HHS Confirmation Hearings: 49,000 Words, Zero on Abortion-Drug Mandate

Two Senate committees held hearings this month on the nomination of Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell to succeed Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services, the federal agency most responsible for overseeing implementation of Obamacare.

In these two hearings, according to transcripts published by CQ Transcriptions, the senators and the nominee spoke approximately 49,000 words. Not one of these words directly addressed the contraception-sterilization-abortion-inducing drug regulation that Sebelius issued under Obamacare and that is now the target of more than 90 lawsuits.

The closest anyone came was Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who told Burwell he was going to ask her a question in writing in "regard to abortion coverage transparency for insurance plans offered in the federal exchanges."

The central question in the lawsuits filed against Sebelius is whether the federal government can force Americans into complicity with the taking of innocent human life by compelling them to buy or provide health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs.

Via: CNS News

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Townhall's Benson Slams Media for Uncritically Swallowing Obama's '5 Million Enrolled' Spin

Townhall's Guy Benson today took Washington Post's Aaron Blake and Vox.com senior editor Sarah Kliff to task for uncritically furthering Obama White House spin that 5 million Americans have successfully registered for ObamaCare.

This is patently false, Benson charges, noting that, at best, the number is somewhere closer to 4 million, assuming the very generous estimate of a 20 percent "non-payment" rate on the registered policies. Benson explains (emphasis mine):

Back in reality, the generally-accepted estimate of the nationwide non-payment rate is 20 percent -- meaning that one-fifth of the "newly enrollment" are not, in fact, enrolled. The administration "counts" anyone who's placed an Obamacare exchange plan in their virtual shopping cart as signed up. Kathleen Sebelius again testified last week that HHS is not keeping track of who checks out and pays their first month's premium, which are necessary steps to becoming fully enrolled. (I've included that video below). As of a few weeks ago, payment delinquency rates were close to 50 percent in certain states. Nearly half of the few previously-uninsured Americans who have selected plans through Obamacare are not paid up. Also, the overwhelming majority of these "new" enrollees are not obtaining coverage for the first time. Most had insurance prior to Obamacare. According to estimate, fewer than 30 percentof those signing up are first-time enrollees. Two independent studies revealed that roughly 90 percent of eligible consumers who were uninsured before the law's implementation have chosen not to purchase plans on Obamacare's exchanges. The top reason cited was lack of affordability. Here's my back-of-the envelope math about the real progress
That's based on the White House's original target of seven million, which they've since tried to pretend never happened. If you take these calculations a step further by only tallying enrollments of (a) newly-insured people who (b) have activated their coverage by paying, the accurate "new enrollment" number sits just north of one million. And that's using the relatively generous 20 percent nonpayment rate assumption. Remember, according to the McKinsey study, the delinquency percentage among this group is more than double the broader national one-fifth figure.

Via: Newsbusters

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Report: Premiums rising faster than eight years before Obamacare COMBINED

Health insurance premiums have risen more after Obamacare than the average premium increases over the eight years before it became law, according to the private health exchange eHealthInsurance.

The individual market for health insurance has seen premiums rise by 39 percent since February 2013, eHealth reports. Without a subsidy, the average individual premium is now $274 a month. Families have been hit even harder with an average increase of 56 percent over the same period — average premiums are now $663 per family, over $426 last year.

Between 2005 and 2013, average premiums for individual plans increased 37 percent and average family premiums were upped 31 percent. So they have risen faster under Obamacare than in the previous eight years.

An important caveat is that eHealth’s prices don’t include subsidies, so the prices for anyone earning between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level will be lower. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has repeatedly claimed patients will pay as little as $18 per month, without noting the taxpayer cost.

Premiums are being hiked across the board for several reasons, but the biggest contributor is the Obama administration’s highly touted “essential health benefits,” services that insurers on and off exchanges must provide.

Some benefits, such as emergency and laboratory services, are uncontroversial. But others, like maternity, newborn and pediatric services, are causing headaches for huge swaths of the population that don’t need them. Anyone past childbearing age, single men, the infertile, even nuns — their premiums are rising as well, because their plans must, by law, provide more services.

But premiums aren’t the only key to health care costs — deductibles and out-of-pocket costs like co-pays are also rising. When it comes to employer health plans alone, four out of five U.S. companies have increased deductibles or are considering doing so. (RELATED: 4 of 5 companies may hike deductibles due to Obamacare)

Prices may be people away from purchasing health insurance. The latest survey from consulting firm McKinsey found that half of those who haven’t purchased health insurance yet this year cited their inability to pay the premium.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Why Liberals Can’t Govern

Back in late February, a new contract document revealed that the Department of Health and Human Services would be paying $60 million for the computer cloud that supports back-end data sharing for HealthCare.gov and state Obamacare marketplaces, more than five times the amount in the original contract. This week HHS revealed that the contract has been further revised — to roughly $120 million, now more than ten times the original $11 million value of the contract when Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services first awarded it in 2011.

