Poll: Plurality of Democrats Believe Exchanges Are Working Well

Quick thoughts on Pew’s latest survey, asking Americans what they know and what they think about the Obamacare exchanges:

The survey found 29 percent say the online health insurance exchanges are working “well” or “fairly well.” This means at least 29 percent of Americans have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Separately, 25 percent of Americans say they “don’t know” if the exchanges are working well. This amounts to 54 percent of Americans.

The survey found 44 percent of Democrats, 25 percent of independents, and 14 percent of Republicans believe the exchanges are working well. Also 51 percent of African-Americans said the online insurance exchanges were working well. Only 32 percent of Democrats think the exchanges aren’t working well. In short, partisanship can easily override reality in the minds of these respondents.

Only 14 percent of Americans say they visited the site so far. Only 29 percent of those who said they have visited the site say they’re uninsured. 

They survey found that 31 percent of those who are uninsured say they don’t plan to visit the site. A segment of that crowd might be thinking about other options like phoning it in, but not a big chunk: of those without insurance, 24 percent said they do not plan to get insurance. Another 11 percent said they didn’t know.

Via: NRO

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Boehner: More people will lose insurance under Obamacare than sign up in exchanges

House Speaker John A. Boehner predicted Wednesday that by the end of the month, more Americans will have lost their insurance by being kicked off existing health plans than the number who were able to sign up in the flawed online healthcare.gov website.

And the early numbers may back him up.

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PHOTOS: President Obama's favorite footstool: The famous Resolute desk

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Kaiser Health News reported this week that hundreds of thousands of Americans have received notices from their insurers canceling their policies: 300,000 from Florida Blue and 160,000 from Kaiser Permanente in California.

One industry analyst told Kaiser Health News the moves may be a way of insurers ridding their own rolls of costly consumers they don’t want, and pushing those people onto the federal health exchanges.

“When you begin to look at these hundreds of thousands of people, I think what you’re going to see at the end of October are more Americans are going to lose their health insurance than are going to sign up at these exchanges,” the Ohio Republican told reporters.

The White House and the rest of the Obama administration continued to struggle with explaining why the rollout of the online federal portal to sign up for the health exchanges has performed so badly.

Via: Washington Times

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White House Says It Knows How Many People Enrolled In Obamacare, But Will Only Say It’s “In The Thousands”…

The longer they hold out releasing the data the worse we know it is.

Via: Weasel Zippers

Morning Joe Panel Mocks Bill Kristol On GOP Obamacare Alternative: ‘You’re Putting This Out’ Now?

Via: Pat Dollard

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History of a Shutdown

Clashing tactics led to squandered opportunities, but the Right can still unite to defeat O’Care. 

The developing narrative, whether on talk radio or in these pages and other publications, about the shutdown fight — who was on what side, what the options were, and what was gained or not — often starts from incorrect premises, based on incomplete or erroneous assumptions. Since we need to understand how we got here if we want to do better, as a team, next time, it’s important to lay out some of the unpublished history.

The ACA passed Congress without a single Republican vote. After it became law, Republicans were essentially unified in their opposition to the law and in their oft-stated desire for repeal. Nonetheless, Republicans fell essentially into three strategic camps on how to go forward.

1. Fixers: On the center-to-right portion of the spectrum (since there are no longer any Rockefeller Republicans, who might well have approved of the ACA), the most moderate/centrist were the “fixers,” who thought that the law, if not repealed, could be repaired. Many conservatives initially feared that much of the GOP establishment and leadership lay in this camp. But in the wake of the 2010 election, any advocates for this strategy completely disappeared; the post-shutdown conversation, however, might bring them back.

Via: NRO

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Issa Demands Answers from Verizon, Google, Microsoft on Healthcare.gov

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent letters Tuesday to five tech companies asking if they are involved with the efforts to fix the faulty Obamacare website, Healthcare.gov.

Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) asked Verizon Enterprise Inc., Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Expedia if they were assisting the government in attempts to fix of the site.

