I don't think Obama is out to destroy America, but like the leaders of the banks, and other members of government, he's out to use America for his own best interest.
90% of what is in Washington today is not worth spit. And recent public poll numbers support that.
Gee, ya think?!?!!?!!?!?
Moderator: Super Moderators
Yes, yes, facts are lovely things. Except for "hate facts." Then they must be expunged. Or preferably ignored. The only irony is the way the contemporary progbot prides itself on its unerring dedication to rationality.
But sometimes truth is also communicated through metaphor. Here's a good example....
But sometimes truth is also communicated through metaphor. Here's a good example....
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/366289/printFuneral Spice
But the star of the show was undoubtedly Thamsanqa Jantjie, the sign-language interpreter who stood alongside the world’s leaders and translated their eulogies for the deaf. Unfortunately, he translated them into total gibberish, reduced by the time of President Obama’s appearance to making random hand gestures, as who has not felt the urge to do during the great man’s speeches. Mr. Jantjie has now pleaded in mitigation that he was having a sudden hallucination because he is a violent schizophrenic. It has not been established whether he is, in fact, a violent schizophrenic, or, as with his claim to be a sign-language interpreter, merely purporting to be one. Asked how often he has been violent, he replied, somewhat cryptically, “A lot.”
Still, South African officials are furiously pointing fingers (appropriately enough) to account for how he wound up onstage. “I do not think he was just picked up off the street. He was from a school for the deaf,” Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, the Deputy Minister for Persons with Disability, assured the press. But the Deaf Federation of South Africa said it had previously complained about his nonsensical signing after an event last year. Mr. Jantjie was paid a grand total of for his simultaneous translation of the speeches of the U.N. secretary-general, six presidents, the head of the African Union, and a dozen other dignitaries. Ms. Bogopane-Zulu notes that the going rate for signing in South Africa is 5 to 5. So she thinks a junior official may simply have awarded the contract to the lowest bid.
That would never happen in Washington, of course. But how heartening, as one watches the viral video of Obama droning on while a mere foot and a half away Mr. Jantjie rubs his belly and tickles his ear, to think that the White House’s usual money-no-object security operation went to the trouble of flying in Air Force One, plus the “decoy” Air Force One, plus support aircraft, plus the 120-vehicle motorcade or whatever it’s up to by now, plus a bazillion Secret Service agents with reflector shades and telephone wire dangling from their ears, to shepherd POTUS into the secured venue and then stand him onstage next to an -a-day violent schizophrenic.
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Raggedyann
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Cherry Kelly
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Hmm - how does one post a link to a radio talk show? How does one post a link to a live chat like on IRC? Or even a local newspaper where you have to have a subscription in order to access it? Not everything discussed must link to a particular web site. There is more existing than just the internet to find information.
You want failure stories - something called a search engine ACA failure stories can take you to 7,570,000 articles. Daily caller, politico - many other website stories there. Even a few successes that later turned out to BE failures. What you as an individual choose to believe should be based on the very differences you have as an individual. Have there been successes - yes and you can find them by searching.
BTW one does NOT need to go sign up if you have medical insurance and will have it provided. All one has to do is list the provider on your taxes. Those who are retired - gee the Medicare information is right on the 1099. If like many others you have additional medical coverage - easy enough to post on your tax forms.
You want failure stories - something called a search engine ACA failure stories can take you to 7,570,000 articles. Daily caller, politico - many other website stories there. Even a few successes that later turned out to BE failures. What you as an individual choose to believe should be based on the very differences you have as an individual. Have there been successes - yes and you can find them by searching.
BTW one does NOT need to go sign up if you have medical insurance and will have it provided. All one has to do is list the provider on your taxes. Those who are retired - gee the Medicare information is right on the 1099. If like many others you have additional medical coverage - easy enough to post on your tax forms.
Cherry Kelly wrote: Hmm - how does one post a link to a radio talk show? How does one post a link to a live chat like on IRC? Or even a local newspaper where you have to have a subscription in order to access it? Not everything discussed must link to a particular web site. There is more existing than just the internet to find information.
You want failure stories - something called a search engine ACA failure stories can take you to 7,570,000 articles. Daily caller, politico - many other website stories there. Even a few successes that later turned out to BE failures. What you as an individual choose to believe should be based on the very differences you have as an individual. Have there been successes - yes and you can find them by searching.
Radio talk shows are notoriously unreliable conveyers of facts. If you want to post ACA failures...YOU do the google search and post what you find..PLUS the links here. That's the way properly done forums work. You make your points, and back them up with verifiable sources.
If you hear something significant on the radio, it's most likely also posted on the net. Most radio stations use the rip and read method of news reporting...they take their news from the wire services. That means there's a link to those stories.
Have you ever done any debate work?
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Raggedyann
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strindl wrote: Radio talk shows are notoriously unreliable conveyers of facts. If you want to post ACA failures...YOU do the google search and post what you find..PLUS the links here. That's the way properly done forums work. You make your points, and back them up with verifiable sources.
