Roundup - ObamaCare's Epic Fail

This gets funnier and funnier the longer it goes.

After the president's pathetic performance last week, the blowback is almost sit-com worthy.

As you now know, what the president actually said yesterday is that he's not giving individuals the same delay he gave corporations or the same subsidies and waivers he gave congress and certain favored corporations and government bureaucracies, he's merely prepared to wink and look the other way and indulge in what he called 'selective enforcement' ...and just until after the 2014 midterms.

The president is trying to pretend that insurance companies are free to offer the old policies, but, they aren't. And aside from the financial impact and the bureaucratic snafu involved inturning the clok back, they don't wish to break the law...which has not been repealed. What President Obama is hoping is that the anger of the low information voters will be directed on to the insurance companies and that people will still be forced into the expensive, hidden-subsidy exchanges. After which, he can say 'hey it isn't my fault.' That's his thinking, but I have doubts it will fly. Three years ago, maybe but not now.

The insurance companies were, to be polite about it, not exactly pleased. They spent millions of dollars complying with ObamaCare, antagonized a number of their customers and now the Prevaricator-in-Chief expects them spend millions more to rewrite and recreate insurance plans that no longer exist and are still illegal policies under the law and expose themselves to litigation! Given this president's credibility and his tendency to change his mind depending on which way the wind is blowing, they'd be fools to trust his word and expose themselves legally.

Only an arrogant and not particularly bright you know what would expect that.And the industry is reacting as you might expect. Chris Wallace read this statement from the trade association of American insurance companies:


Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law, Obamacare, could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers. Premiums have already been set for next year, based on assumptions of when consumers will be transitioning to the marketplaces.

If now fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase health coverage in the exchanges, premiums will increase, and there will be fewer choices for consumers.

And the state insurance commissioners aren't thrilled either:


"For three years, state insurance regulators have been working to adapt to the Affordable Care Act in a way that best meets the needs of consumers in each state," the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said in a statement. "It is unclear how, as a practical matter, the changes proposed ... by the president can be put into effect."

Thus far, the insurance commissioners of Washington state, D.C., Arkansas, and Vermont, all Democrats, have rejected Obama's attempt to gut the exchanges with his 'fix' .

In a rare bit of opera comique, the insurance commissioner of DC, one William White was summarily fired and had his remarks critical of the president's fix removed from the department’s website for daring to voice criticism, where he wrote, "The action today undercuts the purpose of the exchanges, including the District’s DC Health Link, by creating exceptions that make it more difficult for them to operate". Even worse, he concurred with the above statement by the insurance commissioners' national association above. So he had to go.

But it's worth noting that White’s initial opposition to the president's “fix” was that it would ultimately undermine the very goals that the ACA is supposed to be working towards, the successful corralling of all Americans into the exchanges. White's firing, of course just underlines that President Obama's little 'fix' was nothing more than sheer politics, just something to direct the the public’s rage away from Obama and the Democrats.

Obama has summoned the CEOs of several insurance companies to the White House for a meeting today, presumably on the Obamacare "fix." Apparently, checking with the insurance companies before enlisting them in a scheme with major practical and legal consequences didn't occur to the White House. My suspicion is that he's promising them so kind of bailout, but again, why would they trust anything he says at this point?

"'I don’t know how he f—-ed this up so badly,' said one House Democrat who has reportedly been very supportive of Obama in the past.

The Upton bill, AKA the 'You Can Keep Your Health Plan' bill which would have done exactly what president promised but would actually have amended the law to make it legal and would have allowed people whose policies were cancelled to renew them and keep them for longer than the president's one year period if they wished passed in the House by a bi-partisan vote of 261-157, including 39 Democrats.

Needless to say,President Obama has already threatened to veto it, although Majority Leader Harry Reid will probably just table it in committee, as he has with every other proposed fix to ObamaCare.

Among other things, The Upton bill would not only let existing policies continue, but insurers could sell individual policies to new customers without the necessity of them going to those pricey, high deductible exchanges, and it is a permanent amendment to the law, not just a one-year-nod-and-wink-let's -get-past-the-elections can of horse manure.