In most professions, when you end up spending ten times what you budgeted, the consequences are swift and severe. Heads roll. Responsibilities are reassigned. Budgetary authority gets yanked. This, of course, is not how things work in the federal government.

When George W. Bush was in the Oval Office, liberals often argued that conservative wariness and distrust of government made them poor managers of it. Because they didn’t believe in the power and benefits of an active, powerful federal bureaucracy, they tolerated and came to expect waste and mismanagement.

Alan Wolfe articulated this idea in the Washington Monthly in 2006. “Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference,” he wrote, “expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government. . . . As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster.” His article was entitled simply “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern.”

Via: NRO

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ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption - HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years.

ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.

This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply withObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.

That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

Via: WSJ

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STUDY: OBAMACARE MEDICAL DEVICE TAX KILLED 33,000 JOBS

A new study finds that the Obamacare tax on medical devices killed 33,000 jobs.

The study, conducted by the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), said the Obamacare tax slashed 14,000 industry worker jobs and quashed the hiring of 19,000 more. 

"During a time when there is bipartisan support for growing high-technology manufacturing jobs, these results should serve as a wake-up call," said AdvaMed CEO and President Stephen J. Ubl. "The findings of the report underscore the need to repeal this tax." 

Even some Democrats like Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) have conceded that the Obamacare medical device tax is a "job-killing tax." 

The study's findings are just the latest round of job-killing news for Obamacare. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that Obamacare will reduce the U.S. workforce by 2.3 million full-time workers over the next seven years. 

However, embattled Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebeliusclaimed last week that "There is absolutely no evidence, and every economist will tell you this, that there is any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act."

According to the latest Investor's Business Daily Obamacare jobs scorecard, 401 employers have now slashed tens of thousands of worker hours and jobs due to Obamacare.

Via: Breitbart

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Sebelius: Administration Never Set 7 Million ACA Enrollment Goal – CBO Did

(CNSNews.com) – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday dismissed the goal of 7 million Obamacare enrollees by the end of March as something that the Congressional Budget Office made up.

 “First of all, 7 million was not the administration. That was a CBO Congressional Budget Office prediction when the bill was first signed. I’m not quite sure where they even got their numbers. Their number’s all over the board, and the vice president has looked and said it may be closer to 5 to 6,” Sebelius told HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill.

Hill asked if she agreed with Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that 5.6 million Americans enrolled by the end of March would be a good start.

“We may not get to seven million, we may get to five or six, but that's a hell of a start," Biden admitted last week on his way to a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Minneapolis, according to a pool report of his meeting, Reuters reported.

Despite her insistence that the CBO made up the 7 million enrollees number, as CNSNews.com previously reported, Sebelius told NBC News on Sept. 30, 2013, that "success," in her opinion, would be having 7 million Americans enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges by the end of March.

"I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014," Sebelius told NBC's Nancy Snyderman.

Meanwhile, the CBO predicted in May 2013 that by 2023, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of uninsured by 25 million, “leaving 31 million uninsured.”

“In our current projections for 2023, the ACA reduces the number of people without health insurance by 25 million, leaving 31 million uninsured (compared with 30 million in our February estimate),” the CBO reported.

Via: CNS News

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Exclusive: Kathleen Sebelius Won't Say Whether Still Fundraising To Promote ObamaCare

First in a series of stories on the Obama administration's outside fundraising efforts to promote Obamacare enrollment.

 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other department staff may be continuing to solicit private donations to help an outside group promote the president's health care law as the administration works to boost enrollment figures after a troubled fall rollout.

News last May that Sebelius had asked business executives and nonprofit groups to donate toEnroll America, a nonprofit organization formed to help encourage millions of Americans to sign up for the new Obamacare insurance exchanges, provoked an uproar among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Two GOP-led House committees launched investigations, and several Republican senators called on the Health and Human Services inspector general to investigate Sebelius' fundraising drive, which watchdogs have described as an unethical shakedown for cash.

Eight months after the news broke, Sebelius' spokeswoman last Friday sidestepped questions from the Washington Examiner on whether her boss has continued to solicit funds from outside groups for Enroll America's efforts.

“The secretary has engaged in a sustained, aggressive outreach campaign to reach as many Americans as possible during open enrollment,” HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in an emailed statement Friday afternoon.

“We're [sic] have been working closely with a range of partners groups across the country to reach the uninsured, and to help get them enrolled in quality, affordable health insurance,” Peters continued.

She did not respond to a follow-up question specifically asking whether Sebelius has continued the fundraising.

