Phone sex line transfers callers to Obamacare

What do Obamacare and phone sex have in common? Answer: "intimate connections."

By dialing 1-800-382-5968 — a number that differs from Obamacare's line by just two digits — you can reach "our nation's little secret ... intimate connections."

An obliging voice gives you the option to press two to hear the phone number that President Obama read out during his press conference on the woes of healthcare.gov.

Press three, and the phone sex service transfers you to the government line. (Option 1, naturally, asks for your personal preferences and a credit card number to verify your age.)

Yahoo! Answers has featured multiple questions about the "Obamacre sex hotline" (sic), but the threads have been deleted.

It's not clear if civic-mindedness alone accounts for the "intimate connections" redirect to the health insurance exchange call center.

"[I]t stands to reason that a legitimate company would only provide option '2' in order to get the caller off the line," a retired cyber security expert who told the Washington Examiner of the phone line said, given the cost of paying for enrollment phone calls.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Yahoo Finance Writer Needles Boehner, Ryan: ‘Obamacare Still Isn’t Killing Jobs’

Yahoo Finance columnist Rick Newman wrote a column arguing “Obamacare Still Isn’t Killing Jobs,” playing off the Friday employment numbers and picking on Speaker John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

“Since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, Republicans have claimed repeatedly that it would be a job-killing monstrosity, with ample evidence of its withering effect on the economy by now. “The health-care law will cause significant job losses for the U.S. economy,” a 2011 report sponsored by House Speaker John Boehner, Rep. Paul Ryan and other Republicans declared. Well maybe, someday, but in the law’s first month of existence it appeared to have no impact whatsoever on jobs.” Newman even argued Obamacare could create jobs by spurring people to quit jobs they were only keeping for the health benefits:

Obamacare could help create jobs, too, and not just for customer-service representatives taking calls from frustrated health-care shoppers unable to navigate the bug-filled Obamacare website. One benefit of the law is it will free some people from sticking with jobs they don’t like simply to get health-care benefits, since they’ll now be able to buy policies priced at a group rate — similar to the rates big companies pay — on one of the public exchanges. That could persuade some people to ditch jobs they’re poorly suited for so they can do more-productive work someplace else, or even start their own business.

Newman’s Twitter bio includes the word (and punctuation)  “Centrist!” You could have fooled people with this column. You’d be looking for the Obama logo.

Via: Newsbusters

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Three arrested in Wal-Mart protests that extend to 15 cities

Wal-Mart workers and supporters launched protests in at least 15 cities Thursday, urging the world's largest retailer provide higher wages, better jobs and the right to unionize.

OUR Wal-Mart, a coalition including Wal-Mart workers, community organizers and the United Food & Commercial Workers organized day-long protests, urging Wal-Mart to pay full-time wages of $25,000 a year, or $12 an hour. It says many of Wal-Mart's 1.3 million associates are part-time employees averaging just $8.80 an hour.

The Wal-Mart protests - which follow ;ast week's broader, widespread strikes among fast-food industry workers seeking $15 an hour wages from fast food chains - were scheduled for Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Boston, Orlando, Minneapolis and Washington D.C., where Wal-Mart is threatening to cut expansion if it's required to pay a city mandated "living wage" of at least $12.50 an hour.

At least three current or former Wal-Mart employees were arrested in New York City Thursday morning for disorderly conduct as they attempted to deliver a petition to the office of Wal-Mart director Chris Williams. The independent board member is CEO of New York-based investment bank Williams Capital Management Trust. About three dozen protesters, some wearing green shirts with OUR Wal-Mart stenciled on them, participated in the rally.

Protesters also planned to rally outside of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's San Francisco apartment building. Mayer was appointed to Wal-Mart's board of directors in 2012.

Via: USA Today

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Obama: I’ll work with Republicans if they agree to raise taxes

MELBOURNE, Florida - President Barack Obama said in an interview partly broadcast Sunday that he would be "more than happy to work with the Republicans" to trim the swelling national debt — as long as they drop their opposition to raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

"You can't reduce the deficit unless you take a balanced approach that says, 'We've got to make government leaner and more efficient,'" the president told CBS's Scott Pelley. "But we've also got to ask people --like me or Gov. Romney, who have done better than anybody else over the course of the last decade, and whose taxes are just about lower than they've been in the last 50 years - to do a little bit more."

Obama said he would be willing to make "some adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid that would strengthen the programs." "The way to do that is to keep health care costs low. It's not to 'voucherize' programs so that suddenly seniors are the ones who are finding their expenses much higher."

That was a reference to Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan. The Republicans have proposed a plan that would transform Medicare by giving the elderly voucher-style payments they could use to purchase health insurance. They say it would rein in runaway health care costs. But Democrats — and the impartial Congressional Budget Office — say it would eventually shift much of the burden of health care costs to the elderly.

"President Obama's latest false attacks are a sign of desperation," Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. Williams charged that Obama had "robbed" Medicare of $716 billion to pay for the health care law popularly known as Obamacare. (Obama's approach does not directly affect benefits — it reduces reimbursements to health care providers and insurance companies.)

Obama is attacking Romney on Medicare because "he can't talk about his record of crushing the middle class and failing to turn the economy around," said Williams.

Obama was to pursue that attack as he wrapped up a two-day bus tour in Florida. (The photo above was snapped as Obama prepared to eat with seniors at the Ossorio Bakery and Cafe while campaigning in Cocoa, Florida.)

Via: Yahoo! News

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