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Unbelievable Incompetence Led to No-Bid Contract for Healthcare.gov

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Photo Credit: American Thinker It appears that management of the rollout of healthcare.gov was delegated to the Keystone Kops, the famous symbols of comic incompetence created by Mack Sennett. A level of ineptitude that surely must be termed negligence has led to at least one no-bid contract as CMS leadership discovered at the last minute that they had forgotten one crucial piece of the project. Sharon Begley of Reuters reports:

Caught flat-footed by the challenges of building the financial-management and accounting parts of the U.S. government’s new online marketplace for health insurance, officials rushed to hire a familiar contractor without seeking competing bids, according to government procurement documents reviewed by Reuters.

The documents dated in August – less than two months before the opening of online marketplaces established by President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law – showed the agency in charge had only “recently learned” that building the financial management functions was “beyond (its) currently available resources.”

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) documents shed more light on the problems facing the agency as it worked on the marketplaces established by the law commonly called Obamacare and on its revelation this week that at least 30 percent of the marketplace is still being built.

Those problems and others have been revealed by congressional oversight investigators who released emails and outside reports that paint an administration scrambling to meet the technological challenges of the marketplace – and usually failing to do so.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: ‘We’re Going to Have to…Re-market and Re-brand’ the Affordable Care Act (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP/ Evan VucciPresident Barack Obama told a gathering of corporate executives Tuesday he’s confident that his model of health care will work in the end, but he said he’s going to have to “re-brand” it to sell it to a skeptical public.

He didn’t use the word “Obamacare” once on Tuesday in talking about his health care law, but he mentioned the “Affordable Care Act” seven times.

“So, look, I am confident that the model that we built, which works off of the existing private insurance system, is one that will succeed,” Obama told the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

“We are going to have to, (a) fix the website so everybody feels confident about that. We’re going to have to, obviously, re-market and re-brand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”

During a campaign stop in Colorado last year, the president embraced the name that Republicans had given to his health insurance law: “The Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare,” Obama said in August 2012. “I actually like the name,” he added. “Because I do care — that’s why we fought so hard to make it happen.”

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Obama’s Approval Rating Down 13 pts for Year; Disapproval Reaches Career High (+video)

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Photo Credit: APBarack Obama has been hammered by the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act, with disapproval of his job performance reaching a career high, opposition to the new healthcare law up sharply and evidence of potential fallout in the midterm elections a year off.

The president’s job approval rating has fallen to 42 percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, down 13 percentage points this year and 6 points in the past month to match the lowest of his presidency. Fifty-five percent disapprove, a record. And 70 percent say the country’s headed seriously off on the wrong track – up 13 points since May to the most in two years.

Other ratings of the president’s performance have tumbled as well. He’s at career lows for being a strong leader, understanding the problems of average Americans and being honest and trustworthy – numerically under water on each of these (a first for the latter two). His rating for strong leadership is down by 15 points this year and a vast 31 points below its peak shortly after he took office. In a new gauge, just 41 percent rate him as a good manager; 56 percent think not.

This poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that the president’s personal image has suffered alongside his professional ratings. Fewer than half, 46 percent, see him favorably overall, down 14 points this year to the fewest of his presidency. Fifty-two percent now view him unfavorably, a new high and a majority for the first time since he took office. It may matter: Personal popularity can provide a president with cushioning when the going gets rough. Losing it leaves the president more vulnerable.

ACA – Skepticism about the Affordable Care Act looks to be the driving force in Obama’s troubles. Americans by nearly 2-1, 63-33 percent, disapprove of his handling of implementation of the new health care law. And the public by 57-40 percent now opposes the law overall, its most negative rating to date, with opposition up by 8 points in the past month alone.

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White House Defends Obama’s Executive Authority to Act on Health Insurance Without Congress

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Photo Credit: AP/ Evan VucciWhite House press secretary Jay Carney defended President Barack Obama’s authority to take unilateral action on health insurance plans – even comparing it to the administration’s action last year not to prosecute certain illegal immigrants.

Carney also reiterated the pledge to veto House bill to allow people to keep their insurance plans cancelled as a result of Obamacare, even after 39 Democrats joined the House Republican majority to support the bill.

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) would allow anyone who had a health insurance policy cancellation, or would get a cancellation, to keep their plan, thus keeping Obama’s broken promise that if you like your health care, you can keep it. The administration objects because it would allow new policies that do not comply with Obamacare to still be sold.

Thus Obama unveiled his own plan on Thursday, to preempt the House vote, that would administratively waive insurance companies from having to comply with Obamacare standards for one year, but also require those insurance companies inform consumers that tax credits and other benefits of the Affordable Care Act plans.

But some have questioned Obama’s ability to take such an action without Congressional authorization. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney took a question about the president’s authority, and said that the health care law defers certain discretion to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

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Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Katrina Response

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Photo Credit: Gabriella Demczuk/The New York TimesBarack Obama won the presidency by exploiting a political environment that devoured George W. Bush in a second term plagued by sinking credibility, failed legislative battles, fractured world relations and revolts inside his own party.

President Obama is now threatened by a similar toxic mix. The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.

But unlike Mr. Bush, who faced confrontational but occasionally cooperative Democrats, Mr. Obama is battling a Republican opposition that has refused to open the door to any legislative fixes to the health care law and has blocked him at virtually every turn. A contrite-sounding Mr. Obama repeatedly blamed himself on Thursday for the failed health care rollout, which he acknowledged had thrust difficult burdens on his political allies and hurt Americans’ trust in him.

“It’s legitimate for them to expect me to have to win back some credibility on this health care law in particular and on a whole range of these issues in general,” Mr. Obama said. The president did not admit to misleading people about whether they could keep their insurance, but again expressed regret that his assurances turned out to be wrong.

