August, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 4: The 12 Dirty Lies of Obama Care

Note: yesterday we thought that we were done with our monthly update on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. However, I came across a great article from the February, 2014 issue of Reason magazine which summarized the biggest dozen lies that Obama and his supporters spewed forth to promote and enact the Obama Care legislation, lies that many of those supporters very well knew were lies when they stated them. Thus, let’s spend one more day on Obama Care disasters by reviewing the research and findings from the Reason article from back in early, 2014, an article written by Peter Suderman.

The first post in this month's Obama Care unfolding disaster series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/08/august-2014-unfolding-disaster-that-is.html

Reason Magazine - The 12 biggest lies of Obama Care

Deception #1 President Obama: “If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It Hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future.”

Comments: He did not only make this claim and promise once, he repeated it dozens of times in many different ways but with the same unequivocal conviction: you can keep any plan that you have and like, Obama Care will not disrupt that reality. 

But according to the Reason article, Politico reported back November, 2014 that more than 3.5 million Americans got slammed with cancellations of their current health insurance policies, directly as a result of Obama Care tenets. Since then, reliable sources have estimated that an additional 1.5 to 2.5 million Americans suffered the same fate, a fate that Obama promised would never happen.

Deception # 2 President Obama: "What we said was you can keep it [your current health insurance plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

Comments: This was a weasely attempt to back track out of the first deception listed above. As millions of Americans began losing access to their preferred insurance plans, the administration tried to put the blame on the insurance companies that were doing nothing more than complying with Obama Care rules. 

But the weasel words did not gain credibility since there never were these types of conditions place on the situation when the President promised if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Again, it was unequivocal, not conditional as his deceptions tried to spin.

Deception #3 President Obama: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.” 

Comments: another whopper of a lie. First of all, those 5-6 million American who lost their current insurance policy coverage lost access to their doctors since they were no longer insured. 

Those Americans who actually bought an Obama Care insurance policy shortly found out that those policies had very narrow networks of doctors so that even if they did get insurance, they often could not get access to the doctors and specialist they had been seeing or wanted to see since their new Obama Care policies prohibited that access.

Deception #4 President Obama: “We’ll start by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family." 

Comments: Not even close. The majority of people that purchased Obama Care polices were confronted with both sky high premiums and sky high deductibles, realities that came nowhere close to getting each American family a $2,500 annual reduction in heir health insurance rates.

And that sticker shock was for 2014 policy costs. As we have reported many times in this blog, Obama Care policy holders are now facing double digit, and in some states, large double digit, increases in their policy costs in 2015 as insurance companies file their rate requests in each state. A $2,500 reduction is nowhere to be found in the Obama Care reality.

Deception #5 Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi: “It [Obama Care] will create 4 million jobs - 400,00 jobs almost immediately.”

Comments: I always chuckle when I hear Ms. Pelosi try to sound smart with numbers. Obama Care became and still is a major job and economic growth killer as companies have been shown to reduce their expansion and hiring plans in the face of additional business costs and taxes that will be caused by Obama Care.

Just this week we cited credible research that shows just in the medical device industry over 160,000 jobs have been lost as a result of Obama Care. There have been at least dozens and dozens of mergers in the health care field as hospitals merge with other hospitals, medical practices merge, etc. 

There have been very few instance in human history where businesses merged and incremental new jobs were created. Businesses merge to find synergies and to reduce costs, costs that almost always include layoffs. As always, Pelosi never provided the assumption set and underlying calculations to show how she got to such ridiculous numbers, most likely because they did not exist, making her assertion an outright deception.

Deception # 6 President Obama: Obama Care “pushed back on the undue influence of special interests.”

Comments: According to the Reason article, this how the legislation “pushed back:”

• America’s health insurance companies, through their industry group, backed the President’s plans because it forced every American to purchase an insurance company from….America’s health insurance companies.
• The American Medical Association, and their member doctors, were promised that for their support, Obama Care supporters in Congress would fix/increase how much Medicare pays doctors for their services (another promise that apparently never came true).
• The Obama Care administration also cut deals with the drug industry by agreeing to not pursue several policies that were not in the best interests of the drug companies in exchange for their support of the legislation.

Hardly “push backs,” more like cronyism backroom deals among friends.

Deception # 7 President Obama: “We are on schedule, and will be ready for the marketplace to open on October 1.”

Comments: Needless to say, they were not ready on October 1. The supporting data systems processes, crashed, locked up, provided bad information, everything that could have gone wrong from a data processing perspective did go wrong. And this failure happened despite the wasteful and useless expenditure of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and three years worth of work.

But worse of all, high ranking members of the administration knew things were a disaster despite the public promises that everything was fine. According to new York Times reporting on October 12, 2013: “Confidential progress reports from the Health and Human Services department show that senior officials repeatedly expressed doubts that the computer systems for the federal exchange would be ready on time.” 

That is why it is deception # 7.

Deception # 8 President Obama: “Regardless of how the Marketplace [i.e. the Obama Care online website where you could purchase insurance online] is managed, consumers will be able to access the Marketplace with ease.” 

Comments: Just days before the system went live, both the Washington Post and Business Week reported that end-to-end testing of the computer systems had not been completed or verified operationally. Once the untested systems went live, potential customers were faced with access problems, turnaround problems, inaccurate information, hardly like another Obama quote where he promised that accessing Obama Care’s online website would be “the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak - the same way you shop for a TV on Amazon.” 

