#Obamacare watch: If you like your volunteer fire department… not @BarackObama’s problem, peasants!

Because the n-dimensional, urbane Democratic party geniuses that created this marvelous healthcare plan for us all have never actually grokked what ‘volunteer’ means in the first place.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs has asked the Internal Revenue Service, which has partial oversight of the law, to clarify if current IRS treatment of volunteer firefighters as employees means their hose companies or towns must offer health insurance coverage or pay a penalty if they don’t.

The organization representing the fire chiefs has been working on the issue with the IRS and White House for months.

“It could be a huge deal,” said U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, who is seeking clarification from the IRS. “In Pennsylvania, 97 percent of fire departments are fully or mostly volunteer firefighters. It’s the fourth highest amount in the country.”

So far, the IRS hasn’t decided what to do.

That the IRS can’t figure out a way to finesse not getting blamed for sucker-punching volunteer fire departments across the nation should tell you everything you need to know about just how messed up Obamacare actually is. And here’s the thing: this was both unexpected AND expected. Unexpected, because nobody sat down and said Hey, let’s wreck volunteer firefighter departments’ days. Expected, because (as Jim Geraghty notes):

Being on the Right, and having a skepticism about the ability of large, ambitious government programs, and a wariness about unforeseen consequences, isn’t optimistic, or cool, or exciting. It doesn’t stir people’s hearts, it doesn’t lift people’s souls, it doesn’t get their pulses racing or get them to roar cheers of joy.

No, all it has going for it is the long history of how humans have governed themselves and the advantage of avoiding big messes.

Via: Red State
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Obamacare Insurance Workaround Reveals Law that Remains Unfinished, Unaccountable, and Unworkable

The latest tweak reveals how much of the health law's basic architecture is still incomplete.

In October, when it became clear that Obamacare's online enrollment system wasn't functioning, President Obama gave a speech in which he told people who wanted to sign up to contact call centers instead, or fill out pen and paper applications.

This week, the administration announced that it would be employing another manual workaround, this time for critical insurer payment systems. In this case, it's not because the payment system is broken. Instead, it’s because the part of the system that is supposed to both calculate how much money the government owes insurers in premium subsidy and cost-sharing payments and make the appropriate payments simply hasn't been built yet.

What hasn't been built can’t be used, but insurers need to be paid in order for the system to function. So the administration has decided to require insurers to estimate how much they are owed and submit payment requests manually. Later, after the systems are built, the plan is to sort out the details and figure out the exact amounts that should have been billed, then reconcile any differences.

Because it deals with the insurance industry side of the system, this temporary, technical tweak will probably garner far less attention than the ongoing problems with the consumer side of the federal exchange system. But the on-the-fly patch offers a revealing moment for the law all the same, one that highlights how unfinished, unaccountable, and unworkable the health law continues to be.

Via: Reason.com

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Just where is Scott Brown? New Hampshire? Massachusetts? BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

Where's Scott Brown? Not clear that Scott Brown knows.

Brown is the former Massachusetts senator who's being mentioned as a possible U.S. Senate candidate in New Hampshire next year.

The Republican was interviewed in Londonderry, N.H., Thursday, and momentarily seemed to forget where he was.

Here was his comment:

"What I've heard from the Republicans up here is they're thankful that I've been around for a year, helping them raise money, helping them raise awareness as to the issues that are affecting not only people here in Massachuset--uh, in New Hampshire, but also in Massachusetts, obviously, in Maine. I've been to Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, I've been all over the New England area, certainly, talking and helping people raise money."

The video was publicized Friday by American Bridge, a group with strong Democratic party ties.

Via: MCClatchyDC

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/12/06/210838/just-where-is-scott-brown-new.html#storylink=cpy

Obamacare's Perilous Protection Plan for Debtors by Michelle Malkin

"Uh-oh." That's the sound being uttered in doctors' offices and hospitals across the country as medical providers realize they're getting stuck with another bottomless Obamacare bill. While the White House desperately tries to pivot from the havoc wrought by the "Affordable Care Act," its hidden regulatory bombs keep exploding.

I heard about the latest problem this week from an eye doctor friend who received a letter from a Colorado-based insurer informing her that she's essentially on the hook for Obamacare's payment grace period for debtors. The optometrist is bracing for a flood of similar letters from other insurers. Like countless other independent providers, she's extremely concerned about the potential liability, uncertainty and fraud the rule imposes on her business.

