May, 2022, Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Political Class Failure In Chicago, New York City, and Washington

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) It was always our contention that a very, very basic function of any government entity is to protect the lives and property of its citizens. No matter how well the potlicial class executes other parts of their jobs, failure to protect citizens makes their tenure a failure.

And nowhere has this failure been so prevalent than in the city of Chicago. Every year, the violence in crime in the city continues to escalate and result in more and more deaths of innocent citizens. And the latest crime numbers from the city show that the local political class has STILL not figured out how to protect and serve its citizens:

• During a recent weekend, 23 people in Chicago were shot.
• Five of those shot died from their wounds.
• One of those who died was standing in his kitchen when gunfire penetrated into his home.
• These five deaths brought the total homicide total in the city to 195, about one and a half people murdered every day on average in Chicago.

More violence, more deaths and the current sitting politicians, including the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, continue to have no clue how to combat the death trend in the city, making them all a failure.

2) But it is not just Chicago that is experiencing a continuing and growing trend in violent crime:

• New York City has suffered a substantial increase in violent crime in the city.
• This has resulted in increased police and private security at luxury stores on Madison Avenue.
• These increased security measures include high end stores locking their doors and dimming their lights during business hours.
• NYPD reports that in the Madison Avenue precinct, burglaries are up 47% over last year and in the first four months or so there have been 470 theft reports, about four theft reports per day on average in just this single precinct.
• According to the New York Post: “The shoplifters, who often go un-prosecuted under soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, are “just the tip of the iceberg” and “following orders” for a much larger crime syndicate, Bauer said.”
• Additionally: “These gangs are more aggressive and violent than in years past,” the National Retail Federation reported in its 2021 security survey, noting that 69 percent of outlets witnessed an increase in organized retail crime over the past year.
• Across the entire city, grand larceny is up 54%, shoplifting is up 81%, and petty larceny is up 42%.

Another example of the political class and the government it operates who cannot protect the lives or the property of its citizens. Insane.

3) At any time in this country there are millions of Americans who are homeless or hungry. We are setting records every year for Americans being killed by drug overdoses. Many families today cannot get vital baby formula for their young children. A lot of Americans are in need.

However, rather than use $2 million of taxpayer wealth to help those Americans in need, consider a higher priority that Washington politicians are focused on:

• The American political class in Washington sent $2 million of our taxpayer wealth to the country of El Salvador as an anti-gang and anti drug cartel effort.
• The money was used to fund the Police Athletic Outreach youth outreach program in that Central American country.
• This program originated back in the 1970s with the supposed goal of reducing crime, illegal drugs, and the unstable government in Central America.
• Since then the American taxpayer has spent a whopping $456.8 million on these drug reduction and prevention programs in other countries.
• Since record amounts of illegal drugs are now streaming across the border, it is probably a safe bet that this half a billion dollars has not been effective.
• But to add insult to injury, Washington decided to spend an additional $800,000 to research whether or not just this recent $2 million expense was effective.

Seriously, American kids in Chicago are getting gunned down in the city streets and inside their homes and Washington spent half a billion dollars on kids around the world? Washington spent half a billion dollars outside the country and has no idea if that half a billion dollars was spent wisely? How many homeless, hungry, and drug addicted Americans could have seen real positive improvements in their lives vs. a failed drug prevention program in Central America?

Bad and sad priorities. Of course, I would bet that some friends of Washington politicians, election campaign donors, got a huge chunk of these dollars as the use of taxpayer money to fund politicians reelection campaigns goes on, unimpeded.

Failed politicians in Chicago, failed politicians in New York, and failed [politicians in DC, failures to protect lives, property, and our tax dollars.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

November, 2015 Part 4,The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: The Death Spiral Analogy and More

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements it rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.
• You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here but with a big exception: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.
• But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

For the next several days we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) Edward Woodson, writing for the The Blaze on November 5, 2015, laid out the sordid relationship between the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Obama administration over the years as it relates not only to Obama Care but to the entire Medicare/Medicaid/AHA government cronyism scam:

