27 Democratic senators who promised you could keep your health coverage

THEY ALL MUST BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE!!!!  THEY ALL LIED PERIOD!

President Obama has taken a lot of heat for promising that if Americans liked the health coverage that they had before Obamacare, they would be able to keep it under the new law. But the president wasn't the only Democrat in Washington who made that false promise. Many, many other Democratic officeholders said the same thing.

In fact, the keep-your-coverage pledge was key to some Democrats' decision to support the Affordable Care Act. For example, when the bill was being debated, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said, "[A] requirement that I have for supporting a bill is that if you have health coverage that you like you should be able to keep that." For many Democrats, the keep-your-coverage pledge was not a throwaway line; it was a fundamental part of their case for Obamacare.

How many Democrats made the promise? There's no comprehensive list of all of them, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office has compiled a list of 27 Democratic senators who pledged that Americans could keep their coverage under Obamacare. The list includes the entire Democratic leadership in the Senate as well as Democrats facing tough re-election races in 2014, like Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich, and Kay Hagan. Here is that list, compiled by McConnell's office:

SEN. HARRY REID (D-Nev.): “In fact, one of our core principles is that if you like the health care you have, you can keep it.” (Sen. Reid, Congressional Record, S.8642, 8/3/09)

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: “We believe — and we stand by this — if you like your current health insurance plan, you will be able to keep it, plain and simple, straightforward.” (Sen. Durbin, Congressional Record, S.6401, 6/10/09)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): “If you like your insurance, you keep it.” (U.S. Senate, Finance Committee, Bill Mark-Up, 9/29/09)

Via: Washington Examiner

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Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?

I give fact checkers five Pinocchios. They invariably prove more dishonest than the worst political Joe Isuzus that they skewer. In their feigned, above-it-all objectivity, they lie every time they investigate whether the “facts” are factual.

PolitiFact initially rated Barack Obama’s “if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it” campaign promise as a solid “true.” They’ve subsequently “fact checked” five additional iterations of that pledge, never judging it anything worse than “half true.” One would have to judge that a half truth—at least the half about the promise being untrue passes muster.    

The Washington Examiner’s Sean Higgins asked PolitiFact whether it stood by its rosy assessment of Obama’s rosy assessments of his health care plan. In the fashion of BS artists, they responded but not to Higgins’s query. Don’t say they withheld comment! “Apparently,” Higgins concluded, “Politifact thinks accountability is something that only applies to other people.”

The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway deems PolitiFact’s puzzling judgments “indefensible at the time they were made. And in light of what we know now about millions of Americans losing their health insurance, these ratings should be a four-alarm trouser conflagration. Yet, PolitiFact hasn’t updated their rulings to acknowledge that the president’s repeated promise is demonstrably untrue.”

Is the public really incapable of fact checking political spin without the aid of spin-doctor fact checkers? The self-appointed judgers of truth, seeking to decide as well as report, think so.

Via: The American Spectator

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Could Google have saved healthcare.gov?

For the sake of argument, let’s leave aside for the moment the many, serious problems with the actual implementation and execution of Obamacare and focus on the widely storied problems with the web site. Could it have worked out flawlessly – or at least with only modest roll-out problems common to any large launch – if it had been designed by someone competent? Clearly there’s only one person to ask, and as per Brian Fung at the wapo, that’s The Donald.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Donald Trump lashes out at HealthCare.gov and argues, somewhat trollishly, that a U.S. company such as Google would never have dropped the ball on such a project:

“I would have advised them to go to Google or one of our other great technological companies and get their act straightened out,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “They should have done that before they did the roll out with a Canadian company with a bad track record.”

Since this is the Washington Post, they have to scoff at the idea immediately, but it’s an interesting question. I’m not saying they’d have done it for free as Trump suggests they might, but given a few years and a reasonable budget, could they have filled the bill? Fung brings up one of Google’s many, many tech initiatives over the years which I’d forgotten about. Back in 2007 they actually launched a product which aimed to do something very similar.

