Union Front Group Protests Republicans At World War II Memorial

A front group for a large labor federation has shifted from pressuring President Barack Obama to hike pay for federal workers to pressuring Republicans to end the government shutdown.

The group Good Jobs Nation staged a protest at the World War II memorial on the National Mall this week, calling for an end to the shutdown.

According to WhoIs information on the group’s website, it is owned by Change to Win, a labor federation that includes the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the United Farm Workers unions.

The website’s registered agent is Jason Lefkowitz, who until 2010 was Change to Win’s online campaigns manager.

The Huffington Post reported that about two-dozen union members turned out to the protest on Tuesday.

The group has organized several small strikes and protests to draw attention to the estimated 2 million workers directly or indirectly employed by the federal government for low wages.

On Wednesday, they protested no wages. […]

Several conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives had arrived at the memorial to help veterans get past a barrier erected by the National Park Service. They blamed the Obama administration for the shuttered memorial even though their faction is the most opposed to a clean spending bill that would reopen the government. The protesters had hoped to see House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), but he didn’t show up.

This entry was posted in Issues and tagged Government Shutdown, SEIU, World War II. Bookmark the permalink.

Via: WFB

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Prospect for quick end to 4-day shutdown appears remote

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prospects for a swift end to the 4-day-old partial government shutdown all but vanished Friday as lawmakers squabbled into the weekend and increasingly shifted their focus to a midmonth deadline for averting a threatened first-ever default.

“This isn’t some damn game,” said House Speaker John Boehner, as the White House and Democrats held to their position of agreeing to negotiate only after the government is reopened and the $16.7 trillion debt limit raised.

House Republicans appeared to be shifting their demands, de-emphasizing their previous insistence on defunding the health care overhaul in exchange for re-opening the government. Instead, they ramped up calls for cuts in federal benefit programs and future deficits, items that Boehner has said repeatedly will be part of any talks on debt limit legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also said the two issues were linked. “We not only have a shutdown, but we have the full faith and credit of our nation before us in a week or ten days,” he said.

Reid and other Democrats blocked numerous attempts by Sen. Ted Cruz to approve House-passed bills reopening portions of the government. The Texas Republican is a chief architect of the “Defund Obamacare” strategy and met earlier this week with allies in the House and an aide to Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to confer on strategy.

Via: Chicago Sun-Times

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John Boehner will demand concessions from Obama before raising debt ceiling

(CNSNews.com) - Over the past two weeks, a growing number of House Democrats have broken with their party leadership to vote with House Republicans to approve funding for parts of the federal government that do not involve implementing Obamacare.

The number of Democrats voting for funding bills put up by the House leadership that were then blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate has grown from 2--who voted for a measure to fund the entire government except Obamacare--to as many as 36 who voted to pay members of the National Guard when on inactive-duty training.

However, because the Senate Democratic leadership has refused to support these measures, they have not been passed and sent on to President Obama to see if he would actually veto them to maintain his leverage in trying to force the House to fund Obamacare.

This has created the basic dynamic of the current impasse over funding the government: The Democratic leadership is insisting it will not fund any part of the government unless the Republicans, and those Democrats who have sided with the Republicans, agree to fund Obamacare.

Every one of the spending measures the House of Representatives have taken up in the past two weeks has had at least some bipartisan support--and as the House Republicans have begun putting up bills to target individual parts of the government for full funding (while giving no money to Obamacare), the number of Democrats supporting the Republican measures has increased.

Via: CNS News

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FEDS SET REPAIRS ON GLITCHY HEALTH CARE WEBSITE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bedeviled by technology glitches that frustrated millions of consumers, the Obama administration is taking down its health overhaul website for repairs this weekend.

Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday. The website will remain open for general information.

Technology problems overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets Tuesday, embarrassing the administration just when the health care law was supposed to be introduced to average consumers.

"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."

The administration is putting the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers. "Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.

The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."

The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.

Via: AP

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WATCH HOW THIS CNN ANCHOR REACTS WHEN GOP REP. TELLS HER THE MEDIA ARE ‘PART OF THE PROBLEM’

Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) took on CNN’s Carol Costello on Thursday over the partial government shutdown and the GOP’s strategy to delay Obamacare. Costello was also apparently stunned that the Republican congressman suggested that the media are also “part of the problem.”

(CNN)

Costello first questioned Rokita on his decision to accept a paycheck as other government employees face furloughs until Congress can reach an agreement. The CNN anchor then pressed her guest to explain why Republicans are attaching the Obamacare fight to the federal budget fight.

“Don’t make things worse by fighting the same fight over and over again,” Costello said.

“Carol, we seem to go around in circles,” Rokita said.

“Right, we’re going in circles,” Costello replied. “That’s what you guys are doing.”

It was at this point that Rokita told Costello that “you’re part of the problem.”

“The media is part of the problem as well,” he added.

“Oh, come on,” Costello said as if the suggestion was completely false. “That’s so easy. That’s so easy.”

“Carol, you’re beautiful, but you have to be honest as well,” the congressman responded.

Apparently, Rokita’s decision to call Costello “beautiful” has offended enough people that Rep. Rokita issued a statement on the comment:

Via: The Blaze

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His Imperial Presidency

Our president forgets the Republican House was elected the very same day he was.

