Michele Bachmann: I lost my insurance

Rep. Michele Bachmann says she is one of the people who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and she won’t go shopping on a health exchange until it’s fixed.

“Are you kidding? I’m not going to waste an hour on that thing,” the Minnesota Republican said when Wolf Blitzer asked her on CNN on Thursday if she’d signed up on the exchange website. “I lost my health insurance under Obamacare. And so now I’m forced to go into the D.C. health exchange. I’m waiting until they fix this thing. I’m not going to sit there and frustrate myself for hours and hours.”

Bachmann was referencing the continuing problems that have plagued the rollout of many of the health care exchange websites since they launched on Oct. 1. The White House has pledged it will be working for most users by the end of the month.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama's messy breakup with insurers)

Blitzer pressed Bachmann on when she would sign up, given the Dec. 15 deadline for anyone who wants coverage to kick in on Jan. 1.

“At some point we’re going to have to figure it out. I have a husband with very significant health issues. We have to have health insurance. So we will get it figured it out,” Bachmann said.

Appearing with her on the “Situation Room,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala seized on her comments about her husband’s health issues, saying she should be thankful for President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Via: Politico

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Obamacare 'Fix' Could Turn Insurance Marketplace into Chaos

President Barack Obama’s latest decision to back-pedal on individual health plans — allowing insurers to extend existing policies to consumers for one year — could drive the marketplace into pandemonium, resulting in the very legislation intended to improve national healthcare being its impetus to fail, The Hill reported Friday.

"Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers," said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the nation’s largest trade group for insurance companies.

"Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If due to these changes fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the exchange, premiums will increase in the marketplace and there will be fewer choices for consumers."

Ignagni also said her organization strongly opposes legislation, which some lawmakers are pushing, that would allow consumers to keep existing plans, saying it "would provoke an administrative fiasco and could have serious implications for the new marketplace’s pool, premium prices and the cost of the law to the federal government," The Hill reported.

The newspaper also noted a report online by Forbes magazine saying the president’s proposed fix may just delay the inevitable for consumers. 

"It’s not clear whether insurance companies will actually renew plans they have already cancelled, and many may still feel they need to cancel plans because the Affordable Care Act fundamentally changes the dynamics of the individual insurance market,” Forbes staffer Matthew Herper wrote. "The fix also makes no promises about next year. The Administration will get to decide whether to agree to allow these plans to be continued again. So it’s not like the plans are being officially grandfathered."

Via: Newsmax

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The Town FEMA Turned Down The tide goes out on religious liberty

When Sandy swept across the Jersey shore in October 2012, the coastal town of Ocean Grove was spared the worst. Sure, half the town’s boardwalk was destroyed and its pier was swept out to sea. And yes, sand, trees, and concrete benches were carried two blocks inland, while entire buildings were picked up and moved across town. But Ocean Grove’s crown jewel, an ornate and beautiful 6,250-seat auditorium, built in 1894, survived. It only had a third of its roof torn off. The auditorium’s foundation was intact and, most important, its 11,561-pipe organ was unscathed by the wind and rain.

CORBIS/ AP WAYNE PARRY / NEWSCOM

So despite everything, the residents of Ocean Grove counted themselves lucky. That is, until they had to deal with the federal government. Ocean Grove has been denied rebuilding funds from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In one sense, this denial is part of the Obama administration’s quiet campaign against religion in the public square. Yet the story of FEMA’s conflict with Ocean Grove is about more than just Barack Obama. It’s the story of modern America’s rebellion against its religious foundations, rendered in miniature.

In the late 1860s, a Methodist preacher named William Osborn assembled a small group of pastors from around Philadelphia to purchase a patch of land at the shore in central New Jersey. On July 31, 1869, they christened their one square mile of paradise “Ocean Grove.”  

Via: Weekly Standard

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Report: Feds spent $4.4 BILLION on state Obamacare exchanges

Data compiled and released Friday by the conservative organization Americans for Tax Reform reveals the amount of federal tax dollars funneled to states to implement Obamacare exchanges at $4.4 billion.

According to ATR, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services distributed the funds to states for a variety of “vague” purposes.

ATR pulled out grant purposes such as:

• “[P]reparations to demonstrate operational readiness”
• “Provide assistance to hire staff and consultants”
• “Continue and complete current planning and implementation efforts”
• “Secure staff consultants and expert resources and actively engage stakeholders”
• “Marketplace IT system design and development costs including IT consultants and privacy and security consultants”

States that did not end up setting up there own Obamacare exchanges also received money, according to ATR’s research.

