Delaware Celebrates: First Person Finally Enrolls in Obamacare

Delaware has finally signed up someone for Obamacare. This has caused officials in that state to celebrate, according to the Associated Press.

"Delaware officials are celebrating the state's first health insurance exchange enrollee," the AP writes.

"Department of Health and Social Service officials have declared 59-year-old Janice Baker of Selbyville the first confirmed resident to enroll in the marketplace. It opened Oct. 1 as part of the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act.

Baker said Tuesday that she started looking on Oct. 1 and, like many people, made several frustrated attempts to signup online and spent hours on the phone. But Baker says she had success once she cleared the browsing history, cookies and other temporary data on her computer.

"Secretary Rita Landgraf says there have been glitches in the sign-up process over the past two weeks, but upgrades to the system and troubleshooting suggestions should help."

Via: Weekly Standard

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George Will: ‘Default is a choice’

On Tuesday’s “Special Report,” Washington Post columnist George Will said the prospect of a government default has been exaggerated, because there is more than enough revenue to cover U.S. debt payments.

Will’s comments came during discussion of a potential government default, which has gotten more attention as the U.S. federal government approaches the so-called debt ceiling on Wednesday night.

“The last time we faced cataclysm over this was when Standard & Poor’s lowered our credit rating, people said disaster,” Will said. “No, the cost of borrowing actually went down 40 percent. I don’t think the markets are as irrational as some of the people on Wall Street say. I repeat what I have said here before: Default is a choice — a choice in the sense that we have 10 times more revenue coming in than is needed to service our debt. We can continue to service our debt by not paying certain other vendors and certain other programs. We will only default if it is a choice. And, furthermore, the 14th Amendment empowering the president not at all, but the Congress entirely, says it is a constitutional requirement to pay, under the full faith and credit of the United States, our bonded debt.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Analysis: Only 36K Signed Up for Health Care Through Federal Exchange in First Week of Operation

Millward Brown Digital, a consultancy firm, released an analysis today estimating that only 36,000 people had signed up for insurance through the federal Obamacare exchange website.

According to Millward Brown Digital, there were 9.47 million unique visitors to healthcare.gov from the site’s launch on October 1 through October 5. Of those visitors, 1.3 million left the website for their state-run exchange and 3.72 million attempted to create an account on the site. Only 1.01 million successfully did so.

A total of 271,000 people logged into their created account, 27 percent of those who managed to register. The difficulty logging in made the “I’m having trouble logging in to my marketplace account” page one of the most popular on the site with 214,000 people seeking guidance.

Only 196,000 began the enrollment process, which is over 30 steps long. Most didn’t finish it. Altogether, 36,000 people completed enrollment in an insurance plan. That’s a grand total of 1 percent of people who attempted to register on the federal site, and a lower figure than reported by the Daily Mail, which said 51,000 had enrolled during the first week.

The analysis says that “Healthcare.gov was clearly unprepared to handle the huge spike in traffic witnessed on October 1st when it was visited by .9% (or 1 in 114) of everyone online in the U.S. This is roughly equivalent to the daily traffic on Target.com.”

Via: NRO

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Obama Doesn't Take Any Blame for Government Mess ...

President Barack Obama sat down for a rare interview with a local New York City television reporter on Tuesday. As the financial markets grow more skittish with a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing limit not yet agreed to, Obama urged calm. When pressed, Obama refused to concede that he deserves any blame for discord in Washington D.C. 

WABC reporter Diana Williams sat down with Obama for 8 minutes on Tuesday for a wide-ranging interview about the standoff in Washington. She previewed portions of that interview for WABC’s 4 p.m. broadcast.

“The real good news is that Democrats and Republicans are very close to agreement in the Senate,” Obama said. “And what we’ve seen is a recognition on a part of a number of Senate Republicans that this whole strategy that they pursued of trying to extract ransom for keeping the government open was a bad strategy.”

“Why have you not been able to create a bipartisan atmosphere here?” Williams asked. “And, do you take any of the blame yourself for that?”

“I think if you look at my track record over the last four years, I have consistently sought comprise,” Obama replied. “Sometimes to the point where Democrats have been mad at me, but I didn’t care because I did what I thought was best for the country.”

Williams said the lack of concern among legislators for what happens in a default scenario led her to believe that there is still optimism that a deal will be struck which will avert crisis.

Finally, Williams asked Obama about the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act. “My suspicion is what’s going to happen is when it’s working and everybody is really happy with it, the Republicans will stop calling it Obamacare,” he said.