The reality of the roll out could not be further from this experience.

Deception #9 President Obama: "We expect to resolve these issues in the coming hours.”

Comments: Another deception or outright lie depending on your definition. Those hours turned into days which turned into weeks which turned into months, an ever lengthening time frame that frustrated millions of Americans trying to sign up for a policy “with ease.” 

In the first month that the website was deemed “live,” it was actually accessible by Americans 42% of the time, an abysmal performance considering the cost of over $600 million. Imagine how ticked off you would-be if your email account, your Facebook page, your ability to use Google, etc. was accessible less than 50% of the time. Abysmal.

Deception #10 HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: “Take away the volume, and it works.”

Comments: This was another attempt to correct previous deceptions. The claim was that there was nothing wrong with the website, there were just too many people trying to get onto the site at the same time. 

First of all, this is an excuse for incompetence. The scenario of heavy volume should have been taken into consideration during the development of the website’s software. The administration had been hyping this process for years, did they think that all of the hype and all of the attention in the press was going to result in only a few hundred people trying to use the site? Pathetic planning skills if true.

Second, this was merely an excuse, not a reality. When outside experts were called in to review the situation, they quickly found that volume was not the issue, incompetent computer programming was the issue. It was not a volume issue, it was a basic program design issue, making this assertion by Sebelius deception #10.

Deception #11 Press Secretary Jay Carney: "No, we don’t have that data.”

Comments: It is unheard of to build any website and not know how many people are using it. But yet here was the Press Secretary saying, nope, we don’t have any data to share.

However, subsequent leaks from secret White House Obama Care meetings shows that the administration actually did have enrollment numbers that Carney claimed did not exist. The reasons for the lie is, in all likelihood, the numbers were pathetic. 

Nationwide, only six people, in a nation of over 300 million people, signed up for Obama Care in the first day. By the end of the second day, only 248 people had signed up. Rather than admit this current failure, the administration decided just to lie that existing numbers of enrollment did not exist.

Deception #12 The head of the administration’s Obama Care exchange operation Gary Cohen: “The final Marketplace rule ensures Marketplace develop and follow high standards regarding the privacy and security of personal information while following Affordable Health Care Act requirements regarding the use of data.”

Comments: Sounds impressive, sounds like they were very concerned about protecting personal information from identity thieves. However, behind the scenes, at the same time that Cohen was giving the above deception to a Senate hearing, an internal HHS document stated the truth and not Cohen’s deception: “aspects of the system were not tested due to the ongoing development exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk.”

The system had high risk elements, not "high standards regarding the privacy and security of personal information.” Subsequent experts who reviewed the security protocols called Obama Care’s data systems “an identity thief’s paradise.” 

I understand why the administration would want to make the process look as positive as possible. However, when political spin turns into outright lies, then the credibility of this administration, this President, and Washington as a whole goes right down the tubes. 

Combining these twelve lies with the many other lies of this administration, e.g. the NSA is not spying on ordinary Americans, Benghazi was caused by a video, Guantanamo’s prison would be shut down, etc., we end up with nation crisis in integrity and truth between the governing and the governed. 

Trust is earned and Obama and his cohorts have a lot of earning to do if they ever expect us to believe anything they say in the future. The interesting question is whether they actually care if we believe them.

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

The Corurption and Hunger Games Mentality of the Political Class, Part 1: The Many Facets of Obama Care Corruption

Since we have spent so much of the past week or so reviewing the many disasters and hardships coming out of the Obama Care legislation, we have neglected the latest non-Obama Care disasters, corruption, and idiocy that has been produced by the American political class. We will try to remedy that in the next several posts.

In the past we have done a number of series on political class corruption including the following well read posts:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-corruption-train-keeps-on.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/01/amateur-hour-in-dc-part-3-three-forms.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/05/wasteful-government-spending-week-pimp.html

These are just a sample of popular past corruption posts. Reviewing our Political Class insanity series at the beginning of every month is another rich source of political class corruption.

We have also done a unique series of political class corruption and decadence that uses the theme of the popular “Hunger Games” books and films to depict the pompousness and disgrace of the Washington political class and elite. The Hunger Games’ theme looks at a fictitious nation where the elite live in opulent life styles in the capital city where those citizens outside of the capital live in poverty, drudgery, and basically forced servitude to support the ruling class. 

We make the case that present day Washington is not too far away from the Hunger Games theme in a series of posts that began with the following post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/02/washingtons-hunger-games-approach-to.html

This week we will try to intertwine the themes of corruption and Hunger Games together to weave a tale of how poorly we are governed by a set of politicians whose only concerns are self enrichment, perpetual reelection, ego gratification, and control of Americans in so many different ways. This puts them totally out of touch with ordinary Americans who have to experience the consequences of their idiocy.

The overarching string connecting all of our posts will be the varying definitions of “corruption” as defined by the online Webster dictionary and how well the political class executes the different definitions of corruption in their daily lives. The Webster definitions of corruption that need to be kept in mind include the following facets:

a : impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity 

b : decay, decomposition 

c : inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) 

d : a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct 

Today’s post on corruption will center on Obama Care and the frequent, illegal, and un-Constitutional delays that the Obama administration has unilaterally and arbitrarily imposed on the nation. These actions fall into line with the fourth variation of corruption, a departure from the original from what is pure and correct.

