Colorado's health-exchange board is frustrated by slow enrollment pace

State health insurance exchange officials said Monday they have 3,164 enrollments in Obamacare so far, expressing frustration with the slow pace during a special meeting.

More than 44,000 Coloradans have created accounts with the exchange since its launch Oct. 1, but the difficulty of educating new customers in preparation for enrollment has been compounded by a series of computer glitches.

"If we didn't have these glitches, what would that number be?" asked board member Arnold Salazar of Colorado Health Partnerships. He wondered aloud if a better system would have meant current enrollment of "6,000 or 18,000 or 30,000."

"That's what I struggle with," he said.

Exchange officials have said they expect 136,000 enrollments in the first year.

State Medicaid officials, who also serve on the board, are happier with their 25,000 approved applicants who will be enrolled Jan. 1 under expanded Medicaid rules, another key feature of the Affordable Care Act.

They must work with the exchange, though, to hand off people who must complete a Medicaid application even though they will not qualify and want to go directly to the exchange's federally subsidized policies. Medicaid is supposed to supply an "instant denial" of those applicants; instead, that happens only 50 percent of the time now. Others are waiting weeks.

Susan Birch, a board member who oversees Medicaid as director of state Health Care Policy and Finance, said Medicaid is working internally and with federal officials to streamline the application and get instant decisions to 90 percent of cases. Currently, many applicants are required to fill out questions on assets that are not required for Medicaid decisions.

Via: The Denver Post

Continue Reading.....

Meet Valerie Jarrett daughter Laura’s computer scandal tinged father-in-law

For the record:  Valerie’ Jarrett’s daughter Laura’s father-in-law Canadian Liberal politician Bas Balkissoon is not (thank God!) Canada’s Prime Minister.  Nor, as some news outlets are indicating,  is he a MP.  (Member of Parliament). Balkissoon—one of many Canadian Liberals with deep ties to the Obama administration—is a minor player MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament ) at Ontario’s Queen’s Park, irreverently known to the plebes as the ‘Pink Palace’.

Before landing at the Pink Palace as a ready-made Liberal MPP, Balkissoon was a City of Toronto councillor involved in a computer leasing scandal.

Wow, what a coincidence!

Just as key Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett’s fingerprints are all over the Obama administration, the Obama administration’s fingerprints are all over the Province of Ontario.  And last time we checked, Ontario was still a duly recognized province in Canada.

If Obama’s presence by proxy in Ontario doesn’t give Canadians who believe in sovereignty the creeps, nothing will.

“The Balkissoon-Jarrett marriage is one of several links between Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals and Obama.  From 2000 until 2002, David Axelrod, another key adviser to the president, was a paid McGuinty strategist. (Toronto Star, June 20, 2012).

“As well, Toronto Liberal Jean-Michel Picher, who helped the premier in the run-up to last year’s provincial election, was an early Obama insider who worked on the then-Illinois senator’s historic presidential primary campaign in 2007 and 2008.”

And that’s just the Obama links in the Liberal Ontario government. 

Via: Canada Free Press

Continue Reading.....;

SOWELL: The race-hustlers among us

Years ago, someone said that according to the laws of aerodynamics, bumblebees cannot fly. But the bumblebees, not knowing the laws of aerodynamics, go ahead and fly anyway.

Something like that happens among people. There have been many ponderous academic writings and dour editorials in the mainstream media lamenting that most people born poor cannot rise in American society anymore. Meanwhile, many poor immigrants arrive here from various parts of Asia, and rise on up the ladder anyway.

---

PHOTOS: Ted Cruz hunts for pheasants — and potential 2016 support — in Iowa

---

Often these Asian immigrants arrive not only with very little money, but also very little knowledge of English. They start out working at low-paid jobs but working so many hours, often at more than one job, that they are able to put a little money aside.

After a few years, they have enough money to open some little shop, where they still work long hours, and still save their money so that they can afford to send their children to college. Meanwhile, these children know that their parents not only expect, but demand, that they make good grades.

Some people try to explain why Asians and Asian-Americans succeed so well in education and in the economy by some special characteristics that they have. That may be true, but their success may also be a result of what they do not have; namely, “leaders” who tell them that the deck is so stacked against them that they cannot rise, or at least not without depending on “leaders.”