If you hear something significant on the radio, it's most likely also posted on the net. Most radio stations use the rip and read method of news reporting...they take their news from the wire services. That means there's a link to those stories.
Have you ever done any debate work?
You mean like this?
White House officials were warned of Obamacare glitches
The White House has confirmed US President Barack Obama was briefed on impending problems with his signature healthcare law's website months prior to its October launch.
Senior administration officials heard recommendations made by consulting firm McKinsey & Co in March.
They warned of many of the issues that arose once the website went live.
Those ongoing glitches have caused much lower-than-anticipated enrolment figures for Obamacare.
McKinsey's report, commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), warned of management indecision and a lack of transparency regarding Healthcare.gov, according to media reports.
Briefings on the findings were held in March at the White House, HHS headquarters and at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
Officials were told that work to build the healthcare website - similar to a shopping website for health insurance plans - was at that point falling behind and at risk of failure.
Issues the report cited include "significant dependency on external parties/contractors" and "insufficient time and scope of end-to-end testing", both of which proved problematic once the site officially went live.
The 1 October launch of the federal and state marketplace websites was the culmination of more than three years of political combat in Washington over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by Mr Obama in 2010 and known as Obamacare.
Considered the largest overhaul of the US healthcare system since the 1960s, it aims to extend health insurance coverage to the estimated 15% of the US population who lack it. But the law has become a political touchstone, with Republicans repeatedly attempting to remove its funding.
"The administration was on track - on track for a disaster - and yet officials refused to be transparent with the Congress and the American people," said Fred Upton, Republican Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which released the McKinsey report.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the McKinsey recommendations had been heard by the Healthcare.gov development team, but that no one had anticipated the size and scope of potential problems.
Those issues have proven so severe that fewer than 27,000 people in 36 US states are reported to have successfully enrolled in healthcare policies on the federal website since it launched.
About 79,000 managed to enrol using websites run by the other 14 states and Washington DC.
Political support, even within Mr Obama's Democratic party, has waned in recent weeks amid the website's ongoing problems and revelations that insurance companies have cancelled millions of Americans' medical insurance policies because they did not meet the stricter conditions of the healthcare overhaul.
That was despite the president's promise that people would be able to keep their existing plans.
On 14 November Mr Obama acknowledged his administration had "fumbled the rollout" of Obamacare and announced a one-year reprieve for those whose healthcare policies had been cancelled as a result.
But, just one day later, dozens of his Democratic allies in the House of Representatives sided with Republicans to back a bill the White House has said could gut the health law.
Many House Democrats are said to be worried that Obamacare's problematic rollout could hurt their 2014 midterm re-election chances.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25011230
Another interesting (sourced) article....... Sounds like a whole heck of a lot of bad communication.
Payment Due: The Obamacare Deadline No One Is Talking About
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced this morning that nearly 365,000 Americans had signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare. The vast majority came from 14 states running their own insurance exchanges, while 137,000 came by way of HealthCare.gov, the much-faulted federal Web site that handles enrollment for the remaining states.
But amid the rush to enroll as many people as possible by the Dec. 23 deadline, there's a huge caveat that isn't getting much public attention: For coverage to take effect on Jan. 1, enrollees must pay their first month's premium on time. (The deadline varies somewhat by state and by insurer.)
That's slow going, according to consultants and some insurers, raising the prospect that actual enrollment will be far lower than the figures HHS is releasing.
"There is also a lot of worrying going on over people making payments," industry consultant Robert Laszewski wrote in an email. "One client reports only 15% have paid so far. It is still too early to know for sure what this means, but we should expect some enrollment slippage come the payment due date."
Another consultant Kip Piper, agreed. "So far I'm hearing from health plans that around 5% and 10% of consumers who have made it through the data transfer gauntlet have paid first month's premium and therefore truly enrolled," he wrote me.
"It naturally varies by insurer and will hopefully increase as we get close to end of December and documents flow in the mail," added Piper, a former official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "But overall I'm hearing it's a small portion so far. And that, of course, is a fraction of an already comparatively small number of people who have made it through setting up an account, getting verified, subsidy eligibility determined, plan selected, complete and correct data transferred to the insurer, and insurer set out the confirmation with invoice for consumer's share of the first month's premium."
Blue Shield of California said it has sent out thousands of payment request letters.
"Members do not know they need to make their first month's payment until they get this letter. Payments are trickling in and while we expect an uptick over the next week, members have until January 6 to make this payment," spokeswoman Mia Campitelli wrote in an email.
California's deadline is later than most, and consumers need to check for the deadline for the insurance plan they choose. Campitelli said Blue Shield does not have a projection of what percentage of enrollees will pay up by the deadline.
With problems plaguing HealthCare.gov until the end of November, consumers don't have much time to pick plans. Some consumers, on the advice of federal officials, have turned in paper applications 2014 and those are still being processed. That leaves little time to send invoices and process the first month's payment.