In this country, the pure and correct way to govern is to pass legislation that has been approved by two houses of Congress, representing the will and intentions of the voting public, and which was signed into law by the President. Any needed changes or unforeseen circumstances that the legislation invokes or causes need to be addressed by new legislation that has been approved by the two houses of Congress, representing the will and intentions of the voting public, and which is signed into law by the President. That is the correct and pure form, the non-corrupt form, of governing in this nation.

However, this Presidency violates the correct and pure form by unilaterally deciding what portions and dates within the Obama Care law it wishes to do without going back through Congress, which would act as representatives of the voters, to make the necessary changes in the proper way. This corrupts our concept of liberty and freedom in this country, turning us from a republic into an arbitrary dictatorship.

As an example of the long road map of corruption that the Obama administration has paved, consider some recent history analysis from the Heritage Foundation, based on work done by Bloomberg News. They produced a timeline of changes to Obama Care that were not done in a pure, correct and non-corrupt way but were done 1) in an un-Constitutional manner to suit the political needs of the President’s allies and cronies and 2) to cover up the ineptness and incompetence of the Federal bureaucracy and this administration to carry out its own program and forced legislation.

Whenever you are using the words cover up, cronies, un-Constitutional, ineptness, and incompetence to describe any process, you can be sure that process has been corrupted from its pure or correct form. Obama Care mismanagement has raised corruption to the high standards of the Webster dictionary, as the following proves.

According to the Heritage analysis: Obamacare is now four years old. But unlike most 4-year-olds, it still can’t walk on its own. It’s been tripping and falling over itself for years.

Just in the last year, the Obama administration has delayed or changed so many parts of the law—not to mention the technical “glitches”—it’s tough to keep up. Bloomberg Businessweek looked at the law’s recent track record…

And they found the following major illegal and un-Constitutional changes to the Obama Care legislation:

April 1, 2013: The White House announces the Obama Care marketplaces won’t be able to handle the menu of health plans originally promised and required by the legislation.

July 2, 2013: Obama Care’s employer mandate that requires all employers with 50 or more employees provide coverage to full-time workers gets delayed one year.

September 26, 2014: The Obama administration announces that small businesses won’t be able to buy coverage in the online small business marketplace until November. later than the date required by the legislation.

October 1, 2013: HealthCare.gov launches with major glitches, and Americans and Congressional investigators face a wall of silence from bureaucrats when looking for explanations. The ability to do online enrollment in Obama Care is essentially delayed indefinitely beyond the date required by the legislation.

October 23, 2013: The deadline to buy Obama Care coverage without a penalty gets pushed to March 31. Way beyond the date required b y the legislation.

November 14, 2013: The President presents a “fix” for the millions of Americans who received insurance cancellation notices because of Obama Care. His solution would allow 2013 insurance plans “to be grandfathered in,” an option not allowed by the legislation.

November 27, 2013: Obama Care’s online small business exchange is delayed another year, way beyond the date required by the legislation.

December 1, 2013: HealthCare.gov is re-launched and “fixed,” two months beyond the date it was required to b e operational by the legislation.

December 12, 2013: The White House extends the deadline to December 23 to get coverage that begins January 1. It also announces requiring insurers to accept payments until December 31, in clear violation of the dates set in the legislation.

December 23, 2013: The White House moves the deadline to enroll for January 1 coverage again—to the next day, December 24, in violaiton of the legislation.

December 24, 2013: Consumers who encountered technical difficulties and could not complete their applications on HealthCare.gov by December 24 are given more time, in violation of the legislation.

February 10, 2014; The Obama administration announces that businesses with at least 50 full-time employees (but fewer than 100 full-time employees) won’t be subject to the employer mandate until 2016 if they meet certain conditions, beyond the date required by the legislation.

March 5, 2014: The millions of Americans who lost their individual insurance because their health plans didn’t meet requirements in Obama Care can keep their old plans (if they’re still available) as late as October 2016—avoiding a new round of cancellations during the 2014 election season, beyond the date required by the legislation.

These were the major changes, there were other, less far reaching changes to the legislation’s requirements that were just as blatant and just as corrupt. These multitude of changes has corrupted much of the original, properly passed legislation into a highly corrupt form, a severe departure from the original or from what is pure or correct. 

But over the early weeks of March, 291r4, at least the administration repeatedly assured the nation that the major deadline of Obama Care, the fact that the legislation clearly requires EVERY American to have purchased health insurance by March 31, 2014, is sacrosanct and will not be changed from its original form:

"We have no plans to extend the open enrollment period. In fact, we don't actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014." — Health and Human Services (HHS) official Julie Bataille, March 11, 2014.

“Once that 2014 open enrollment period has been set, they are set permanently.” – HHS official Michael Hash, March 11. 2014.

"March 31st is the deadline for enrollment. You’ve heard us make that clear." – Press Secretary Jay Carney, March 21, 2014.

“There is no delay beyond March 31.” – HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, March 12, 2014

There was to be no delay, it was a hard deadline…until there was a delay and there was no longer a hard deadline. The Washington Post reported this past week that March 31, 2014 is not, in fact, the final day to have health insurance. 