• Back in in May, 2009, as the Obama Care legislation was being put together, the AHA publicly announced its support for healthcare reform in general, reform that eventually turned into Obama Care.
• When early drafts of the legislation were not as favorable to the AHA and its members as it would like, Obama’s so-called health reform czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle emailed an AHA operative, Linda Fishman, that, “I know you understand that you are much more likely to end up where you want to be if you don’t box us in.” In other words, relax, we got your back.
• After Obama Care was passed, the AHA was so delighted with the results that it funded a million dollars worth of ad campaigns for 16 Democratic members of Congress to thank them for their support in getting the legislation passed.
• That support paid off when the Department of Health and Human Services decided to further curtail a government audit program of hospitals that has already recovered billions of dollars in Medicare fraud and wasteful spending incurred by, surprise, AHA members.
• In 2013, this audit program recovered $3.7 million of taxpayer wealth from crooked hospitals but the recovery rate dropped more than a third to $2.4 billion in 2014 as a result of the Obama administration putting stringent restrictions on the government auditors trying to recapture wasted dollars.
• For example, current rules allow the auditors to only look at 2% of a hospital’s claims for government reimbursement and even worse, the Obama administration recently announced that it was dropping that restriction even further down to .5% of claims, less than 1%.
• Now there is no more than a one in two hundred chance that an auditor will come across a bogus claim by a member of the AHA, and thus, the ability to cheat the American taxpayer and get away with it is greater today and greater than it has ever been.

Now, it could be that the more lax enforcement of criminal investigation of AHA members has nothing to do with the campaign money and support the AHA provided to the passage of Obama Care. More likely though, given the current atmosphere of cronyism that pervades the Obama administration, these events are all connected and the American taxpayer gets screwed again in the process. 

Given that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified in front of Congress this past October that the Federal government annually pays out $125 billion in improper payments from its programs such as Medicare, up from $105 billion in previous years, it is not as if everybody is being honest and forthright when it comes to accepting government payouts for services rendered. 

Of the $125 billion, the GAO estimated that $75 billion of that waste comes from just Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that are integral to Obama Care and AHA's hospitals' financials. By recovering only $2.4 billion a year, criminals and others such as the AHA may be getting caught a meager 3% of the time.

2) Richard Pollock, writing for the Daily Caller on October 22, 2015, dove more deeply into the GAO testimony and findings that we just discussed:

• The GAO ran an undercover operation to see how easily they could cheat the government’s health care operations.
• Ten out ten fake Obama Care applications were approved for government subsidies even though the ten people did not exist, they were just GAO fake identities.
• The fake identities used fake Social Security numbers and fictitious employers.
• The ten fake people were scattered across the country in different states.
• The GAO also submitted eight fake people into the Medicaid system of which seven out of the eight got approved for Medicaid coverage even though they also were totally non-existent.

Totally inept and corrupt government programs and the processes that support them. 

3) Betsy McCaughley, writing for the New York Post on October 19, 2015, described how Obama Care is entering into a “death spiral:”

• In general, the death spiral is being caused because, “The Obama administration is having trouble selling insurance plans to healthy people. That’s a big problem: When the young and healthy don’t enroll, premiums have to be hiked to cover the costs of older, sicker people, discouraging even more young people from signing up."
• In late October, the Obama administration announced that enrollment in Obama Care policies in 2016 will be less than half of what the original expectations were.
• Despite a large increase in the penalty for not having health insurance in 2016, only one in seven uninsured Americans will have signed up for insurance for next year.
• Without enough healthy people signing up for Obama Care policies, the existing pool of policies becomes very expensive and unprofitable for the insurance carriers offering them, which is causing the companies to raise the premiums of current policy holders to make up the difference.
• David Wichmann, UnitedHealth Group’s president, recently stated that higher premiums are required going forward since current Obama Care enrollees will “require more medical services than original expectations.”
• The Robert Wood Johnson/Urban Institute analysis predicts that many states will see Obama Care policy costs go up 30% or more in 2016.
• The Heritage Foundation estimates that Obama Care insurers lost 12% selling Obama Care plans so far.
• Most of the Obama Care co-ops have already gone out of business, are going out of business, or are in dire financial straits which will result in hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking out other insurance coverage which is likely to be more expensive than the insurance they got through their now defunct co-op.

But none of this should surprise anyone who reads this blog or who has more than a passing interest in healthcare. The Obama administration never addressed the underlying causes of high healthcare costs in this country. They misunderstood a public health crisis with an insurance crisis and thus, applied the wrong solution to the wrong problem. And even worse, the insurance solution they tried to apply was a Rube Goldberg like contraption that was so onerous, confusing, and idiotic that it also has failed to reach even its ill founded goals and objectives.

