweeping changes in American life. "They pass 70-to-30, or they fail," Moynihan told Clinton, according to a recent account by Todd Purdum in Politico....
...Now, Obama is suffering the consequences of relying on just one party. When problems arose with his signature legislative achievement, he had no Republican support to help him out. None....
Under Pressure From The White House, NBC Throws Its Reporter Under the Bus and Censors News That Obama Wrote Regs to Disqualify and Terminate Health Insurance Policies
...This is not just about having knowledge that events beyond Obama's control would unfold -- this is about events directly at his control. Regulation-writers are executive employees, and as such, answer to the president and not Congress.
This means Obama has the actual power -- not the puffed up, falsely asserted unconstitutional power, but the genuine legal power -- to call this agency and tell them, "We sold this bill as permitting people to keep their insurance; please re-write the regulations in a way that will honor this promise."
Remember, regulations are supposed to add details to the spirit of the law. They are not supposed to change the meaning of the law. Obama's regulations -- written at his behest, or at least with his connivance -- change the meaning of the law to render the "grandfathered policy" provision a nullity.
Via Politico, the White House began pushing back against this story. Not because it was untrue, but because it was politically lethal....
...The White House is taking the position that even a minor escalation in policy premium -- something that always happens, given the constant inflation in health care insurance costs -- constitutes a "new policy" which is then not grandfathered.
This is absurd. A regulation could easily be written that any escalation in premium equal to less than the rate of health care inflation + 1% will be considered the same policy and thus grandfathered. They are deliberately writing the regulations to disqualify the maximum number of policies, because they want to force the maximum number of people into the exchanges, which are, effectively, high-risk pools, and need a lot of healthy bodies to have any shot at solvency.
And any policy that is cancelled can then have its rates forcibly jacked up by ObamaCare, in order to subsidize others.
After this pushback, NBC deleted paragraph 3 without noting why they had done so. ...
...But why was it deleted in the first place? Why did NBC decide to trust the Obama Administration on this -- obviously a party that stinks of self-interest and potential deceit -- over its own reporter, who got it right?
I really want to stress this to everybody, because no one seems to get this yet:
These regulations, being a creature of the Executive branch, can be rewritten by the executive branch at any time. We don't need a law for this (though one would be useful, to force Obama to do the right thing).
Obama has it within his power to call up the HHS reg-writers and instruct them to honor the promise he made time and again for two years. And he doesn't want people to know this, because he is determined to break that promise.
That promise was always a lie, and not a meaningless lie at the periphery, but a central lie propping up the political campaign for ObamaCare. Had he told Americans that they would be losing their current health care in order to be dumped into what is effectively a high-risk pool, so that they could subsidize high-risk clients, the public would have rejected the law even more strongly than he did.
So he lied. And lied. And lied. And lied some more.
And even at this late date, he could still choose to honor his promise.
But he won't, because he can't -- he always intended to take people's insurance away from them. Always. And he's not going to undo, short of a veto-proof act of Congress....
On Obama's Devious Regulations to Force the Terminations of All "Grandfathered" Health Care Plans
...The Affordable Care Act as written and passed would have protected the grandfathered plans for a longer period of time and with more freedom for adjustment, but the Obama administration filled out the Secretary Shalls in such a way as to make that much harder, if not basically impossible, to do. The Obama administration’s original, June 2010 rules were actually even stricter, and would have, for example, made it impossible for an insurer or company to change the firms it uses to manage and administer the plan (which needn’t affect coverage and is a simple way to lower costs); those ludicrous restrictions were eliminated, but enough rules remain that it’s, again, near impossible to maintain a grandfathered health-care plan....
...This is not just about having knowledge that events beyond Obama's control would unfold -- this is about events directly at his control. Regulation-writers are executive employees, and as such, answer to the president and not Congress.
This means Obama has the actual power -- not the puffed up, falsely asserted unconstitutional power, but the genuine legal power -- to call this agency and tell them, "We sold this bill as permitting people to keep their insurance; please re-write the regulations in a way that will honor this promise."