To get more time, you are now on the honor system and able to tell the Federal government that you haven’t been able to sign up yet, in clear violation of the legislation:

Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

How corrupt and out of integrity is this administration when for months they unilaterally and illegally change the passed legislation until it resembles nothing like the original? How corrupt and out of integrity is this administration when the head honor of the whole Obama Care operation, Kathleen Sebelius goes public to say “There is no delay beyond March 31” but in less than two weeks implmetns a delay in the deadline” Pathetic and corruptible.

The Heritage Foundation had a nice and accurate summary of this corruption: 

So the administration’s word means nothing, but officials expect the rest of America to operate on the honor system. After years of Obamacare delays and changes, the administration has lost all credibility.

Americans deserve better. You deserve patient-centered health reform that is true to its purpose: giving you more choices and better value. You deserve to control your own health care—and not to have to worry what the whims of government bureaucrats will be tomorrow.

When we are governed by whims the potential for corruption skyrockets and effectiveness of planning and legislation is minimized by the lack of leadership and integrity of those in office.

More corruption to follow, you will see over the next week or so that corruption has infested just about every aspect of American political life, making us no better than most other secondary countries around the world.

If you want to do something to combat the rampant corruption we will be discussing in the political class this week, consider joining our effort to enforce term limits on all Washington politicians because really, how much worse could it get if we got rid of every politicians today and replaced them with new people who corruption level probably could not be any worse:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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

December, 2013 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 9: Why and How Obama Care Is Failing And Will Fail

This will be the ninth and final update on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care for this month. This does not mean we have covered all of he screw ups, anguish, hardships, and corruption that have been caused by this legislation. 

In fact, we are sitting on over two hundred news reports, analyses, and research findings that prove this is the single worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington. We could probably use these sources to write another fifty or more blog posts on Obama Care, it is that bad. But there is other insanity and trampling to our freedoms being done everyday by the American political class that need to be addressed and that is what we will do starting tomorrow.

This does not mean we will not come back to the Obama Care fiasco. It seems to get worse everyday, new surprises, new costs, new corruption, etc. We will circle back around to what the legislation is doing sometime in the middle of next month.

In the meantime, I have listed the titles of about one hundred information sources that examined the ramifications of Obama Care below. These information sources arose just in the past thirty days or so, I have another hundred or so sources that are older. If you cut and paste these titles into your search engine, the original article should pop up for your review prior to our next set of posts on Obama Care next month.

Until then, let’s summarize some of the general problems and disasters of Obama Care that we have documented and reported on over the past four months:

• Millions of Americans are losing access to their current and preferred health insurance policies as a result of Obama Care.
• Millions of Americans are losing access to their preferred doctors.
• Millions of Americans are losing access to some of the top hospitals in the nation.
• Millions of Americans have either lost their jobs because of Obama Care, have lost work hours as a result of Obama Care, or never got the opportunity at new job opportunities as businesses restricted their expansion and hiring plans as a result of Obama Care.
• Washington politicians illegally made exemptions and exceptions for themselves and their staffs relative to Obama Care requirements.
• The President illegally and unilaterally changed components of the legislation without popular or Congressional approval.
• Many Americans are likely losing access to the necessary medicines they need, medicines that were covered in their previous policies but not in all replacement policies.
• The Obama Care systems and operations have accurately been described as an identity thief’s paradise.
• The legislation forces entities and individuals to disobey their religious tenets and principles, a violation of First Amednment rights.
• The adminsitration has gone after those that dared to speak out against the legislation, resulting in IRS audits, loss of work hours, loss of jobs, etc., a violation of First Amednment rights
• The legislation will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the coming years.
• The legislation will likely not meet its objective of getting insurance coverage to every American, likely leaving tens of millions of Americans without health care insurance over time.
• The legislation is causing a severe doctor shortage that may result in many, many Americans having health care insurance but there not being enough doctors for them to actually take advantage of that insurance.

But even if these problems did not exist and the Obama Care rollout out happned as some imagined, it still would not have resolved the basic problem of ever escalating health care costs in this country since it never identified and addressed the real root causes of those problems. If you do not know what the causes of a problem are, you have very little chance of resolving that problem.

Rather than resolving the underlying causes, Obama Care provides nothing more than a complicated, Rube Goldberg-like insurance bureaucracy that merely shifts health care costs and expenses around with resolving the causes which include the following:

• Americans are vastly overweight leading to allsorts of self inflicted diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, etc.
• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, food that comes from a food processing system that overuses high fructose corn syrup, a result of Federal government over subsidizing of corn production, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much, in part caused by the Federal government subsidizing of the tobacco industry.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• Laws inhibit the cross state line competition in health insurance sales, restricting competition and increasing health insurance prices.
• The legislation did little to reform the health industry tort laws, reforms that have proven highly successful at the state level in reducing health industry costs.
• The legislation never focused on curing the growing problem of “aging” diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and other afflictions of an aging population, a trend that will financially crush any health care reform unless addressed and tamed.
• The writers and creators of the legislation never “followed the money” to build an economic model of where every health care dollar spent in this country flows; without understanding the underlying business model, you cannot eliminate the waste and fraud within that model.
• The legislation never addressed the over $100 billion a year that the government already loses via waste and criminal fraud through its existing health care programs, billions that could have been used to help those today without health care coverage without destroying the current health care arrangements of millions of Americans. 

