March, 2016, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: MIsmanagement and Ineptness Across the Board

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 its 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: 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 insurance premiums, 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.

Yesterday and today we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) Yesterday, we talked a little about the latest GAO report which proved again how poorly the Obama Care data systems were put together and performing. The Las Vegas Review Journal also did a report on that GAO report and dove into some more of the details:

• The Obama administration and the Federal bureaucracy that administers Obama Care’s regulations have resulted in “stunning levels of Obamacare fraud — which the government is doing little to nothing to combat — reinforces just how unaffordable the so-called Affordable Care Act has become.”
• Billions of Obama Care subsidies have been paid out to people with “unresolved inconsistencies” regarding their eligibility for coverage.
• By April, 2015, 431,000 Obama Care applications had received a whopping $1.7 billion in taxpayer funded subsidies despite having paperwork issues.
• Another 22,000 applications that may have been filed by people currently serving prison sentences may have illegally gotten another $68 million.
• The Federal government failed to get its databases up to date to make sure this fraud did not occur despite Obama Care being live for years.
• 35,000 applications got subsidies even though there were inconsistencies with their Social Security numbers.
• According to the article, “the agency [responsible for Obama Care compliance] has limited ability to detect and respond to attempts at fraud..." So basically, what’s going on here is that Obamacare fraud is rampant — because nobody has the responsibility of rooting out fraud. Perfect.

Such a broken law, a broken process, and broken government processes which continue to waste taxpayer wealth day after day.

2) Peter Sullivan, writing for The Hill on February 23, 2016, reported on how the government agency responsible for implementing the Obama Care law ignored many warning signs that its data systems processes were in trouble. Details of the report include:

• The Centers For Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) repeatedly ignored warning signs about the impending disasters, according to a new report from its inspector general (IG).
• The IG report found that CMS received 18 “documented warnings,” implying that there may have been other warnings.
• The warnings occurred between July, 2011 and July, 2013 but they were neither ignored or not properly communicated.
• One lower ranked worker told the IG that: “[CMS senior officials] would sit in meetings across from me and not know there is an enormous fire burning behind them.” 
• Not only did CMS ignore bad news they were also guilty of not passing bad news on to others.
• Just days before the launch of the Obama Care software, CMS executives realized that they had only half the capacity that was needed. “Just days before” they realized they were off by 100%.
• According to the IG: “CMS leadership and staff took little action to respond to warnings, remaining overly optimistic about the launch, and developing few contingency plans.” 
• Additionally, and most embarrassingly: “A member of the ad hoc technology team noted that in the absence of comprehensive monitoring tools, ‘There was no place to look to find out whether the site was up today or not except CNN, which was literally how we found out about problems a good part of the time in the beginning.’” They found out about the problems on CNN, how pathetic.
• Even by 2014, the IG found that the systems “could not confirm the accuracy of payments.”

Pathetic is still synonymous with any and every aspect of Obama Care. 

3) Melanie Hunter, writing for CNS News on March 10, 2016, showed how the head of CMS testified that his organization was flying blind when it came to understanding what was going on relative to Obama Care’s co-op entities. Andy Slavitt, acting head of CMS, said that there was “very limited actual performance information” to help the Federal government understand how poorly the co-ops were performing.

How badly did they actually perform? Twelve of the 23 have already folded, costing taxpayers at least $1.2 billion and terminating insurance coverage for 740,000 Americans in 14 states. In addition, at least one state co-op, the one in New York, is being investigated for criminal violations and fraud. And of the remaining co-ops, most are also still in dire financial straits.

Even worse, according to reporting from Melissa Quinn of the Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration ignored warnings from a private consulting that at least some of the co-ops were not going to be financially viable long before they failed. Deloitte Consulting analyzed the business plans and applications of the dozen defunct co-ops and knew early on they were in trouble:

• The company, hired to evaluate the co-ops’ business plans and loan applications, specifically pointed to issues with the financial forecasts submitted by the nonprofit insurance companies. 
• The consulting firm’s warnings were ignored by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the subcommittee’s report.
• “These failed co-ops were a costly experiment gone wrong, and real people got hurt, including the more than 700,000 Americans who lost their health plans,” Sen. Rob Portman, chairman of the subcommittee, said today at a hearing on the co-ops.

Ms. Quinn also reported that although the Obama administration had the warning from the consulting company, they decided to ignore the warnings for a couple of years or until the co-ops were too far gone to save. Only one out of 23 co-ops is actually profitable so far.

So, it was not the Obama administration’s fault that all of this bad news happened because they did not have the information they needed to fix what went wrong before it went really wrong? How lame of an excuse is this? The administration controlled the entire process and blamed themselves for not having the data they needed so it is not their fault. Insane logic.

What a mess, what arrogance, what ignorance.

