Saturday Fun Video: Remy: People Will Die!

Fail: Obama administration sets goal of 80% usability for Obamacare website...

The Obama administration will declare healthcare.gov website a success if 80% of users can buy insurance online. That means 20% will fail for some reason. Would Amazon consider their website successful if 20% of consumers who wanted to buy something couldn't successfully get it selected and checked out?

Via WaPo:

The Obama administration will consider the new federal insurance marketplace a success if 80 percent of users can buy health-care plans online, according to government and industry officials familiar with the project.
The goal for how many people should be able to make it through the insurance exchange is an internal target that administration officials have not made public. It acknowledges that as many as one in five Americans who try to use the Web site to buy insurance will be unable to do so.
The measure is the first concrete performance standard in the 3¹/₂ years since the government began to design the health exchange, and was defined by a group of federal officials and technical experts in late October. It is now guiding the work of hundreds of government employees and contractors racing to try to repair the balky Web site by the administration’s Nov. 30 deadline.
Whether the government meets the benchmark — and whether the public regards it as adequate — will be a central factor in President Obama’s efforts to increase support for the controversial health-care law and lure customers to the federal insurance marketplace.
The goal is that 80 percent of people going to HealthCare.gov should manage to enroll electronically — but that means that many others, perhaps tens of thousands, will not succeed. It puts more pressure on the administration to fix technical problems that have made it difficult for people to sign up for coverage by other routes, including federally sponsored call centers and the insurers themselves.
Administration officials acknowledge that until recently, they had no concrete definition for how well HealthCare.gov should work...

Obama says he is sorry people are losing their healthcare plans, but they still can't keep them...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So Obama says he is sorry for being a big liar, but doesn't offer any solution. He will be doing everything he can to deal with it. Whatever that means.

Via NBC News:

President Obama said Thursday that he is "sorry" that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promise that no one would have to give up a health plan they liked.
"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he told NBC News in an exclusive interview at the White House.
"We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this."

Obama: “Quality, affordable care is not some earned privilege – it’s a right,”

No, it's not...

Via Washington Examiner:

Beset by multiple controversies in Washington, President Obama tried to turn the nation’s attention to his 2010 health care overhaul during a Friday trip to California where he encouraged all Americans who are currently uninsured, and specifically Latinos in the state, to enroll in government-subsidized insurance exchanges.

Flanked by representatives from Spanish-language media outlets Impremedia, Univision and Telemundo, Mr. Obama touted the plan’s provision of coverage for 10.2 million uninsured Latinos and argued that the new law is already resulting in lower premium costs.

“Quality, affordable care is not some earned privilege – it’s a right,” he said during remarks at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, Calif.

“Competition and choice are pushing down costs in the individual market, just like the law is designed to do,” he added.

Keep on reading…

Here is why health care is not a right:

President Obama believes that health care is a right for every American. This is a perversion of the Founding Fathers’ idea of rights. There is an abundance of problems associated with ObamaCare but not enough attention has been paid to the dangerous philosophy behind the law. The underlying problem with ObamaCare is that too many Americans now see health care as a human right rather than a good.

The Declaration of Independence states that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn’t mean that other people should be forced to sustain our life or make us happy. Many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the negative rights listed in the founding document. A negative right is a right to not have something done to us. The right to not be killed, the right to not have our property confiscated and the right to not have our speech punished are negative rights.

These legitimate rights do not place obligations on anyone except to not infringe on the rights of others. Otherwise, people are free to do as they please.

Progressives have invented so-called positive rights that are listed nowhere in our founding documents. A positive right is a right to something such as health care, housing, and clothing. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims that everyone has a right to health care. Of course, there’s no such thing as free health care. The government has no money of its own which means that it cannot “give” anyone health care without first taking away something from someone else. Read it all...

Obama and Democrats seem to be losing the healthcare debate...

Obamacare is still unpopular with over half the country and more people are disavowing the idae the government s responsible for  providing us healthcare. Sadly, Republicans were unable to play this card during the election because Mitt Romney was the father of Romneycare in Massachusetts.