Ken Wood, a senior adviser to Covered California, the state's exchange, said it is "too early to tell" what would happen. "Remember that we have 11 different plans with 11 different billing systems 2014 some more flexible than others," he wrote in an email. "Excluding only Christmas Day and New Year's Day, there are only eight business days between the December 23rd cutoff for enrollment and the January 6th deadline for payment."
Wood said the consequences of missing the first payment differs by person.
"The good news for this first open enrollment is that missing a payment deadline just rolls your effective date a month," he wrote. "This is OK for the uninsured but a potential concern for the insured who are rolling over into a compliant plan since they will now have a gap in coverage."
Covered California is promoting "give the gift of health" where a grandparent or parent would pay for the coverage with a debit or credit card. Some enrollees who receive subsidies still have to pay $1 a month for their coverage, "oddly a real billing and collection concern because it is easy to overlook," Wood said, 2014 so Covered California is encouraging them to pay $12 for the year and be finished. "The barriers to paying the entire amount are the systems capability of the health insurers," Wood said.
New York's State of Health exchange does not have data on how many enrollees have paid premiums, spokesman James O'Hare said. "In the event that an enrollee does not pay his/her premium, coverage does not go into effect, and they will no longer be enrolled in NY State of Health," he wrote in an email.
James Stover, CEO of University of Arizona Health Plans, said he expects more than 85 percent of enrollees to pay the premium on time. "Right now we're comfortable with the process we have in place," he said. "As soon as we get the information in, we're reaching out to the individuals to let them know what their binder payment is. We'll follow up with them."
Stover said that enrollment has been lower than expected. A couple of weeks ago, only one person had signed up. By early this week, the figure had increased to 35. "We plan to have triple digits in the next couple weeks and greater growth in the next couple months. We initially expected to have somewhere between 5,000 to 6,000 by June 30, 2014."
While saying it is difficult to guess what will happen, Piper said he believes "a plan will be lucky if half of applicants pay first month's premium on time for January coverage start but that perhaps three-quarters will pay in time for coverage start by February or March."
One additional point to keep an eye on: If consumers pay their first month's premium but then stop paying, insurers cannot drop them from their plans for 90 days.
"Under the rule interpreting the law, insurers offering plans on the exchanges must provide a three-month grace period to individuals who have enrolled and who have stopped paying their premiums. In the first 30 days, the insurer must continue to pay incurred claims. But for subscribers who ultimately fail to pay premiums within the 90 days and whose coverage is terminated, payers are not required to pay for claims incurred during the last 60 days of the 90-day period," Modern Healthcare reported in August.
Healthcare providers are nervous that they will be on the hook for services delivered to patients who haven't paid their premiums.
http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/feature ... king-about
Payment Due: The Obamacare Deadline No One Is Talking About
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced this morning that nearly 365,000 Americans had signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare. The vast majority came from 14 states running their own insurance exchanges, while 137,000 came by way of HealthCare.gov, the much-faulted federal Web site that handles enrollment for the remaining states.
But amid the rush to enroll as many people as possible by the Dec. 23 deadline, there's a huge caveat that isn't getting much public attention: For coverage to take effect on Jan. 1, enrollees must pay their first month's premium on time. (The deadline varies somewhat by state and by insurer.)
That's slow going, according to consultants and some insurers, raising the prospect that actual enrollment will be far lower than the figures HHS is releasing.
"There is also a lot of worrying going on over people making payments," industry consultant Robert Laszewski wrote in an email. "One client reports only 15% have paid so far. It is still too early to know for sure what this means, but we should expect some enrollment slippage come the payment due date."
Another consultant Kip Piper, agreed. "So far I'm hearing from health plans that around 5% and 10% of consumers who have made it through the data transfer gauntlet have paid first month's premium and therefore truly enrolled," he wrote me.
"It naturally varies by insurer and will hopefully increase as we get close to end of December and documents flow in the mail," added Piper, a former official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "But overall I'm hearing it's a small portion so far. And that, of course, is a fraction of an already comparatively small number of people who have made it through setting up an account, getting verified, subsidy eligibility determined, plan selected, complete and correct data transferred to the insurer, and insurer set out the confirmation with invoice for consumer's share of the first month's premium."
Blue Shield of California said it has sent out thousands of payment request letters.
"Members do not know they need to make their first month's payment until they get this letter. Payments are trickling in and while we expect an uptick over the next week, members have until January 6 to make this payment," spokeswoman Mia Campitelli wrote in an email.
California's deadline is later than most, and consumers need to check for the deadline for the insurance plan they choose. Campitelli said Blue Shield does not have a projection of what percentage of enrollees will pay up by the deadline.
With problems plaguing HealthCare.gov until the end of November, consumers don't have much time to pick plans. Some consumers, on the advice of federal officials, have turned in paper applications 2014 and those are still being processed. That leaves little time to send invoices and process the first month's payment.