The initiative was called Google Health, and its vision was to produce a centralized database for electronic medical records. Users could log on, add their information — or get their insurer to do it for them — and wind up with one set of documents they could give to doctors and other health professionals. The service was up and running by 2008. But by 2011, Google had decided to shutter the service. Its audience was too limited, the company said in a blog post. The only people who used it were fitness nuts and geeky early adopters.

Why did Google Health fail, and could it have been adapted to serve HealthCare.gov’s purposes?

One big reason is that logistically, Google was hamstrung by some of the same forces that stymied CGI, the government’s lead contractor on HealthCare.gov.

Via: Hot Air
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IRS employee union: We don’t want Obamacare

IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law.

National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law.

The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”

The NTEU represents 150,000 federal employees overall, including most of the nearly 100,000 IRS workers.

Like most other federal workers, IRS employees currently get their health insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which also covers members of Congress.

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House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp offered the bill in response to reports of congressional negotiations that would exempt lawmakers and their staff from ObamaCare.

Via: Washington Examiner

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PEOPLE WALK OUT ON OBAMA AT VIRGINIA RALLY

When your opening act is an accused rapist and molester of women, a man who lied to a grand jury and was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, a man who actually stood in the Rose Garden of the White House and lied as follows:

But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time -- never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.

When that man is your opening act, and then you climb on stage as President of the United States and people walk out halfway through your speech three days before the vote for your reelection, that’s not good.

But that’s what happened yesterday to Barack Obama in Virginia. Famous liar, womanizer, and accused rapist Bill Clinton kept the audience in their seats, but as Obama was speaking, many people had had enough; they got up and left so they could beat the parking lot traffic.

As Charlie Spiering of the Washington Examiner tweeted:

Wow. Steady stream of cold people trotting towards the exit in the middle of Obama's speech.

And even Obama’s hot air wasn’t enough to hold them.

Via: Breitbart

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Obamacare exempts millions--prisoners, illegals, welfare recipients

In just 14 months, Americans will be required to prove that they have federally "qualified" health insurance or face an Obamacare tax of $695 to $2,085. That is unless you are in prison, below the poverty line, or are an undocumented immigrant, according to the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform.

When added together, those three groups total up to one-sixth of the nation's population of 314 million: 218,929 are in federal prisons, 12 million are illegals and 42 million are below the poverty line and eligible for welfare, though some fit into all three categories, according to federal reports.

ATR highlighted the groups eligible from the mandate to get health insurance in a mock Internal Revenue Service form they developed to show the extra paperwork Americans will be required to fill out once the full Obamacare law kicks in, January 2014. It is based on testimony from the IRS given in September that said, "taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment."

Based on other IRS requirements, ATR said that Americans will have to show that they have health insurance "qualified" by the Department of Health and Human Services. They will also have to disclose if they were covered by a qualifying plan during the year and for how long. And they could be subject to penalties and interest on unpaid Obamacare taxes for periods they were not covered.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Wisconsin company announces layoffs ahead of Biden arrival

OSHKOSH, Wis. - Bad news will greet Vice President Joe Biden when he arrives in Wisconsin Thursday night. Hours earlier, Oshkosh's largest employer announced that it will lay off 450 employees in January.

Oshkosh Corp., a truck manufacturer with Pentagon contracts, blamed the "difficult decisions" on looming cuts to the nation's defense budget.

"As Oshkosh and others in the defense industry have discussed on numerous occasions, domestic military vehicle production volumes will decline significantly in 2013 due to the reduction in U.S. defense budgets and the fact that military spending is returning to peacetime levels," the company said in a statement. "Unfortunately, these economic factors require Oshkosh to rebalance its defense production workforce starting in January 2013."

The company said the layoffs were not tied to the looming budget cuts set to take effect in January. And it will still have about 3,500 employees in its Oshkosh-based defense division after the job cuts.

The news came hours ahead of Biden's campaign appearance in the city on Friday morning. President Obama carried Winnebago County in 2008, but area Republicans said they believe Mitt Romney will be competitive here on Election Day.