Remember, regulations are supposed to add details to the spirit of the law. They are not supposed to change the meaning of the law. Obama's regulations -- written at his behest, or at least with his connivance -- change the meaning of the law to render the "grandfathered policy" provision a nullity.
Via Politico, the White House began pushing back against this story. Not because it was untrue, but because it was politically lethal....
...The White House is taking the position that even a minor escalation in policy premium -- something that always happens, given the constant inflation in health care insurance costs -- constitutes a "new policy" which is then not grandfathered.
This is absurd. A regulation could easily be written that any escalation in premium equal to less than the rate of health care inflation + 1% will be considered the same policy and thus grandfathered. They are deliberately writing the regulations to disqualify the maximum number of policies, because they want to force the maximum number of people into the exchanges, which are, effectively, high-risk pools, and need a lot of healthy bodies to have any shot at solvency.
And any policy that is cancelled can then have its rates forcibly jacked up by ObamaCare, in order to subsidize others.
After this pushback, NBC deleted paragraph 3 without noting why they had done so. ...
...But why was it deleted in the first place? Why did NBC decide to trust the Obama Administration on this -- obviously a party that stinks of self-interest and potential deceit -- over its own reporter, who got it right?
I really want to stress this to everybody, because no one seems to get this yet:
These regulations, being a creature of the Executive branch, can be rewritten by the executive branch at any time. We don't need a law for this (though one would be useful, to force Obama to do the right thing).
Obama has it within his power to call up the HHS reg-writers and instruct them to honor the promise he made time and again for two years. And he doesn't want people to know this, because he is determined to break that promise.
That promise was always a lie, and not a meaningless lie at the periphery, but a central lie propping up the political campaign for ObamaCare. Had he told Americans that they would be losing their current health care in order to be dumped into what is effectively a high-risk pool, so that they could subsidize high-risk clients, the public would have rejected the law even more strongly than he did.
So he lied. And lied. And lied. And lied some more.
And even at this late date, he could still choose to honor his promise.
But he won't, because he can't -- he always intended to take people's insurance away from them. Always. And he's not going to undo, short of a veto-proof act of Congress....
On Obama's Devious Regulations to Force the Terminations of All "Grandfathered" Health Care Plans
...The Affordable Care Act as written and passed would have protected the grandfathered plans for a longer period of time and with more freedom for adjustment, but the Obama administration filled out the Secretary Shalls in such a way as to make that much harder, if not basically impossible, to do. The Obama administration’s original, June 2010 rules were actually even stricter, and would have, for example, made it impossible for an insurer or company to change the firms it uses to manage and administer the plan (which needn’t affect coverage and is a simple way to lower costs); those ludicrous restrictions were eliminated, but enough rules remain that it’s, again, near impossible to maintain a grandfathered health-care plan....
Saturday, November 02, 2013
US swallowed $9.7 billion loss on General Motors bailout
The U.S. government has booked a loss of $9.7 billion on the nearly $50 billion bailout of U.S. automaker General Motors, according to a quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday.
In 2009, the U.S.Treasury extended $49.5 billion in loans to GM in exchange for $2.1 billion in preferred stock and a 60.8 percent equity stake.
Treasury has since whittled down its stake in GM through a series of stock sales. Those sales have all taken place below the price Treasury needed to break even on its GM investment, resulting in the loss, according to Tuesday's report from the Special Inspector General overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program....
The U.S. government has booked a loss of $9.7 billion on the nearly $50 billion bailout of U.S. automaker General Motors, according to a quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday.
In 2009, the U.S.Treasury extended $49.5 billion in loans to GM in exchange for $2.1 billion in preferred stock and a 60.8 percent equity stake.
Treasury has since whittled down its stake in GM through a series of stock sales. Those sales have all taken place below the price Treasury needed to break even on its GM investment, resulting in the loss, according to Tuesday's report from the Special Inspector General overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program....
Obama Officials In 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare
...60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans....
...60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans....
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