Ken Wood, a senior adviser to Covered California, the state's exchange, said it is "too early to tell" what would happen. "Remember that we have 11 different plans with 11 different billing systems 2014 some more flexible than others," he wrote in an email. "Excluding only Christmas Day and New Year's Day, there are only eight business days between the December 23rd cutoff for enrollment and the January 6th deadline for payment."
Wood said the consequences of missing the first payment differs by person.
"The good news for this first open enrollment is that missing a payment deadline just rolls your effective date a month," he wrote. "This is OK for the uninsured but a potential concern for the insured who are rolling over into a compliant plan since they will now have a gap in coverage."
Covered California is promoting "give the gift of health" where a grandparent or parent would pay for the coverage with a debit or credit card. Some enrollees who receive subsidies still have to pay $1 a month for their coverage, "oddly a real billing and collection concern because it is easy to overlook," Wood said, 2014 so Covered California is encouraging them to pay $12 for the year and be finished. "The barriers to paying the entire amount are the systems capability of the health insurers," Wood said.
New York's State of Health exchange does not have data on how many enrollees have paid premiums, spokesman James O'Hare said. "In the event that an enrollee does not pay his/her premium, coverage does not go into effect, and they will no longer be enrolled in NY State of Health," he wrote in an email.
James Stover, CEO of University of Arizona Health Plans, said he expects more than 85 percent of enrollees to pay the premium on time. "Right now we're comfortable with the process we have in place," he said. "As soon as we get the information in, we're reaching out to the individuals to let them know what their binder payment is. We'll follow up with them."
Stover said that enrollment has been lower than expected. A couple of weeks ago, only one person had signed up. By early this week, the figure had increased to 35. "We plan to have triple digits in the next couple weeks and greater growth in the next couple months. We initially expected to have somewhere between 5,000 to 6,000 by June 30, 2014."
While saying it is difficult to guess what will happen, Piper said he believes "a plan will be lucky if half of applicants pay first month's premium on time for January coverage start but that perhaps three-quarters will pay in time for coverage start by February or March."
One additional point to keep an eye on: If consumers pay their first month's premium but then stop paying, insurers cannot drop them from their plans for 90 days.
"Under the rule interpreting the law, insurers offering plans on the exchanges must provide a three-month grace period to individuals who have enrolled and who have stopped paying their premiums. In the first 30 days, the insurer must continue to pay incurred claims. But for subscribers who ultimately fail to pay premiums within the 90 days and whose coverage is terminated, payers are not required to pay for claims incurred during the last 60 days of the 90-day period," Modern Healthcare reported in August.
Healthcare providers are nervous that they will be on the hook for services delivered to patients who haven't paid their premiums.
http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/feature ... king-about
Another, this one from Detroit......
Sign-ups for Obamacare falling short
New numbers released Wednesday show more Americans are signing up for health insurance on the government’s website, but not nearly enough to guarantee federal enrollment goals for 2014.
Nationwide, 1.9 million people completed online applications in October and November, but just 365,000 selected an insurance plan. Those planning to buy on the health insurance marketplace — healthcare.gov — must enroll by Dec. 23 to have a policy in effect by Jan. 1.
A flood of traffic to the revamped website could bring another round of recriminations for the White House if the system bogs down in a mad rush to make the Dec. 23 deadline. The failed Oct. 1 launch of healthcare.gov was an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which has spent two months working to repair glitches and increase system capacity.
Though the federal Affordable Care Act says all Americans have to be insured by New Year’s Day, the administration has given Americans until March 31 to sign up for a policy without penalty — and the Obama administration says it’s on track to enroll about 7 million Americans by then.
Michigan had 52,780 people fill out insurance applications at healthcare.gov in October and November, though fewer than 7,000 sealed the deal by enrolling in a plan, according to the report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius assured Congress on Wednesday that “we are seeing very, very positive trends” now that healthcare.gov is functioning reasonably well. She also announced that she’d asked the department’s inspector general for an independent investigation into contracting and management factors that contributed to the technology failure.
The overhauled federal website, which serves 36 states, continues to have issues, and some states running their own sites also face problems. Oregon had signed up only 44 people as of Nov. 30.
Michael Hash, director of the HHS Office of Health Reform, urged Americans to revisit the website.
“We invite those Americans whose experiences with healthcare.gov have been frustrating so far to come back and try it again,” Hash said in a conference call with media.
Don Hazaert, director of Michigan Consumers for Healthcare, which oversees a network of about 250 “navigators” who help consumers use the website, said healthcare.gov has been running more smoothly since Dec. 1. He said consumer interest in signing up for insurance is strong. Most of the problems are with accounts people tried to set up in early October, which can take hours to resolve.
Asked if he thinks the administration will hit its estimates, Hazaert said, “I don’t know how many people will be enrolled by March 31, but I won’t be shocked if a decision is made to allow more time for people to enroll.”
