Tag Archives: health care

The VA Needs to Go

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The Department of Veterans Affairs has linked the recent deaths of at least 19 vets diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and 2011 to appointment backlogs and delays at VA hospitals and clinics and resulting hindrances in care….

That this is something entirely correctible from within the VA is corroborated by the VA’s continued coverup of responsibility.  The VA so far has refused to identify those responsible for these veterans’ deaths or for the delay-caused or exacerbated injuries of many other vets, and the VA has refused to discipline or fire anyone—anyone at all—regarding this…problem, according to Congressman Jeff Miller (R, FL), House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman.  Miller also said

I don’t want to hear the excuse anymore that “It was multi-faceted. … There were many people involved.”  If there were many people involved then they all need to go.

We are not asking for one particular person, we want to know exactly why things happened and who was held responsible.  At this point publicly, we haven’t seen anybody held responsible.

“They all need to go” must include General Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, who seems disinterested, or unable, to correct these problems.

Enough.  This VA needs to be gotten rid of entirely, and the function absorbed into the Department of Defense, where fellow veterans, both active and now-civilian, will be more likely to take such matters seriously.  That a Cabinet-level functionality like the present VA should behave in this way is utterly reprehensible and wholly unacceptable.

More Obamacare Dishonesty

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It’s gotten so blatant that now they’re not even trying to disguise it.

What the Obama administration said publicly:

Per John Goodman:

Week after week, month after month, the Obama administration kept telling us everything’s working fine, there’s no problem and then they turn on a dime and fire their contractor.

President Barack Obama himself, through his Press Secretary, Jay Carney:

I didn’t see the article [containing statements to CGI’s replacement contractor on the ObamaMart re-do] I’m not aware of those statements[.]

What HHS said in its no-bid (!) contract request to Accenture, who’s replacing CGI on the ObamaMart Web development/fix:

the problems with the website puts “the entire health insurance industry at risk”…potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers.

And

without the fixes “the entire health care reform program is jeopardized.”

And

if the problems were not fixed by mid-March, “they will result in financial harm to the government.”

Actually, not so much the government, beyond the precious egos of the current Senate and White House occupants, rather the financial harm is to those funding the government—us taxpayers—in the form of wasted taxes, higher health coverage costs, less access to the medical facilities of our choice, etc.

Among those fatal flaws is that ObamaMart’s back end—the part that’s supposed to transmit enrollment data, subsidy eligibility and amount, and so on to the insurer—hasn’t been built.  Not after almost four years since Obamacare was enacted, not nearly four months after the ObamaMart Web site was forced live and the failures of the site and of the law made manifest.

But the Obama administration continues to insist, publicly, that everything’s jake.

Obama’s Obamacare Tax Increases

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Here are many of the ones that start this year.  As does President Barack Obama’s war on marriage, using his IRS to prosecute it.

  • top marginal tax rate rose to 39.6% for those at higher incomes
    • $400,000 for single filers
    • $450,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $425,000 for heads of household
  • itemized deductions and personal exemptions phase out as income increases
    • beginning at $300,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $250,000 for singles
  • higher capital gains taxes—up to 20% for some taxpayers
  • additional 0.9% Medicare tax
    • on earnings over $250,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $200,000 for singles and heads of household
  • 3.8% tax on investment income
    • on earnings over $250,000 for married couples filing jointly
    • $200,000 for singles and heads of household

Notice that marriage penalty.

Hotel ObamaMart

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You can check in, but they do everything they can to keep you from checking out.

A Missouri citizen had her preferred insurance coverage canceled out from under her by Obamacare.  She was forced by circumstance into the ObamaMart, where she got coverage for $950/mo (that’s $11,400 each and every year, for those of you following along at home).

After that, she found a better plan with coverage that better suited her needs on what’s left of the private market, and she tried to sign up.  No dice; the insurer told her she’d have to cancel her Obamacare policy first (not allowed to buy two policies from two different stores, apparently).

Cancel an Obamacare plan?  Hah.  Wolves have easier times escaping from traps.

  • the citizen tried ObamaMart’s Help line, to be kept on hold “literally…for several hours a day”
  • multiple attempts, with no luck; on to ObamaMart’s online chat facility
  • sent back to the “Help” line where, still, the pseudo-helpers on the ObamaMart end of the line only would read from a script that had no checklist items for canceling plans
  • despite her efforts, a $950 premium was withdrawn from her account
  • finally getting through ObamaMart’s “Help” facility to another bureaucratic layer, the bureaucrat inhabiting that cubicle told her cancellations are handled by a “special department”
  • asked how to contact that “special department,” the bureaucrat claimed, “I’m not allowed to tell you that”
  • drove to Kansas City, hoping her prospective private market insurer could help her get rid of this ObamaMart yoke
  • insurer succeeded in getting the ObamaMart plan canceled—after a total of six weeks from start to finish

When Fox News asked HHS what the proper procedures are for canceling an ObamaMart policy, the spokesman just said to talk to the hand:

Consumers should call the Marketplace consumer call center for assistance at 1-800-318-2596.

And the run-around takes another lap.

No word on whether she got her $950 back.  Probably not, though; that’s just part of President Barack Obama’s “spread the wealth around” mandate.

A Lawless Law

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President Barack Obama is at it again.  Now he’s unilaterally, without legal authority, delaying another aspect of Obamacare.  He’s having his IRS—his Un-American Activities Committee (at least the members of HUAC were elected by us)—not enforce through tax collections a provision that prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than to other employees.  His excuse is that, four years after Obamacare was enacted, the IRS hasn’t bothered to write the rules that would effect the collections.

This isn’t the only section of Obamacare that Obama has chosen to…waive.  He has chosen to waive for an entire year the Employer Mandate.  He has chosen to waive for three months enforcement of the Individual Mandate.  He has chosen to waive, for a time, the Small Business mandate.  He has chosen to waive, for a time, provisions that forced cancelation of existing policies that individuals already had and preferred—and begun browbeating insurers into allowing those plans to be renewed if a customer wishes.  He has chosen to provide hardship exemptions, for a year, for those who find buying an Obamacare policy a hardship.  He has chosen….

The Obamacare law is quite specific on these provisions: each one must occur; there are no caveats or except-fors that say “no need to enforce if it’s inconvenient to do so, no need if it’s politically expedient to do otherwise.”  Similarly, the Constitution is quite specific: Art II, Section 3 requires the President to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.  No weasel words here, either, about picking and choosing those laws or those parts of laws that can be ignored whenever the President feels like it.  If Obama, or any President, doesn’t like a law or a part of a law, he must go to Congress and persuade them to pass appropriate legislation making the desired modification.

Whatever we might think of the “benefits” of any aspect of Obamacare or of the “fairness” of any section of it, it is, as the Democrats are wont to say, the law of the land.  It takes a lawless, arrogant President to choose, on his own recognizance, which parts of a law will not be enforced.

Obama has transformed his own signature law, his very legacy, into a monument to Executive lawlessness.