House Republicans will probe botched launch of Obamacare

WASHINGTON — Republicans in the House of Representatives are making plans to investigate the disastrous Oct. 1 launch of the federal health insurance marketplace established under Obamacare.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the federal contractors involved in the rollout to explain why things have gone so badly after their earlier testimony indicated that the marketplace information technology would run smoothly.

The federal marketplace, Healthcare.gov, was supposed to provide a one-stop site for users in 36 states to browse, compare and enroll in qualified health plans.

But millions of users and numerous software problems overwhelmed the site shortly after the enrollment period for 2014 coverage began. In subsequent days, the site was shut down temporarily for repairs, which have continued since the problems first surfaced.

Two weeks later, site navigation has improved but delays and malfunctions continue to dog the system, making it difficult for users to establish personal accounts and obtain federal subsidies to offset the cost of coverage.

Nearly 15 million people had visited the site as of last Friday, but the Department of Health and Human Services won’t release enrollment figures until November.

In a Sept. 10 subcommittee hearing, Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president at CGI Federal, which designed and developed the federal insurance marketplace, testified that her company was confident that qualified individuals “could begin enrolling in coverage when the initial enrollment period begins on October 1.”

Michael Finkel, an executive vice president of Quality Software Services Inc., the company that wrote the software code for the so-called data services hub, offered similar testimony at the hearing. The hub routes information from the marketplace to various federal databases.

Via: McClatchyDC

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/15/205461/house-republicans-will-probe-botched.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/15/205461/house-republicans-will-probe-botched.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/15/205461/house-republicans-will-probe-botched.html#storylink=cpy

Report: Welfare government’s single largest budget item in FY 2011 at approx. $1.03 trillion

The government spent approximately $1.03 trillion on 83 means-tested federal welfare programs in fiscal year 2011 alone — a price tag that makes welfare that year the government’s largest expenditure, according to new data released by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.

The total sum taxpayers spent on federal welfare programs was derived from a new Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on federal welfare spending — which topped out at $745.84 billion for fiscal year 2011 — combined with an analysis from the Republican Senate Budget Committee staff of state spending on federal welfare programs (based on “The Oxford Handbook of State and Local Government Finance”), which reached $282.7 billion in fiscal year 2011.

The data excludes spending on Social Security, Medicare, means-tested health care for veterans without service-connected disabilities, and the means-tested veterans pension program.

Via: The Daily Caller

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As protesters dressed as Nazis riot in an Athens ruled by Brussels stooges, giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU is beyond satire

The Nobel Peace Prize is the sacred elephant of the liberal establishment. It is sometimes awarded to good people who have done great things, but equally often to unworthy recipients as a gesture of pious hope.

The world applauded when it was presented to Martin Luther King in 1964, to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, to Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk two years later.

Sensible people sighed when the prize went to Henry Kissinger and Viet Cong leader Le Duc Tho in 1973, who stitched up a charade of a Vietnam peace deal as a figleaf for surrendering the country to the Communists; to Egypt’s leader Anwar Sadat and his Israeli counterpart Menachem Begin in 1978 for their Middle East deal which brought no lasting peace; and to Barack Obama in 2009 for his commitment to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are still mired in bloodshed. 

Controversial: Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland announces the European Union as the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Peace prize

In all these cases — and many more besides — the Nobel Committee was obviously seeking to say to the winners and to the world: ‘We welcome what you are attempting to do, and hope that giving you the Prize will make you try even harder for the cause of peace.’

These are the sort of decent, woolly-minded sentiments that country vicars unleash on their flocks every Sunday. But the consequence is that too many Nobel Laureates are honoured for aspirations rather than achievements, for proclaiming objectives which go unfulfilled, or for displaying an illusory semblance of virtue. 

However, this year, the 93rd in which the award has been made, the committee has surpassed all previous follies and travesties. The peace prize has been given to the European Union. The award, it is said, recognises six decades of commitment to the advancement of peace, reconciliation and human rights.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the sacred elephant of the liberal establishment. It is sometimes awarded to good people who have done great things, but equally often to unworthy recipients as a gesture of pious hope.

The world applauded when it was presented to Martin Luther King in 1964, to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, to Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk two years later.

Sensible people sighed when the prize went to Henry Kissinger and Viet Cong leader Le Duc Tho in 1973, who stitched up a charade of a Vietnam peace deal as a figleaf for surrendering the country to the Communists; to Egypt’s leader Anwar Sadat and his Israeli counterpart Menachem Begin in 1978 for their Middle East deal which brought no lasting peace; and to Barack Obama in 2009 for his commitment to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are still mired in bloodshed. 

Controversial: Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland announces the European Union as the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Peace prize

In all these cases — and many more besides — the Nobel Committee was obviously seeking to say to the winners and to the world: ‘We welcome what you are attempting to do, and hope that giving you the Prize will make you try even harder for the cause of peace.’

These are the sort of decent, woolly-minded sentiments that country vicars unleash on their flocks every Sunday. But the consequence is that too many Nobel Laureates are honoured for aspirations rather than achievements, for proclaiming objectives which go unfulfilled, or for displaying an illusory semblance of virtue. 

However, this year, the 93rd in which the award has been made, the committee has surpassed all previous follies and travesties. The peace prize has been given to the European Union. The award, it is said, recognises six decades of commitment to the advancement of peace, reconciliation and human rights.

Via: Mail Online

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