Annie Patnaude, deputy Michigan director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, was unimpressed.
“The real question is, ‘Who are these people?’ ” Patnaude said. “They’ve discouraged young healthy people from getting on the health care exchange by burdening them with high premiums.”
About 137,000 who enrolled in plans signed up on the federal website at healthcare.gov, which hosts Michigan’s health insurance exchange, and the remainder signed up in states that run their own insurance websites.
An additional 803,077 Americans were found eligible for Medicaid or the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program. That number includes 7,363 residents of Michigan, one of 25 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Jonathan Small, a visiting fellow with the Naples, Fla.-based Foundation for Government Accountability, noted that more the number of Americans found eligible fore Medicaid or CHIP exceeded the number who signed up for an insurance plan, “which is a problem because Medicaid underpays medical providers, which causes cost shifts and increased burdens on the systems.”
Democratic lawmakers said they are relieved the website is finally working, but some are not convinced the turnaround is complete. “How confident I am? I’m hoping that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., after Wednesday’s Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “And if we find the day has come and we find that it’s not what we had hoped, then I think there should be changes.” The law should be fixed, not repealed, he said.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2013 ... ling-short
Sign-ups for Obamacare falling short
New numbers released Wednesday show more Americans are signing up for health insurance on the government’s website, but not nearly enough to guarantee federal enrollment goals for 2014.
Nationwide, 1.9 million people completed online applications in October and November, but just 365,000 selected an insurance plan. Those planning to buy on the health insurance marketplace — healthcare.gov — must enroll by Dec. 23 to have a policy in effect by Jan. 1.
A flood of traffic to the revamped website could bring another round of recriminations for the White House if the system bogs down in a mad rush to make the Dec. 23 deadline. The failed Oct. 1 launch of healthcare.gov was an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which has spent two months working to repair glitches and increase system capacity.
Though the federal Affordable Care Act says all Americans have to be insured by New Year’s Day, the administration has given Americans until March 31 to sign up for a policy without penalty — and the Obama administration says it’s on track to enroll about 7 million Americans by then.
Michigan had 52,780 people fill out insurance applications at healthcare.gov in October and November, though fewer than 7,000 sealed the deal by enrolling in a plan, according to the report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius assured Congress on Wednesday that “we are seeing very, very positive trends” now that healthcare.gov is functioning reasonably well. She also announced that she’d asked the department’s inspector general for an independent investigation into contracting and management factors that contributed to the technology failure.
The overhauled federal website, which serves 36 states, continues to have issues, and some states running their own sites also face problems. Oregon had signed up only 44 people as of Nov. 30.
Michael Hash, director of the HHS Office of Health Reform, urged Americans to revisit the website.
“We invite those Americans whose experiences with healthcare.gov have been frustrating so far to come back and try it again,” Hash said in a conference call with media.
Don Hazaert, director of Michigan Consumers for Healthcare, which oversees a network of about 250 “navigators” who help consumers use the website, said healthcare.gov has been running more smoothly since Dec. 1. He said consumer interest in signing up for insurance is strong. Most of the problems are with accounts people tried to set up in early October, which can take hours to resolve.
Asked if he thinks the administration will hit its estimates, Hazaert said, “I don’t know how many people will be enrolled by March 31, but I won’t be shocked if a decision is made to allow more time for people to enroll.”
Annie Patnaude, deputy Michigan director for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, was unimpressed.
“The real question is, ‘Who are these people?’ ” Patnaude said. “They’ve discouraged young healthy people from getting on the health care exchange by burdening them with high premiums.”
About 137,000 who enrolled in plans signed up on the federal website at healthcare.gov, which hosts Michigan’s health insurance exchange, and the remainder signed up in states that run their own insurance websites.
An additional 803,077 Americans were found eligible for Medicaid or the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program. That number includes 7,363 residents of Michigan, one of 25 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Jonathan Small, a visiting fellow with the Naples, Fla.-based Foundation for Government Accountability, noted that more the number of Americans found eligible fore Medicaid or CHIP exceeded the number who signed up for an insurance plan, “which is a problem because Medicaid underpays medical providers, which causes cost shifts and increased burdens on the systems.”
Democratic lawmakers said they are relieved the website is finally working, but some are not convinced the turnaround is complete. “How confident I am? I’m hoping that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., after Wednesday’s Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “And if we find the day has come and we find that it’s not what we had hoped, then I think there should be changes.” The law should be fixed, not repealed, he said.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2013 ... ling-short
This on is interesting in that Obama may have violated federal law in using taxpayer monies to fund abortion as a provision of Congressional policies.....
Taxpayers Will Pay Up to $11,378 to Buy Congressmen Obamacare Plans That Cover Abortions
Under a regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management, members of Congress and their staff will be able to use federal subsidies worth up to $11,378 per year to purchase any of the 103 different health insurance plans that expressly cover elective abortions that are now being offered on the Washington, D.C. Obamacare exchange.