4) As we often do with these Obama Care failure posts, we end them with real stories of real Americans suffering real problems as a result of Obama Care. Today;s sufferings come from the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com
TARA, FLORIDA: I work for a fortune 100 company. We used to have blue cross blue shield, good insurance, $500 deductible. Under Obamacare we lost or insurance company, my deductible went up to $1500, with another 20% out of pocket to the next $1500! I have been told that I need to have a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. The cost of the tests and the 2 fees for a radiologist to read each one will come to about $1700 which must be paid up front. I don't have it and have no way to get it, so now, I live in fear each day that I have breast cancer and no way to find out! Thanks Obama . . . NOT!

ROGER, TENNESSEE: My Epilepsy medication (generic) has gone from the $10 per mo. copay to $180. My acid reflux medication (generic) has gone from $60 per mo. copay to over $800 per mo. My premium did drop $300,but it's decieving, because the net effect will cost me over $8,000. This all kicked in April 1.

MARIANNE, OHIO: Have had affordable insurance my entire life, both individual, and employer based. Now I am uninsured due to the huge premiums and deductible I found on the exchange when I lost my coverage as of 12/31/13. Never has insurance been based on my income and never have I been so devastated to find the premiums for my son and I more than a house payment. Thankfully, I HAD a great affordable plan last year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery, chemo and radiation. I am SO VERY fearful of this returning even though the oncologist said I am cured. No insurance and I absolutely cannot afford this. As a young widow who lost my husband to cancer, I am the sole provider and parent to my son. This law is unjust and I am just sick with worry without insurance for the first time in our lives

That will do it for today’s and this month’s unfolding disasters of Obama Care. Higher costs, lost coverage, mismanagement of the co-op process, and mismanagement of the data systems processes. Seems they could not have done a more inept job if they were trying. More disasters next month.

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, 2016, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: More Bad Employment News, Water Vs.Choo Choos In California, and More

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.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) Many times we have discussed how Obama’s management of the economy coming out of the recession has been horrific: persistently high unemployment and underemployment, tens of millions of Americans still getting Federal food assistance every month, stagnant wages and household income levels, astronomical national debt, over regulation, historically low labor participation rate, 14 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed, etc.

But for American citizens, according to the latest monthly national economic data, the Obama mismanagement of the economy is worse than these top line realities. According to the government statistics, the number of native-born Americans with a job decreased by more than half a million people last month. The Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that that 123,710,000 native-born Americans (ages 16 and over) were employed during the month of January, 567,000 Americans fewer than the month of December.

Other bad news for native born American workers included:

• The number of unemployed native-born Americans increased by 669,000 reaching 6,956,000 people in January.
• The number of native-born Americans out of the labor force increased by 69,000, hitting 80,704,000.
• Native-born Americans had an unemployment rate of 5.3%, higher than the total national unemployment level
• The labor force participation rate of native-born American workers was 61.8%.
• But you are much better off in this economy if you are a foreign-born worker.
• The unemployment rate for foreign-born workers in the U.S. was 5.1%, less than the unemployment rate for native-born Americans.
• The labor force participation rate for foreign-born workers was at 65.0% was much better than the rate for native-born Americans.
• The working-age foreign-born population has increased by 6 million since Obama’s took office, while the working-age native-born population has increased by 11.6 million people. During that same timeframe, foreign-born people in the U.S. gained 4 million jobs and native-born Americans gained 4.6 million jobs, much better economic performance for foreign-born workers.

Thus, while the economic recovery has been anemic for the entire country, the Washington political class has somehow managed economic strategies and tactics that reward foreign-born workers much better than native-born Americans. Insanity.

2) Two major things going on in California. The state is in the midst of an epic drought with severe water shortages all over the state. Second, the California political class wants to spend tens of billions of dollars to build a high speed rail line from northern California to southern California.

According to a Breitbart article by Daniel Nussbaum on January 15, 2016, these two programs are about to enter an epic political fight. On one side are regular citizens that would like to have water in their lives to drink, bathe and basically continue to live. On the other side are vain politicians that want to spend limited resources on a pipe dream high speed rail line that may not be needed and that may be impossible to build, given the ineptness of today’s politicians to get anything done on time and on budget:

• A recent Hoover Institution Golden State opinion poll found that 53% of likely California voters would approve a measure to strip funding from the high speed rail line project to fund construction of surface and groundwater water storage facilities. Only 31% would not strip funding.
• In light of this sentiment, two California politicians have introduced legislation to put that question on the ballot in November.
• The poll also found that 62% of those polled want the state to prioritize water storage construction in its spending plans and that only 39% of voters support the high speed rail line while 41% oppose it.
• Previous reporting by Breitbart found that the high speed rail line would cost upwards of $93 billion of which only $26 billion has been budgeted for.
• Given that the Big Dig in Boston cost over $20 billion to build years ago and that was a small, in town project, the $93 billion to build a long high speed rail line of which nothing currently exists is likely a very low estimate also.

Should be interesting to see what happens. Whether the state's citizens can take back control of how their tax dollars are spent in order to basically survive or if ego driven politicians continue to waste money on projects that will affect a small minority of citizens but boost their own self esteem. Everyone needs water to survive, no one needs a high speed rail line to survive. Or as a water storage advocate said in the article: “While trains are nice, water is a necessity for survival, food and our economy.” 

