Thread: Think NSA Spying Is Bad? Here Comes ObamaCare Hub

Think NSA Spying Is Bad? Here Comes ObamaCare Hub


By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 08:14 AM ET

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. AP View Enlarged Image


The Health and Human Services Department earlier this year exposed just how vast the government's data collection efforts will be on millions of Americans as a result of ObamaCare.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., asked HHS to provide "a complete list of agencies that will interact with the Federal Data Services Hub." The Hub is a central feature of ObamaCare, since it will be used by the new insurance exchanges to determine eligibility for benefits, exemptions from the federal mandate, and how much to grant in federal insurance subsidies.


In response, the HHS said the ObamaCare data hub will "interact" with seven other federal agencies: Social Security Administration, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense and — believe it or not — the Peace Corps. Plus the Hub will plug into state Medicaid databases.



And what sort of data will be "routed through" the Hub? Social Security numbers, income, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, and enrollment status in other health plans, according to the HHS.


"The federal government is planning to quietly enact what could be the largest consolidation of personal data in the history of the republic," noted Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota finance professor.


Not to worry, says the Obama administration. "The hub will not store consumer information, but will securely transmit data between state and federal systems to verify consumer application information," it claimed in an online fact sheet .


But a regulatory notice filed by the administration in February tells a different story.
That filing describes a new "system of records" that will store names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, email addresses, telephone numbers on the millions of people expected to apply for coverage at the ObamaCare exchanges, as well as "tax return information from the IRS, income information from the Social Security Administration, and financial information from other third-party sources."
They will also store data from businesses buying coverage through an exchange, including a "list of qualified employees and their tax ID numbers," and keep it all on file for 10 years.


In addition, the filing says the federal government can disclose this information "without the consent of the individual" to a wide range of people, including "agency contractors, consultants, or grantees" who "need to have access to the records" to help run ObamaCare, as well as law enforcement officials to "investigate potential fraud."


Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., complained that just months before ObamaCare officially starts, the Obama administration still hasn't answered "even the most basic questions about the Data Hub," such as who will have access to what information, or what training and clearances will be required.
Beyond these concerns is the government's rather sorry record in protecting confidential information.
Late last year, for example, a hacker was able to gain access to a South Carolina database that contained Social Security numbers and bank account data on 3.6 million people.


A Government Accountability Office report found that weaknesses in IRS security systems "continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the financial and sensitive taxpayer information."


A separate inspector general audit found that the IRS inadvertently disclosed information on thousands of taxpayers between 2009 and 2010. In 2011, the Social Security Administration accidentally released names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of Americans.
If these government agencies can't protect data kept on their own servers, how much more vulnerable will these databases be when they're constantly getting tapped by the ObamaCare Data Hub?


In any case, creating even richer and more comprehensive databases on Americans will create a powerful incentive to abuse them among those looking to score political points by revealing private information or criminals who want to steal identities.
A recent CNN poll found that 62% of Americans say "government is so large and powerful that it threatens the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans."


What will the public think once ObamaCare and its vast data machine is in full force?

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/062513-661...#ixzz2XF1ylQzX

BOYCOTT: WILL YOU WATCH NFL FOOTBALL IF IT PIMPS OBAMACARE?

By Clash Daily / 25 June 2013 / 3 Comments
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Monday she is in talks with the NFL to help promote new insurance options under ObamaCare.

Sebelius said the football league has been “very actively and enthusiastically engaged” in discussions about a partnership to encourage people to enroll in newly available insurance plans.
“We’re having active discussions right now with a variety of sports affiliates” about both paid advertising and partnerships to encourage enrollment, Sebelius told reporters.HHS is reportedly also in talks with the NBA to promote the law.
Partnerships with sports organizations are especially promising to HHS because the department hopes large numbers of young, healthy men will enroll in the law’s new coverage options.


Read more: http://clashdaily.com/2013/06/boycot...#ixzz2XF4cL8qK


Read below

Sebelius in talks with NFL on promoting ObamaCare insurance plans


By Sam Baker - 06/24/13 12:23 PM ET


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Monday she is in talks with the NFL to help promote new insurance options under ObamaCare.
Sebelius said the football league has been "very actively and enthusiastically engaged" in discussions about a partnership to encourage people to enroll in newly available insurance plans.
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"We're having active discussions right now with a variety of sports affiliates" about both paid advertising and partnerships to encourage enrollment, Sebelius told reporters.HHS is reportedly also in talks with the NBA to promote the law.
Partnerships with sports organizations are especially promising to HHS because the department hopes large numbers of young, healthy men will enroll in the law's new coverage options.
Attracting young, healthy people will help keep premiums from rising dramatically once the law begins offering new protections for more expensive patients — namely, banning insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions.
The Boston Red Sox filmed a commercial promoting Massachusetts's healthcare law when it took effect in 2006.
"We know the Red Sox were incredibly effective in Massachusetts … so it's a logical place to go," Sebelius said.