Such “leaders” are like the people who said that the laws of aerodynamics showed that the bumblebee cannot fly. Those who have believed such “leaders” have, in fact, stayed grounded, unlike the bumblebees.

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading.....

Hospital Workers Win Federal Settlements Booting SEIU Officials from Area Hospital

A group of Thousand Oaks Surgical Hospital (TOSH) nurses and support staff has won three federal settlements forcing two major healthcare unions and the hospital's parent company to stop illegally forcing them and their coworkers into unwanted union "representation."

The settlements come after three TOSH nurses and two support staff receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

In late November 2012, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) Holdings, Inc.-owned Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center purchased TOSH. In late April 2013, Los Robles Hospital management suddenly announced that TOSH workers were "represented" by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) and SEIU Local 121 RN union officials. Supposedly the workers had been "accreted" into a pre-existing Los Robles-SEIU monopoly bargaining unit.

The workers were never given the opportunity to vote or otherwise be consulted on the matter. In fact, the vast majority of TOSH nurses and support staff signed petitions opposing the SEIU officials' forced "representation." Moreover, because California does not have a Right to Work law that makes union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary, SEIU officials began demanding that the TOSH employees pay union dues or fees or be fired from their jobs.

Two of the settlements force the SEIU union officials to renounce monopoly bargaining and forced dues powers over the workers, thus freeing roughly 200 nurses and ancillary workers from forced "representation" and compulsory dues payments. Similarly, Los Robles management must renounce its recognition of the two unions at TOSH, and notify all employees via workplace postings and e-mail that the SEIU unions are not the employees' representatives.

"Los Robles/HCA management and SEIU officials colluded to shove SEIU union bosses' 'representation,' and forced dues payments, down the throats of TOSH nurses and support staff," said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. "Schemes like this show that the ultimate goal of union officials is more forced dues collected from workers, even when rank-and-file employees want nothing to do with the union."

Via: NRTW.com

Continue Reading.....

Under Pressure From The White House, NBC Throws Its Reporter Under the Bus and Censors News That Obama Wrote Regs to Disqualify and Terminate Health Insurance Policies

They later re-inserted the censored material. But what would compel them to delete true information in the first place?

Fears for Barack Obama's political position, of course.

The news world, and the right blogosphere, from what I can tell, is still missing the story here.
The story is not that "Obama knew" that policies would be terminated. That's damning.

But what is hugely damning and very important going forward is not that Obama knew, but that Obama made this happen, and could unmake it with a phone call, but chooses not to.

The White House's pushback on this point demonstrates that they understand how important this part of Lisa Meyers' report is.

This also illustrates how politically compromised NBC News is -- that they would throw their reporter under the bus and redact her story even though it was 100% right. I imagine Lisa Meyers had to fight like a demon to get a true story reported by NBC.

Here's a cached version of the original, and here's that damning paragraph 3:

None of this [that is, cancellation of policies] should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered.

Emphasis added.

Via: Ace of Spades HQ

Continue Reading.....

New MSNBC Host Ronan Farrow: The Clintons ‘Represent a Style of Honesty That the Public Craves’

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS???

MSNBC’s latest hire, weekend host Ronan Farrow, appeared on The Cycle on Monday where he weighed in with his thoughts on a variety of political issues. Asked about President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s political prospects, Farrow said that the former first couple “represent a style of honesty the public craves.” 

RELATED: Benghazi Heckler Interrupts Hillary Clinton Speech: ‘You Let Them Die’

When Farrow was asked about the Clinton’s “evolution” on the issue of gay marriage, Farrow said that he thinks the public has viewed their shift in opinion as an honest and refreshing one.

“What do you think that evolution tells us about the ability to move from the ’90s to now,” Ari Melberasked.

“They’re nimble politicians,” Farrow replied. “And also they represent a style of honesty that the public craves right now. And that’s reflected in the numbers.”

He said that when a politician honestly changes their mind on a policy issue and explains that to the public, they are often embraced.

Watch the clip below via MSNBC:

Via: Mediaite.com

Continue Reading.....