September, 2017, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Accounting Scandal At HUD, The Clinton Crime Syndicate Update and More, ,

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

1) Democrats flipped out when they found out that Ben Carson was going to take over the Federal department, Housing and Urban (HUD). He had no experience in the Federal government bureaucracy, as if that was a good thing given how badly the Federal government bureaucracy actually worked and he had no housing industry experience. They seem to ignore the fact that he grew up poor in housing projects, giving him first hand experience with government housing programs, and that he is really, really smart.

So smart that just being months in the job he uncovered some really nasty goings on with HUD:

• One of the first things Carson did once in place was to conduct an audit of the HUD organization.
• The turned up an amazing $520 billion in bookkeeping errors.
• Which makes you wonder how the Obama administration and their administration of HUD somehow missed this whopping problem.
• According to the auditors: “The total amounts of errors corrected in HUD’s notes and consolidated financial statements were $516.4 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively.” 

Not bad for someone the Democrats thought was unqualified for the job. Makes you wonder how much of that half a trillion dollars in bookkeeping errors was siphoned off by criminals, political friends of the Democrats, or just pure wasteful and inefficient government. Also makes you wonder how many more trillions of dollars are also being hidden by “bookkeeping errors” throughout the Federal government bureaucracy.

2) It has always been our opinion that Hillary Clinton,while Secretary of State under Obama, was essentially operating a crime syndicate that probably even the Mafia envied. The syndicate tied together three components:

1. The ability of Hillary Clinton to grant favors and direct, or misdirect State Department affairs, to suit certain parties.
2. These parties would offer up large donations to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for access to Hillary and the favors she could grant them for contributing to the Foundation.
3. These same parties would often give husband Bill Clinton huge “speaking fees” after Hillary had granted special favors, making Bill and Hillary richer and richer.

Proof and examples of how this crime syndicate worked was recently uncovered by Judicial Watch which forced the government to release Clinton State Department emails via a Freedom Of Information Act request, as reported by Kyle Becker, writing for the Independent Review website last month:

• Many of the released emails involved Huma Abedin who was Clinton’s most trusted top aid during her time as Secretary of State and as a Presidential candidate.
• These emails had not been disclosed earlier even though Clinton claimed that all of her State Department emails had been turned over, according to Judicial Watch: “The documents included 91 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 530 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department, and further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to the State Department. [...]”
• Many of the emails showed how Clinton Foundation donors used their contributions for access to and favors from Hillary as Secretary of State.
• Howard Buffett, Jr., the grandson of Warren Buffett, sought a meeting for his father, Howard Sr., with Hillary Clinton to discuss 'food security,' a meeting that Bill Clinton aid Ben Schwerin tried to arrange through Abedin, which she said “we will take care of this.”
• In April, 2009, Puerto Rican telecom executive, Miguel Lausell, who supposedly made a personal one million dollar donation to the Clinton Foundation and who was a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, asked Abedin via a third party to push for an acquaintance/friend to be made U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
• Also in April, 2009, the Managing Director of a left wing fundraising group called Democracy Alliance emailed Abedin and asked them to “reach out” to someone who was an “extremely loyal supporter” and get that person a job at a senior level in the State Department.
• In all of these emails Abedin always appears to be amenable to providing these favors and is actively involved in the contacts.

The perfect crime syndicate set up.

3) California is not in good fiscal shape, It has unfunded liabilities in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It has high levels of short term and long term debt. It has high levels of poverty and its schools and infrastructure (streets, dams, bridges) are in horrible shape. One would hope that the state political class would be doing all it could to help its legal citizens get better services from the state government.

But as always when dealing with American politicians, hope is a concept that never materializes. According to various news reports:

• According to the Los Angeles Department of Public Social Services, the city of LA paid out about $1.3 billion in welfare payments in 2015 and 2016 to illegal immigrants living in that city.
• That was about 20% of all money paid out by the city in welfare payments in that time period.
• The Department found that 58,000 illegal immigrant families received $602 million in benefits in 2015 and 64,000 families received $675 million in 2016.
• LA county’s total budget for welfare in those two years was about $6 billion, yielding a rate of about 20% of the total budget gong to legal immigrants.

Some may call me racist but really, over a billion dollars given out to people that are not here legally to begin with? How many actual citizens could have received more and better housing options with that $1.3 billion? How many actual citizens could have received relevant job training to get them back into the workforce for that $1.3 billion? How many actual citizens could have received drug addiction treatment to help them turn around their lives? Instead, illegal immigrants, technically criminals, got to use $1.3 billion of taxpayer wealth without doing anything to deserve it.

Okay, that’s my rant for the day. Citizens getting shortchanged in California, rich people get valuable favors from a high ranking government official, and Federal bureaucracy bookkeeping errors that likely costs American taxpayers untold billions of dollars every year. More insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

December, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Wasteful Spending In Afghanistan and the Pentagon, Pelosi Goes Racist, and The Economic Recovery That Isn't

It has been almost a month since Donald Trump has been elected which means at some point in the future we may run out of material to talk about. With the demise of the Obama administration, eight years worth of wasteful and excessive spending for nothing in return, foreign affairs blunders, Obama Care disasters, and assorted other administration and government blunders and screwups might end with the onset of a new administration. Trump may usher in a new paradigm of government actions that are limited, effective, cost efficient, and protective of the Constitution. If so, then this blog would run out of material to discuss and would have to be shut down.

