Thread: Want to know why AARP endorsed ObamaCare? See this video!

Health Insurers make out like bandits under Obamacare

By eaglerising / 23 October 2013

Just a reminder: Health Insurers make out like bandits under Obamacare.
Which is why they didn't fight it.

Believe it or not, there is something the left doesn't like about ObamaCare, and I'm not just talking about the disastrous web site. The left hates the fact that ObamaCare relies on private insurers, since we all know that they would prefer is for the government to run the hospitals, employ the doctors, pay the bills, etc.

But that doesn't mean the right should see the involvement of private insurers as a silver lining. It is not. Indeed, health insurance has been the abiding problem with American health care since World War II - a problem created entirely by government policy, and doubled-down on by ObamaCare, which took all the problems created by the mingling of health care and insurance and put them on steriods.


During the development of the monstrosity that ultimately became ObamaCare, Democrats sought and received plenty of input from the health insurance industry. The result was a law that requires you to buy their products, and subsidizes your costs so you can do so. That's a win for the health insurance industry any way you look at it. It is the latest step in the government-driven transformation of health insurance from a hedge against risk to a quasi-public arm of the welfare state.

Remember, health insurance is really not insurance at all. Insurance protects you against a catastrophe that may or may not ever happen, but that you could not afford to pay for if it did. Your house burns down. Your car is totalled. Your basement is flooded. A tree falls and crashes through your roof. You buy policies against these unlikely but not-impossible events in the hope that you will never have to file a claim.

Health insurance could work like that. It could insure you against catastrophic costs brought on by a very serious situation, while leaving the normal everyday costs of basic health maintenance to you. That is how health insurance should work.

But it does not.

Read more at http://eaglerising.com/2442/health-i...qrtXzxXuk30.99

Bombshell: Federal Judge Suddenly Green-Lights Lawsuit That Could Stop Obamacare In Its Tracks


Tuesday, October 22, 2013 17:03

• 
• Small-business plaintiffs say the government is treating all 50 states the same even though Congress allowed them to opt out – and 36 did
  
• The IRS is granting insurance subsidies to taxpayers in the ‘refusenik’ states, even though the text of the Obamacare law doesn’t allow it
• A federal judge denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday
• He also refused, however, to issue an injunction barring the Obama administration from implementing the law while the case moves forward

Daily Mail


By DAVID MARTOSKO, U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR
PUBLISHED: 14:27 EST, 22 October 2013 | UPDATED: 15:05 EST, 22 October 2013



A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a case that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law.


The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court.


The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website.


Thirty-six states chose not to set up their exchanges, a move that effectively froze Washington, D.C. out of the authority to pay subsidies and other pot-sweeteners to convince citizens in those states to buy medical insurance.


But the IRS overstepped its authority by paying subsidies in those states anyway, say the businesses and their lawyers.


The subsidies serve as a trigger that determines who has to comply with the now-famous individual and employer mandates. So, the lawsuit claims, the Obama administration illegally enforced the Affordable Care Act – suddenly making millions of taxpayers and small employers subject to paying fines if they don’t play ball.


The Affordable Care Act authorizes subsidies only for policies purchased ‘through an Exchange established by the State.’
A different section of the law empowers the federal government to set up its own exchanges for each state that chose not establish one.





http://beforeitsnews.com/healthcare/...&utm_campaign=


Read More Here
Bombshell: Federal judge suddenly green-lights lawsuit that could stop Obamacare in its tracks

• Small-business plaintiffs say the government is treating all 50 states the same even though Congress allowed them to opt out – and 36 did
• The IRS is granting insurance subsidies to taxpayers in the 'refusenik' states, even though the text of the Obamacare law doesn't allow it
• A federal judge denied the government's motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday
• He also refused, however, to issue an injunction barring the Obama administration from implementing the law while the case moves forward
  

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor
PUBLISHED: 14:27 EST, 22 October 2013 | UPDATED: 15:05 EST, 22 October 2013

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a case that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law.

The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court.
The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website.

Thirty-six states chose not to set up their exchanges, a move that effectively froze Washington, D.C. out of the authority to pay subsidies and other pot-sweeteners to convince citizens in those states to buy medical insurance.
But the IRS overstepped its authority by paying subsidies in those states anyway, say the businesses and their lawyers.