Via: Washington Examiner

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18 Visits from Sebelius: What Did President Obama Know and When Did He Known It Before the Botched Healthcare.gov Rollout?

 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in frequent contact with President Obama and senior White House aides before the disastrous launch of the federal ObamaCare exchange last year.

While Sebelius has said the president was not aware of HealthCare.gov’s problems, more than 750 pages of documents obtained by The Hill through a Freedom of Information Act request show she made scores of visits to the White House.

The documents reveal that Sebelius met with or attended calls and events with Obama at least 18 times between Oct. 27, 2012, and Oct. 6, 2013, including at least seven instances in which the two were scheduled to discuss the new healthcare law, according to the secretary’s draft schedules.

She had breakfast or lunch with Pete Rouse, considered one of Obama’s closest advisers, at least three times. Moreover, Sebelius had scheduled calls or meetings with Valerie Jarrett, an Obama confidante, and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough.

Sebelius also met with or had calls with Chris Jennings, then a White House senior healthcare adviser, at least seven times in the roughly yearlong period.

The schedules suggest Sebelius was an active White House presence in the months leading up to the botched rollout, and raise new questions about why Obama wouldn’t have known about the problems that were exposed on Oct. 1.

HHS said in a statement to The Hill that Sebelius is often on the White House grounds.

“She is frequently at the White House for meetings on a wide range of topics, including the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. As we have also said, the Affordable Care Act is more than just a website, and consistent with other significant policy initiatives, there was coordination across the Administration on a broad range of policy and implementation topics,” said the agency.

Since last fall, when lawmakers began calling for her ouster, Sebelius has maintained that Obama was in the dark about the glitches that plagued HealthCare.gov.

“No, sir,” Sebelius told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta on Oct. 22 when asked if the president knew of problems before the site’s launch.

Obama has similarly said that he wasn’t aware of any issues.

“On the website, I was not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to. Had I been informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, boy, this is going to be great,” Obama said in a Nov. 14 press conference.

Via: Fox News

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Feds Release Details of ‘Urgent’ New Healthcare.gov Contract

Newly released documents reveal the anxieties of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about Healthcare.gov, which warn that failure to finish the website puts “the entire health insurance industry at risk.”

The HHS released documents relating to its new contract to maintain the federal health exchange on Wednesday, justifying its reasons to expedite the procurement process because of an “urgent need” for the website to work.

The documents instruct the new contractor, Accenture Federal Services, to build “core functionality” of the website, including software that tracks enrollment and calculates subsidies to pay insurance companies. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials have admitted that nearly half of the site has yet to be built.

CMS officials said the majority of work remains to be done on back end systems, including the financial management module, which will automate and smooth intersections with third parties including health plans.

HHS warned that if the site is not completed by March 2014, it puts the “entire health insurance industry at risk.”

“CMS must immediately award a contract for these services under the auspices of the aforementioned exception to full and open competition because there is limited time to build this functionality and failure to deliver the functionality above by mid-March 2014 will result in financial harm to the Government,” the “Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition” statement accompanying the contract revealed.

“If this functionality is not complete by mid-March 2014, the government could make erroneous payments to providers and insurers,” it said.

Via: WFB

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OBAMACARE TRANSPARENCY BILL SET FOR FRIDAY VOTE

Growing questions about President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's mismanagement of the unpopularObamacare program have prompted a House vote this Friday on a pivotal bill that would provide greater transparency by requiring weekly HHS reports on the status of HealthCare.gov.

The Exchange Information Disclosure Act (H.R. 3362) would require Sebelius to regularly report the number of paying Obamacare enrollees, Healthcare.gov metrics, Medicaid enrollments, and basic demographic data to monitor Obamacare's problems and viability. Senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Rep. Lee Terry(R-NE) authored the bill.

"This is about practicality, not politics," said Terry. "The American people have a right to know what's happening with their health care coverage."

Committee vice chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) agrees. "It's well past time the administration be transparent and upfront with the American people." 

Friday's vote on the measure comes as management experts, government watchdog groups, and members of Congress raise serious questions about Obamacare's calamitous implementation. Politico reported last week that several management experts blasted Obama and Sebelius for their lack of executive management and oversight during the three-and-a-half years leading up to Obamacare's disastrous unveiling. 

"No one asked you to write code or be a technical expert," Kellogg School of Management professor Daniel Diermeier told Politico, "but the expectation is you can set up a process. Companies do it every day." 

A Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report featured by Politico made headlines when it revealed that the official White House calendar and the Politico presidential calendar record a single one-on-one meeting between Obama and Sebelius in the over three-and-a-half years leading up to the Oct. 1 Obamacare launch.

Via: Breitbart

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