But I doubt it. Even if Trump is truly a different type of President, he is still fighting over 500 embedded and entrenched politicians in Congress and thousands and thousands of government bureaucrats who will not go peacefully into the night for the good of the country. I wish him well and hopefully he can fix at least some of the myriad of problems the American political class creates everyday but until then, enjoy the latest political class insanity from Washington and beyond:

1) We have often discussed the reality that the Pentagon’s financial systems and processes are so screwed up that even trained, professional auditors have thrown up their hands after trying, and failing, to understand and straighten out the Pentagon’s financial situation. So far, no one has been able to tame the out of control spending of the Pentagon, likely making it easy for fraud and criminal activity to ravage taxpayer wealth earmarked for our national defense.

And according to the Washington Post, things have not changed much:

• The Pentagon had tied to hide an internal study that identified a whopping $125 billion in “administrative waste” in its business functions and operations. 
• They tried to hide the findings in order to not give Congress an excuse to clean up its act or cut its budget. 
• The original study was supposed to identify ways to be more administratively efficient in order to funnel those efficiency savings back into combat operations but the findings were so bad that the decision was made to try and hide the findings. 
• This waste comes out to roughly about $1,050 for every American household. 

Seems some things never change or Congress and the President have no desire or ability to save taxpayers money.

2) One never knows what nonsense is going to come out Nancy Pelosi’s mouth. After Trump announced that he wants to have Dr. Ben Carson head up the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency, Pelosi went off on the choice: “Dr. Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development. Our country deserves a HUD Secretary with the relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters, particularly in low income and minority communities, and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and affordable housing without facing discrimination or homelessness. There is no evidence that Dr. Carson brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.”

A few realities Ms. Pelosi:

• Dr. Carson is an African-American so I would think that he would be sensitive to minority communities. 
• Dr. Carson actually grew up poor and living in public housing so he knows firsthand what is is like to live in a HUD facility, an experience that I bet no other HUD head ever had. 
• Dr. Carson is a former brain surgeon, I bet he is smart enough to work through issues and problems, smarter than most people serving in Congress and that his work ethic is high above most of the rest of the world. You do not become a renowned brain surgeon by sliding by. 

Imagine how Democrats would have reacted if Obama had nominated Dr. Carson for the same position, the cries of racism would have been rampant, such hypocrisy.

In fact, if Pelosi really believes this trash, let me take her words and twist them slightly to that she can see how stupid and racist she sounds: “Former community organizer and short term Senator Barack Obama is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice for President of the United States. Our country deserves a President with the relevant experience to protect the rights of all Americans and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and free lives. There is no evidence that Senator Obama brings the necessary credentials to hold a position with such immense responsibilities and impact on families and communities across America.”

Of course, I bet Pelosi would find this Obama statement as racist but her Carson statement as not racist. Insanity.

3) Perry Chiaramonte, writing for Fox News on November 17, 2016, provided another disgusting example of wasteful Pentagon spending:

• Back in December, 2006, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government financial institution, approved a plan to build a 209 room, five star hotel and apartment complex next to the U.S. embassy in the capital of Afghanistan. 
• This was supposed to be a cornerstone of the country’s post war reconstruction program. 
• Ten years later, millions and millions of dollars later, the only thing to show for the effort is a “ghost hotel.” 
• According to the Office of the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), $85 million in taxpayer wealth has been lost because of “troubling management practices and lax oversight.” 
• And expenses for the doomed project continue to go on to pay for security for the failed effort since it is right across the street from the U.S. embassy. 
• "The Marriott Hotel Kabul is emblematic of our reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan,” Special Inspector General John Sopko told FoxNews.com. “Great ideas, tons of money, poor execution and no oversight create incredible opportunities for fraud." 
• Although tens of millions of dollars were wasted during the Bush administration, additional tens of millions of dollars continued to be wasted deep into the Obama administration. 
• According to SIGAR inspector,the $85 million got U.S. taxpayers a building with major cracks in the roof, damaged fireproofing, demolished walls, uninstalled doors and windows, and incomplete water and electrical systems. 
• In addition, “The SIGAR inspectors accused OPIC of not doing enough to monitor the construction on-site and taking the builder’s status reports at face value. OPIC accepted either invoices or receipts as proof to demonstrate how the loan proceeds had been spent,” they wrote. “However, without on-site verification of activities and progress, neither the invoices nor receipts required by OPIC provided sufficient evidence to support purported purchases.” 

Despite this disaster, want to bet that no one has or will be held accountable for wasting $85 million in taxpayer wealth?