Via Gallup:

For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans’ views have become more divided in recent years.

The shift away from the view that the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all began shortly after President Barack Obama’s election and has continued the past several years during the discussions and ultimate passage of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. Americans are divided on that legislation today — 48% approve and 45% disapprove — as they have been over the last several years.

Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, are mostly responsible for the drop since 2007 in Americans’ support for government ensuring universal health coverage. In 2007, 38% of Republicans thought the government should do so; now, 12% do. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners there has been a much smaller drop, from 81% saying the government should make sure all Americans are covered in 2007 to 71% now. [...]

Obama threatens to veto defense bill because higher health care fees for members of the military left out

Military members and their families should remember this in November. 

Via Free Beacon:

The Obama administration on Friday threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill in part because it does not include higher health care fees for members of the military.

“The Administration is disappointed that the Congress did not incorporate the requested TRICARE fee initiatives into either the appropriation or authorization legislation,” the White House wrote in an official policy statement expressing opposition to the bill, which the House approved in May.

President Obama’s most recent budget proposal includes billions of dollars in higher fees for members of TRICARE, the military health care system, and is part of the administration’s plan to cut nearly $500 billion from the Pentagon’s budget.
Keep reading…

Obama proposes military families and retirees pay more for health benefits; leaves overpaid unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits alone

Shameful...

Via Washington Free Beacon:

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.

The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017.

A message for Military Families: Republicans wouldn't do this...

Health-Care Premiums Rise 9% in 2011. 17% of That Increase Was Due to Obamacare,

If your employers is raising your copay, it's because their premiums are going up.

(The Hill) — An annual survey found that premiums for employer-provided family plans increased by 9 percent — to $15,073 — in 2011.

The Obama administration quickly responded Tuesday to bad news about rising insurance premiums with a strong defense of the healthcare law and its benefits for consumers.

An annual survey of premiums found that the premiums for employer-provided family plans increased by 9 percent — to $15,073 — in 2011, leaving Democrats vulnerable to charges that the law isn’t working. The administration proactively responded with a post on the White House blog that went up as soon as the embargo on the annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey was lifted.

1.5 percentage points are directly due to Obamacare.

The Kaiser survey's researchers estimated that only around 1.5 percentage points of the 9% increase was tied to provisions of the federal health-care overhaul, which mandated changes to plans, including the addition of children up to the age of 26 to their parents' plans and an end to out-of-pocket costs for certain preventive-care benefits.

President Obama claimed employer health care premiums would fall by 3000% $3000. 

Mr. Obama asked his audience for a show of hands from people with employer-provided coverage, what most Americans have.

"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent," said the president, "which means they could give you a raise."

A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.

President Obama lied.

NYT: White House Refuses to Deny Obama Lied About His Mother Not Having Health Insurance On Her Deathbed

Obama may be a big fat liar, but he is a big fat liar who got Obamacare passed. Author Janny Scott in her book A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother refutes President Obama's claims about his dying mother's health insurance.

(NY Times) — The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

Ms. Scott took a leave from her job as a reporter for The New York Times to write the book and has not returned to the staff.

Ironic: Arizona Cuts Low-Income Health Insurance Coverage Because Not Enough People Are Smoking

Raising money by 'sin taxes" has been very popular in the last few years. The strategy can be self-defeating though.

(Reason)- Arizona has a major public health problem: Too few people are smoking.

That’s not the only fiscal problem the state faces. But it’s one of them. Like many states, Arizona’s public finances are in miserable shape. And much of the state’s budget trouble can be attributed to a decade-old decision to finance an expansion of low-income health insurance coverage with revenue dependent on tobacco industry profits.

A little more than a decade ago, the state grew its low-income health insurance rolls, claiming the new enrollees would be paid for by revenue from a deal with tobacco industry. Now, with smoking rates (and tobacco industry revenues) falling, a budget crisis brewing, and a growing number of individuals eligible for Medicaid, the state has chosen to pare back its health coverage for low-income adults.