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The administration is gearing up for a massive public relations push throughout the summer. New insurance exchanges in each state must be open on Oct. 1 to begin enrolling people in coverage that would begin Jan. 1.
Polls show that public opinion of the law is negative, and deep misconceptions about the law have persisted even years after the fiery legislative debate of 2009 and 2010.
"I'd say the most daunting aspect is that people still don't know enough about what's going to change in the law and don't have enough information — still have some misinformation," Sebelius said.
In addition to high-level advertising campaigns, the enrollment push is hoping to target specific groups of uninsured consumers through the channels they already use and trust. The administration and its allies will be enlisting churches and other community groups to encourage people to enroll.
"We have the next couple of months laid out with a very busy and engaged schedule to make sure we're ready for marketplace enrollment on Oct. 1," Sebelius said.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...#ixzz2XF3xc1ER

Senator: Obama pressured Roberts to OK Obamacare

Chief justice endured White House 'counseling him, warning him'


Published: 14 hours ago

See video at link below

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/senator-obama-pressured-roberts-to-ok-obamacare/#ooid=gxbDhzYzpF8x2jvXfzmGXQNW0qEnTaV_

As America waits for the final Supreme Court rulings of this session, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is revisiting the landmark Obamacare ruling by the Supreme Court last year in which Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the individual mandate – a move he believes was the result of tremendous pressure coming from the White House and Democrats in Congress.
On June 28, 2012, Roberts joined the left of the Court in a dramatic 5-4 decision to uphold President Obama’s signature legislation. The Court’s four left-leaning justices – Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – sided with Roberts, who was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush. Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Lee is the author of the ebook, “Why John Roberts Was Wrong About Healthcare: A Conservative Critique of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare Decision,” and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is a former assistant U.S. attorney and a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Samuel Alito.
“I wrote it first and foremost to explain to people that what the Court did in that case was to make law, to legislate. The chief justice rewrote Obamacare in order to save it. He amended it, not just once but twice, in order to save it from an otherwise inevitable finding of unconstitutionality, and that’s a problem,” said Lee, referring to Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling that the mandate failed several constitutional tests but survived as a tax, which is within the power of Congress. Democrats have always insisted that the fee imposed for not complying with the mandate is not a tax.
The majority opinion also altered the Medicaid provisions within the law.
“I can’t think of any other instance in which a court so blatantly rewrote legislation in order to save it,” he told WND. “There have been instances where a court will look the other way, where a court will pay short shrift to this or that aspect of the analysis before it. But I can’t think of another case where the court has rewritten a statute not just once but twice in order to go to obviously great lengths to avoid a finding that it’s unconstitutional.”
Roberts defended his decision by saying a court’s role is to save a statute if there is a way to plausibly claim it’s constitutional. Lee said that was one of the chief justice’s major mistakes.
“That’s where he went wrong. It’s true that when courts are reviewing a statute against a constitutional challenge, to the extent that there are ambiguities, to the extent that you can read a provision one way or the other, the court’s supposed to favor any possible reading of the statute that would save it,” Lee said. “The reading that he adopted was not fairly possible. It was unambiguous based on the text that what Congress did contravened the Constitution. And that’s why he messed up.”
Shortly after the 5-4 ruling was handed down last summer, reports surfaced that Roberts originally sided with the three conservative justices and swing vote Anthony Kennedy to find the individual mandate unconstitutional. Sometime between the oral arguments in March and the final verdict in June, Roberts flipped his vote to uphold Obamacare. Kennedy reportedly tried for one month to convince Roberts to stick with his initial instinct and rule the mandate unconstitutional.
But Roberts refused to budge.
On April 2, Obama publicly declared, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint – that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.”
Obama has publicly attacked the Court before, condemning the justices to their faces during the 2010 State of the Union for having “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests” in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case and urging Congress to “pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”
CBS News reported, “It is not known why Roberts changed his view on the mandate and decided to uphold the law. At least one conservative justice tried to get him to explain it, but was unsatisfied with the response, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.”
The conservative justices then drafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. According to the report, “They deliberately ignored Roberts’ decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.” Several months later, Justice Scalia admitted, “I was disappointed it came out the way it did.”
Speculation at the time suggested public pressure from President Obama and other supporters of the law succeeded in convincing Roberts to find a way to uphold Obamacare.
Lee believes that’s largely correct. He said the construction of the minority opinion demonstrates that it was the majority opinion at one time, but Roberts ultimately succumbed to the pressure.
“This change in his vote likely occurred about the same time when I saw a big uptick in the public criticism against Chief Justice Roberts. It was sort of preemptive criticism from Democrats in the Senate and from the White House counseling him, pleading with him, warning him, insisting that it would be a form of judicial activism if he invalidated a law that was ‘duly enacted by an elected Congress,’” Lee said. “So yeah, it does appear to have had that effect.”
Roberts was first nominated to the Supreme Court as a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in the summer of 2005. When Chief Justice William Rehnquist died just weeks later, Bush shifted the nomination for Roberts to become chief justice. In almost eight years in that role, Lee said Roberts has honored his oath very well, but the one exception to that record could not have come on a more important case.
“For the most part, he has been consistent with his oath to uphold the Constitution. He has been a judicial conservative, what you would call a textualist, someone who tries to read the law based on what it says rather than what he wishes it said,” Lee said. “This case was an aberration, not only in its outcome but also in the fact that I’m not sure there’s ever been another case that he’s decided that was as prominent and as far-reaching in its implications as this one. Nor was there any other case in which there was so much attention paid to him personally related to the outcome of the case.”
Upon hearing news of Robert’s decision, talk-radio host Michael Savage compared the chief justice to the traitor during the American Revolution, calling him a “turncoat” and declaring, “Justice Roberts is a sellout. Period.”
Savage also suggested the use of mind-altering drugs to treat seizures could explain why Roberts upheld Obamacare along with four liberal colleagues. Roberts reportedly has a history of epileptic seizures.
Likewise, talk-radio host Mark Levin called for term limits for Supreme Court justices.
“If justices want to be political,” said Levin, “then they shouldn’t serve for life, because the American people deserve better than this. And that’s the bottom line. … The fact of the matter is we, the American people, deserve public officials – whether they’re elected or appointed to serve for life or for limited terms – who are going to uphold our institutions. And if not going to do it, there’s 312 million Americans – we’ll find some who can.”
In 2012, WND selected Justice Roberts for its first-ever Benedict Arnold Award for single-handedly delivering the swing vote to approve Obamacare and perhaps even crush the American health system that has been the envy of the world.
“There are lots of bad guys out there who would qualify as ‘Villain of the Year,’ but precious few candidates for the ‘Benedict Arnold Award,’” explained WND Vice President and Managing Editor David Kupelian at the time. “Benedict Arnold, after all, was a good guy; he was an American general in the Revolutionary War who fought valiantly on behalf of the Continental Army – that is, until, for reasons yet unknown, he defected to the British side and betrayed the cause he had formerly served.”
Kupelian added, “That pretty much describes Justice Roberts, who gained the enthusiastic support of conservatives and other Constitution-lovers by virtue of his earlier rulings and judicial temperament, and yet betrayed that trust in a devastating way. And we still don’t know why he did it.”