4) While Obama likes to brag that he singlehandedly saved the U.S. economy, we have often pointed out the following realities of his “salvation:”

• The labor participation rate is at 40 year lows despite six years of the Obama recovery. 
• The average/median household income and wage levels have remained stagnant for most of the Obama recovery. 
• Millions of Americans cannot find a full time job, settling for part time employment, despite the Obama recovery. 
• A record 94 million American adults are NOT in the labor force despite the Obama recovery. 
• More than everAmericans over the age of 65 are still in the workforce, likely because they need the money despite the Obama recovery. 
• More Americans under the age of 30 are still living with their parents because they cannot find good enough jobs to live on their despite the Obama recovery. 
• The country’s annual GDP levels have never attained even the historical level of growth despite the Obama recovery. 

Stewart Lawrence, writing for the Daily Caller website on December 6, 2016, filled in some of the latest details of the lousy Obama recovery:

• The U-6 unemployment rate is a more accurate measure of unemployment in today’s economy, not the U-3 unemployment rate that Obama likes to tout because so many American adults have dropped out of the workforce because they became too discouraged to look for a job. 
• The better U-6 measure currently stands at around 9.3% about double the U-3 rate, a spread that is at historical highs, not unexpected given that the labor participation rate is at such a low level. 
• There are a whopping 6 million Americans working part time who desire full time work but cannot find it, the highest level in 30 years. 
• According to Mr.Lawrence: “Many economists have begun referring to a “new normal” in the US labor market — a permanently high number of under-employed part-timers.” 
• Since most part time workers earn less than full time workers, it is no surprise that wage and income levels have remained stagnant for most of the Obama recovery. 
• The labor participation rate has continued to decline steeply throughout the entire Obama recovery, to steep to be explained away by Baby Boomer retiring from the workforce, especially since a record number of Americans over the age of 65 have decided to stay in the workforce. 
• The Federal Reserve predicts that the labor participation rate will continue to decline if nothing changes in Washington, getting down to a depressing 61% by 2022. 
• And whatever jobs the Obama recovery created have usually been lower wage jobs with the economy seeing a net loss of one million higher paying jobs through 2014 in market segments such as accounting and legal, but seeing a net gain of two million jobs in low paying market segments such as fast food locations, another factor in stagnant wages and income. 

Over taxation, over regulation, over optimism and delusions by this Presidency.

That will do it for today’s insanity: an economic recovery that isn’t, wasteful Afghan and Pentagon spending that is, and the nsanity of Pelosi continues. More insanity tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Obama Era, Part 2: Memories From The Worst Presidency Ever?

We are coming up on the end of another year so I thought it might be a good time to review everything that I remember about the Obama administration. He has been in office for seven years, seven long years that in my opinion have been horrific in so many ways. This was someone who entered office with approval ratings that were above 70% and who represented the so-called “hope and change” that many Americans were seeking.

Seven years later hope has become very scarce and change has almost always been for the worst. Now, before someone says that I am just a sour grapes Republican, conservative, or neo-con, understand that I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life (I started voting in the 1970s). Up until 2010, I had never voted for Republican for national office in my life. I fully support gay rights and respect a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Thus, none of what you are about to read over the next few days comes from a Republican sour grapes perspective.

But unless you have had completely had your head in the sand or elsewhere, this has been the worst Presidency that I have experienced in my lifetime. From horrid legislation (e.g. Obama Care) to a failed foreign policy (e.g. Syria) to daily lawlessness on the part of this administration (e.g. use of unsecured email accounts by high ranking administration members), the ineptness and ineffectiveness of this administration is mind boggling.

Thus, given this set up, in no particular order, this is what I will remember about the Obama Presidency:

- I will remember that this administration illegally ignotred the orders of a Federal judge relative to a ban on drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico.

- I will remember that whenever this President was called upon to pay a tribute to other Americans, e.g. Neil Armstrong, 9-11 victims, Daniel Inouye, Rosa Parks, etc., he always made the tribute about himself, not others.

- I will remember how this President illegally and unConstitutionally entered this country into the Libyan civil war without the consent of Congress, wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth, endangering the lives of American servicemen and women, and helped create another failed, terrorism infested state.

- I will remember how this President illegally and unConstitutionally refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which although a repugnant piece of legislation signed by Democrat Bill Clinton, it was still the law of the land and required the consent of Congress to repeal it, not the unilateral action of the executive branch.

- I will remember how this President deliberately tried to bypass Congress and the Constitution by establishing a shadow government of “czars” that were not accountable to the people or voters.

- I will remember how this administration gave away tens of billions of dollars to failed alternative energy companies (e.g. Solyndra), mostly run by or financed by Democratic operatives, with no societal benefit in return.

- I will remember how this administration made sure that a major Democratic financial supporter of Solyndra, the Kaiser Foundation, was illegally given priority in bankruptcy proceedings over the American taxpayer when Solyndra failed.

- I will remember how this administration established and then tried to cover up a failed gun running program called Fast and Furious, a program that broke numerous domestic and international laws on gun running, directly resulted in the death of at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent and at least dozens of innocent Mexican civilians, and which accomplished nothing.