Members of Congress and their staff currently face a Dec. 9 deadline for purchasing their 2014 tax-subsidized health insurance plans on that exchange.
The federal subsidy members of Congress and their staff can now use to buy health-insurance plans that cover elective abortions contradicts a vow Obama made in a nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009.
It also contradicts the express purpose of the executive order on abortion funding that Obama promised to issue in March 2010 when the House of Representatives was preparing to take its final vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Obama needed to promise to issue that executive order to secure the votes of a group of Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak (Mich.), who said they would not vote for Obamacare so long as it funded abortion. Without Obama’s executive order, the bill would not have passed.
“Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,” Obama said in his Sept. 9, 2009 speech to Congress.
Six weeks later--in an Oct. 22, 2009 interview with CNSNews.com—Rep. Stupak said he had a group of “about 40 like-minded Democrats” who would block the health-care law unless it included language that incorporated the policy of the Hyde Amendment.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits funding of any health-care plan that includes coverage of abortion. It says: “None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.” The amendment also includes exceptions for abortions done in cases of rape, incest or a threat to life of the mother.
On Nov. 7, 2009, the House voted 240 to 194 to incorporate the policy of the Hyde Amendment into the health-care bill through an amendment that Rep. Stupak sponsored. The Stupak amendment said:
“No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”
The Senate version of the Affordable Care Act did not include the Stupak language incorporating the policy of the Hyde Amendment into Obamacare.
Ultimately, it was the Senate version of the bill which came up for a final vote in the House on March 21, 2010.
To get Stupak and like-minded Democrats to vote for the Senate bill which lacked the Hyde-like language of Stupak's amendment, President Obama promised to issue an executive order extending the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on federal funding of any plan that included coverage of abortion to plans sold in the Obamacare exchanges.
“Following the recent enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ‘Act’), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment,” said Obama’s Executive Order 13535.
“The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges,” said the order.
For this statement in Obama's Executive Order 1353 to be true, the administration would have needed to prohibit federal funds--to use the terms of the Hyde Amendment--from being "expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.". Or, to use the terms of the Stupak amendment, it would have needed to prohibit federal funds from being "used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion."
Although the actual language of the Patient Affordable Care Act did not extend the Hyde “restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges,” Obama, in his executive order, simply declared that the act did so.
On March 21, 2010, when the Senate version of PPACA came up for a final vote in the House, Rep. Stupak went to the floor and engaged in a colloquy with House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman. What this colloquy purportedly clarified is that--along with Obama’s promised executive order—the act the House was about to vote on would indeed incorporate into Obamacare the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on federal funding for health-insurance plans that include coverage of abortion.
“Throughout the debate in the House, Members on both sides of the abortion issue have maintained that current law should apply,” said Stupak. “Current law with respect to abortion services includes the Hyde amendment. The Hyde amendment and other similar statutes to it have been the law of the land on federal funding of abortion since 1977 and apply to all other health care programs—including SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, Indian
Health Service, Veterans Health Care, military health care programs, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
“The intent behind both this legislation and the executive order the President will sign is to ensure that, as is provided for in the Hyde amendment, that health care reform will maintain a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion services except in the instances of rape, incest, and endangerment of the life of the mother,” said Stupak.
Waxman then said: “If the gentleman will yield to me, that is correct. I agree with the gentleman from Michigan that the intent behind both the legislation and the Executive order is to maintain a ban on federal funds being used for abortion services, as is provided in the Hyde amendment.”
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also included language that required members of the House and Senate and their staff to purchase their health insurance plans in the Obamacare exchanges starting in 2014.
Under the law, individuals purchasing insurance in the exchanges would only qualify for a federal subsidy if their adjusted gross income was less than 400 percent of the poverty level. Given that members of Congress earn annual salaries of $174,000, a married member of Congress (whose spouse earned $0) would need to have at least seven children in order to qualify for a subsidy under current federal poverty guidelines.
A congressional staffer with a spouse and two children whose household income was $95,000 would not qualify for a subsidy because families of four hit the income cap for the subsidy at $94,200.
In September, the Office of Personnel Management, an Executive Branch agency, issued a regulation that alleviated this personal financial problem for members of Congress and their staff. It ruled that that members and staff would buy “Gold” level health insurance plans in the Obamacare exchange set up in the District of Columbia for small businesses (not the exchange set up for individuals).
In other words, OPM decided to treat Congress--which spent $3.5 trillion last year--as a small business.
In the Obamacare small business exchanges, small businesses are allowed to pay an employer contribution toward their workers’ premiums.
Until now, members of Congress and their staff have purchased their insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs, which is also used by employees of the executive branch. Under this system, the federal government could pay a subsidy for a family insurance plan that exceeds $11,000 per year.
the lesser of $948.18 per month ($11,378.16 per year) or 75 percent of the total premium for a member of Congress or a congressional staffer.