Here's the raw deal: The Affordable Care Act created a 90-day grace period before insurers can drop patients who fall behind on premiums. So, delinquents who obtain tax-subsidized health insurance through an Obamacare health insurance exchange have three months to settle up their bills prior to their policy being canceled. As written, the law puts insurers on the hook for the grace period.

But the bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to issue a rule in March making insurers responsible only for paying claims during the first 30 days of the debtors' grace period. Who's on the hook for the other two months? Well, customers are entrusted to foot the bills for additional services. But if they blow off the payments, it's up to physicians and hospitals to collect.

Via: Townhall

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Children BANNED from saying “Merry Christmas” at Texas elementary school “Winter Party”

Oh man. This elementary school is exactly what’s wrong with our public school systems when it comes to political correctness. Not only have they banned children from saying “Merry Christmas” but they’ve also banned Christmas trees at their “Winter Party”. Why? Well according to one PTA member in an email to a state representative, it’s about money:

“I just wanted to keep you updated about the parties… Today at the PTA meeting Ms. XXX said they had decided to keep everything the same. She said they didn’t want to offend any families and since each family donates money they feel this is the best policy…”

Via: The Right Scoop

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[VIDEO] MSNBC's Howard Fineman Gushes Over Poor Obama: 'From Superman to Sisyphus'

After he conducted a fawning interview with Barack Obama on Thursday, Chris Matthews turned to his liberal journalist friends for adulation. Former Newsweek editor Howard Fineman fawned over Obama and, at the same time, sympathized with the President: "Now, he's gone from Superman to Sisyphus. He's talking about rolling a boulder up the hill."[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

What kind of metaphor is the journalist trying to make? Sisyphus had to roll a bolder up a hill as punishment for deception. Surely, that's not the liberal reporter's point? Speaking of the President, Fineman, who now is the editorial director for Huffington Post, lectured, "[Obama] has a much more mature view, but he has a moral view. I thought he made the moral case for ObamaCare."

Matthews clearly wanted praise for his Obama interview, querying, "What did we see in president the man, Barack Obama, who is a bit distant usually, what did we learn from him tonight about being president?"

Grio journalist Joy Reid enthused over the President's performance, touting the man as "somebody who really is, you know, in lead or in line with the way the Pope feels about social justice."

Via: Newsbusters

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“Good Moral Character” Gets Obama’s Illegal Alien Uncle U.S. Residency

DRUNK DRIVING, NO LICENSE, ILLEGAL & THIS IS "GOOD MORAL CHARACTER"?

STOP THE TRAIN.  I WANT TO GET OFF!!!

The “good moral character” of President Obama’s illegal immigrant uncle, arrested for drunken driving in 2011, has earned him legal U.S. residency and a chance to apply for American citizenship, a judge has decided.

This is a classic example of the benefits of having friends—in this case a nephew—in high places. Onyango “Omar” Obama had lived illegally in the U.S. for decades when he got busted driving drunk in Framingham, Massachusetts. At the time of his arrest Uncle Onyango had already been deported yet continued to live and work in the Boston area and he had a valid Massachusetts drivers’ license.

Clearly, Onyango has received special treatment from the feds and government documents obtained by Judicial Watch prove it. They weren’t easy to obtain because the administration obviously wants to keep details of the case from the public, but JW took legal action to obtain the Onyango files.

The records, released by JW in two parts (click here and here to see them), show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) withheld information on Uncle O’s release from the press and Congress and that the agency curiously permitted him to seek the reopening of deportation proceedings that had been closed in 1992. ICE leadership also tracked the politically sensitive case and granted Uncle O a special stay of deportation.

The files also include an embarrassing internal agency email from Brian Hale, ICE’s Assistant Director of the Office of Public Affairs, to ICE Director John Morton dated April 1, 2012, titled “Onyango Statement and TP’s [Talking Points].” The email (on page 43) confirms that ICE gave the president’s uncle favorable treatment.

Nevertheless, the White House firmly maintains that it has not in any way intervened in Onyango’s case and that the president never even met his Kenyan paternal uncle. However, during this week’s deportation hearing in Boston Uncle O revealed that the president actually lived with him in the 1980s while he was a student at Harvard Law School. The White House had no choice but to come clean, explaining that it had not fully researched the relationship when it initially denied the president had met Onyango.