There you have it in a nutshell. The many reasons why the legislation is going to fail, unable to identify the underlying root causes of our high health care costs and the many ways it is causing havoc on Americans families across the country without any real societal benefit in return.

Interested in more bad news? Check out the following hundred or so other information sources that we have NOT even gotten to in our review of the worst piece of legislation ever written, Obama Care.

Whoops! Top Secret Obamacare Navigator Training Manual Made Public Online | Independent Journal Review 

America Passed ObamaCare for the Uninsured. And Guess What? They Don't Even Want It. | Independent Journal Review 

Creepiest Obama Story Yet 

Medicaid Growth: Catastrophe For State Budgets - Lunch Alert! 

Report: Ill-Trained Obamacare Navigators Encouraging Fraud, Jeopardizing Private Info 

Insurance companies to pour $500 million into ads promoting Obamacare in 2014 | AgainstCronyCapitalism.org 

Issa Slams Obamacare Navigators; Schumer: Cut Veterans' Benefits; NY Catholics Win Birth-Control Challenge 

Larry The Cable Guy's ObamaCare Joke Makes Critics "Cry Like Babies" 

Obamacare: What's Next? 

“Happy Holidays with Obamacare” #6: Medicaid | Americans for Prosperity 

Obamacare Patients To Cost Doctors And Hospitals Millions 

Sebelius ‘Urging’ Insurers to Cover People Who Haven’t Paid 

Errors Continue to Plague Government Health Site - WSJ.com 

Doctor Takes on Washington 

Anti-Obamacare Parody Song: 'You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Blue Shield' 

(Because of Medicare Reimbursement Rules) An effective eye drug is available for $50. But many doctors choose a $2,000 alternative. | AgainstCronyCapitalism.org 

‘There Was Nobody in Charge in the Administration’ 

Report on Obamacare Prep Shows 'No One in Charge' of White House 

Obamacare Architect: If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Pay More 

Conservabuzz – California Censors Government Employee for Daring to Criticize Obamacare 

Cruz SLAMS the 'lawless implementation of Obamacare' 

OBAMACARE PLANS EXCLUDE TOP HOSPITALS 

Crist's Full Obamacare Embrace/ Obama Accused of Freeing Iranian Spy In Iran Nuke Deal/ Welfare Recipient Mocks "Taxpayers & More... 

Millennials Abandon Obama and Obamacare - NationalJournal.com 

Dem Rep: People Losing Their Insurance Under Obamacare ‘A Good Thing’ 

EXPOSED: 126,000 Obamacare Enrollees Not Real // Mr. Conservative 

Dem Rep. Says Americans Losing Health Plans Under Obamacare is a 'Good Thing' 

IRS inspector general warns of Obamacare subsidy fraud | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government 

Doctors boycotting California's Obamacare exchange | Mobile Washington Examiner

Obama Claims ‘Regular’ Secret Meetings with Sebelius 

The Ruling Class is STILL shielding Obamacare 

Insurers on "honor system" for health plan subsidies | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government 

Florida's Own Pravda Blog/ God Approves Of Obamacare/ Palin Reacts to Bashir Quitting 

Americans for Prosperity on Pelosi's broken Obamacare promise | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government 

Obamacare Site For Congressional Staffers Crashes 

Obama Not Only Funds The Muslims they can opt out of the Obamacare with no penalties | 

More Obamacare woes: Federal website gives unusable Medicaid data - News-Sentinel.com 

Notre Dame Sues Obamacare; NSA Tracking Your Cellphone 

Megyn Kelly Loses It Over Huge New Obamacare Problem: 'That’s Your Money!' 

Obama Using Honor System to Pay Insurance Companies 

Harvard: Students turn on Obama, want him recalled, reject Obamacare | Mobile Washington Examiner 

Prize-Winning Obamacare video says not to worry about ricing prices 

'Dirty Harry' Exempts Staff From Obamacare 

Yes, Obama, Republicans have offered Obamacare alternatives | Mobile Washington Examiner 

Obama is a Racist for Promoting Obamacare 

More ObamaCare Chaos 

Healthcare.gov Cost 60 Times Too Much 

TheDC Links - Find out about the Obama administration's latest health care blowout 

Fox News Reporter Screenshots Healthcare.gov, No ObamaCare for Obama, Howard Dean Goes Full Socialist 

ObamaCare’s Latest Numbers Don’t Add Up. You Will Pay the Difference. 

Shocking Obamacare Poll Results... 

NY Times: Medicaid expansion could worsen doctor shortage | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government 

Anyone Who Promotes ObamaCare is a Racist and Here's Why 

Healthcare.gov is still a big security risk | United Liberty | Free Market - Individual Liberty - Limited Government 

Some Reid staffers exempt from Obamacare 

Does Obama want you infected with THIS? 

Obamacare Premiums Higher than the Mortgage 

UnitedHealthcare Dropping Hundreds Of Doctors From Medicare Advantage Plans - Kaiser Health News 

Barton: OCare Website Hidden Source Code Says Users "Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" - YouTube 

Plouffe: Obamacare "Will Work Really Well" By 2017 

Corsi: Obamacare Nightmare Has Only Just Begun 

Obamacare premiums higher than the mortgage! 

Group Paid $1.1 Million To Promote Obamacare "Success Stories" - The Shark Tank - The Shark Tank 

Obamacare: Echoes of Stalinism Past 

The Obamacare Website has Relaunched - Here's How it Puts You in Danger. 