The OPM regulation said the U.S. Treasury could continue to make these premium payments for members of Congress and their staff when they bought their Gold plans in the D.C. Obamacare small-business exchange. This applied even to members of Congress and staffers who earned more than the 400 percent of poverty cap on federal subsidies that applies to individuals buying health insurance in the Obamacare exchanges.
The D.C. exchange—“D.C. Health Link”—offers 112 different “Gold” insurance plans to small businesses. The website for the exchange says:
“All health plans offered by Kaiser Permanente, United Healthcare, and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield plans that do not include “Multi-State Plan” in their name include coverage for elective abortions.”
That includes 103 of the 112 plans.
The OPM has posted a webpage that shows members of Congress and congressional staffers how much of a federal subsidy they qualify for when buying insurance in the exchange. It indicates that a member Congress earning $174,000 from the taxpayers can get a federal subsidy of as much as $948.18 per month (or $11,378.16 per year) to buy their Obamacare plan.
The current law that funds OPM is governed by the Smith Amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.). That law, Smith pointed out in a statement yesterday, not only prohibits federal funding of abortion through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs, but also prohibits the OPM from “engaging in administrative activities in connection with any plan that includes abortion.”
“The Obama Administration is now violating the Smith amendment since OPM has begun to administer a system for Members of Congress and their staff to obtain taxpayer-subsidized insurance coverage that pays for the destruction of innocent unborn children,” said Smith’s statement.
“In the run-up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009, that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’” said Smith. “Obama even issued the infamous Executive Order that claimed, ‘the Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.”
“Once again we see those promises ring hollow—what the President said simply isn’t true today,” said Smith. “In the most recent example, 103 of the 112 insurance plans that Members of Congress and congressional staff are being directed to include elective abortion coverage.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ter ... lans-cover
Taxpayers Will Pay Up to $11,378 to Buy Congressmen Obamacare Plans That Cover Abortions
Under a regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management, members of Congress and their staff will be able to use federal subsidies worth up to $11,378 per year to purchase any of the 103 different health insurance plans that expressly cover elective abortions that are now being offered on the Washington, D.C. Obamacare exchange.
Members of Congress and their staff currently face a Dec. 9 deadline for purchasing their 2014 tax-subsidized health insurance plans on that exchange.
The federal subsidy members of Congress and their staff can now use to buy health-insurance plans that cover elective abortions contradicts a vow Obama made in a nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009.
It also contradicts the express purpose of the executive order on abortion funding that Obama promised to issue in March 2010 when the House of Representatives was preparing to take its final vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Obama needed to promise to issue that executive order to secure the votes of a group of Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak (Mich.), who said they would not vote for Obamacare so long as it funded abortion. Without Obama’s executive order, the bill would not have passed.
“Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,” Obama said in his Sept. 9, 2009 speech to Congress.
Six weeks later--in an Oct. 22, 2009 interview with CNSNews.com—Rep. Stupak said he had a group of “about 40 like-minded Democrats” who would block the health-care law unless it included language that incorporated the policy of the Hyde Amendment.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits funding of any health-care plan that includes coverage of abortion. It says: “None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.” The amendment also includes exceptions for abortions done in cases of rape, incest or a threat to life of the mother.
On Nov. 7, 2009, the House voted 240 to 194 to incorporate the policy of the Hyde Amendment into the health-care bill through an amendment that Rep. Stupak sponsored. The Stupak amendment said:
“No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”
The Senate version of the Affordable Care Act did not include the Stupak language incorporating the policy of the Hyde Amendment into Obamacare.
Ultimately, it was the Senate version of the bill which came up for a final vote in the House on March 21, 2010.
To get Stupak and like-minded Democrats to vote for the Senate bill which lacked the Hyde-like language of Stupak's amendment, President Obama promised to issue an executive order extending the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on federal funding of any plan that included coverage of abortion to plans sold in the Obamacare exchanges.
“Following the recent enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ‘Act’), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment,” said Obama’s Executive Order 13535.
“The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges,” said the order.
For this statement in Obama's Executive Order 1353 to be true, the administration would have needed to prohibit federal funds--to use the terms of the Hyde Amendment--from being "expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.". Or, to use the terms of the Stupak amendment, it would have needed to prohibit federal funds from being "used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion."
Although the actual language of the Patient Affordable Care Act did not extend the Hyde “restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges,” Obama, in his executive order, simply declared that the act did so.
On March 21, 2010, when the Senate version of PPACA came up for a final vote in the House, Rep. Stupak went to the floor and engaged in a colloquy with House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman. What this colloquy purportedly clarified is that--along with Obama’s promised executive order—the act the House was about to vote on would indeed incorporate into Obamacare the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition on federal funding for health-insurance plans that include coverage of abortion.
