OBAMACARE STILL ISN’T WORKING, BUT DON’T WORRY, THE ARISTOCRACY WILL BE FINE

Remember the billowing cloud of spin that poured from the Administration over the weekend, declaring that the ObamaCare exchange system was a billion zillion percent improved?  The media largely accepted this uncritically and passed it along as “news,” even though it took less than 24 hours to discover it wasn’t true.  The federal exchange site crashed on the same day all those triumphant “Healthcare.gov is fixed!” dispatches were being written.  The local exchange in Washington, D.C. went down even harder, leading to mass emails to Congressional staffwarning them about system outages.

Of course, this is no problem for the personal staff of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), because he won them a priceless Ruling Class exemption from using the exchanges altogether.  But everyone else who works for Congress started getting a bit nervous… until they got the kind of insurance extension the rest of ObamaCare-ravaged America can only dream about.  Audrey Hudson reports for the Colorado Observer:

Members of Congress and their staff will be allowed to keep their health insurance past the end of the year deadline because of persistent problems plaguing the DC Health Link, The Colorado Observer has learned.

A memo issued to House staffers Thursday night said that the Obama administration has been made aware of the “significant problems preventing members and staff in Washington, D.C. and in district offices from enrolling in a healthcare plan.”

The memo from Chief Administrative Officer of the House Dan Strodel said that while they are awaiting a decision to keep the enrollment time open past Dec. 9, health insurance coverage would be extended through Jan. 31.

Via: Human Events

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D.C.-Based Health Care Exchange May Have Engaged in Illegal Political Activity

Online communications 

with OFA allegedly 

violated 

Hatch Act

A former chief White House ethics lawyer has filed a Hatch Act complaint against a D.C.-based health care exchange, alleging that its online communications with liberal activist group Organizing for Action (OFA) violated rules against federal political activity.

Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, requested a federal investigation into DC Health Link in a Nov. 13 letter to the Office of Special Counsel’s Carolyn Lerner.

Painter says DC Health Link appears to be subject to the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal employees, because the health exchange was created by the D.C. government and is acting on its behalf. He noted that the exchange may have violated the Hatch Act after it promoted OFA’s pro-Obamacare activism on Twitter.

Painter said DC Health Link may have also violated the Hatch Act by “following” OFA’s D.C. twitter account and retweeting one of its messages on Nov. 8.

The Office of Special Counsel determined that federal agencies cannot “friend,” “like,” or “follow” political parties, partisan political campaigns or partisan political groups on social media platforms. Agencies are also restricted to posting content that is related to official business and politically neutral.

“The communications that I believe violated the Hatch Act were made on Twitter and all relate to Organizing for Action (“OFA”), formerly known as Organizing for America, an organization the [Office of Special Counsel] has specifically identified as a ‘partisan political group,’” wrote Painter.

Via: WFB

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