More unfolding disasters tomorrow, disasters that never stop coming from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted.

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 1, Political Class Insanity: Corruption and Ineptness at the Federal, State,and Local Government Level

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again for the our monthly review of political class insanity. We believe that the nation is living through the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in this country, from the President down to the local mayors. Our current politicians never resolve any problems facing Americans, waste untold billions of dollars every year, and operate government programs that never deliver what they promise, always miss their deadlines, always go over budget, and often make the original problem even worse. And these shortcomings do not include outright criminal activity, a topic that will be an integral part of this month’s insanity review.

Over the past week, we did an in-depth, multi-day analysis of how the Obama administration has failed in an epic way across five dimensions. As you will see over the next week or so, it is not only the President that is an epic fail in the American political sphere today. Let’s get started, it is going to be a long trek as the political class came out of the holiday season with more incompetence than ever before.

1) Before we delve into the first piece of insanity, consider the following realities:

• Thousands of veterans are not receiving the medical care they were promised and deserve.
• Millions of Americans are suffering from a wide variety of different cancers.
• Millions of Americans face a future of aging diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
• Medicare and Medicaid are quickly approaching insolvency.

Thus, if the government is going to spend money on health care issues, then one would hope all resources would be focused on these four issues above. But, alas, that is not happening, as outlined by a January 22, 2015 article in the Washington Free Beacon:

• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently given $432,000 worth of taxpayer money to Columbia University to study how gay men use smartphone apps to hook up with other gay men.
• The study is attempting to determine if gay men using smartphone apps are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior.
• According to the grant: “Smartphone technologies have provided a new venue for sexual partnering among men who have sex with men (MSM). Indeed, there are a rapidly growing number of smartphone applications designed to facilitate sexual partnering among MSM.”

Where to start with this insanity:

• This study, even if successful, will serve only a minute fraction of Americans, gay men who use smartphones to hook up for sex, as opposed to the tens of thousands of veterans who need medical help or the millions and millions of Americans who are facing a life of cancer and dementia.
• The sample size consisted of only 60 subjects, nowhere close enough to being a valid statistical sample to make accurate conclusions.
• Dividing the sample size into the study cost we see that the cost of the study comes out to an obscene cost of $7,200 per study subject. No way this is a cost effective study design.

Look, I have nothing against the gay lifestyle. But when viewed in the context of an $18 TRILLION national debt and the health and medical needs of millions of other Americans, this is a complete waste of resources for a very, small fraction of the citizenry on what is likely an invalid study design. 

How many veterans could have gotten the real medical care they needed for the $432,000? How many cancer researchers could have been hired for the $432,000? How many dementia drugs could be tested for $432,000? 

You get the idea, we have an out of control government wasting money on insignificant projects while big issues never get resolved.

2) Sarah Westwood, writing for the Washington Examiner on January 15, 2015, reported on how the Pentagon paid almost a half a million dollars to build a military training facility in Afghanistan that started “melting” once it got wet. Details of the wasteful spending and failure include the following:

• The Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction called the failed facility “not only an embarrassment” but “a waste of U.S. taxpayers’ money,” given the fact that Afghans had to tear down the Defense Department contractors’ work and rebuild it themselves.
• The facility cost $456,669 and was supposed to be a simulated Afghan village where Afghan troops could train.
• Defense Department officials signed off on the completed construction in October, 2012, signifying that the building was completed, adequate, and ready to go.
• But just four months later, the buildings began to disintegrate once rain water seeped into the bricks that were used to build it.
• Thus, even though some Defense Department officials signed off on the completion, subsequent inspections showed that the contractor never followed proper protocol and building requirements in the construction, requiring the entire project to be stripped down to the foundations and rebuilt correctly since it was deemed “completely unsafe” by the Inspector General.

Thus, another half a million dollars of taxpayer money spent with absolutely no return benefit. Want to bet that no one involved in this project, including the officials that initially deemed the construction done and complete and safe, got fired or demoted for such incompetency? 

How many homeless Americans could have been housed for that half a million dollars? Home many hungry could have been fed for that half a million dollars? How many drug addicts could have been treated for that half a million dollars? Answer: a lot. Instead we are left with a mountain of wet sand halfway around the world.

