ObamaCare approval drops to record low

Support for the Affordable Care Act has dropped five percentage points in a month to a record low, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday.

The poll finds that just 35 percent of the public supports the law, compared to 40 percent in late November.

The drop in support indicated in the poll could be particularly troubling to the Obama administration because almost all of it came from women, whose opposition rose from 54 percent to 60 percent in a month. The administration has tried to highlight advantages for women, such as free preventative care that covers mammograms.

Some of those who oppose the law, 15 percent of all respondents, continue to do so because they think it is not liberal enough. That means half of the public either supports the law or thinks it is not liberal enough.

Just 16 percent said they think their family will be better off when most of the law takes effect next year, a number essentially unchanged from earlier in the year.

Some Republicans have targeted the pledge to be able to keep one's doctor as the next assurance to be proven wrong. Still, 61 percent said they believed they could keep the same doctor.

The story is different when it comes to cost though, with 63 percent saying they believe their healthcare costs will rise under the law.

Via: The Hill

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Obamacare Website Crashes As Obama Tries To Enroll…

President Barack Obama plans to sign up for health insurance through an Affordable Care Act exchange before the end of the day Monday, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said.

Jarrett made the announcement in an interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, apparently ahead of the White House’s planned rollout. Officials did not respond to repeated requests for confirmation.

The White House first said in 2010 that the president, who has coverage through the federal government and gets his care from White House doctors, would sign up for insurance through an exchange.

Via: Weasel Zippers

Lawsuit Threatens Teachers Unions’ Power

The California Teachers Association has poured more than $150 million into state politics in the past decade – most of it going to Democratic candidates and liberal ballot measures. That kind of spending makes the 325,000-member CTA one of the greatest political forces in state history.

But a lawsuit filed by a group of teachers threatens to turn off the CTA’s political funding spigot: the automatic deduction of dues from paychecks for political purposes.

The suit, Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association, is on behalf of the Christian Educators Association International and 10 teachers who have quit the teachers union and disagree with the CTA’s politics. They seek to stop the CTA from automatically collecting union dues.

Forced to ‘opt out’

Currently, their only recourse is to opt out every year by applying for a rebate of the portion of their dues used for political purposes. The portion’s percentage is determined by the union.

That has led to an over-reach into the wallets of those nonmembers who do not want to contribute to political spending, according to the Supreme Court in a similar case last year, Knox vs. Serv. Emps. Int’l Union, Local 1000.

In what could be precursor of Friedrichs, the court ruled 7-2 in Knox in favor of a group of California teachers who wanted to opt out of a special dues hike to fight Propositions 75 and 76 on the 2005 ballot.

Proposition 75 would have required unions to receive employee consent before charging fees for political purposes. Proposition 76 would have limited state spending, and allowed the governor to reduce government-employee compensation in certain circumstances.

Both propositions lost after opponents spent $10 million, nearly half of it from the CTA.

Via: California Political Review

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Maryland’s clown-show gubernatorial Democratic primary heats up. #Obamacare

This is going to be a gloriously ugly primary campaign…

Washington has been locked for months in a series of partisan battles over the law known as Obamacare, as well as battles within the GOP over how best to oppose the ACA. But it’s the state just to the north that has served up the country’s first Democrat-on-Democrat brawl over the inept implementation of the law, offering perhaps a first test of Democratic voters’ patience with the ACA’s technical setbacks.

In Maryland, the fight to succeed outgoing Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley has pitted [Attorney General Doug] Gansler against state Del. Heather Mizeur and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, the frontrunner for the nomination who chairs the state panel on ACA implementation and has long presented himself as the O’Malley administration’s point man on Obamacare.

…and the fact that Politico did its best to skip over Delegate Mizeur should be diagnostic. Essentially, the primary (ahem) problem for the Democrats is that the Lt. Governor is now inextricably linked to the Maryland state Obamacare exchange*, while the Attorney General has a dysfunctional campaign and has visual evidence linking him to a party featuring underage, drunken twerkers. As for the last remaining major candidate?

:pause:

Well. Perhaps the state of Maryland is ready for an openly gay, pro-marijuana governor. And perhaps it is not. Now, don’t get me wrong: in Maryland the problem for Del. Mazeur would be the latter part, not the former. But the fact remains this is the wrong administration for politicians to try to be too vocally pro-pot. Joe Biden in particular is a hardcore War on Some Drugs enthusiast, and at this point he’s the only person in the administration’s A-list who is actually popular. If he tried to stump for Mizeur, everybody would scream hypocrisy. Including people on the Left.

Via: Red State

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In 27 states, unemployment is at its lowest in at least four years

Unemployment has reached multi-year lows in 27 states, a bit of positive news for state labor markets that are still struggling through a mild recovery.

In just over a third of states, there are more jobs now than there were when the recession began, according to an analysis of new Labor Department data by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers. There may be more jobs in many states since the recession, but there are also more people.