Tea party conservatives have long pushed for an end to Obamacare, and the lawsuit might give them the victory they're after



The IRS has been offering tax incentives to citizens in all 50 states to get them to enroll in Obamacare, the plaintiffs say, although the Affordable Care act forbids it in the 36 states that have opted out. Without the subsidies, the employer mandate doesn't go into effect


The subsidies serve as a trigger that determines who has to comply with the now-famous individual and employer mandates. So, the lawsuit claims, the Obama administration illegally enforced the Affordable Care Act – suddenly making millions of taxpayers and small employers subject to paying fines if they don't play ball.
The Affordable Care Act authorizes subsidies only for policies purchased 'through an Exchange established by the State.'

A different section of the law empowers the federal government to set up its own exchanges for each state that chose not establish one.



More...

• Thanks for catching me, Mr President! Diabetic expectant mother tweets her gratitude after she fainted behind Obama during healthcare speech
• Website programmers KNEW there were problems with the Obamacare site but government testers gave it the green light
• Obama asks people to call in to sign up to Obamacare after 'unacceptable' problems with $394million website... but now the PHONES aren't working
• Just THREE of the 13 Americans standing behind Obama in Monday's Rose Garden Obamacare photo-op have actually signed up
• How the government spent $394 MILLION on the Obamacare website - more than it cost to build Facebook and Twitter - and it STILL doesn't work

But government lawyers have argued that 'Congress made clear that an exchange established by the federal government stands in the shoes of the exchange that a state chooses not to establish.'

The Treasury Department, they contend, 'has reasonably interpreted the Act to provide for eligibility for the premium tax credits for individuals in every state, regardless of which entity operates the exchange.'
But that amounts to the federal government ignoring the letter of the law, lawyer Sam Kazman says.

And 'without those subsidies, the employer mandate isn't triggered,' he told MailOnline.
And that could make the entire Obamacare system unsustainable.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is the named defendant in the legal action, which claims her agency is ignoring 36 states' desire to opt out of enforcing the Affordable Care Act



Oops: President Obama appeared with 13 Obamacare supports Monday in the White House rose garden, but only three of them have actually enrolled in the health insurance exchanges


Kazman is general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank that is coordinating the case.
Attorney Sam Kazman says the federal government is illegally subsidizing health insurance in all the states that chose not to set up their own health care marketplaces. And without the subsidies, the entire Obamacare system could fail


'The IRS cannot rewrite the law that Congress passed,' said Tom Miller, resident fellow at another think, the tank American Enterprise Institute.
'Its regulation expressly flouts the statutory text of the Affordable Care Act, the intent of Congress and the reasoned choices of [36] states.'

'The fiscal impact' of denying the Obamacare system millions of dollars in lost fines, 'while sizable, wouldn't be large enough to bring down the house,' Kazman added. The poltical one, however, is.'
'You'd have 34 "refusenik" states exempting their employers and many of their citizens from the employer mandate and portions of the individual mandate,' he explained.

'You'd have companies in participating states considering whether to move their operations' to states where they don't have to obey the Affordable Care Act. 'And you might even have some of those states seeking to undo their choice to participate.'

Headaches: The Obamacare website has suffered glitch after glitch since its October 1 launch, creating PR problems for the White House and practical problems for the HHS and IRS


The Competitive Enterprise Institute said in a statement that the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services have pushed regulations that Congress didn't authorize, forcing some employers 'to cut back employees' hours' in order to dodge Obamacare's more economically challenging requirements, 'even though they are located in states that have refused to set up their own insurance exchanges.'
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman refused to dismiss the case, as the government requested, but also denied the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction that would prohibit the IRS and HHS from granting subsidies in what lawyer Kazman calls 'refusenik' states.
This Michigan company says complying with the Obamacare law is forcing it to let some employees go and trim others back to part-time hours to offset the cost of the employer mandate -- a provision that wouldn't kick in without the IRS subsidies


Judge Friedman said Tuesday that he will rule on the merits of the case by February 15.
By then the Obamacare law will be in full swing, nearing the end of its open enrollment period and providing health care services to Americans who sign up for coverage by December 15.
Kazman said his organization would 'take an immediate appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals' in order to get a re-hearing on the motion for an injunction to stop the clock on Obamacare while the larger legal issues are worked out.
At the lawsuit's heart is a set of distinctions that Congress drew between the 14 states – 15 including the District of Columbia – that chose to establish health insurance exchanges and the 36 that opted out.
The plaintiffs, who all hail from 'refusenik' states, say the federal government has invalidated their state governments' choices.