Sinister Source Code embedded in Obamacare program! 

Ellison Barber: Obamacare Website Is Not Fixed - YouTube 

Shocking video reveals way to repeal ObamaCare 

Polls Show ObamaCare Wave Building Against Senate Democrats 

Carney: Americans ‘Don’t Want an Effective Website’ 

No, Obamacare isn't fixed | Mobile Washington Examiner 

ObamaCare Website Crashes When CNN Tests Upgraded Version 

Cancer Patient Who Spoke Out Against Obamacare - Audited by IRS 

George Will: Medicaid is Next Obamacare Crisis 

Obamcare Forcing DEM's To Run For Cover/ Obama Dead Wrong On Terrorism/ More Dr.'s Run For Congress 

George Will: Medicaid Is Next Obamacare Crisis; Corker: Expect Higher Premiums, Less Choice 

TheDC Links - Obamacare website maker's Army corruption revealed 

"Shocking Obamacare Poll Results..."

Mark Halperin: Obamacare Contains 'Death Panels' 

Boy With Cancer, 7, Loses Health Insurance Because Of Obamacare | 

Mom with MS loses coverage due to Obamacare 

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Cancer Patient Who Spoke Out Against ObamaCare Now Being Audited 

TheDC Links - Obama loses another Hollywood big shot 

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Hobby Lobby vs. Obamacare Reaches Supreme Court 

Almost 80 million with employer health care plans could have coverage canceled, experts predict | Fox News 

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

Part 3, August Political Class Insanity:Food Assistance Abuse Goes Jamaican, Gang Membership Up, Political Integrity Down, Buffalo Teachers Looking Good In Front Of Uneducated Students

We are now into our third post in this month’s series on political class insanity and lunacy. It is a very good bet that we will break the record, set just last month, for the most consecutive days needed to cover all of the stupidity that continuing come out of the mouths and actions of the American political class. The first of this month’s series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/08/part-1-august-2013-political-class.html

Unfortunately, for us, our freedom, and our nation, the rate of insanity and the depth of its idiocy is accelerating quickly, as the following episodes illustrate:

1) Food stamp usage is at an all time high. The number of Americans requiring government food assistance has increased about 50% since Obama took office. There are over twenty million Americans who are either unemployed or under employed. Times are rough in this country, just feeding the hungry.

Which makes the antics and stupidity from Louisiana state government officials all that more insane. State health inspectors destroyed 1,600 lbs of deer meat donated by hunters to a local homeless shelter. And this was not road kill type quality. The meat had been handled, prepared, and shipped to the shelter by a state accredited slaughterhouse.

Reverend Henry Martin, executive director of the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission, which provides food and shelter for the homeless in Northwest Louisiana, said that his organization had been serving deer meat donated by area hunters for decades without any problems, complaints, sicknesses or deaths from the donated and properly prepared meats. The Louisiana chapter of Hunters for the Hungry, which is also endorsed and approved by the state government via the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry and the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on its website, donated the meat through the area meat processing facility.

Apparently, there is a state law that prohibits the serving of hunted deer meat and apparently some state bureaucrat just realized that what has been going on for decades is against the law and shut down the food source, hungry state residents be damned. The state confiscated the perfectly good meat and saturated it with alcohol to make it inedible to both humans and wildlife.

According to Reverend Martin, his effort serves three meals a day to an average number of 230 people every day. This comes out to over 200,000 meals a year and this deer meat program was a major source of those meals for hungry Americans. Again, remember, no one got sick or died from this program over decades, it died because of stupid government run by stupid bureaucrats and stupid politicians. 

Rather than work with all of these parties involved, the rescue mission, the hunters, the slaughterhouse, and public health officials, nearly a ton of meat was simply destroyed and the hungry went hungry. You know we are in a bad place when unnecessary laws trump hungry Americans. Pathetic.

2) On July 22, 2013, press secretary Jay Carney went off on a bragging jag, boasting how the Obama administration had added 7.2 million private sector jobs to the economy since Obama took office. But according to research done by the Daily Caller website, he left out some other, less encouraging statistics:

• Since February of 2009, 9.5 million Americans, 2.3 million more Americans than the Obama administration found jobs for, have actually dropped out of the labor force. 
• This equates to  1.3 Americans having dropped out of the labor force for every one private sector job the administration claims to have created.
• There are 15 million more Americans on food stamps today than when Obama assumed office, more than double the number of private sector jobs that Mr. Carney claims to have been created under Obama.
• At the end of January, 2009, 32,204,859 Americans received food help via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program but by April 2013, there were 47,548,694 Americans on food stamps.
• Under Obama, 1.6 million more Americans are collecting disability insurance. In February 2009, 9,334,369 Americans received disability payments. Today, that number is 10,953,733.

The insanity here is on Mr. Carney’s part where he attempts to glorify this Presidency without showing the whole, sad picture of the mismanagement of the economy by the political class and the Obama administration over the past five years.

3) The FBI recently released their latest crime statistics regarding gang violence and the findings are not good. According to FBI tracking, gang membership has increased since Obama’s election in 2008: “Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.” 