Statewide tracking polls show that while Obama's lead has slipped, he maintains a slight advantage over Romney in Wisconsin.

Via: Washington Examiner

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HUME TWEET: 'This May Be The Single Most Devastating Take-Down Of A Piece Of Journalism I've Ever Seen'

Oh no! We can’t let Romney win, he’ll let lobbyists in the White House!!!

By Timothy P. Carney | October 16, 2012 | Washington Examiner

If Romney wins, will lobbyists defile the White House that Obama has kept so clean and so pure? That’s what Politico suggests with this piece today headlined “Lobbyists ready for a comeback under Romney.”

President Barack Obama’s gone further than any president to keep lobbyists out of the White House — even signing executive orders to do it.

In crafting and signing those executive orders, I wonder if Obama relied on the help of White House deputy counsel Cassandra Butts (1), White House special assistant Martha Coven (2), or the chief of staff or the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Michael Strautmanis (3), all of whom were registered lobbyists. (I’m only numbering registered lobbyists.)

Politico’s Anna Palmer reports:

Industry insiders believe that Mitt Romney will unshackle the revolving door and give lobbyists a shot at the government jobs their Democratic counterparts have been denied for the past four years

Yeah, I bet those Republican lobbyists will get envious stares from the likes of Fannie Mae, Cigna, Credit Suisse lobbyist Laricke Blanchard (4), whom Obama named deputy director of policy for the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Former teachers union lobbyist Gabriella Gomez (5) would be jealous – if her job as assistant secretary of Education gave her the time for such self-indulgence. Former crop-industry lobbyist Krysta Harden (6) must be thinking “why couldn’t I get a government job – besides my job as assistant secretary of Agriculture.”

Palmer writes of the possibility of Romney

“Allowing lobbyists back into the White House”

You mean after he kicks out the lobbyists in Obama’s White House like Patton Boggs lobbyist Emmett Beliveau (7), O’Melveny & Myers lobbyist Derek Douglas (8), and Pfizer’s, AT&T’s lobbyist at Akin Gump Dana Singiser (9)?

Romney would have to toss out Obama’s orders, which shook up how President George W. Bush did business and let Obama claim his agenda wouldn’t be hijacked by special interests.

Yes, it let Obama claim that – falsely. Remember how the stimulus was a pork fest for K Street? Remember how the drug lobby wrote much of Obamacare. Remember how Obama gave Chrysler to the UAW? Remember – oh, I could go on, but I’ll return to the Politico piece...

 

Via: Washington Examiner

 

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OBAMACARE FINES START FOR HOSPITALS THAT READMIT SICK PATIENTS

Hospitals who re-admit patients within 30 days after they were discharged will now have to, under an Obamacare provision, pay fines as of October 1, 2012, which could force hospitals to slash programs that help the elderly, the poor, and the chronically ill. 

According to a study, "about two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or some 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility this coming year."

This provision was inserted into Obamacare as a cost-cutting measure, but it will force hospitals to give the poor, elderly, and chronically ill substandard care.

In addition, critics also note that "large teaching hospitals that are affiliated with universities" could be negatively impacted the most because these hospitals are often on the front lines in dealing with the elderly and the poor in addition to people who have mysterious illnesses who constantly need to be re-admitted to the hospital for urgent care. 

As the Examiner notes: 

Some observers believe that the new provision will place an enormous amount of added pressure on these populations, given that patients cannot be certain that their treatment will be up to par in the event of the need for readmission to the hospital after discharge. And hospitals that are already feeling the squeeze financially due to cutbacks in reimbursements from the government may be forced to limit the level of care given during readmission, resulting in patients being discharged long before they are ready.

This is yet another reason why a plurality of Americans want Obamacare to be repealed before it it is too late, as more of such provisions will gradually be implemented. 