According to reports, President Barack Obama has already called upon Verizon to help fix the online marketplace Healthcare.gov, a website that cost over $600 million to produce that has been plagued with glitches and technical problems since its launch on Oct. 1.

The administration announced a “tech surge,” a group of government and private sector computer experts, to assist with the website.  The team will include “veterans of top Silicon Valley companies,” said Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“The Obama Administration has announced it is ‘bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government’ to fix the seemingly endless problems with the healthcare exchange website, but has not provided details about what the problems are, who is being enlisted to solve them and how long the process is expected to take,” the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

Issa’s letters ask the tech giants to disclose any communication they have had with the administration regarding Healthcare.gov since Oct. 1.

Via: WFB

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Ted Nugent Will Be Co-Chairing Texas Election GOP Campaign

Ted Nugent, the celebrity right-wing rocker who infamously said he’d be dead or in jail if President Obama was re-elected, has reportedly become the treasurer and co-chairman of a Texas political campaign.

Nugent spoke to The Texas Tribute as he was in the middle of “hanging up a freshly mounted ram on the wall of his home,” and revealed he’ll be getting more politically engaged soon enough.

Ted Nugent has agreed to be the treasurer and co-chairman of former state Rep. Sid Miller’s campaign for agriculture commissioner, the rock star, vocal conservative and fierce critic of President Obama said Tuesday night…

“I believe in guys who stand by the Constitution,” Nugent said in a phone interview late Tuesday while hanging up a freshly mounted ram on the wall of his home. “I believe in guys who represent ‘we the people’ and common sense.”

Nugent also said, “I do media every day, and I’ll raise as much hell as I can.”

Nugent has already made his mark in the hell-raising department during Obama’s presidency with some very provocative comments, including calling himself a “black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally” and saying anti-gun liberals want to “rape the constitution.”

Via: Mediaite.com

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White House plans ObamaCare blitz

Looking to combat headlines dominated by the technical problems plaguing the ObamaCare website, top Obama administration officials will fan out across the country to sell the American public on signing up for insurance under the law.

"We are planning to deploy White House officials and Cabinet secretaries to the 10 cities across the country with the highest rates of uninsured Americans to do enrollment events and other grassroots activities," a White House official told CNN on Wednesday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will participate in the blitz, with two stops in Texas and another in Phoenix later this week. Other administration officials will hold events in Dallas; Houston; Miami; Atlanta; North Jersey; Tampa, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; and Detroit.

White House press secretary Jay Carney wouldn't detail upcoming presidential travel at his press briefing on Tuesday, so it is unclear whether President Obama will participate in the events.

But on Tuesday, the president released a video asking his supporters to talk to "friends, families, coworkers, classmates, neighbors and anyone else" to help promote the law.

In a video released by Organizing for Action, the political advocacy organization born from the remnants of his reelection campaign, Obama tells supporters they should join "Team ObamaCare" and travel "out in their communities" to help individuals to find coverage.

Via: The Hill

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(BREAKING) Identity Theft Russian Roulette: Healthcare.gov Refers Users to Uncertified Navigators and Assisters

Obamacare includes a requirement that all marketplaces prepare “Navigators,” “In-Person Assisters,” or “Certified Application Counselors.” These organizations and individuals are supposed to be trained to help Americans – should they desire assistance with the process – apply for and purchase insurance plans through the Obamacare marketplaces.

However — and inexplicably, as the cause of this situation is not being made available to the public — people seeking assistance will be presented with search results from a database that includes individuals and organizations which are simply not certified to help.

Citizens of the 34 states that chose not to create their own exchange (and thus must use the federal Healthcare.gov website) can search for application assistance at LocalHelp.Healthcare.gov. On this page, users are prompted to enter their location. Users then will receive search results comprising the entities available to assist in the users’ respective areas.

See below for a screen shot of this service in action — I entered “Illinois”, and I then received 558 search results consisting of Illinois’ navigator/assister/counselor contact information.

Via: PJ Media

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