- I will remember how this administration implemented a series of failed, and mostly inane, economic stimulus programs including Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caukers, HARP, and more.

- I will remember how Americans' wages and household wealth have stagnated in the past seven years despite being many years beyond of the end of the recession.

- I will remeber how this administration used the IRS to harass political opponents and American citizens who dared to disagree with Obama's positons including Dr. Ben Carson and Sarah Palin's father.

- I will remember how this administration was caught totally unaware and unprepared when one of the biggest freedom movements of this era came to be, the Arab Spring, indicating a massive contingency planning failure of the Obama State Department.

- I will remember how Obama mistook a public health crisis (e.g. Americans smoke too much, Americans eat too much, Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, Americans do not exercise enough), which is the primary driver and the root causes of our high health care costs, and tried to resolve the high cost issue with a Rube Goldberg insurance solution that has failed miserably and left the root causes intact.

- I will remember how the this administration failed to clean up the criminal fraud and wasteful spending of all Federal government entities such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance, housing, etc., which in total easily wastes hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars every year.

- I will remember how this administration failed to fix the operations of Federal government agencies including the IRS that fails to collect hundreds of billions of tax evader taxes every year, the Pentagon whose accounting systems are so bad that they cannot even be audited, and the waste and redundancy of government programs, as witnesses by the reality that the Federal government has 15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws, more than 20 independent programs helping the homeless, 80 different programs to help economic development, 82 different government agencies working on improving teacher quality, 47 different government agencies working on job training, and 18 different programs working on food and nutrition assistance.

- I will remember how this President always blamed others for his failings, it was never his fault things failed, at various times it was the fault of It was the fault of the Bush administration, it was the fault of the Tea Party, it was the fault of the Republicans, it was the fault of Congress, it was the fault of the Japanese tsunami, it was the fault of the Euro crisis, it was the fault of wealthy Americans who do not pay enough in taxes, it was the fault of ATM machines that help cause high unemployment, it was the fault of ordinary Americans who have grown “a little soft” and who “have lost their ambition” over the years, and it was the fault of the Chinese.

- I will remember how this President often claimed ignorance when an unexpected domestic and international crisis caught him off guard and unprepared and how he found out about it from cable news stories.

- I will remember how this President often claimed that the medical needs of our veterans were a top priority for him but who never fixed the problems of the Veterans Administration, likely resulting in the premature deaths of hundreds of veterans.

- I will remember how Obama tried to bypass the Constitution and Congress by making government appointments during Congressional recesses even though in 2005 then Senator Obama said Bush’s recess appointments were “the wrong thing to do,” to appoint people who “couldn’t get through a Senate nomination,” promising that would never happen if he was President. 

- I will remember how Obama promised to operate the most transparent Presidential administration ever and then promptly undercut that promise by abusing executive privilege, stonewalling Freedom of Information Act requests, secretly investigating and harassing journalists, and impeding Congressional investigations.

- I will remember how Obama promised to shut down the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, implying that those there would get their day in court, but instead the center is still open and and Obama is bypassing judicial processes to unilaterally release terrorists back out into the world.

- I will remember how Obama promised that the nation’s unemployment rate would go as high as 8% unless his $800 billion economic stimulus program was passed and how the the program was enacted and the unemployment rate still soared well beyond 8% for a very long time.

I will remember a lot about this Presidency, almost all of it very forgettable, regrettable and often disgusting, as we have discussed over the past two days. And unfortunately, I will still have more bad memories to review tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2015, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: What Will Really Happen in 2017, The Identity Theft Threat, Personal stories, and More

For over a year we have had to dedicate multiple posts each month to cover the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. If you follow all of the disasters from this legislation that we have discussed, you cannot help but conclude that this is the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington. 

Millions and millions of Americans have been forced off of their current and preferred health insurance policies. Millions have lost access to their preferred doctors. Millions have lost access to their preferred hospitals. Millions are paying higher premiums and deductibles than before. Over a trillion dollars will be added to the national debt. Unemployment and underemployment has been made worse because of the law’s criteria. Economic growth has been stifled. Millions of Americans are now at a much higher threat of identity theft as a result of the poor data system processes of the law. Many Americans now have health insurance, at a higher cost, but are having trouble getting access to health care as doctors are retiring earlier as a result of the law and many doctors are not accepting the lower payments they will receive from Obama Care insurance customers. And after tens years, there will likely still be tens of millions of Americans who do not have health insurance coverage despite the purported objective of Obama Care.

And as we have pointed out dozens and dozens of times, the legislation will never be successful because it never addressed the underlying root causes of our high health care costs in this country. Obama put forth an insurance solution to a public health problem:

• Americans eat too much.
• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans drink too much alcohol.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• America’s food chain is infected and infested with high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
• America is aging making citizens much more likely to be victims of aging diseases such as dementia and Alzheimers.
• Medical practice tort reform is needed nationally and has been shown to work at the state level.
• Cross state border insurance company competition needs to be encouraged.
• The Federal government loses tens of billions of dollars every year via Medicare and Medicaid through waste, efficiencies, and outright criminal fraud, money that could be used to make America healthier, not criminals wealthier.