Via: Judicial Watch

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THIS WENDY’S EMPLOYEE IS REALLY NOT HELPING PROTESTING FAST FOOD WORKER’S CASE FOR $15-PER-HOUR MINIMUM WAGE

As organized fast food workers take part in protests across the country to demand a $15-per-hour minimum wage, one Wendy’s employee in Lovejoy, Ga., is really not helping the cause.

(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

The fast food worker, identified as Amy Sieber, accidentally dropped her used marijuana cigarette in a customer’s cheeseburger in November. The customer reportedly returned to the store and called police after finding the pot in her food.

Police responded and arrested the 32-year-old employee after she allegedly confessed to the illegal mishap.

Lt. Michael Gaddis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Sieber admitted she was smoking while she worked and accidentally dropped part of her marijuana into the burger as she prepared it.

In addition to being arrested, Sieber was also reportedly fired by Wendy’s for failing to “follow proper food handling steps.”

Via: The Blaze

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1 in 4 Obamacare enrollments affected by technical bugs

IF THIS WERE AMAZON, THEY WOULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS!!!

After refusing for weeks to detail the extent of back-end problems withhealthcare.gov, the Obama administration on Friday said a technical bug affected approximately 25 percent of enrollments on the federal exchanges in October and November.

Those technical bugs, separate from the troubles consumers had experienced accessing information on the website during the first two months, are posing a significant new problem for those who signed up and are expecting insurance coverage come Jan. 1.

One in four of those applications either did not get transferred to insurers, were transferred in duplicate form, or had major errors in information shared.

Insurers are supposed to receive the 834 Forms from healthcare.gov. The forms, meant to be read by computers, provide insurers with information on enrollees and what plan they have chosen. Without the information, insurers have no way of knowing who has signed up on theObamacare exchanges and what coverage they need.

A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Friday suggested that the only way those who enrolled in October and November can be sure they will be covered in January is by paying their insurance bill and contacting their insurer to confirm their standing.

“I would certainly encourage any consumer that has a question of their insurance choice to contact the insurance company of their choice to get additional information,” CMS spokeswoman Julie Bataille told reporters Friday.

Bataille said CMS, along with the outside firm QSSI, is working furiously to fix the back-end problems, and has succeeded in reducing the number of erroneous 834 Form communications to insurers to 10 percent of all applications.

Via: Washington Examiner

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White House gives wind farms pass on killing endangered eagles

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Friday it will allow some companies to kill or injure bald and golden eagles for up to 30 years without penalty, an effort to spur development and investment in green energy while balancing its environmental consequences.

The change, requested by the wind energy industry, will provide legal protection for the lifespan of wind farms and other projects for which companies obtain a permit and make efforts to avoid killing the birds.

An investigation by The Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the Obama administration's reluctance to prosecute such cases and its willingness to help keep the scope of the eagle deaths secret. The White House has championed wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, as a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's energy plan.

In other areas, too, such as the government's support for corn-based ethanol to reduce U.S. dependence on gasoline, the White House has allowed the green industry to do not-so-green things. Another AP investigation recently showed that ethanol has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

Via: CBS

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[VIDEO] Obamacare “Strike Team” Member: People Losing Their Plans Is A “Good Thing”

From the newly formed Obamabot special ops team.

Via: Weasel Zippers

Military watchdog to re-open probe of $34M facility built in Afghanistan but never used

The independent auditor who postponed a probe into a $34 million "white elephant" of a military facility the Pentagon built in Afghanistan over objections from top leaders is reopening his investigation.

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko delayed his initial probe last summer, after the Pentagon vowed to investigate why millions were apparently wasted on the hulking headquarters at Camp Leatherneck in southwestern Afghanistan. But Sopko said defense officials have not addressed concerns he initially raised, leaving him no choice but to restart his inquiry.

“Following delivery of my July letter, I was advised that an investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding construction of the building was ongoing, and upon its completion answers to my questions would be forthcoming,” Sopko wrote Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and other military heads. “Accordingly, I delayed my investigation of this matter assuming a speedy and fulsome review by your staff.”

But all Sopko said he ever got from the Pentagon was documents regarding an Army probe of the 64,000-square-foot building, which he said "raises additional questions, and has prompted my decision to restart SIGAR’s investigation.”

Via: Fox News

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