In 2008, the FBI stated, “Approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active within all 50 states and the District of Columbia as of September 2008.” This is a 65% increase in the number of gangs and a 40% increase in the number of gang members. The latest report also concluded that gangs are responsible for an average of 48% of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90%  in others.”

I am not a sociologist so my explanation for this radical increase in lawlessness would be pretty shallow. However, I would bet that our failing public schools, our failing economy, the failing level of integrity, smarts, and morals in our political class, and the inability of the politicians in this country to do anything right and efficient have a lot do to with these alarming gang statistics.

And worse of all, I do not see any positive trends on the horizon that would reverse the trends in schools, jobs, and the competence of the political class.

4) The New York Post reported on gross abuses of the Federal government’s food programs in a July 21, 2013 article. According to the Post, many New Yorkers who are receiving taxpayer funded food assistance via the Federal government are using that assistance to buy and ship food to relatives overseas in Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Welfare recipients buy groceries with their government Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and then pack them in giant barrels for the trip overseas. The Post investigation found that the practice of using U.S. food assistance money to feed relatives and friends overseas is so prevalent and widespread that it  is common to find hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels along the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.

A Federal government official quoted in the article stated that this is an illegal practice, the food assistance program is for Americans who need food assistance, not foreigners. However, grocery employees also quote din the article confirm that this practice is well known and widespread.

So, let’s review. One part of the political class steps in to terminate a decades old food program involving healthy deer meat that has not harmed anyone and which has provided millions of meals over time. Another part of the political class is so inept that it results in American taxpayers funding the food needs of people overseas using a food program that is supposed to feed America’s hungry. Maybe, the political class and the governments it operates need to get out of the food business due to incompetence. Insanity.

5) I love this story from the Education Action Group (EAG) website. It beautifully illustrates how out of control the priorities are in this country when it comes to government operations of any kind, in this case, government operations of the public schools in Buffalo, New York.

According to EAG, a recent Open Record request they filed with the Buffalo school district revealed the school district actually increased its spending on cosmetic medical procedures for teacher union members in the past year, to the tune of $2.9 million  between June, 2012 and May, 2013. And that is up from $2.7 million during the 2011-12 school year.

That’s right, $2.9 million for skin peels, dental implants, tummy tucks, and any other plastic surgery teacher union members decide they want done, all funded by local taxpayers and the school board. By the way, this $2.9 million for totally non-education related expenses would have paid off almost 6% of the school district’s projected $51 billion deficit for the next school year, what would have been a nice start of getting education expense in line with revenue without impacting classroom resources.

Now, the Buffalo teacher’s union might have a case for such stupid expenses if the Buffalo school district was as shining example of how great public education and teachers unions’ performance can be. However, that is not the case:

• The district’s graduation rate actually went down in 2012 to 47%
• One high school had an astoundingly low 24% graduation rate.
• For the 2011-12 school year, only 25% of 8th graders were rated proficient or better in English Language Arts and only 24% of the same group were proficient in 
• Scores for the New York state Regents Test, an assessment required to receive a diploma, showed that only 21% of the students received an 85 or higher in English, only 3% of students scored 85 or higher in Algebra, and only 19% of students scored 85 or higher in U.S. History and Government.
• In the 2009-10 school year, Buffalo reported spending $23,907 per student to obtain these types of results, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Thus, in Buffalo, the student performance is ugly but the teachers look marvelous, certainly not the combination that a taxpayer or citizen wants out of their taxpayer funded schools.

That will do it for today, more disgraces from your politicians tomorrow. Bad use of food assistance dollars, bad news on the gang and crime front, bad economic data on jobs, bad priorities when it comes to feeding the needy in this country, and bad test and education results because of bad priority setting in Buffalo. Will the “badness” continue tomorrow? Tune in and find out if you dare.

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 

Part 2, August, 2013 Political Class Insanity: Jay Carney Defies The Law Of Supply and Demand, Training Haitian Prisoners With U.S. Tax Dollars, Building An Army Base That Is Never Used, And More

Yesterday, was our first post of what is likely to be many this month regarding the monthly report on political class insanity in America. Last month we set the record, needing eight days of posts to get in all of the idiocy that the politicians in this country constantly rain down on us. It is a got bet that eights days will not be enough this month as the insanity is growing exponentially month over month.

Yesterday we talked about how U.S. taxpayer month is being used to create youth job programs, not in Chicago or Detroit, but in Belize. We talked about how two members of Congress want to create a new national park, not any park where any American could go and visit, a national park on the moon. We talked about how over $30,000 in taxpayer wealth was being wasted to paint an original oil portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. And finally, we learned that roller coaster safety was a hot topic for one Congressman, high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, failing public schools, and other trivial issues be damned.

Well, it just gets worse today:

1) One thing I always loved about politicians is that they have the lousiest understanding about basic economic theory and reality. Jay Carney, President Obama’s head press secretary reinforced that notion recently when he made the claim that Obama’s vision of immigration reform would raise wages of American workers. Somehow, allowing many more immigrant workers into this country will raise the wages of every worker.

Mr. Carney, did you never take a basic economics course? If you did, they probably covered the elementary reality of “supply and demand.”  If you raise the supply of something without a similar raise in demand, price has to go down, it is a reality of the cosmos. Adding millions of new immigrant workers to the supply of labor in this country will put downward pressure on price, namely wages, because there will be an excess of workers. Given the Obama administration’s inability to manage to a growing economy, it is highly, highly doubtful demand will go up as much as millions of new people into the supply side of the equation.