In the face if these ten root causes, Obama chose to ignore all of them and put n place a Rube Goldberg like government bureaucracy that has no chance of succeeding. To prove this point we have taken the past week or so reviewing the latest disaster, hopefully finishing up with them today: 

1) The Congressional Budget Office just did a new ten years view of the American economy and some of the numbers it came up with relative to Obama Care are devastating:

• The Federal government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over the next ten years for Obama Care.
• This over a TRILLION more than what Obama promised the cost would be to the Federal government and the American taxpayer.
• Obama Care taxes will take $643 billion out of the economy to offset the almost $2 TRILLION in what the Federal government will spend on Obama Care expenses.
• This $1.993 TRILLION will provide coverage to between 24 and 27 currently uninsured Americans but….leave between 29 and 31 million Americans still uninsured TEN years down the road.
• Given that Obama Care was supposed to provide low cost insurance to get every uninsured American health care insurance and less than half of the objective will be accomplished in the next ten years, this certainly has to qualify as a Americans will have Obama Care insurance policy coverage in ten years and divide that into the Federal government's almost $2 TRILLION cost, we find that it will cost about $80,000 PER PERSON to execute the Obama Care legislation that fails to cover even half of the uninsured in this country.
• Simple math shows that the American taxpayer will be an amazing $320,000 for a family of four to get health care insurance coverage under Obama Care.

This is certainly no way to reduce health care costs in this country, not when it costs over $300,000 over ten years to insure on four member family. As we have always said, you would have to work hard to come up with any process that is as broken, expensive, or as asinine as Obama Care.

2) The following story is not directly about Obama Care but there are some analogies I can make. Computer hackers recently broke into the computer systems at Anthem, a major health insurance company. that effort compromised the private customer information of almost 80 million Anthem customer.

This was a serious breach of security, as explained by a press release by the company: “Anthem was the target of a very sophisticated external cyber attack. These attackers gained unauthorized access to Anthem’s IT system and have obtained personal information from our current and former members such as their names, birthdays, medical IDs/social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data.”

Now, Anthem is a major private company that has been around for a while. I would assume that they had invested some major resources into the security of their customer information systems. And they still got hacked and hacked badly. Imagine how easy it is for hackers to hack the Federal government systems that contain your personal information via Obama Care’s data systems process. These processes are new, untested, were rushed into use, and were put together by a company that was already fired for incompetence. 

3) Doctor Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon, a potential 2016 Presidential candidate, and an outspoken critic of Obama Care. I do admire not only for how he has come in life starting with a very poor childhood also because he actually dared to criticize Obama Care with the President sitting a few feet away from him in a public forum. Afterwards, Obama staff people demanded an apology from him for speaking his mind but to his credit, Carson refused.

Dr. Carson was recently interviewed when he gave his strong opinion of what is wrong with Obama Care and why repealing it is not impossible:

“Healthcare is a gigantic issue and there’s no question that the system was broken and that we needed to do something about it. What we did not need to do is create another massive government program and we need to be looking at different ways of taking care of it, putting responsibility back into the hands of patients and to their healthcare providers. There are things that can be done. We keep listening to people saying ‘the horse is out of the barn, you can’t get it back in there, end of story,’ that’s a bunch of crap. We can do anything. This is America. Putting health care in the hands of government bureaucrats fundamentally shifts the power equation in this country. It takes it away from the people and puts government at the pinnacle. The people are supposed to be at the pinnacle. The government is supposed to conform to our will, not us to their will.”

Very well said. Trying to solve a problem with top down government dictates supported by a dysfunctional government bureaucracy is no way to fix a problem. The unfolding disasters of Obama Care that get spawned every month is proof of that fact.

For a related view of what Dr. Carson is talking about and who should be in charge of the country, go to:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/11/american-freedom-pyramid-where-it.html

4) Jonathan Gruber was the MIT economist most credited, and lately discredited, with constructing the infrastructure of Obama Care with its taxes, fees, mandatory enrollment, subsidies, etc. As we have seen and experienced, just about everything he included and all of his forecasts of what would happen in the Obama Care process has been a bust, a disasters, or a disappointment.

Given his failure to get anything right, let’s look at an alternative view of the future to see how really bad Obama Care is likely to be vs. the success that Gruber thought it would be, and which has turned out to be anything but.The following predictions were made by Stephen Parente in a relatively recent Wall Street Journal article. Using just the reality and dates that are pretty much already determined, take a look at this dismal future as a result of Obama Care:

• Although average Obama Care health insurance costs are going up a moderate, single digit amount in 2015, that is likely a temporary respite according to Parente, and certainly not the $2,500 annual reduction Obama promised.
• Two Federal government subsidy programs are keeping the cost increases somewhat moderate, risk corridors and reinsurance.
• Risk corridors use taxpayer money via the Federal government to pay insurance companies the difference between what is spent on policyholders and what the insurance companies expected to pay.
• For reinsurance, taxpayers via the Federal government are paying to cover the healthcare costs of the most expensive insurance company customers, those customers that incur over $45,000 a year in insurance claims, and thus, removing the risk of insurance companies covering the very sickest of us.
• Given that the administration quietly expanded the risk corridors recently indicates that already the costs are higher than Gruber and the insurance companies anticipated.
• These two programs are major reason why Obama Care policy costs did not rise too dramatically in 2015, the American taxpayer is keeping the insurance companies hole and their rates in check.
• However, these subsidy programs end on January 1, 2017 and with their termination, insurance companies are likely to raise Obama Care insurance policy costs tremendously in order to keep their financials inoine with what they need to survive without free taxpayer money.
• Given this situation and reality, Parente, along with an analysis partner, estimate the Obama Care Bronze plans will increase on average in cost by a whopping 45% for families and 96% for individuals beginning in January, 2017,once the two major insurance company subsidy programs go away.
• Obama Care Silver, Gold, and Platinum plans will go up less but still go up substantially in 2017.
• Although premium increases will go up less dramatically after 2017, they will still go up at a faster rate than prior to Obama Care’s implementation.
• The Federal subsidy program will go up nowhere as fast, making Obama Care insurance policies more and more less attractive.
• As costs get more and more onerous, people will get out of Obama Care policies, especially those people that are younger and/or healthier and feel they can weather a sickness or accident without paying high Obama Care policy costs.
• Parente and his partner forecast this migration out of Obama Care insurance policies because of the large jump in costs will actually result in the number of uninusred Americans increasing, not decreasing as Obama promised, leaving more than 40 million Americans uninsured in ten years,m 10% more than who are uninsured today.

Amazing. If their analysis is correct, and their logic and data are not complex or unreasonable, than Obama Care, which was supposed to reduce health care costs and reduce the number of uninsured Americans, will actually increase health care costs faster than if it never existed and actually increase the number of uninsured Americans. 

Only in Washington can you set out to resolve a problem and leave it worse off than when you started at a cost of almost $2 TRILLION. Unbelievable.

5) As we have done every day over the past week in this series, let’s finish up with some heartbreaking stories about real Americans suffering through real trauma as a result of Obama Care. Their stories and many, many others like them can be found at:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

ROBERT - SOUTH DAKOTA Since Obama has been the president, my health care costs have gone up five times what I used to pay without having any major illness.

LAURA - MICHIGAN I have been going to the same psychiatrist for 6 years. It is a service not covered by insurance therefore I pay out of pocket. At my last appointment the fee jumped from $120 to $180 simply because the new coding put in place by Obamacare changed. The service I received had not changed - just the codes.

I only have a certain amount of money budgeted for that service. I will either have to reduce the amount of visits or ask for a reduced fee from the doctor. I want this doctor to get paid everything he deserves - He is very skilled. But a 50% increase because of a change in codes.... NO.

KEVIN - CONNECTICUT I have been with Anthem Blue Cross for over 14 years. I liked my policy ... PERIOD!

The rate for my wife and I was $303 / month with a $5,000 deductible on each. We are generally healthy people and see no need to pay higher premiums to get a lower deductible.

Received a cancellation notice back in Oct 2013 and the information for our replacement policy ...

$928/month

$7,500 deductible each

The reason was ACA ... PERIOD!

We were lied to ... PERIOD!

Let me add to these three stories my own personal Obama Care experience via a good friend. This friend was uninsured and purchased an Obama Care policy in 2014, knowing that she needed to have major surgery soon. Given her situation and need for surgery, she purchased a Silver plan that had a monthly cost of under $0 a month after subsidies and a deductible of under $1,000. She chose a silver plan to get the low deductible in anticipation of surgery.

As 2015 dawned, she awaited for her mid-January surgery date since that was the earliest it could be scheduled. She had allowed her 2014 Obama Care policy to automatically roll over into 2015. Just days before the surgery the hospital called her asking for payment on her over $4,000 deductible. Puzzled, she argued with them, stating that her Obama Care silver policy was clearly less than $1,000.

To make a long story short, although she kept the exact same Obama Care policy from 2014 into 2015, unknown to her, the policy’s monthly premium costs after the subsidy is now over $140 a month and the deductible went from under a thousand dollars to over $4,000. 

She needed the operation, had to pay over $3,000 more than expected, and with the additional $1,200 in premiums a year is questioning whether or not it is still worth carrying the Obama Care policy, especially since the operation is over and a success. 

What a mess in so many ways. Personal suffering and distress, a program/law that does the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do,  personal information getting hacked, and costs that are just plain outrageous for no benefit. 

That will do it for this month’s unfolding disasters of Obama Care. I am sure at this time next month there will be a whole new set of disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington by the most inept set of politicians ever to serve in Washington.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

February, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 5: Sebelius and Biden Out Of Touch With Reality, Small Businesses Start Losing Coverage, Ben Carson Says It Like It Is And More

This will be the fifth and last update on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care this month, not because I have covered all of the disasters but I am getting too depressed reviewing how bad this law really is. For the past three years we have been reviewing how poorly thought out this legislation is, how poorly written it was, how the political class had no clue of the unintended bad consequences of its actions, and how Americans, their families, and the economy is suffering because of it. And the suffering is needless since at the end of the day, this law will not succeed in reducing the nation’s ever escalating health care costs.