3) We have previously reported how Nancy Pelosi, when she was Speaker of the House, arranged transportation legislation to get passed that had a great financial benefit for her husband's real estate interests in California. We more recently reported on how California U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein supported Federal Postal Service legislation that provided a financial boon to her husband's business, possibly to the tune of a billion dollars. 

However, it is not just Washington politicians that are inept, greedy, and criminal and who use their positions of public trust to self enrich themselves. Consider a recent New York Post article that reported how the Speaker of the New York State Assembly had been arrested by the FBI for criminal activity:

• Sheldon Silver was accused of using his powerful state government position to arrange to get millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks that were falsely classified as legitimate income.
• The FBI arrested him on a series of public corruption charges.
• Law enforcement officials said at the time of his arrest: “There is probably cause to believe that Silver obtained about $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position.” 
• His attorney denied any criminal activity had taken place.
• However, the Post article did point out that Silver did try to stifle a state government commission that was looking into just these types of public corruption in 2013.

American politicians today are mostly selfish, self serving hypocrites, whether in D.C., in Albany, New York, or elsewhere around the country.

4) Okay, we have talked about Federal government political class insanity, state government insanity, so it makes sense to sign off today with local government political class insanity. According to a recent Heritage Foundation article written by Kate Scanlon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration announced that effective July 1, 2015, restaurants in New York City will no longer be allowed to serve any food in polystyrene foam containers, whether the containers are for food or drink.

Apparently, this edict fulfills a de Blasio campaign promise to eliminate the foam since it supposedly causes environmental harm. A spokeswoman for the Mayor claims that there are far better options for serving food and drink than foam that she claims has had dire environmental consequences including clogging landfills and not being biodegradable.

But is this a real solution to a real problem? Consider some other opinions and objections to this political decree:

• A spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association said alternative containers can be upwards of 50% more expensive that will either cause prices to rise or small food operators to go out of business.
• Diane Katz, a research fellow in regulatory policy for the Heritage Foundation, claims that the ruling is mostly nonsense: “Mayor de Blasio would be better to to focus on more pressing problems plaguing New York City these days. The green lobby’s claims about polystyrene are largely nonsense, and the alternatives to foam consume more energy and produce more waste.”
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute also claims that foam containers are often more environmentally friendly. 
• A study by the research group Franklin Associates found that “the average 16-ounce polystyrene uses a third less energy, produces 50% less solid waste by volume, and releases a third less of so-called green house gases. than does a 16-ounce paper cup with a sleeve. Over their life cycles, polystyrene packaging products require 20 to 30% less water than do paper alternatives."
• Plus, talking about self defeating, food providers with less than $500,000 in annual revenue can apply for a waiver that exempts them from the ban. Since I would be that many of restaurants and food stands and trucks that serve their food in foam containers make less than $500,000 a year, the ban will probably affect a small percentage of food providers.

A classic example where a politician’s actions make an existing problem worse. In this case, more pollution, less “green” behavior, and by exempting many restaurants, having a minimal impact anyway.

That will do it for today’s insanity. Stupid studies focused on gay smartphone apps, a building that literally melts at a cost of almost a half a million dollars, potential corruption at the highest levels of New York state politics, and a NYC solution that probably makes a likely imaginary problem worse.

Until tommorrow, consider joining our cause to impose term limits on all Federal politicians because really, how much worse could it get than melting buildings if we replaced every politician in Washington every few years:

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

July, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 4: New York Insurance Prices To Rise, More Broken Obama Care Promises, and More

Yes, the world has been a mess lately. Fighting in the Gaza Strip, downed airliners, Russians fighting Ukrainians, the economy still stagnant, Iraq being torn apart, Syrian civil war still killing thousands, veterans still not getting the proper medical treatment, a border that is a humanitarian crisis, etc. In the background though, has been the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.

We have had to devote many posts every month to this fiasco since last August. The fallout from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington just keeps on giving and messing up Americans’ lives. This month is no exception. We will probably need most of this week to cover it all, that is how bad the law is many, many months after it was rolled out in such a disastrous manner last fall. 

As with previous months, we will likely stop talking about it this month not because we ran out of material but because it can get so depressing going over the damage the legislation is doing to lives, health, freedom and the economy.