Alabama for example, received $9,772,451 in two grants in 2010 and 2011 one for planning the exchange and the other to “support core staff, contracts, and activities around early implementation of the Alabama Health Insurance Exchange.”

Many of the states that did end up creating their own exchanges received more money than those that did not.

ATR’s tax policy director Ryan Ellis told The Daily Caller that it was not clear from CMS’ records what ended up happening to the money provided to states to set up exchanges that in the end decided not establish their own exchange.

“Presumably, [the funding] was to try to get those states to change their mind at an earlier stage of development,” Ellis wrote in an email.

Via Daily Caller

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President Obama tells high-rolling Democrats he still has 'three years left' to fix Obamacare website

After coming clean with the country over the botched Obamacare rollout, President Obama sought solace with high-rolling Democrats in Philadelphia Thursday night.

Obama assured 120 guests at a swanky soirée he still had "three years left in this office," listing that at the top of his "to do" list was "fixing a website," according to excerpts of his comments from WPVI.

RELATED: OBAMA ANNOUNCES FIX FOR CANCELED PLANS FROM OBAMACARE

The coterie of wealthy Dems showed up to see Obama at Comcast exec. David Cohen's Mount Airy mansion, raising an estimated $1 million for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

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"[It's] significant that he's here when times are tough," Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) said about the Commander-in-Chief facing the music from those in the party.

Via: Daily News

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Congressman: Benghazi attackers knew location of ambassador's safe room

The terrorists who attacked the Benghazi consulate last year knew the location of the safe room where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his security team sought shelter, according to a congressman who spoke for 90 minutes with the diplomatic security agent severely injured in the assault.

"He confirmed this - that it was a very well orchestrated, and well organized, almost a military operation, using military weapons and using military signals," the late Florida Rep. Bill Young said after meeting diplomatic security agent David Ubben at Walter Reed Medical Center last summer, when both were patients there. 

After Young's death in mid-October, his widow, Beverly Young, gave Fox permission to use her husband’s comments about the Sep. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the record.  The congressman had originally spoken to Fox on background last summer.

"He (Ubben) emphasized the fact that it was a very, very military type of operation they had knowledge of almost everything in the compound," Young explained. "They knew where the gasoline was, they knew where the generators were, they knew where the safe room was, they knew more than they should have about that compound."

Via: Fox News

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How President Obama Is Killing Jobs

Five years on and President Obama still refuses to assume responsibility for his woeful economic record. The buck stops with Republicans, other countries, changes in the weather, etc.—anywhere but the Oval Office. Of course, it’s not new having a chief executive who refuses to admit failure. What is rare is having a news media that does not hold the President accountable.

So let’s establish the record. At 2.2 percent annual growth, we are now witnessing the slowest economic recovery in generations. Even the Council on Foreign Relations says “the economic expansion following the 2008 recession has been the weakest of the post-World War II era.” This is true across a number of fronts: economic growth, housing prices, industrial production and capacity, etc.

Liberals cry that what we need is more government overspending, which without a trace of irony they call “stimulus.” In other words, they want us to ignore the fact that this Administration and the Federal Reserve have spent more on government-based economic “stimulus” than any other in America’s history, and with little to show.

Via: The Foundry

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OBAMA’S STUMBLING BUMBLING FUMBLING NEWS CONFERENCE

We learned a few interesting things from President Barack Obama’s rambling, analogy-filled news conference Thursday.

We learned that there was a fumble. We learned that technology is hard. In fact, the president went on for an extended period of time explaining government’s historical struggles with IT issues. Considering that the entire backbone of the law is dependent on this technology and expertise, how can anyone truly believe that the Nov. 30 deadline set for HealthCare.gov to work properly is going to be met? And why should anyone trust that IT will work better in the future?

We also learned, despite this traditional technology deficit, the president was not “informed directly” about the challenges facing the website, because he would never be “stupid enough to say this is going to be as easy as shopping around on Amazon or Travelocity.”

We learned that buying insurance is complex business — more complex even than buying an airline ticket. It’s not “like buying a song on iTunes,” the president said. It’s “a much more complicated transaction.” But one of the selling points of Obamacare exchanges was that they would simplify the process. Exchanges were supposed to offer consumers no-hassle, straightforward choices.

Via: Human Events

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