1) Nancy Pelosi has always been a favorite politician of mine since her many out-of-this-world quotes and unreal takes on life provide great material for our regular political class insanity posts and almost always perfectly illustrate how out of touch she and most politicians are with the real world. But there is new competition in this area for Ms. Pelosi, namely the secretary of the Health and Human Services department, Kathleen Sebelius.

Ms. Sebelius is the overall leader of the ridiculously botched implementation of Obama Care from the failed website to the failed navigator programs to the inability to hit virtually every mandated date in the law. But the epitome of her failure and state of being out of touch with reality comes from her latest quote regarding Obama Care’s negative impact on the economy. She says there has been absolutely no negative impacts on the economy and jobs creation: “There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act. I know that’s a popular myth that continues to be repeated but it just is not accurate.” 

Huh? We reported back in October that were at least 300 companies, schools, and non profit organizations that gone forth and fired people, cut hours, and curtailed hiring as a result of Obama Care’s tenets. The complete list of those 300 plus organizations can be found at the following post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-2013-obama-care-disaster-update_16.html

In addition, the Investor’s Business Daily, which has been tracking Obama Care related job. now lists 401 employers nationwide who have slashed thousands of worker hours and jobs due to Obama Care. 

But in Sebelius’s world, EVERY economist agrees with her that Obama Care has caused no negative impacts on jobs. Unbelievable. What the list of 401 companies does not include are those companies that have decided not to hire because of Obama Care and we know that is a reality since we have reported on business owner polls that showed a high number of businesses have curtailed hiring new employees in addition to the 401 who have cut employee staffs. I doubt every economist in this world would agree with her.

Given how inane this statement is, it makes you wonder:

• Is she truly that out of touch with reality?
• Does her staff feed her incorrect information to keep her happy?
• Is she trying some sort of mass hypnosis along the lines that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the reality?

I don’t know but this quote is worthy of something Nancy Pelosi would state.

2) The Vice President got into the Obama Care act this week with the follOwing quote: "Initially we talked about by the end of this period having 7 million people lined up. We may not get to 7, but we're gonna get to 5 or 6, and that's a hell of a start."

He may be right but really, what are the chances that the first thing he gets right in his tenure as VP is this estimate. Unless enrollments go through the roof in the next moth or so, the enrollment level is not going to get anywhere close to seven  million…or five million or six million because:

• The administration only acknowledges that about 3.3 million people have indicated they want an Obama Care policy. There is no information violable or that has been provided that shows how many actually went through with the purchase, a number that could be substantially less than 3.3 million.
• As we have discussed previously, many consulting firms and subject matter experts have estimated that a large percentage of Obama Care enrollees are not incrementally insured Americans but people who had health insurance but lost it because Obama Care required their policies to be terminated. Thus, within that 3.3 million estimate is a lot of “churn,” and not a lot of new , incremental policy holders.
• Similarly, news reports are starting to put the estimated number of Americans who lost their insurance as a result of Obama Care is now closer to six million. Thus, even if the VP is right and Obama Care somehow, miraculously gets 6 million enrollees it will be a wash since now almost 6 million people have lost their present insurance.

I am sorry, that is not a “heck of a start.”

3) Dr. Ben Carson is a world renowned doctor and he has been an outspoken critic of Obama Care from within the medical establishment. In a recent speech he compared the establishment of Obama Care to the communist policies of Lenin. The Washington Times captured some of his remarks from his speech:

Dr. Carson further compared the new health care reform to policies envisioned by Vladimir Lenin, one of the fathers of socialism and communism.

“Socialized medicine is the keystone in the establishment of a socialist state,” Dr. Carson told the audience of some 2,000 supporters of traditional values.

Such a comment may seem paranoid to some, he said, “but I would say if you know anything about history, how could you not bring it up?”

When people in the executive and legislative branch don’t have to participate, but everybody else has to, “that’s not America, that’s Russia,” he added

He addition, within the same speech he stated: “It was NEVER about healthcare. It was about control.” 

Why do his words carry weight:

• He is an experienced health care professional, not a lobbyist or a politician. 
• He is African American so the he cannot stand accused of being a racists opposed to the policies of an African American President.
• After speaking out early on against Obama Care, the IRS showed up to audit him so he obviously hit a raw nerve within the Obama administration.
• And he is right. Control how you get health care insurance, control who provides your health care needs, control you via fines if you do not do what the Federal government tells you to do, control you via increased taxes, control you by restricting job growth, etc.