1) The Minority Report website recently did a short article that highlighted some of the recent news reports relative to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Given how poorly the legislation was constructed, written, and implemented, it is no surprise that the negative coverage of the mess it has caused is pretty widespread:

• New IG Report Reveals ‘Defective’ Obamacare System That Could ‘Jeopardize Coverage For Millions’: “Although the Federal marketplace received documentary evidence from applicants related to inconsistencies, it could not resolve the inconsistencies because the system functionality to resolve inconsistencies had not been fully developed.” (HHS Inspector General Report, p. 21, 7/1/14)
• Senator Mitch McConnell: “‘It now appears that the Administration’s promises to protect taxpayers from wasteful and fraudulent payments will join ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it’ and lower premiums as just the latest in a string of Obamacare’s broken promises.’”(Senator McConnell, 7/1/14)
• ‘Data Discrepancies,’ ‘Inconsistencies,’ ‘Defective’ System: “The Obama administration has been struggling to clear up data discrepancies that could potentially jeopardize coverage for millions under the health overhaul, the government’s health care fraud watchdog reported Tuesday.”(AP, 7/1/14)
• “The Health and Human Services inspector general said the administration was not able to resolve 2.6 million so-called ‘inconsistencies’ out of a total of 2.9 million such problems in the federal insurance exchange from October through December 2013.” (AP, 7/1/14)
• “… potentially hundreds of thousands of people are receiving bigger subsidies than they deserve. … Under current rules, people receiving unwarranted subsidies will be required to return the excess next year.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14)
• “A family of four with an annual income of $80,000 could be required to repay as much as $2,500.” (The New York Times, 6/15/14)
• “…important aspects of the Web site remain defective — or simply unfinished.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14)

These reports and realities of the Obama Care disaster do not just come from those opposed to the whole concept of Obama Care. These observations and opinions come from the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Inspector General, etc., sources of news and information that generally do not lean towards the right side of the political spectrum. 

This lends credibility to the assumption that yes indeed, Obama Care is as bad as it appears to be when it comes to defective systems, fraudulent subsidy payments, bad data and information, and a whole host of other operational and financial problems.

3) President Obama was basically crowned the top political liar for 2013 when three of his lies made the top ten political lies list of the Washington Post for last year. His promises that if you like your current insurance policy, doctor, or hospital you could keep it under Obama Care, that the average American family would see their annual health care costs go down $2,500, that signing up Obama Care would be simple and easy via the online exchanges, and a host of other broken promises gave him that well deserved attention on the Post’s top political lies in 2013.

But the lies and deceptions did not stop with him. Consider the compilation of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s deceptions and/or ignorance relative to Obama Care’s capabilities and promises, a list also compiled by the Minority Report:

• “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius promised to thoroughly vet the salary information that people submitted as part of their health insurance applications.” (The Washington Post, 5/16/14). 
• HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius: “I certify that the American Health Benefit Exchanges (Marketplaces) verify that applicants for advance payments of the premium tax credit and cost-sharing reductions are eligible for such payments and reductions, consistent with the requirements of section 1411 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…” (Sec. Sebelius, Letter To Vice President Biden, 1/1/14)
• HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius: ‘numerous systems and processes to carry out these verifications’ “As required by the Affordable Care Act and implementing regulations, when a consumer applies for insurance affordability programs, including advance payments of the premium tax credit and cost – sharing reductions, the Marketplace verifies application information provided by the consumer when making an eligibility determination. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations that detail these procedures, and the Marketplaces have implemented numerous systems and processes to carry out these verifications…” (Sec. Sebelius, Letter To Vice President Biden, 1/1/14)

Obviously none of these commitments and statements have come true or were ever true, given the news reports and Inspector General’s findings. Makes you wonder if she was just that ignorant of what she was supposedly in charge of or was being deliberately deceptive to cover up the fact that what she was supposed to deliver she could not deliver. In either case, just another unfolding disaster and deception of Obama Care.