Mr. Carney’s assertion on higher wages is so inane that many in the press briefing where he stated such started laughing at this ridiculous assertion:

http://www.libertyfirstnews.com/obamas-paid-liar-jay-carney-says-immigration-reform-will-raise-wages-as-press-busts-out-in-laughter/

Unfortunately, Mr. Carney is not alone in his ignorance of basic economics. If this was not the case, our economy would not be trudging along at such an anemic rate. In “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we proposed via Step 36 that all members of Congress and the White House take and pass a course on basic economics before allowed to legislate. Unfortunately, that suggestion has not been implemented, as illustrated by  Mr. Carney’s ignorance of the supply and demand theory.

2) Yesterday we reviewed how our political class in Washington was sending half a million dollars to the country of Belize to help create jobs for youth in that country, the high unemployment rate for younger Americans in this country be damned. Well, that is not the only taxpayer funded program that is sending money overseas to train foreign workers.

The Federal government’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is sending $95K to JAILS IN HAITI to help train prisoners on textile production. As with the Belize disgrace, this money is being sent with the hope these HAITIAN prisoners will be able to learn skills, so when they are released back into HAITIAN society, they can contribute to that society.

One government official defended the HAITIAN program by stating: “Inmates targeted for participation should be convicted prisoners with remaining sentences between 2-5 years, with higher priority on those with less time remaining. This will give the program continuity through prisoners who continue to participate and facilitate training for others, but also in that acquired skills will still be relevant upon prisoners’ release in a medium-term time frame,”

Typical government nonsense talk. How about training some prisoners in the U.S. who have remaining sentences between 2-5 years, how about giving them some skills so that they can succeed when the get out of U.S. prisons. Who comes up with these types of wasteful spending projects …in other countries no less.

3) In a previous series on political class insanity, we reported on how the Forestry Service was embarrassed when they had hundreds of pounds of explosives stolen from one of their so-called storage bunkers. Well, that kind of incompetence is not restricted to that part of the government, as a recent set of news reports tell of another multi-million dollar heist of government equipment, this time from the U.S. Marshalls organization:

• The US Marshals office has lost/had stolen 2,000 encrypted radios worth $6 million dollars.
• This robbery/heist occurred even though in 2011, an internal U.S. Marshall technology office warned that the Marshals Service was not properly tracking their equipment. 
• In a tribute to understatement, a spokesman for the Marshall Service has publicly stated that he believes “this is in large part attributable to poor record keeping .” Ya think?
• As always, worse than the crime was the cover up.
• When news agencies started submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, there was instruction for upper management at the organization to no longer discuss the lost/stolen equipment. 
• Worse than the crime and the cover up is the lie that follows. Several documents obtained through FOIA requests including a note from the agency’s director asking employees to estimate a lower dollar value for the missing equipment to make the screw up not appear as bad as it was. 

But worst than the heist, worst than the cover up, and worse than the lie is the fact that a facet of national security may have been compromised. There is some evidence to indicate that these encrypted radios could have ended up in foreign, possibly hostile hands. In 2012, one of the missing radios showed up on eBay from a seller based in Hong Kong. 

When the Marshal Service spent more taxpayer money to buy  back their own missing radio, they found that the radio had been disassembled and reassembled, which leads to new troubling questions of how vulnerable this makes the Marshals Service.

Incompetence, cover ups, lies, and breeches of national security. This episode of insanity had everything.

4) Many times we have reported on the wasteful and corrupt spending in Afghanistan. We previously discussed how the State department, under Hillary Clinton, ignored its own security guidelines to build an $80 million consulate in Afghanistan and THEN realized that it was not defendable against terrorist attacks, which they would have realized if they had not ignored their own guidelines.

We know that as our part in the conflict winds down, we are going to leave about $7 billion worth of military gear behind after we leave, military gear that I would bet eventually ends up in the hands of the Taliban.

The latest corruption apparently wasted $34 million of taxpayer loot for no reason at all:

• When a two-star general recently visited a new 64,000-square-foot US military headquarters building  in southern Afghanistan, he was so impressed that he stated that  “It's "better appointed than any Marine headquarters anywhere in the world.”
• Impressive, except for the fact, as reported by the Washington post, that the facility has never been used and likely will never be used by U.S. troops.
• Much like the never used but very expensive State Department consulate, a top Marine commander had warned the Pentagon brass that the building was unnecessary three years ago but his insightful opinions were ignored. 
• The building was originally commissioned for the 2009 troop surge  but by the time construction began that troop surge was over.
• "This is an example of what is wrong with military construction in general," the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction told Chuck Hagel in a recent letter. Another wonderful understatement.

So between these two disastrous spending, $34 million and $80 million, we have $114 million that went down the drain. $114 million that could have operated White House tours for over 114 years. We could provide combat pay for our military personnel that are serving in dangerous areas but who have had their pay cut. The July 4th celebrations at military bases to celebrate those that serve would not have been postponed.

So many worthwhile uses of over $100 million that had no military or societal benefit.

Another day and we are just getting started. Federal government loses millions of dollars of electronics equipment. Federal government blows over $100 million for nothing. Haiti prisoners are taught skills, U.S. prisoners are not. And economic ignorance I still alive and well in Washington. More bad news 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w