Given that truism, I would bet that the high speed rail line goes forward to disaster while Californians continue to struggle just to have enough drinking and bathing water.

3) Abbie Van Sickle, writing for the Washington Post on January 28, 2016, had some very distressing news. According to her writing, the Obama administration failed to protect the welfare of thousands and thousands of Central American children who showed up at the southern border in 2011. A Senate investigation found that many of those kids ended up in the hands of human traffickers and were abused by Federal government approved caretakers.

Details of this humanity failure include:

• The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a government entity within the Department of Health and Human Services, did not do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsoring adults to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and often placed children in homes without vetting the locations ahead of time. 
• After placement, caseworkers were often prevented from doing follow up checking on the kids.
• A typical case of abuse involved Central American teenagers who were taken to work on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio and lived in a rundown trailer park.
• Ohio Senator Rob Portman called the situation modern day slavery: “It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard. What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.”
• The Senate report concluded that, “HHS places children with individuals about whom it knows relatively little and without verifying the limited information provided by sponsors about their alleged relationship with the child.” 
• As another example, the Senate report discussed a kid from Guatemala who ended up with a sponsor who forced the boy to work 12 hours a day to repay a smuggling debt.

It is bad enough when the Federal government does not fulfill its obligations to take care of our veterans or would rather pay billions of dollars to resettle foreigners into this country but not use those funds to help feed our hungry, shelter our homeless, or treat our addicted. But now it not only accepts waves of immigrants from other countries but it abuses the kids within those immigrant masses. Pathetic and insane. 

3) One of the few energy strategies the American political class concocted over the past years has been to force the American driver to put up with ethanol in their gas tanks. We were told that diverting agricultural output into ethanol production would be good for the environment, would strengthen the economy, and would hope ween us off of foreign oil. As a result, a massive amount of taxpayer wealth was diverted to farmers to grow more corn, the most common crop used to produce ethanol in this country and that ethanol was introduced into our gas supplies.

Now, I said it was a strategy but not that it was a good strategy. A recent review of this idiotic government program by Nicolas Loris of the Heritage Foundation summarized what went wrong:

• Ethanol has only two thirds the energy of regular gasoline so drivers end up paying more to get the same amount of energy for their cars, certainly not a way to strengthen the overall economy, increasing consumer costs.
• It obviously did not reduce energy prices since any number of times over the years we have seen gas prices explode to over $4.00 a gallon. The only reason prices are so low today is because the Saudis are flooding the market with oil, not because we have a little corn syrup in our gas tanks.
• The ethanol political mandate diverted farming resources and land to making fuel rather than food which increased the price of many, many food products. By 2012, the amount of corn produced in this country just to produce ethanol was more than the entire corn consumption of the entire continent of Africa.
• But the biggest reason for ethanol, to improve the environment, never panned out either. The EPA reported that the levels of nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and ethanol vapor emissions, among other air pollutants, all increase as a result of producing and using ethanol.
• Iowa State University researchers concluded that ethanol production causes adverse environmental impacts, resulting in increased soil erosion, sedimentation, and nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into lakes and streams.

So, the political class thought that ethanol would reduce fuel prices. It did not. It was supposed to get us off of foreign oil. It did not. It was supposed to strengthen the economy. It did not. It was supposed to be good for the environment, It was not. It did increase food prices though, an unintended consequence of a bad piece of legislation. A typical politician course of action: they came, they saw, they made the situation worse. You cannot make this stuff up.

4) One last piece of insanity for today and for this month. A number of times this week we showed how screwed up our immigration policies, strategies, and execution is. No doubt about it, our borders leak, the government is incapable of preventing illegal immigration or deporting those that are here illegally, especially criminals. What a mess and failure of government and especially the Obama administration.

But consider this aspect of our failed immigration situation that was recently reported on the Daily Wire website:

• According to a new government report, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more Pakistani and Afghan men of “military age” in just over a month in the San Diego area than they had over the previous twelve months.
• At least two of those detained have known terrorist ties.
• Quoting Border Patrol chief Richard Smith: "We have detained more Pakistanis and Afghans in the first month of this fiscal year than we did all last year."
• He went on to say that these men are of military age and were carrying U.S, cash.
• A report in the San Diego reader stated: "Between October 1, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2015, the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol detained 18 Pakistanis and 1 Afghan, according to Border Patrol statistics. Between October 1 and mid-November of last year, 2 Afghans and 22 Pakistanis reportedly surrendered to Border Patrol agents. ... In the month and a half since mid-November, 3 more Afghans and 6 more Pakistanis were detained by the Border Patrol (not including those detained at the ports of entry)."

Feeling safe yet? Makes you wonder what the Texas Congresswoman was talking about when she said Obama had been successful in securing the southern border. 

That will do it for now. Another month’s worth of political class insanity, lunacy, delusion, incompetence, and wasteful spending. As we often say you cannot make this stuff up, it is wild how out of control and inept the American political class can be. And next month I am sure we will be right back with more of the same.

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