Watch the clip below via WABC:

Via: Mediate.com

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Lt. Gov. Dewhurst Says President Obama Should Be Impeached

FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) – A surprising statement from one of Texas’ top leaders: President Obama should be impeached. This came from Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, who is running for re-election and appeared at a Tea Party candidates forum.

Dewhurst warned that freedoms are being trampled on, and so the President should be impeached.  Later he fleshed out his thoughts for the Texas Observer’s Christopher Hooks.  “I think this President, Barack Obama, has disregarded federal law.  He has tried to do things which are not authorized under federal law.  Things he’s disregarded such as immigration.  He’s not, not following our federal drug laws.   And he has created winners and losers in Obamacare where he has no authority,” according to Dewhurst, who pointed out the extensions given to unions and big businesses.

And then Dewhurst criticized alleged inaction. “I am very concerned about Benghazi, in which all of the national news reporting indicated that live video was streaming into the White House situation room.  Which means there was a(n) overhead platform, probably a drone in the area.  At least that’s what it tells me.   And for not mobilizing some response to protect the ambassador and those three Americans is just outrageous to me.  Just outrageous.”

Dewhurst called his comments those of a private citizen, but when pressed on that issue by the Texas Observer, he refused to  back down.  “That happens to be my view, that the man has committed crimes that do not warrant his staying in office.”

CBS-11 Political Analyst John Weekley  says Dewhurst should be taken seriously.  He points out the Lieutenant Governor was an intelligence officer for both the U.S. Air Force and later the CIA.

“For Dewhurst to say, basically, ‘I think we ought to impeach the President,’ is a big deal,” according to Weekley.  He says the office of Lieutenant Governor is the most powerful in Texas, so the accusations aren’t made lightly.

Via: CBS DFW

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Wall Street up on Washington deal optimism

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened higher on Wednesday on optimism that U.S. politicians would strike a last-minute deal to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt, an event that could roil markets and economies worldwide.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 87.98 points, or 0.58 percent, to 15,255.99, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 10.16 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,708.22 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 23.882 points, or 0.63 percent, to 3,817.892.

Despite the upbeat sentiment in the equities market, yields on U.S. Treasury securities due this month surged and the cost of borrowing against Treasuries in the repurchase agreement market rose as investors fretted about gridlock in Washington.

Via: Yahoo.com

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Door-to-door ObamaCare scammers descend on Birmingham

(Above: David Smitherman of the Better Business Bureau discusses ObamaCare scams on Fox 6)

David Smitherman of the Better Business Bureau told Fox 6′s Janice Rogers last week that ObamaCare scams are already rampant in the Magic City.

Scammers look at opportunities where there’s confusion, where people don’t really understand what perhaps the new law is bringing to them. … There’s plenty of confusion over this, and this a great opportunity for scammers to confuse you further to try and get into your pocketbook…

We’re getting reports even here in Birmingham of people going door-to-door, telling homeowners that they are with an insurance company or they are with Medicare and that they’re going to have to have an Affordable Care Act Card. And so, in order to get their new card they’ve got to give their Social Security number, their bank accounts, all these things that people need to protect with everything they have and we’ve gotten report of them just handing these out… It’s a perfect opportunity for your identity to be stolen, for your bank accounts to be… your payments to be re-routed.

It’s just so critical that people understand what the Affordable Care Act is, what it will do and what it won’t do, and you’re not going to get that information from strangers knocking on your door or calling you on the telephone. … [The federal government is not soliciting door-to-door for people to sign up for the Affordable Care Act], and they’re not going to… HealthCare.Gov is where you can go for real information…

Via: YellowHammer
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Wounded soldier delivers 'the most beautiful salute'

Cincinnati native's struggling gesture during Purple Heart ceremony stirs up emotions, buzz

“The salute seen around the world” has the Internet buzzing, a patriotic clamor for a photo of a wounded 24-year-old soldier from Cincinnati raising his right hand.

The guy saluting is U.S. Army Ranger Cpl. Josh Hargis, battered by shrapnel Oct. 6 in Afghanistan.

Hargis’ wife, Taylor Hargis, knows what the Internet calls the photo.

She just sees it as “a moment of pride.”

Cpl. Hargis, a 2007 graduate of Westwood’s Dater High School, was wounded after an Afghan woman in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province detonated a suicide vest bomb, which set off 13 other explosive devices. The blasts killed four members of Hargis’ 3rd Army Ranger Battalion and wounded 12 other American soldiers.

Hargis went to a nearby military hospital. His numerous wounds required him to be hooked up to a breathing tube and other medical plumbing. His right hand was heavily bandaged.