If you like your health-care you can keep it except for the 30% being dumped by your employers

Remember during the Obamacare debate when President Obama and Democrats promised you could keep your health care if you liked it? The landing site for healthreform.gov used to promise you could keep your insurance if you liked it. This promise has been replaced by a faded image that redirects you to a new site that touts your wonderful options under Obamacare. Keeping your insurance isn't one of the options touted anymore.

The faded promise:

That promise has faded and been chucked down the old memory hole. Republicans always claimed that Obamacare would provide incentives for employers to drop you into the new health care insurance exchanges or even into Medicare.  Here is the proof Republicans were right.

Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will "definitely or probably" stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly. 

The survey of 1,300 employers says those who are keenly aware of the health-reform measure probably are more likely to consider an alternative to employer-sponsored plans, with 50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch.

"At least 30% of employers would gain economically from dropping coverage, even if they completely compensated employees for the change through other benefit offerings or higher salaries," the study says.

Many of you are going to lose your current health care coverage, whether you like it or not. The survey found the more employers knew about the new law, the more likely they are to drop your coverage. The 30% number is going to go up as time passed and more employers realize the opportunity they have been handed.

Socialized Medicine Alert: Elderly Abused in Britain

This is the kind of health care system President Obama and democrats want us to have here in America. Obamacare was the first big step down the road to a European style national health care system.

(The Telegraph) — A study of pensioners who suffered appalling treatment at the hands of doctors and nurses says that half were not given enough to eat or drink.

One family member said the maltreatment amounted to “euthanasia”.

Some were left unwashed or in soiled clothes, while others were forgotten after being sent home or given the wrong medication.

In several cases considered by the Health Service Ombudsman, patients died without loved ones by their sides because of the “casual indifference” of staff and their “bewildering disregard” for people’s needs.

Obama Administration Buy Google Ads to Propagandize for Obamacare

When you do a Google search for Obamacare, you now get to see this pro-Obamacare ad link.



It takes you to a local site touting the benefits of Obamacare.

(Politico)- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has bought a Google advertisement to steer people searching for “ObamaCare” to a page that is customized to detect searchers’ locations and steer them both to local health insurance information and to a list of “what’s in the law for you.”

Author Claims Obama Signed Obamacare Against Advice of Senior Advisers for Personal Reasons

According to this report, President Obama was strongly advised against signing Obamacare. Some senior advisers thought it was insane. Reportedly, President Obama threw our entire health care system under the bus for personal reasons. He thought his dying mother got a raw deal from insurance companies.

NPR reported:

….Wolffe writes that Obama was holding back tears when he finally signed the health care bill. He says that it helps answer an important question: why Obama stubbornly insisted on moving forward with the health care overhaul when others advised against it.

“This was clearly a decision that his own chief of staff didn’t agree with, and there were other senior advisers who thought this was insane, lunatic, to risk the presidency on it,” Wolffe says. “And it comes down to the memory of his mother."

A trillion dollar economy turned upside down. Plus, billions of dollars in new taxes and all for personal reasons. We should have known after President Obama made this pro-health care reform ad.

Barack Obama Ad - "Mother"

Lipstick on a Pig: Liberals Claim Obamacare was Worth Losing the House

There is little doubt that one of the primary reasons Democrats took such a shellacking this November was their Health Care Reform Bill. It isn't that Americans are unsympathetic to the plight of those who are uninsured. The overriding fact is most Americans are happy with their health care and don't want it messed with, even if that means more people would be covered. Secondly, although almost all Americans would agree health care costs are too high, most Americans are having a large part of those costs paid for by their employer. This keeps health care from being a major 'pocket book' issue for them. President Obama tried to sell health care reform as a bill that would reduce both health care costs and the deficit. Anyone who believed that is either ignorant or delusional. Most Americans are neither. President Obama blames the Democrats failure on the message, but the truth is they were selling 'snake oil.' It has taken only a few months for the proof Democrats were lying about their health care reform bill to emerge. Obamacare will both raise costs and the deficit. Now that the cat is completely out of the bag and Democrats have paid a heavy price, liberals need to claim it was worth it to sleep at night.