3) A recent New York Post article reviewed some of the rate increase information that was becoming available for new York state residents who were Obama Care policy customers. Highlights of their findings include the following information:

• Overall, Obama Care participating insurance firms are looking for double-digit hikes for insurance policy premiums in 2015.
• While the overall average 2015 cost increase is about 12%, a number of insurance companies, mostly those serving large numbers of Obama Care customers, want to boost individual premiums by nearly 20%.
• Excellus Health Plan is seeking a 19.7% increase for its more than 24,000 customers.
• MVP Health Plan, with nearly 33,000 customers, wants a 19% increase.
• Health Republic Insurance of New York, the largest insurer of Obama Care policies with more than 68,000 customers, asked for a 15.2% increase for individual plans.
• Unitedhealthcare wants a 12.5% increase for small group plans, but a decrease of 2.4% for individual plans.
• In some letters to customers, insurers cited requirements in Obama Care as contributing to the proposed rate increases, i.e., the legislation requires that all policies include features that add expense but may not have value to many customers.

In other words, New York citizens will be experiencing what the rest of the country is or will be experiencing; big insurance costs increases rather than that elusive $2,500 health care cost REDUCTION the President falsely promised.

But this should not surprise anyone. Many times when the Washington political class tries to resolve a problem, their lack of problem definition and resolution skills often make the original problem even worse. Obama Care is a textbook example of such ineptness.

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

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

TSA Horror Update, Part 2: How TSA Really Operates

Yesterday we did a review of the latest antics and outrages from the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), the Federal entity that is supposed to keep airline traveling Americans safe. We learned that the organization failed to detect a fake bomb being smuggled onto a plane even though the undercover agent received a security patdown.

We learned that TSA decided it would be a good idea to update their agents uniforms despite an almost $17 TRILLION national debt and the fact that the $50 million wardrobe update would include buying the new uniforms from Mexican companies.

We learned that TSA security procedures were so slow and so bad that at least 11 individuals with real criminal backgrounds were given clearance passes to supposedly secure airport locations.

And to our amusement, we found out that a U.S. Senator is much like most Americans when she was made “uncomfortable” by a hand patdown by TSA agent at an airport gate when her hands registered a suspicious substance.

We concluded yesterday’s post with two suggestion on how fix the incompetence and better protect the traveling public. Very scary, very disgraceful behavior by a poorly performing government agency.

If you thought yesterday’s stories were harrowing, today will be even worse. The following paragraphs are lifted verbatim from a March 10, 2013 New York Post article. Rather than trying to summarize the contents of the article, I thought it better to read exactly what the article says since it is the a behind-the-scenes description of how the TSA actually operates, given by a former TSA employee from Newark Airport.

Newark Airport was where the fake bomb undercover operation took place, the operation where TSA screeners did not identify a fake bomb during security screening. I cannot say that this gentleman’s experience are true or if he is exaggerating the problems. However, given our previous research and writing on this topic, I would probably bet that most, if no all, of what he describes is pretty close to reality.

According to the Post article, the ex-TSA screener calls the TSA polices silly and that lazy workers do little to stop real terrorist and violent threats to Americans:

*********************************

A LOT of what we do is make-believe.

I’ve had to screen small children and explain to their parents I had no choice but to “check” them. I would only place my hands on their arms and bottom half of their legs, and the entire “pat-down” lasted 10 seconds. This goes completely against TSA procedure.

Because the cameras are recording our every move, we have to do something. If someone isn’t checked or even screened properly, the entire terminal would shut down, as this constitutes a security breach.

But since most TSA supervisors are too daft to actually supervise, bending the rules is easy to do.

Did you know you don’t need a high-school diploma or GED to work as a security screener? These are the same screeners that TSA chief John Pistole and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refer to as a first-class first line of defense in the war on terror.

These are the employees who could never keep a job in the private sector. I wouldn’t trust them to walk my dog.

An agent got through Newark last week with an improvised explosive device? That’s not even news to anyone who works there. It happens all the time. The failure rate is pretty high, especially with federal investigators, and the pat-down itself is ridiculous. As invasive as it is, you still can’t find anything using the back of your hand on certain areas.

When there are internal tests, conducted by the Newark training department, it’s easy to cheat because they use our co-workers. You could be working with someone all morning, and then they’re gone. Word gets around the checkpoint. Someone will come over to you and say, “Hey, it’s Joe. He’s got a blue duffel bag.”

What are the chances of you being on a flight where something happens? We always said it’s not a question of if terrorists get through — it’s a question of when. Our feeling is nothing’s happened because they haven’t wanted it to happen. We’re not any big deterrent. It’s all for show.