In only one state, oil-rich North Dakota, has the growth in jobs outpaced the growth in the working-age population, according to the EPI analysis. Forty nine states have added more adults in their working prime than jobs for them to fill. And the share of the working-age population that has jobs has declined in every state since 2007, though the fall has only been statistically meaningful for 35 of them, according to a Pew analysis.

Still, states are making incremental improvements. Not a single one saw unemployment rise in November, according to the Labor Department. (Rates held steady in five states and fell in 45.) Idaho, North Carolina and New Jersey saw the biggest monthly declines, shedding 0.6 percentage points each from their unemployment rates. Unemployment in Idaho is now 6.1 percent, while it’s 7.4 percent in North Carolina and 7.8 percent in New Jersey. Unemployment was highest in Nevada and Rhode Island, where it was 9 percent, and lowest in North Dakota, where it is 2.6 percent.

Via: Washington Post

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Politico's Kelsey Snell Sloppily Decries Indiana's Economic Progress, Supposedly at the Expense of Illinois

Kelsey Snell "is a tax reporter at POLITICO Pro." Her output in a column entitled "Indiana lures 'Illinoyed' biz with tax breaks" makes one wonder how she arrived at her current position.

Snell's piece is riddled with striking omissions and lame progressive talking points. But the most jaw-dropping element in her report is her clear inability to detect erroneous numbers which she and her employer should know make no sense.

One of Snell's paragraphs has two obvious whoppers (bolds are mine throughout this post):

When (Indiana Commerce Secretary Victor) Smith, a former manufacturing executive, was appointed in January he was given one goal from Pence—adding 2,609,000 private sector jobs. He said the state has added 22,000 jobs since January, though he acknowledged he has a long way to go.

C'mon, Kelsey. The Hoosier State's total seasonally adjusted private-sector employment was only 2.545 million as of November. Smith's goal is obviously not to double employment; it's probably to raise it by 260,000. No one at Politico has detected this obvious blunder since the article's publication early Saturday evening.

Additionally, Snell's "22,000 jobs" figure is vastly understated. (If Smith said it, which I tend to doubt, Snell still should have verified it). The state has added 50,800 seasonally adjusted jobs since January. That's basically on track to achieve Pence's presumed 260,000-job, four-year goal.

As to omissions, let's start with the unmentioned fact that Indiana became a right to work state in February 2012 during the administration of Republican Mitch Daniels. Since then, the state has added 89,300 payroll jobs, with 80,000 of them in the private sector. During that same period, Illinois, whose workforce is over twice as large, has added proportionally fewer jobs.

Snell never brought up unemployment rates. Indiana's seasonally adjusted rate since Republican Mike Pence took office in January has fallen from 8.6 percent to 7.3 percent. The rate in Illinois is still 8.7 percent, barely down from January's 9.0 percent.

Via: Newsbusters
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Hiding the Hacking at HealthCare.gov

Christmas shoppers were stunned to learn last Thursday that computer hackers had made off with the names and other personal info of some 40 million Target customers. Some of the pilfered information is reportedly being sold on the black market, prompting JP Morgan Chase to limit purchases and cash withdrawals on debit cards owned by recent Target shoppers.

But at least Target informed its customers of the security breach, as it is required by federal law to do. HealthCare.gov faces no such requirement; it need never notify customers that their personal information has been hacked or possibly compromised. The Department of Health and Human Services was specifically asked to include a notification requirement in the rules it designed for the health-care exchanges, but HHS declined.

The Federal Register tells the tale about what happened on March 27, 2012, at a meeting on the issue.

At that meeting, two commenters asked HHS to ensure the exchanges would promptly notify affected enrollees in the event of a data breach or unauthorized access to the exchange’s databases. One commenter suggested that a full investigation be launched each time such a breach occurred, with the goal of holding hackers legally and financially accountable for breaking into the website.

Via: NRO

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Obama is a loser at 2013's end: Column: 2014 will be even worse for our president.

A lot of people are saying that 2013 was President Obama's worst year. Roll Call headlined, "Subdued Obama Hopes For Better 2014." The Hill reported, "Obama names health care rollout his biggest mistake of dismal year." Most people seem to think it was. But I think it was average, in the manner of the old Soviet joke:

Ivan: So how was your day?

Boris: Average.

Ivan: What do you mean, average?

Boris: Worse than yesterday, better than tomorrow. So, average.

Unless something turns around, Obama's 2013 is likely to be similarly "average": Worse than 2012, but better than 2014.

COLUMN: Pelosi rejects generous, one-of-a-kind subsidy

It's true that Obamacare has been a debacle, wrapped in a catastrophe, shrouded in a disaster. But it's also become clear that it was founded upon a lie: Obama's "if you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it" statement was named by PolitiFact its lie of the year for 2013. Many Americans have already learned that their individualplans are being cancelled because they don't live up to Obamacare, causing enough chaos that the Obama administration has had to give certain people a last-minute "waiver" of the mandate that they buy insurance. But many more problems have just been kicked down the road -- into 2014 -- by Obama's unilateral decision. Ironically, the White House and Democrats were, just a couple of months ago, calling Republicans who wanted to delay the mandate anarchists and terrorists, and loudly proclaiming that Obamacare was "the law of the land."