The president's angry threat to veto this is just another sign that actually 'fixing' this or keeping his word to the American people is the last thing on our Dear Leader's mind..it's all about politics and the upcoming midterms.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) made an interesting admission yesterday appearing on ABC's This Week with fill-in host Martha Raddatz. The senator admitted that she and her senate colleagues all knew that the president was lying when he repeatedly said that if Americans like their healthcare plan, they could keep it.

“We all knew,” she said,referring to the cancellations that would occur.“He should’ve just been specific. No, we all knew.”

She then made a big pitch based on the redistribution of wealth aspect of ObamaCare (although she didn't put it in those words) essentially endorsing the soaking of the middle class to pay for those the Obama Administration deem more deserving.

Now, if the president knew he was lying ( and there's really no way he couldn't have) and the Democrat congress members knew he was lying, as Senator Gillibrand admitted, that's actually a criminal offense in the real world known as fraud and collusion to commit fraud. People lost jobs, lost income when their hours were cut, and experienced pain and suffering based on choices they made because they were informed by this president that keeping tyheir health plans would be no problem. Former federal prosecutor and noted author Andrew McCarthy puts it quite well:

Let’s quickly recap the lawlessness and cynical politics behind Thursday’s pathetic press conference. Obama, who poses as a constitutional-law expert, knows full well that a president has no legal authority to waive statutory mandates. Even if he had such power, moreover, he knows that there is no practical possibility of undoing — within the next few weeks, as the ACA would require — the new arrangements that insurance companies and state regulators spent the last three years structuring to comply with Obamacare mandates. In sum, Obama is well aware that his proposed “fix” is frivolous. His hope is that the country overwhelmingly consists of dolts who are too uninformed to realize that this is the case, and who, with a little help from his media courtiers, can be convinced to blame the insurance companies, rather than the president, for the fact that millions of Americans are losing their coverage under his “reform.”

Now, having covered Thursday’s con job, let’s get back to the overarching Obamacare scheme perpetrated by the president for more than four years — a fraud that, I contend, the Justice Department would not hesitate to prosecute had it been committed by a private-sector executive. I’ve related the standards for criminal and civil enforcement that would militate in favor of prosecution in a case involving the dimension of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty we find here. In addition, NRO’s Andrew Stiles had a superb report on Friday showing the sundry ways the administration’s dysfunctional Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, runs afoul of various consumer-protection laws. Again, when such infractions are committed by private businesses, the government punishes them quite severely. {...}

The president well knew that, in implementing the “grandfathering” provision, his administration wrote regulations so narrow that tens of millions of existing plans would be eliminated. Congressional Democrats knew this, too: When Republicans endeavored in 2010 to enact legislation that would have broadened the regulation into a meaningful safe harbor, Democrats closed ranks and voted down the proposal – including Democrats such as Senator Mary Landrieu, who now pretends to be a crusader in the cause of letting Americans keep their insurance.

I would also point out that since the president's 'fix' is highly unconstitutional (there is no provision in the Constitution to selectively alter the laws unilaterally by the executive branch, and none to allow 'selective enforcement' either on that same basis) President Obama is, once again in violation of his oath of office.

Obviously, while it can be proven easily that the president willfully deceived the American people, we do not indict and jail sitting presidents. The political remedy for this sort of thing is impeachment and removal from office.

The political climate isn't right for that now, but in 2014, when people start losing their employer provided healthcare and co-pays and deductibles skyrocket, you may very well see a change, especially if the Republicans take the Senate and retain the House in the midterms. Infact, you could very well see more Democrats jumping ship to save their own skins.



Oh, one more thing...the tab for all this. Aside from the $678 million cost to put up the dysfunctional website, paid in a no bid contract to  a company run by an Obama donor and with one of Mooch-elle's pals and ex-sorority sisters  as senior vice president, there's also the matter of a mere $4.4 billion given to 14 state exchanges to put up their own websites...which means, of course, a lot more palm greasing and crony capitalism.Some of the states even took federal money, then decided to let the federal site handle enrollment.

Top of the list? California of course, ($910 million) followed by New York ($401 million).

And remember, this $5 billion plus is just for websites...15 websites.