Kazman said that the Obamacare statute does not empower the IRS or HHS to 'give subsidy funding to people in states not authorized by Congress to receive it. That move, he agreed, had he effect of 'gutting a choice – to participate in the exchange program or not – that states were given by Congress.'
The government is 'asking you to interpret "north" to mean "south,"' plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Carvin told Judge Friedman on Monday.

The White House referred questions about the lawsuit to the Health and Human Services Department, which declined requests for comment and passed the buck to the Justice Department. The DOJ didn't respond to emails seeking a position on the lawsuit, which its lawyers are defending.



Read more:

• Legal archive: Halbig v. Sebelius

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2ieDBGClO
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Obama raising money off HealthCare.gov problems



Obama raising money off HealthCare.gov problems

by FoxNews.com | published on October 23, 2013

The troubled HealthCare.gov website may be having problems pulling in applicants for ObamaCare, but that’s not stopping President Obama’s political arm from pulling in cash off the dysfunctional site.
Through his political group Organizing for Action, Obama sent a videotaped message to supporters in an email Tuesday evening.

In the video, the president said “the website has not worked as smoothly as it was supposed to,” but “we’re gonna get it fixed.” As he’s said before, the president added: “The Affordable Care Act is much more than a website.”
The email, though, also appealed for donations, saying “the other side will spend millions to maintain the status quo.”
Supporters who click past Obama’s video message are then taken to a donation page that says: “The other side has already spent a whopping $400 million in anti-Obamacare TV ads. We don’t have to beat that, but we need to have the resources to fight back.”
Read the full article: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...egov-problems/

Read more at 1776 Coalition: http://www.1776coalition.com/feature...#ixzz2ieLyrflP

WELCOME TO HELL, BOB: Beckel, ‘White House Called Me After I Criticized ObamaCare’

By Clash Daily / 24 October 2013

Democratic operative and FOX News contributor Bob Beckel told Bill Hemmer today that he got a call from the White House after he suggested implementation for Obamacare should be delayed 6 months.

“The other day on The Five I called for a delay for the implementation of this for five months or six months to a year. And I got a call from somebody at the White House who absolutely bludgeoned me over it…“

Read more: thegatewaypundit.com

Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2013/10/welcom...q49qfeelbp2.99

Sebelius: I'm Not Signing Up for Obamacare


67





In an interview with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta Tuesday night, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she won’t be enrolling in the problem-plagued health insurance system that she was charged to implement.

“I have created an account on the site. I have not tried signing up, because I have insurance,” she told Gupta.
But Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says government officials like Sebelius should be required to live under the same laws they impose on everyone else.
Paul is now plugging a constitutional amendment that states, “Congress shall make no law applicable to a citizen of the United States that is not equally applicable to Congress.” The amendment also contains two provisions that apply that same principle to the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch of the federal government.
Appearing on Fox News Tuesday evening, Paul told Sean Hannity he thinks this is an amendment “that really everybody ought to be able to agree to.”


Post Continues on cnsnews.com

video at link below

http://bighealthreport.com/10129/seb...for-obamacare/

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Surpriseeee Surpriseeee!!!!!

GOP: Did Obamacare site hide prices?



President Barack Obama, standing with supporters of his health care law, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law’s rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) By Tom Howell Jr.
-
The Washington Times
Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Question of the Day

Should Kathleen Sebelius be fired for the problem-plagued Obamacare rollout?

• Yes, she is ultimately responsible

  No, she is unfairly taking the blame for others

  Undecided

  Other

Login to Vote
View results




The House’s top investigators want to know if the Obama administration made a political decision to get rid of an online tool that would have allowed uninsured Americans to comparison-shop among private health plans on the federal Obamacare website before registering for an account.


Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote to the administration’s top information technology officers on Tuesday to demand answers about the purported maneuver.

