Photo Credit: Getty ImagesNew England’s electric grid operator says a lack of pipelines is driving the price up for natural gas, and hiked wholesale electricity prices in the region by 55 percent last year.
ISO-New England said Tuesday that the average price of wholesale electric energy rose to $56.06 per megawatt hour, up from a historic low of $36.09 in 2012.
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Photo Credit: Geoff LivingstonPresident Obama on Tuesday sought to assure legal immigrants that they can sign up for ObamaCare without worrying that “the immigration people” will come for family members who are in the country illegally.
In an interview with Univision Deportes, a Spanish-language sports radio show, Obama said immigration officials won’t have access to the personal information that consumers provide when signing up for healthcare on the new exchanges.
“Well, the main thing for people to know is that any information you get, you know, asked with respect to buying insurance, does not have anything to do with … the rules governing immigration,” Obama said. “And you know, you can qualify if you’re a legal resident, if you are … legally present in the United States.
“You know, if you have a family where some people are citizens or legally here, and others are not documented, the immigration people will never get that information.”
Adolf Falcon, the senior vice president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, told The Hill that Hispanic families are wary of Obama’s assurances because of his record on deportations.
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Photo Credit: Mark Damon/Las Vegas Review-JournalBy Jennifer Robison.
The hospital bills are hitting Larry Basich’s mailbox.
That would be OK if Basich had health insurance. But he doesn’t.
Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He’s been paying monthly premiums since November.
Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he’s covered only for March and beyond.
Basich has begged for weeks for help from the exchange and its contractor, Xerox. But Basich’s insurance broker said Xerox seems more interested in lawyering up and covering its hide than in working out Basich’s problems. Nor is Basich the only client facing plan-selection errors through the exchange, she added.
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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueReport: Premiums rising faster than eight years before Obamacare COMBINED
By Sarah Hurtubise.
Health insurance premiums have risen more after Obamacare than the average premium increases over the eight years before it became law, according to the private health exchange eHealthInsurance.
The individual market for health insurance has seen premiums rise by 39 percent since February 2013, eHealth reports. Without a subsidy, the average individual premium is now $274 a month. Families have been hit even harder with an average increase of 56 percent over the same period — average premiums are now $663 per family, over $426 last year.
Between 2005 and 2013, average premiums for individual plans increased 37 percent and average family premiums were upped 31 percent. So they have risen faster under Obamacare than in the previous eight years.
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Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete SouzaHosting Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office on Monday, President Obama described his visitor as “somebody who has consistently renounced violence” – a view in stark contrast to that held by the Israeli government.
“I have to commend President Abbas,” Obama told reporters before their talks aimed at nudging his administration’s brittle Mideast peace effort ahead.
“He has been somebody who has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security – a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors,” he added.
During his remarks, which lasted for just over four minutes, Obama made no mention of last week’s barrage of rockets, fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities in the south, the most extensive such attack since 2012.
While the majority of the more than 70 rockets launched from Wednesday until the weekend were attributed to the Islamic Jihad, some were launched by the military wing of Abbas’ own Fatah organization, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
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Politico records that a report on the Navy Yard shooting has called it “preventable”:
Supervisors of the gunman who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last year noticed his erratic behavior well before the shooting but did not reveal any problems to the government, a Navy investigation has found.
“Had this information been reported, properly adjudicated and acted upon, [Aaron] Alexis’s authorization to access secure facilities and information would have been revoked,” the report said — and the shooting might have been prevented.
An official Navy investigation unveiled Tuesday by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top Pentagon officials blamed IT contractor Hewlett-Packard and its subcontractor, The Experts, for deciding not to take any action dealing with Alexis’s deteriorating “emotional, mental or personality condition, even when they had concerns that Alexis may cause harm to others…”
You will note what the report very clearly does not say, which is that anything could have been done to prevent Alexis from obtaining firearms or that a slightly different combination of gun-control laws would have stopped him from shooting up the base. Thus does it stand in stark opposition to the rhetoric of the usual suspects, who immediately attempted to twist the incident into a justification for more authoritarian laws, and of President Obama himself, who gave an extraordinarily political, mawkish, and fact-free speech at the memorial service…
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Photo Credit: APInflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1,104,947,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2014, but the federal government still ran a $377,379,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for February.
Each month, the Treasury publishes the government’s “total receipts,” including all revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and “miscellaneous receipts.”
In constant 2014 dollars, the $1,104,947,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through February in fiscal 2014 was $90,193,750,000 more than the $1,014,753,250,000 it collected in October through February in fiscal 2013.
After the current fiscal year, the second highest federal tax intake in the first five months of a fiscal year occurred in the first five months of fiscal 2007, when the government collected $1,076,721,860,000 in 2014 dollars—or $28,225,140,000 less than in the first five months of this fiscal year.