From Slate:

Democrats have lost the House, and health care is getting the blame. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, a retiring Democrat, says his party "overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation" and by spending $1 trillion on "a major entitlement expansion." Sen. John McCain's economic adviser agrees. Pundits say the health care bill killed President Obama's approval ratings, cost congressional Democrats their jobs, and snuffed out the legacy of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi...

...But if health care did cost the party its majority, so what? The bill was more important than the election.

I realize that sounds crazy. We've become so obsessed with who wins or loses in politics that we've forgotten what the winning and losing are about.

Jihadi Testifies He Left Al Qaeda Because They Did Not Have 'Osamacare'

Confessed Al Qaeda plotter L'Houssaine Kherchtou sobbed during testimony in NYC after being asked about all the people Al Queda murdered his wife's lack of money to pay for her pregnancy in Sudan. Kherchtou claims he left Al Qaeda because they refused to pay his wife's health care expenses. Jihadis living in America won't have that issue now that we have 'Obamacare.'

Mail Online reported:

A former member of Al Qaeda has claimed that he left the terror group after they failed to pay for his pregnant wife's medical bills.

L'Houssaine Kherchtou testified at a terrorism trial in New York on Wednesday that he was disgruntled at the lack of health care and later began helping a U.S. investigation into two embassy bombings in Africa.

Chernoff asked him, 'Did your wife need treatment for her pregnancy and Al Qaeda refused to pay the bill?'

Kherchtou whispered, 'Yes' and began sobbing, blowing his nose and dabbing his face with a tissue.

The Obamacare Hits Keep on Coming

Recently, McDonald's was hinting they would cancel their limited health care plan for tens of thousands of employees. They quickly got an exemption from parts of the Obamacare law. Boeing is the latest company to take measures to protect themselves against this expensive and anti-business law. They have sent a letter to 90,000 employees warning them they are about to pay the price for Obamacare passing.

In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year. A copy of the letter was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"The newly enacted health care reform legislation, while intended to expand access to care for millions of uninsured Americans, is also adding cost pressure as requirements of the new law are phased in over the next several years," wrote Rick Stephens, Boeing's senior vice president for human resources.

Kathleen Sebelius Tells Insurance Companies Telling the Truth About Obamacare to Shut Up or Else

Kathleen Sebelius is irate health insurance companies are exercising their first amendment right and pointing out recent hikes in health premiums are the result of mandates in President Obama's Heath Care Reform bill. Under changes taking place in the last half of 2010, parents can keep their adult children on the health insurance until age 26, more preventative coverage was mandated, lifetime limes were eliminated and pre-exiting conditions were dropped for those under 18. All these changes will insurance companies money. They are passing that along to consumers and educating the public on why this is happening. The Obama administration doesn't want consumers to know the truth and has issued a near ultimatum to insurance companies. Shut up or else.

AP repored:

President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.

"Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.

Your Obamacare Health Insurance Hike is on the Way

President Obama promised his health care reform bill would lower health insurance premiums by 3000% $3000. Apparently, he failed to inform insurers of this great news. They are hiking health insurance premiums as much as 9% to cover the additional mandates required by Obamacare.

The WSJ reported:

Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats' efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.

Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.

These and other insurers say Congress's landmark refashioning of U.S. health coverage, which passed in March after a brutal fight, is causing them to pass on more costs to consumers than Democrats predicted.

The rate increases largely apply to policies for individuals and small businesses and don't include people covered by a big employer or Medicare.

Charlie Crist was against Obamacare, before he was for it, before he was against it or something

The spelling of flip-flop has been changed to Charlie-Crist.

The Hill reported:

Crist told a local TV station Friday that he would have voted in favor of President Obama's healthcare proposal were he in the Senate. That was a reversal of his previous position against the healthcare law.

"I would have voted for it," Crist said in the interview. "But I think it can be done better, I really do."

But now, Crist says he "misspoke" in that interview. His campaign sent out a statement Friday afternoon clarifying Crist's position on the healthcare law.

Someone must have informed Crist 56% of Florida voters oppose the heath care overhaul bill.