---

SEE ALSO: Judge to rule by February on case that could blow a hole in Obamacare

---

They cited committee briefings with CGI Federal — the lead contractor on HealthCare.gov, which channels Obamacare traffic from three dozen states — as the catalyst for their suspicions.
“Although CGI officials were not able to identify who within the administration made the decision to disable the anonymous shopping feature, evidence is mounting that political considerations motivated the decision,” Mr. Issa and four other committee Republicans said in their letter to U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel and Chief Technology Officer Todd Park.


CGI inked a five-year contract worth nearly $94 million with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the chief agency in charge of implementing the health care law, the letter said.
Early on, CGI officials aired concerns about the readiness of the online portals in a briefing with the oversight committee.


They also said that CMS staff would regularly say things like, “This is what the White House wants,” raising the specter of politically-motivated decisions, according to the GOP lawmakers.
A Wall Street Journal article cited in the House letter said the administration wanted to make sure that users were aware of any subsidies they qualified for — before they got a look at the prices of various health policies.
Mr. Issa’s letter suggested the register-first model caused the site to jam up.


“Many IT experts have suggested that the decision to disable the anonymous shopping feature contributed to the failure of healthcare.gov on October 1, 2013, and in the weeks that have followed,” the lawmakers said in their letter.


A spokesperson for CMS could not immediately be reached for comment on the GOP members’ inquiry.


The rocky rollout of the insurance portals tied to Obamacare has been a serious headache for an administration that is hoping about 7 million people obtain coverage during an open enrollment period that lasts until March 31.


President Obama delivered a remarkable mea culpa at the White House on Monday, saying his administration is working around the clock to fix the “kinks” and that no one is madder than he is about the problems associated with his key legacy item.


Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, are piling on criticism of the system and the law as a whole, which they never liked, anyway.


Additionally, some on Capitol Hill have called for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is overseeing the rollout of the health law.

“The recent problems associated with Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges and the colossal failure of healthcare.gov has revealed systemic and pervasive failures within the administration’s implementation of ObamaCare,” Mr. Issa’s letter said.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2ieWyoYKs
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Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz2ieWn43Uc
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GOP: Did Obamacare site hide prices?

OH NO say it isn't so!!!

Haven't we all learned by now that nothing this Obama administration or any of the past ones for that matter do is on the up and up, they are all snake oil salesmen and we elected them and gave them the power, God help us all!!

Piers Morgan Grills Jay Carney Over Obamacare Website Failure [Video]

Don Irvine — October 22, 2013



White House press secretary Jay Carney was grilled by CNN’s Piers Morgan on Monday evening, as Carney tried to defend the abject failure of the administration’s health care website.



Morgan asked Carney about what guarantees the President was given that the Obamacare website was ready to launch. He then brought up the mounting criticism, including from Carney’s predecessor Robert Gibbs, who called the rollout “excruciatingly painful,” and said officials deserve to be fired. Morgan then asked Carney, “At what point do you consider a head rolling?”

Carney replied that “It shouldn’t be about making heads roll and firing people.” He then proceeded to try and make it about Sen. Cruz and the GOP shutting down the government because they opposed Obamacare.


Morgan wasn’t buying what Carney was selling. He told Carney that he agreed with him and supports Obamacare, but at some point if the system still isn’t working, someone needs to be held accountable. And if it isn’t the President, then who is it going to be?


Carney responded that accountability is making sure the system gets fixed, and not about making heads roll. He said that the President is committed to making sure the system is working efficiently for the American people.


What’s wrong with making heads roll? Someone is responsible for the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare website. Why can’t the administration just admit that, rather than trying to shift the blame to the GOP, or to refer to these massive rollout problems as just glitches, which they are not.


Harry Truman said “The buck stops here.” For the Obama administration, it’s more like the buck is passed here.



http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/p...298e-224224701

Get it "fixed for the American people" ....What about for the President, his exemptions and waivers right down to his family, government officials and their friends, all the way down to the American people, all for one and one for all!!!!!! Not good enough for all of you definitely not good enough for the rest of us, remember you all work for us.

Originally Posted by kathyet2

Is it too much to ask that our President at least try to pretend that he’s telling us the truth?

Actually, with this guy it is too much to ask. 'Bama has raised cynicism in public life to new heights. IMO he'll say anything to get what he wants, and the fanboy press simply won't call him on his lies. ***************************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

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