What made Chief Justice John Roberts change his mind to favor Obamacare?

• He saw the light. He's growing in his office as chief justice and seeing all sides more clearly
• He was persuaded by the superior intellect of the progressives on the Court
• Maybe he just felt compassion for the 45 million uninsured people in America
• He is concerned about his legacy and doesn't want to be perceived as a far-right conservative
• I don't know, but it's clear that Obama got to him
• I don't know, but this doesn't bode well for upcoming rulings in 2 major cases
• It was an early success story for the NSA in service of Obama
• Maybe he didn't want the IRS looking at his full tax returns
• Maybe he didn't want Attorney General Eric Holder going after his phone records
• Obama's definitely got something on him
• Other
  

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/senator-obama-pressured-roberts-to-ok-obamacare/

9 ways Obamacare has killed jobs already

Exclusive: Dr. Lee Heib awakens D.C. to reality of offering 'free' health care

Published: 18 hours ago




Obama and the architects of health-care reform are long on theory, but short on the reality of medicine.
But there is a reality, whether or not the theorists like to consider it. The facts are the facts, and in this case hard to deny. Even some of the most verbal proponents of Obamacare – are being “bitten in the a–” so to speak by the real world results of their ridiculous attempt at micromanagement of a complex field that constitutes 14 percent of the nation’s economy.




Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana called implementation of Obamacare a “train wreck.” Senators Franken and Lobuchar from Minnesota are finding out that Obamacare’s tax on medical manufacturing is wreaking havoc with their state’s huge medical manufacturing industry. They have, at least on this minor point in the law, moved to the opposition.
Congressional staffers themselves are now subjected to the laws they helped write –and they are not happy to live under the rules! As the joke goes, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.
So let us review the real effects of Obamacare to date:
1. Roseland Community Hospital, a Chicago south-side hospital that cares for many of the area’s indigent is laying off 68 employees including clerks, lab staff, ER nurses and managers. Executives and others are taking a pay cut. This is a direct result of decreased reimbursements under Medicare as mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA, otherwise known as Obamacare.
2. In a June CNBC survey, 41 percent of small businesses reported having frozen hiring due to the new health-care law. 1 out of 5 said specifically the freeze was due to Obamacare. Thirty-eight percent of small businesses said they pulled back on their plans to expand, specifically citing Obamacare.
3. Ministry Health Care is planning a layoff of 225 to 250 full-time jobs due to the reducing reimbursement.
4. Allegany Co. Pennsylvania Community College cut hours for 400 adjunct faculty and other employers so it did not have to pay $6 million in Obamacare-related fees.
5. Medina, Ohio, cut hours of its city employees, citing the fact that they had the money to pay salaries, but not the budget to pay for the new health care required, which would have added $1 million to their cost.
6. Dearborn, Mich., is cutting more than 700 part-time and seasonal workers down to 28 hours a week. According to the Mayor, John O’Reilly, “If we had to provide health care and other benefits to all our employees, the burden on the city would be tremendous.”
7. Temporary staffing jobs hit a record 2.68 million in May as employers look to hire more part-time employees and therefore avoid the ramifications of Obamacare. The temp employment industry in the last four months has added 98,000 jobs, making it the No. 2 growth industry.
8. Medicare cuts in reimbursements to hospitals have resulted in cutting physician staffing. In the Henry Ford Medical Group, 20-25 physicians will be taking early retirement as 3-4 percent is cut from the physician budget. This makes evening and weekend call difficult to cover.
9. A Birmingham, Mich., commissioner, Gordon Rinschler summed it up, “We simply cannot afford the ‘affordable care act.’”
These are just a few of the myriad announcements of job layoffs and the cutting of hours so more people are part-time employees. This is the first response to Obamacare –the real effects will not become fully manifest until 2014. At that time when all the fat has been cut, when all the fines are coming due, when doctors have retired in droves, when the size of government has further expanded and the rest of the costs kick in, there will be nowhere to run. Businesses then will start closing their doors.
There comes a time to examine theory in the cold hard light of reality. The ideal of “free health care” is a false ideal. There is no free lunch and there is no free health care. And when the government offers you something for “free,” grab your wallets because you are about to be fleeced, as businesses, doctors, hospitals and local governments are finding out.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/9-ways-ob...-jobs-already/

Employers Cap Healthcare Procedures to Reduce Costs




Monday, 24 Jun 2013 12:42 PM
By Lisa Barron




Employers are starting to test a new way of capping healthcare costs, telling workers they will pay only a certain amount for a given test or procedure, leaving employees who choose more expensive options to pay the additional cost themselves.

The tactic already is persuading some hospitals to lower their prices, reports The New York Times, pointing to a plan in California, one of the country's biggest buyers of healthcare benefits.

Under the program, public employees are given the choice of going to one of 54 medical centers — including well-known names such as Cedars-Sinai and Stanford University Hospital — that have agreed to charge no more than $30,000 for a hip or knee replacement. Prices for the operation vary greatly throughout the state and the nation, ranging from $15,000 to $110,000.

"It's a symptom of the completely irrational pricing structure hospitals have," Ann Boynton of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as CalPERS, which helped introduce the program, told the Times.

The newspaper cited a study by health insurer WellPoint which found that under the program overall surgery costs fell 19 percent in the program's first year, 2011, with the average amount paid hospitals for a joint-replacement falling from $35,408 to $28,695.

The study showed no impact on the quality of care.

The California program selected hospitals based not just on price but also on issues such as the number of surgeries they performed and their success rate.

"It's not just about reducing cost at the expense of health and clinical outcomes of members," said Boynton.

Still, the plan at least could serve as a warning to hospitals that employers are aware of huge price discrepancies and will no longer pay whatever they charge insurers. "That's a very powerful signal," Suzanne Delbanco, executive director for Catalyst for Payment Reform, told the Times.

The Times said grocery chain Kroger also has instituted a similar program for its workers.

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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Obamacare Will Share Personal Health Info With Federal, State Agencies

June 26, 2013
in Front Page, Government, Health


A new 253-page Obamacare rule issued late Friday requires state, federal and local agencies as well as health insurers to swap the protected personal health information of anybody seeking to join the new health care program that will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.

Protected health information, or PHI, is highly protected under federal law, but the latest ruling from the Department of Health and Human Services allows agencies to trade the information to verify that Obamacare applicants are getting the minimum amount of health insurance coverage they need from the health “exchanges.”
The ruling, explained on pages 72-73 of the book-thick guidance, does not mention any requirement that applicants first OK the release of their PHI. HHS already allows some exchange of PHI without an individual’s pre-approval, especially when for a “government program providing public benefits.” Officials said the swapping of information is simply meant to help figure the best insurance coverge of Obamacare users.
The new ruling surprised some congressional critics. “This sounds as if HHS will have access to protected health info to me,” said one top Hill aide worried about how well the administration will protect that information.
Obamacare Will Share Personal Health Info With Federal, State Agencies [continued]


http://libertycrier.com/government/o...2384-284711521