Thomas Friedman is worried about American democracy. He writesthat by not giving President Obama everything we wants in a funding resolution, the House of Representatives is showing “contempt for the democratic process” and is thumbing its nose at our hollowed tradition of “majority rule.”

Like much of what he writes, Thomas Friedman’s logic here is rather murky. Which majority is having its will thwarted by some ideological fringe minority? Is it the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives? A clear majority of the American people has consistently, over several years, confirmed by numerous polls, opposed Obamacare, which is at the heart of the funding disagreement. Are these the majorities of which Friedman writes? No, in his mind, and in the mind of the Democratic leadership, the House of Representatives, as long as it has a Republican majority, is an illegitimate organization. And the majority of the American people who oppose Obamacare just don’t understand it and so their opposition is irrelevant.

According to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, no one in the legislative branch has any business trying to change anything regarding Obamacare because “it is the law.” Obamacare would not pass today. It would not have passed two years ago. It only became law because Obama’s election in 2008 ushered in short-lived Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate including a “super-majority” in the Senate, which allowed the Democrats to ram the legislation through even though no one was given a chance to read it, let alone understand it (in Nancy Pelosi’s famous words, Congress had to pass it in order to see what was in it). Even then, it only made it through Congress due to political gamesmanship. As a direct result of public opposition to this legislation, Democrats promptly lost the House and nearly lost the Senate. Yet Harry Reid says this piece of legislation is so sacrosanct that Republicans are “insane” to try to change it?

Via: The American Spectator

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[VIDEO] Healthy Young, Key To ObamaCare, Aren’t Buying It

Obamacare “only works … if young people show up.”

That’s from former President Bill Clinton in a recent MSNBC interview.

It’s why Obamacare supporters and government agencies are trying everything fromsports advertising to video contests to get young people in the game.

But will those millions of Millennials show up and sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act?

A recent Reuters poll found Obamacare may not attract enough young people to keep costs low for others. And according to our small sampling, the answer would be no.

“An entire generation is being turned into a part-time workforce” because of Obamacare, said 22-year-old Patrick Richardson, a senior at the University of Toledo in Ohio who considers himself fortunate to have health insurance through his employer.

YouTube

“When you do the math, it’s cheaper to pay the penalty, but that’s not the way the system was designed. It counts on young people enrolling, but young people don’t want any part of it,” he said.

Via: Florida Watchdog

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Fountain Hills man dropped from health insurance because of new regulations

A Fountain Hills man says he may soon have to get another job just to pay for healthcare insurance under the new Affordable Care Act.

 

Michael Cerpok, is a high school drop-out, one of six kids born to a school teacher, and doesn’t come from a wealthy family. He has run two businesses for more than 25 years and says he may have to do more to literally stay alive.

 

“I've worked hard because I've had to, and I’ve had to, because cancer runs in my family," says Cerpok, who picked his current health insurance based on that family history. His monthly premium is just about half of his monthly take-home pay.

 

Back in 2006, he found out he had an incurable form of leukemia that requires ongoing treatment until he dies. 

In 2012, his treatment bill was more than $350,000. But because of his insurance, his out-of-pocket was only $4,500.  

That’s about to change because Michael just got a letter from his insurance carrier saying as of January 1, he would be dropped from coverage because of new regulations under Obamacare. His doctor at the Mayo Clinic may be gone as well.

 

"Now it doesn't mean I can't go see my current doctor, but my $4,500 out-of-pocket, is going to turn into a minimum of $26,000 out-of-pocket to see the doctor that I’ve been seeing the last seven years," he said.

 

Michael realizes millions of people will benefit from the coverage, but he wants them to realize that others are making sacrifices to make that happen.

Via: ABC 15

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Small Business Sizes Up the Affordable Care Act

With all the media coverage of the federal government shutdown, there was some news about the historic launch the California’s health care market place but details were few.  So what exactly is happening?

On Oct. 1, Covered California (California’s state-run health coverage exchange), as well as other state and federally-run health care marketplaces created by the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), officially opened their doors for enrollment. Here in California, I hear hundreds of thousands of people went online to www.coveredca.com in Covered California’s first few hours of operation to find out whether or not they can get affordable health care coverage.  In searching for answers to that question, Covered California has two marketplaces: One for individuals (which is getting the lion’s share of media coverage); and a separate Small Business Healthcare Options Program, or SHOP, for companies with 50 employees or fewer.

While individuals can complete the insurance enrollment process now for coverage that would start on January 1, 2014, small businesses can begin the process of enrollment: setting up an account, checking their eligibility and getting a rate estimate from SHOP. And with the aid of an agent certified by Covered California, a small business owner can get a quote and submit a paper application now or enroll online come November.

This slight delay until November for small business enrollment should not be much of a concern because as long as health enrollment happens by the middle of December, coverage will take effect on January 1, 2014. Also, unlike the individual marketplace where consumers must purchase insurance during the set open-enrollment periods, businesses can enroll in SHOP at any time. With this ongoing enrollment opportunity, small business owners should weigh all the coverage options available, both inside and outside the exchanges, to ultimately make the best decision for their business and employees.

Why would a small employer want to consider Covered California’s SHOP? The goal is to have enough small employers in the SHOP to promote competition among insurers, thus lowering insurance premiums. It will also make it much easier for small employers, who normally lack human resources departments, to manage plans: under SHOP, business owners choose a level of coverage they want to offer, and their workers can pick among competing plans that qualify.

Via: California Political Review

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