That hand, his saluting hand, rested under red, white and blue blankets when his commanding officer came into his room. The officer wanted to present Hargis with the Purple Heart for the wounds he suffered earlier that day.

Via: Cincinnati.com

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Playing the Racism Card in the Shutdown

The government shutdown has brought out the worst in our political class but the same is true of pundits. It’s bad enough when politicians call each other terrorists and hostage takers or, as Barbara Boxer did yesterday, to compare them to those who commit domestic abuse. We know that’s what Democrats have always thought of Republicans and it takes very little provocation to get them up on their high horses seeking to turn a political disagreement, however bitter it might be, into one in which the other side is depicted as pure scum rather than merely wrong. But the willingness of liberals to speak as if all those who disagree with Barack Obama are, almost by definition, racists, is about as low as it gets.

The attempt to paint the Tea Party as a warmed over version of the Ku Klux Klan has been a staple of liberal commentary for over three years. The fact that race has played virtually no part in the argument about the stimulus, ObamaCare and the current shutdown/debt ceiling crisis doesn’t deter the left from branding its foes as motivated by prejudice rather than just by different views about which decent people can disagree. That’s the conceit of much of Roger Simon’s column in Politico yesterday. Jonah Goldberg rightly called it “fairly trollish” and used it as an example of how formerly respected reporters turned columnists expose the liberal bias of much of the mainstream press in an excellent post on National Review’s The Corner blog. I made a similar pointin a piece about a related topic on Sunday. But Simon’s piece exposes a different angle of the bias issue that I’d like to explore further.

The headline of his article was “Government shutdown unleashes racism” and it was accompanied by a photo of Tea Party demonstrator waving a Confederate flag in front of the White House at a demonstration this past weekend. But the headline promised more than Simon could deliver as the only points presented in the piece that backed up the accusation lodged in the headline was the flag and a comment made on radio by “Joe the Plumber,” the conservative pseudo celebrity of the 2008 campaign who said in his blog that America needed a “white Republican president” to replace Barack Obama. Other than these two items, Simon’s piece was just the standard denunciation of the Republican stand on the shutdown and it was that theme rather than racism riff that was its substance.

Via: Commentary

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House Set to Vote on Debt Deal, Boehner: 'Trying to Find a Way Forward'

House Republicans on Tuesday dropped two demands related to Obamacare from their proposal to end the government shutdown and raise the nation's borrowing authority, according to news reports.

Sources told CNN that the demands included a proposal to delay the 2.3 percent medical device tax and another to tighten income verification of those seeking subsidies to buy health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner says the House will vote Tuesday night on legislation that would reopen the government and avert a financial default.

Michael Steel says the bill would keep the government operating until Jan. 15 and let the Treasury borrow money until Feb. 7.

It also says members of Congress, the president, vice president and thousands of congressional aides would no longer be eligible for employer health care contributions from the government that employs them.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House or Democrats, who had objected to an earlier version of the House GOP bill.

The House developments came a day after Senate leaders expressed optimism for an imminent bipartisan deal to end the government shutdown, now in its 15th day.

Boehner said earlier Tuesday that GOP leaders were working on their own legislation, even as conservative lawmakers had threatened to reject any proposal unless it includes significant measures toward dismantling Obamacare

"Our members today are trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that will continue to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare," Boehner said at a press conference Tuesday.
 
Via: Newsmax

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House GOP to push Obama, Biden into Obamacare

House Republicans on Tuesday narrowed their attack on Obamacare to the issue of fairness, insisting that President Obama and his top political appointees all have to buy their insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges as part of a new bill to end the government shutdown and extend the federal debt ceiling.

GOP leaders hope to put the bill on their chamber’s floor for a vote later Tuesday, with little time to spare before the Thursday deadline the Treasury Department has set for when it will run out of maneuvering room under the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling.

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SEE ALSO: House GOP unity breaks down over latest shutdown offer

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The new bill would give the Treasury borrowing authority through Feb. 7, and would include stopgap funding for basic government operations through Dec. 15.

The key change would be to force Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and their top political appointees into Obamacare, and to withhold government subsidies from them and from members of Congress and their staffs, who were already forced into Obamacare’s exchanges.

Republicans argue that lawmakers should face the same conditions they are foisting on average Americans — including not being able to get help from their employers to pay premiums.

But the new bill doesn’t include a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax nor does it call for stricter verification measures — both options that Republican leaders had floated early in the day.

Via: Washington Times

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