Via: USA Today

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RNC Statement on FEC Filing

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus today announced that the RNC raised $5.2 million in November 2013. The committee’s cash on hand totals $7.8 million. Year-to-date, the RNC has raised $73.2 million.

The RNC continues to make unprecedented early investments in community-based field staff, precinct-based organizing, data and technology to lay the foundation for victory in 2014, 2016 and beyond.

“Thanks to the trust and support of all our donors, the RNC has easily beaten the DNC in fundraising in 2013 year-to-date. We’re on track to out-raise them for the year,” said Chairman Priebus. “That means we can begin 2014 with a financial advantage over the Democrats.

“But we still have work to do: cultivating relationships with communities, rolling out new voter contact software, sharing our message of equal opportunity. We believe our continued early investments will make the difference in the midterms, and the infrastructure we’re building will also give us a head start into 2016.

“I want to express my sincere gratitude to our donors and supporters at all levels. Because of them, we’ve been able to do things the RNC has never done before. I look forward to the year ahead as we continue our work to grow our party—and to win elections up and down the ballot.”

Via: GOP.com

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CURL: Into Year 6, Obama Admits He’s Clueless

What a depressing presidency Barack Obama has wrought.

Waltzing into office five years ago with the media’s shameless aid on a high-school-style campaign pledge of “Hope and Change,” the former community organizer from Chicago spent his last press conference of the year apologizing for everything he’s done wrong — then announcing he’s “eager to skip town” to Hawaii for “a couple days of sleep and sun.” Well, 17, but who’s counting.

One truly has to wonder how the vaunted White House staff of advisers and sycophants came up with the battle plan for Friday’s presser, the last of a terrible year: “Hey, what if he goes out, lists all the things he did wrong, apologizes repeatedly, then promises to do better next year? Anyone? OK, how about he goes out and makes a few balloon animals. C’mon, gimme’ some help, people!”

Sure, he had a compliant press filling the White House briefing room, ready to lob softballs, but still, he’d have to explain a lot: The Obamacare mess, the NSA spying debacle, America’s appeasement of Iran, the gridlock on Capitol Hill that he engendered — the list goes on and on. Perhaps that explains why he was nearly 20 minutes late to his own press conference.

Right at the open, this: “When you take this altogether, has this been the worst year of your presidency?” a reporter asked.

Mr. Obama dodged, blaming Congress for inaction. But then he named two things his administration got exactly right. “We don’t always get attention for it,” he said before citing the “ConnectEd” program and a “manufacturing hub that we set up in Youngstown.” So there, America, it isn’t all bad news.

Via: Washington TImes

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REPORT: OBAMA TO SIGN UP FOR OBAMACARE MONDAY

Via Twitter, April Ryan, White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for American Urban Radio Networks, reports that President Obama will enroll in ObamaCare sometime before the end of the day Monday.The president is currently vacationing in Hawaii. Today is the last day to enroll in ObamaCare if you want coverage to begin at the beginning of the new year.

Whether the president will risk signing up while cameras are rolling is still unknown. The risk in the president doing so is that HealthCare.gov crashes on him and in front of the entire world. As recently as Friday, the site collapsed.

Regardless, it certainly can't hurt for Obama to sign up. Currently, reports show that ObamaCare enrollment is way behind where it needs to be if the program is going to be financially viable. 

Moreover, reports on the number of enrollees the White House releases and the media slavishly repeats are inaccurate. You have to pay your first month's policy in order to be enrolled and insured. Both the White House and the media are reporting those who have only put a health plan in their shopping cart as "enrolled."

Studies show that the online abandonment rate of items placed in a shopping cart is as highas 65%.

Currently, the media have shown little interest in digging up or demanding the real ObamaCare enrollment numbers.

Via: Breitbart

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Krauthammer: 'Huge Gov't Bailout' of Health Insurance Industry at End of 2014

(CNSNews.com) - President Obama, by issuing new rules that erode Obamacare's "financial structure," is putting the health insurance industry -- and taxpayers -- at risk, author and conservative political analyst Charles Krauthammer said on Sunday.

"The insurers understand that they're going to be completely ruined," Krauthammer said on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace. "And what's going to happen as a result of this? There's only one way out, a huge government bailout of the insurers is waiting at the end of next year."

That's the issue Republicans should be focusing on right now, Krauthammer said.

On Thursday, the Obama administration unilaterally delayed another provision of the law, saying there will be no tax penalty for people who had their existing health insurance canceled because of the Affordable Care Act and who did not find new coverage as required by law.

"There still may be a small number of consumers who are not able to renew their existing plans and are having difficulty finding an acceptable replacement," Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote to Senate Democrats. "These consumers should qualify for this temporary hardship exemption," the Associated Press quoted her as saying.

Krauthammer on Sunday said insurers "are apoplectic" about all the rule changes because it exempts another important group from the exchanges.

Via: CNS News

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