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Photo Credit: APSen. Ted Cruz is calling for the Obama administration to place missile installations in Eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s moves in Ukraine.
The Washington Post reports the Texas Republican made the comments during an interview Monday.
“Beyond sanctions and aid to Ukraine, the most important thing we could be doing right now, with respect to Russia, is installing anti-ballistic missiles in Eastern Europe,” Cruz said.
“Appeasement has not worked. After more than five years of being unwilling to stand up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russian aggression, it is time for the United States to honor our commitments to our friends.”
The proposal is not a new one. President Bush recommended the U.S. have missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic during his time in office, but in 2009 President Obama scratched the plan and instead focused on defending against threats from Iran.
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Photo Credit: Thinkstock ImageBy Paul Bedard.
Americans buying health insurance outside the new Obamacare exchanges are being forced to swallow premiums up to 56 percent higher than before the health law took effect because insurers have jumped the cost to cover all the added features of the new Affordable Care Act.
According to a cost report from eHealthInsurance, a nationwide online private insurance exchange, families are paying an average of $663 a month and singles $274 a month, far more than before Obamacare kicked in. What’s more, to save money, most buyers are choosing the lowest level of coverage, the so-called “bronze” plans.
The firm provided the costs to Secrets through their new online price index, which gives the averages of what people are paying for insurance sold through their system. In California, for example, some families are paying a high of $2,604 a month and in New York, $1,845.
The shocking surge in prices show what Americans not in Obamacare or covered by their employer are paying as they seek lower premiums. Typically, they are not eligible for the subsidies Obamacare offers those with low incomes.
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Photo Credit: National Review One-Third of Uninsured Don’t Plan to Buy Obamacare – Regardless of the ‘Deadline
By Kyle Becker.
Despite any “hardship” that the uninsured might have, they have no plans to buy into Obamacare, regardless of the deadline.While the White House denies that it is delaying the individual mandate, the ambiguity being created by the constant delays and illegal changes to the law certainly is signaling to prospective enrolles that there’s no rush to get insured.
Even if it is 2014, and the March 31st deadline is fast approaching. As Fox News reported:
Two weeks out from the ObamaCare enrollment deadline, a new survey shows about one-third of uninsured American have no plans to buy insurance — despite the law’s requirement to do so. And despite the administration’s aggressive campaign to spread the word about the health care law, the same survey shows a startling percentage of people still don’t know about the Affordable Care Act’s basic provisions.
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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore In case you missed it, Texas Congressman Steve Stockman supposedly hosted an “awesome” hot tub party on the Saturday night after CPAC concluded.
The Washington Post characterized it this way: “The real-life CPAC party, held at a suite in the Gaylord Hotel, where the conference was taking place, featured an expletive-spewing congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.), offering $20 to whoever would jump into the bathroom’s hot tub, according to Slate’s Dave Weigel. Weigel witnessed Stockman, the quirky challenger who was just crushed by Sen. John Cornyn in the state’s senate Republican primary, offer this eloquent toast: ‘F*** the left!’”
But truthfully, the party story is just another media hit job based on fabricated facts. And since Stockman launched his quirky and (according to some) ill-fated campaign against Senator John Cornyn (the reigning RINO of Texas politics and a close pal of Karl Rove), the media has been in a feeding frenzy.
Mainstream newspapers around the country are quick to publish any negative story about a Tea Party leader without even bothering to check the facts. Take the Houston Chronicle, for example. Numerous Chronicle stories would be considered libel if Stockman wasn’t a public figure.
The thing is, Stockman is misunderstood because he never cared about the perks of being in Congress. He isn’t obsessed with power like so many of the little people that populate the GOP caucus on the Hill. Instead, he’s frustrated by John Boehner’s do-nothing attitude and the pathetic leaders obsessed with protecting their jobs, the country be damned.
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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jon NazcaThe first lady, her mother, her two kids, plus numerous White House aides and security personnel are going to tour China this month, but White House officials are refusing to say how much the taxpayers will pay for the trip.
However, they did say it would be a thrill for everyone on the trip, including for Michelle Obama’s top aide, Tina Tchen.
“It is a real honor and privilege, and I think we are all, here in the first lady’s office, quite excited about the upcoming trip,” said Chen, just after she declared that “my parents emigrated from China in the late ’40s, so this … will be my fourth time returning to China but the first time, obviously, in a role such as this.”
“The first lady has been looking for an opportunity to go to China,” said Ben Rhodes, the White House’s deputy national security advisor for strategic communications.
“I think the first lady is very much looking forward to it,” said Tchen.
“We will meet [the Chinese president’s wife] Madame Peng on our first day … [and] she will accompany the first lady and her family to the Forbidden City and will take the first lady through the Forbidden City before they’re able to join each other for a meal, a private meal and a private performance later on in the evening,” said Tchen. ”We’re looking forward to it.”
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