Via: Breitbart

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Byron York Column: Liberals Fret: Is Obama Bored? Does He Want A Second Term? Maybe Not

There’s no doubt President Obama’s liberal supporters are worried by his lackluster performance in the Denver debate.  “Everyone is in shock,” one show-business liberal told the Hollywood reporter.  “No one can understand what happened.”  The Obama faithful are offering the White House advice, talking points, pep talks — anything to improve the president’s performance when he next faces Mitt Romney at Hofstra University on October 16.

But for some liberal writers, the concern goes deeper.  Perhaps Obama’s somewhat withdrawn demeanor at the debate was an indication that he doesn’t even want a second term as president.

On the morning after the debate, The Atlantic ran an analysis headlined, “Snippy Obama, Whose Heart’s Not In It.”  Writer Garance Franke-Ruta suggested that Obama, as an unusually sensitive man, has been worn down by the presidency’s demands of conducting war in Afghanistan and dealing with crises like the murder of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.  “His supporters keep wanting Obama to be who he was in 2008,” Franke-Ruta wrote.  “But that’s not who he is anymore.” Obama’s old enthusiasm for the job is simply gone.

Now, in the Daily Beast, liberal writer Michael Tomasky asks, “Does Obama Even Want to Win the Election?”  After poor Obama showings at the debate, the Democratic convention, and a high-profile “60 Minutes” interview, Tomasky writes, “Someone needs to ask the cut-to-the-chase question: is he enthusiastic about keeping this job, or he is just maybe tired of being president?”

Perhaps he is.  If so, there were certainly signs long before Wednesday night in Denver.  A look at the president’s career shows he has never stayed in a job four years without looking to move on to something.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Taxpayer-funded youth outreach: 435 visits by Obama admin to campuses since 2011

President Obama and his administration officials have made 435 taxpayer-funded visits to college campuses or other events targeting students since March 2011 , including 166 trips to battleground states, a new study shows.

“The travel is not tied to trying to pass a specific piece of legislation,” Paul Conway, president of the influential youth group, Generation Opportunity, told The Washington Examiner. “It’s all travel specifically targeted to a demographic. And when you think about how important a role young voters play in [Obama's] coalition, then it’s not just by happenstance.”

According to the study, which surveyed administration announcements and media reports,Virginia students have received 34 visits –  more than any other state — from Obama or his representatives. That number is doubtless inflated by the convenience of traveling a relatively short distance for events, but the state also plays a crucial role in his re-election efforts.

“If we win Virginia, we will win this election,” Obama said at a high school in Leesburg, Va., during a recent campaign stop. California and New York — in fairness, two deep-blue states — rank second and third for administration visits to students, but Pennsylvania comes in fourth with 22.

North Carolina, which saw Obama recently “slow-jam the news” with Jimmy Fallon during an official event focused om student loans at the state’s flagship university, has received 19 visits. Students in other key battleground states have also received significant attention, especially Florida (17), Colorado (15),  Michigan and Ohio (14 each). Students in Iowa and New Hampshire got nine visits each from the official Obama team, while Wisconsin edged New Mexico by getting six visits to its campuses, rather than five. The Obama administration visited students in Nevada twice.

Via: The Examiner

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Report: 174 ACORN Groups Still Active Under New Names…

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN famously came under fire a few years ago because its political affiliates engaged in electioneering and lobbying. There was also an embezzlement scandal, allegations of facilitating voter fraud and a notorious video sting by conservative provocateur James O’Keefe. The organization officially announced the closure of its offices in 2010 after losing government funding due to the controversies.

But that doesn’t mean it vanished from the landscape altogether. The nonprofit watchdog group Cause of Action published a list today of “still-active ACORN entities, ACORN allies, and rebranded ACORN organizations.”

The connections between these groups and the old ACORN groups include: having the same physical location, sharing leadership or staff or having the same tax ID number. “For some of these groups, all they did was legally change their name. Nothing else changed. The corporate structure, leadership and staff are the same,” said Karen Groen Olea, Cause of Action’s chief counsel.

At least two of the groups, Affordable Housing Centers of America and Mutual Housing Association of New York, have received federal dollars, Cause of Action said.

Via: Washington Examiner