“Throughout the debate in the House, Members on both sides of the abortion issue have maintained that current law should apply,” said Stupak. “Current law with respect to abortion services includes the Hyde amendment. The Hyde amendment and other similar statutes to it have been the law of the land on federal funding of abortion since 1977 and apply to all other health care programs—including SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, Indian
Health Service, Veterans Health Care, military health care programs, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
“The intent behind both this legislation and the executive order the President will sign is to ensure that, as is provided for in the Hyde amendment, that health care reform will maintain a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion services except in the instances of rape, incest, and endangerment of the life of the mother,” said Stupak.
Waxman then said: “If the gentleman will yield to me, that is correct. I agree with the gentleman from Michigan that the intent behind both the legislation and the Executive order is to maintain a ban on federal funds being used for abortion services, as is provided in the Hyde amendment.”
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also included language that required members of the House and Senate and their staff to purchase their health insurance plans in the Obamacare exchanges starting in 2014.
Under the law, individuals purchasing insurance in the exchanges would only qualify for a federal subsidy if their adjusted gross income was less than 400 percent of the poverty level. Given that members of Congress earn annual salaries of $174,000, a married member of Congress (whose spouse earned $0) would need to have at least seven children in order to qualify for a subsidy under current federal poverty guidelines.
A congressional staffer with a spouse and two children whose household income was $95,000 would not qualify for a subsidy because families of four hit the income cap for the subsidy at $94,200.
In September, the Office of Personnel Management, an Executive Branch agency, issued a regulation that alleviated this personal financial problem for members of Congress and their staff. It ruled that that members and staff would buy “Gold” level health insurance plans in the Obamacare exchange set up in the District of Columbia for small businesses (not the exchange set up for individuals).
In other words, OPM decided to treat Congress--which spent $3.5 trillion last year--as a small business.
In the Obamacare small business exchanges, small businesses are allowed to pay an employer contribution toward their workers’ premiums.
Until now, members of Congress and their staff have purchased their insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs, which is also used by employees of the executive branch. Under this system, the federal government could pay a subsidy for a family insurance plan that exceeds $11,000 per year.
the lesser of $948.18 per month ($11,378.16 per year) or 75 percent of the total premium for a member of Congress or a congressional staffer.
The OPM regulation said the U.S. Treasury could continue to make these premium payments for members of Congress and their staff when they bought their Gold plans in the D.C. Obamacare small-business exchange. This applied even to members of Congress and staffers who earned more than the 400 percent of poverty cap on federal subsidies that applies to individuals buying health insurance in the Obamacare exchanges.
The D.C. exchange—“D.C. Health Link”—offers 112 different “Gold” insurance plans to small businesses. The website for the exchange says:
“All health plans offered by Kaiser Permanente, United Healthcare, and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield plans that do not include “Multi-State Plan” in their name include coverage for elective abortions.”
That includes 103 of the 112 plans.
The OPM has posted a webpage that shows members of Congress and congressional staffers how much of a federal subsidy they qualify for when buying insurance in the exchange. It indicates that a member Congress earning $174,000 from the taxpayers can get a federal subsidy of as much as $948.18 per month (or $11,378.16 per year) to buy their Obamacare plan.
The current law that funds OPM is governed by the Smith Amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.). That law, Smith pointed out in a statement yesterday, not only prohibits federal funding of abortion through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Programs, but also prohibits the OPM from “engaging in administrative activities in connection with any plan that includes abortion.”
“The Obama Administration is now violating the Smith amendment since OPM has begun to administer a system for Members of Congress and their staff to obtain taxpayer-subsidized insurance coverage that pays for the destruction of innocent unborn children,” said Smith’s statement.
“In the run-up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told and reassured by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in October 2009, that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’” said Smith. “Obama even issued the infamous Executive Order that claimed, ‘the Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.”
“Once again we see those promises ring hollow—what the President said simply isn’t true today,” said Smith. “In the most recent example, 103 of the 112 insurance plans that Members of Congress and congressional staff are being directed to include elective abortion coverage.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ter ... lans-cover
strindl wrote: I chose my health plan on the marketplace and paid my first months premium right on line there. A few seconds later I received an email from my new health insurance company acknowledging receipt of my payment.
The website worked. First hand experience FTW.
You appear to be in the minority - even discounting the WH claims for total enrollment, which now appear to be simply cases where people started but never actually completed applications due to the WH website having a breakdown.
If only Obama had listened to his own advisers, huh?
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-gfk-poll-healt ... ntentstoryAmericans who already have health insurance are blaming President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul for their rising premiums and deductibles, and overall 3 in 4 say the rollout of coverage for the uninsured has gone poorly.
An Associated Press-GfK poll finds that health care remains politically charged going into next year’s congressional elections. Keeping the refurbished HealthCare.gov website running smoothly is just one of Obama’s challenges, maybe not the biggest.
The poll found a striking level of unease about the law among people who have health insurance and aren’t looking for any more government help. Those are the 85 percent of Americans who the White House says don’t have to be worried about the president’s historic push to expand coverage for the uninsured.
In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77 percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act.
^link