“To those Americans, I hear you loud and clear,” Mr. Obama said as he announced changes intended to allow some people to keep their insurance.

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GOP’s Response if Obama Delays the ACA Individual Mandate

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Photo Credit: APWhat will the GOP leadership do if Obama calls for a one year delay in the ACA individual mandate?

Suppose the software programming wizards at CGI Federal are not able to fundamentally transform their Frankenstein-like monster into an integrated seamless system where multiple independently developed software applications are stitched together like sundry body parts gathered from several crony capitalism graveyards.

What happens, then, if the ACA website continues to channel Dr. Frankenstein’s monster? “My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.”

First, isn’t it likely that Democrat senators up for re-election in 2014 will be joined by outspoken Democrat members of the House in an effort to pressure President Obama into postponing the individual mandate portion of ACA?

Democrats would like nothing more than to take Obamacare off the table as a red hot campaign issue in the run-up to the November 2014 elections. Its potential toxicity is an existential threat to their political careers.

If the monster continues struggling to sit-up, stand-up and walk deep into December, the cumulative pressure on the President from members of his own party could find outspoken Democrats angrily parroting Senators Cruz and Lee’s call for a postponement in the individual mandate — until after the November ’14 elections.
But they probably won’t be called names like “terrorists” by Harry Reid.

Meanwhile, factor this into the possible equation: The next episode in the continuing saga of the “Debt Ceiling Deadline Crisis” is set to run January 15, 2014 — in about two months.

Imagine that the ACA website by mid-December is still rigidly stumbling forward as the villagers continue to scream. Frankenstein’s monster said, “I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.” At some point, it’ll be prudent for Obamacare’s creator to temporarily abandon his namesake.

When that happens, watch for the G.O.P. leadership to herald an opportunity for magnanimous bipartisan cooperation as they graciously acquiescent to a one-year postponement for Secretary Sebelius’ geek squads to perform major surgery on the ACA in exchange for some nominal, inconsequential, transitory Democrat concession attached to the debt ceiling…solution.

Why this possible outcome? Because, should all this evolve, do we really expect Boehner and McConnell to stand firm and say, “No deal. This is your monster, Mister President. Plus, it’s the ‘law of the land.’ So let him walk on, and let all the villagers see where he goes.”

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First published at American Thinker.

Since 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles and blogs for several conservative websites, including the American Thinker and Breitbart’s Big Journalism & Big Government (as Archy Cary), been quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles are cited in Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation and in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. Cary now writes for the Texas-based site teaparty911.com.

Analysis: Over 40 Million May Lose Their Employer Based Health Plans

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Photo Credit: LOUIS DELUCA — Dallas Morning News/MCTEven as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies.

“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period,” Obama said as he pitched the plan, the unqualified promise he made repeatedly.

Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.

Some or much of that loss of favored insurance is driven by normal year-to-year changes such as employers changing plans to save money. And many people could end up with better plans. But it is not what the president pledged.

Caught in the firestorm of his broken promise, Obama on Thursday apologized.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tom Graves: The Man Behind the Campaign to Defund Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesTom Graves was a man ahead of his time.

Long before Ted Cruz was orchestrating 21-hour homilies on the Senate floor, Graves, a Republican congressman from Georgia, was waging a lonely—and largely anonymous—campaign to defund the Affordable Care Act.

Graves won a June 2010 special election that brought him to Washington amid a dead legislative summer leading up to midterm elections. It was then that the former Georgia state representative saw an opportunity to influence the debate over President Obama’s recently passed health care law. And those efforts forever changed his path in Congress.

Having run in the months immediately following Obamacare’s passage, Graves felt a unique connection to the electorate and its disapproval of the new law. But he saw no Republican proposal to stop the government from paying for it. Intent on filling this legislative “vacuum,” Graves in July 2010 introduced the Defund Obamacare Act—the very first bill he authored in Congress, and one he would introduce in each new session.

Three years later, as Republicans grappled with a stalled appropriations process and ongoing anxiety over financing the law, the phone rang in Graves’s congressional office. It was a staffer in Cruz’s office. Cruz wanted to become the Senate cosponsor of Graves’s defund bill, the staffer said. Would the Georgia congressman be interested in teaming with the senator from Texas?

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Loyal Obama Supporters’ Health Insurance Canceled by Obamacare

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry DowningSan Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.” They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election.

Since 1995, Hammack and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente, where Brothers worked until 2009 as a dietitian and diabetes educator. “We’ve both been in very good health all of our lives – exercise, don’t smoke, drink lightly, healthy weight, no health issues, and so on,” Hammack told me.

The couple — Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 — have been paying $550 a month for their health coverage — a plan that offers solid coverage, not one of the skimpy plans Obama has criticized. But recently, Kaiser informed them the plan would be canceled at the end of the year because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The couple would need to find another one. The cost would be around double what they pay now, but the benefits would be worse.

“From all of the sob stories I’ve heard and read, ours is the most extreme,” Lee told me in an email last week.

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How Obama Went from Bulls–t to Lies

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Photo Credit: APHow Americans see President Obama changed in an important way this week. It’s because there is a huge difference between lies and bulls – – t.

Obama says a lot of things that are not true, even nonsensical. But it’s easy to shrug off most of these, because they aren’t really lies. They’re just bulls – – t…

This week was something new. It was the week Obama was revealed to be a stone-cold liar. Some 10 million Americans are going to lose their health insurance as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.

On June 15, 2009, Obama said, in one of hundreds of similar statements, “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

This wasn’t just bulls – – t. This was a lie.

Read more from this story HERE.