You can see him deliver his speech at:

http://www.capitalisminstitute.org/obamacare-is-slavery/

4) The National Center For Public Policy recently completed an analysis relative to America’s small businesses and their health employee health insurance situation. They recently issued a press release whose first paragraph summarized their findings:

"Unfortunately, the cancellation of small-group plans may not get the same widespread press coverage that the cancellation of individual policies received late last year," says National Center for Public Policy Research's David Hogberg in a new article in the American Spectator, "ObamaCare's Little Noticed Victims."

The press release goes on to estimate that 20 million Americans working in small businesses will lose their current health insurance coverage during 2014 since the Department of Labor has estimated that up to two thirds of small business group health insurance policies currently violate Obama Care's grandfather regulations and will be terminated. Since there are about 31 million Americans covered by small group health insurance policies, that translates into 20 million cancellation notices being sent out.

In a tragic piece of irony, employees who work at the National Center For Public Policy recently found out that their current and preferred employee health insurance policy would be terminated effective April 1 since it did not conform to Obama Care requirements. The Center had had the same policy and carrier since 1996 but that history and preferred situation is now less than sixty days from being blown up.

With the termination of their health coverage, the employees are now about to enter the stress induced problems that those people who had their personal health insurance policy cancelled because of Obama Care: are their preferred doctors going to be included in any new coverage, are their preferred hospitals going to be included in any new coverage, where their premiums and deductibles go up (likely yes), will covered medicines still be covered (possibly no), how to they transition current medical problems to the new policies, etc. 

If true, and 20 million people working for small businesses do lose their insurance coverage, than even if Biden is right and six million enrollees do sign up for Obama Care, that level would still be about 14 million short. Disgraceful.

5) We will close this post with a personalized story of one American. Emilee Lamb wrote about her trials and tribulations as a result of Obama Care n the February 3, 2014 edition of the New York Post. When we talk about six million people or 2-0 million people losing their preferred health insurance coverage and losing access to their preferred doctors and hospitals, it can be a little cold and distant, just numbers on a page.

But Ms. Lamb’s story is a real live, personal and sad case of what Obama Care is really doing to many individual Americans:

ObamaCare was supposed to help me.

That’s all I could think as I sat in the House of Representatives last Tuesday night as the guest of my congresswoman, only a few hundred feet away from President Obama as he gave his State of the Union address. Four years ago, I’d have been there cheering for ObamaCare’s passage. But the real ObamaCare has made my life a nightmare.

I suffer from a difficult chronic illness called lupus, an autoimmune disease with devastating symptoms that strike when you least expect them. At age 40, my life is filled with visits to doctors, specialists and the emergency room. While paying for this care is expensive, I have no other choice.

Prior to ObamaCare, I bought my health insurance through CoverTN, a program run by the state of Tennessee. The coverage was perfectly suited to my unique medical condition. It offered me low premiums, a low deductible and low co-pays for my regular trips to doctors and specialists. This plan was perfect for someone with my unique medical condition and limited financial means.

My plan was canceled last fall. According to the regulators behind ObamaCare, it was a subpar plan that should no longer be sold to consumers. Another 16,000 Tennesseans on the same plan were similarly dumped. Many, like me, liked their plans and wanted to keep them.

This wasn’t my insurer’s fault at all. CoverTN actually fought for me to keep my health care. After I received my cancellation notice, the folks at CoverTN requested that the federal government give them a waiver, which would let them grandfather my plan into ObamaCare. Their request was rejected.

This left me with no health plan and only one choice: Buy a plan through the ObamaCare exchanges.

After weighing my options, I settled on a “platinum” plan. This was the best plan that I could choose. A “bronze,” “silver” or “gold” plan all would leave me paying exorbitant amounts of money on my frequent, and expensive, trips to doctors and specialists.

But the platinum plan was the lesser of two expensive evils. My new plan costs me $373 a month, even after a small subsidy.

By comparison, my old plan only cost me $57 a month. And I now pay 25 percent co-insurance on all doctor visits until I reach my out-of-pocket maximum of $1,500. This is much higher than under CoverTN.

All told, I’m likely going to pay more than $6,000 more each year for my medical care.

I’ve had to take a second job in order to pay for my ObamaCare plan. Given my health problems, the physical and emotional drain that this puts on me is difficult to bear. It’s also made it much more difficult for me to care for my ailing mother, who depends on me for help.

For me, the impact of ObamaCare is a health plan that is both unaffordable and uncaring. For a law named “The Affordable Care Act,” this is both backward and perverse.

It’s also not what you promised me when I voted for you, Mr. President. When you were on the campaign trail, you promised that ObamaCare would help me with my medical problems. You promised that people like me with pre-existing conditions would be better off. And you promised that if I liked my health-care plan, I could keep it.

Mr. President, you’ve now broken all of these promises — and not just to me.

Emilie Lamb

That is the reality of Obama Care. Not the perverse out of touch world of Sebelius who denies the reality of massive job losses due to Obama Care. Not the reality of Joe Biden who thinks this thing is off to a heck of a start, a sentiment probably not shared by people like Ms. Lamb. It is the worst piece of Federal legislation that was passed by the worst set of politicians in the history of the country.

And next month, we will have to go through all of this again as I am sure the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care will continue to fold disasters.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w