A real pat-down is when a police officer pulls you over, uses his hands to search, actually goes into your clothes. We have to use the back of our hands around certain areas. It just doesn’t work. It’s a really bad way to pat somebody down.

If I had to guess, I’m sure lots of things get through. One screener told me about something he did going through security when he went on vacation. Let’s just say the screeners did not catch something that was really obvious to anyone who was paying attention.

Most TSA screeners know their job is a complete joke. Their goal is to use this as a stepping stone to another government agency.

We work in a culture where common sense has no place. All but a very few TSA personnel know they’re employed by a bottom-of-the-barrel agency.

Our first question to anyone in a wheelchair is to ask if they’re able to stand for a pat-down. If someone is in a wheelchair, he likely can’t stand. Even when they’re sitting, we’re required to ask them to move so we can check under their buttocks.

All I needed was for a passenger to fall over because I asked them to stand. And if that did happen, the screener would be vilified and the official p.r. spin would be that he needed “additional training.” Every time you read about a TSA horror story, it’s usually about a screener doing what he or she is instructed to do.

Supervisors play absolutely no role in day-to-day functions except to tell you not to chew gum. Gum chewing is a huge issue with management. I once saw a supervisor make an officer open his mouth to prove he had a mint and not a piece of gum.

Goofing off and half-hour-long bathroom breaks are the only way to break up the monotony. There is also a lot of ogling of female passengers by the male screeners. So, ladies, cover up when you get to the airport. These guys are checking you out constantly.

A small number of screeners are delusional zealots who believe they’re keeping America safe by taking your snow globe, your 2-inch pocket knife, your 4-ounce bottle of shampoo and performing invasive pat-downs on your kids.

(Incidentally, the flap over the new rule allowing small pocketknives is overblown. Most of the public doesn’t realize it, but you are already allowed to bring scissors, screwdrivers, tweezers, knitting needles and any number of sharp instruments on board.)

The rest are only there for the paycheck and generous benefits. Screeners start at $15 per hour, and there is tons of overtime — mainly because they are filling in for the many screeners who don’t bother coming to work. For every 40 hours you work, you receive four hours of vacation and four hours of sick time.

One screener didn’t come to work for four weeks. When he finally reappeared, he asked for another week off. The answer was no. So what did this brainiac decide to do? He took another week off — and didn’t get terminated.

People have been caught falling asleep on the job. They get written up, it’s put in their file, and that’s it.

New hires see how bad it is working there, and, believe it or not, TSA does manage to hire some pretty decent people. They just don’t last because they can get a normal job.

It’s the people who’ve been there a good number of years who could never find employment elsewhere. When you have a real job, it usually means you have to actually work and think, which a lot of them have a hard time doing.

Anyone boarding an aircraft should feel maybe only a teeny tiny bit safer than if there were no TSA at all.

*****************************

Let’s review some of the descriptions that were used to describe the worker environment within the TSA:

• Supervisors are too daft to actually supervise.
• Bending the rules is easy to do.
• Failure rate is pretty high.
• We’re not any big deterrent.
• It’s all for show.
• Lots of things get through.
• Their job is a complete joke.
• Gum chewing is a huge issue for management.
• People have been caught sleeping on the job.

Scary, scary stuff. Incompetent people managed by incompetent management, all doing an incompetent job of protecting Americans. And everyone knows about the situation, except all but one member of Congress (Senator McCaskill) which probably explains why the situation is never addressed, failures are never fired, and taxpayer wealth is constantly wasted for an illusion of safety and security.

This is a disaster waiting to happen, a disaster that will not be pretty and which would have been totally avoidable if our two suggestions from yesterday’s post had been implemented:

1) The United States is one of the few countries in the world where the government operates almost every aspect of airport security. Most countries do it far better than us by using outside experts and companies that are professionals, not government employees. And we have previously discussed the fact that when some domestic airports have used private, professional security firms, the results have been much more efficient, save, and less expensive, as proven by the private/Federal Screening Partnership Program:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/06/transportation-security-adminstration.html

2) TSA continues to be a great example of why Step 34 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” is so desperately needed. Step 34 would remove all Congressional committee members from committees that do not adequately do their job. In this case, we have known for a long time what Senator McCaskill has just found out: TSA is a bloated, ineffective, and fourth amendment rights destroying government bureaucracy.

Until these two steps are executed, I think I’ll drive.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w