House Passes Compromise Budget Deal | Obamacare Cheerleaders Ezra Klein: “Why Hasn’t Anyone Been Fired Over Healthcare.Gov?’

Today in Washington, D.C. - Dec. 13, 2013
The Senate continued in session again all night last night as Democrats use the nuclear option to push through liberal nominees designed to rubberstamp President Obama’s agenda. Republicans are using Senate procedure to slow these votes to a crawl, but majority Democrats have the votes to jam these nominations through, now that they broke Senate rules to change them.

At noon, the Senate began voting on confirmation of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and cloture on the nomination of Anne Patterson to be Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

On Monday, votes are scheduled on the confirmation of the Patterson nomination, on cloture (to cut off debate) on the nomination of Jeh Johnson to be Secretary of Homeland Security, and confirmation of the Johnson nomination.

Last night, the Senate voted 57-41 to confirm Patricia Wald to be a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, 57-40 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Brian Morris to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Montana, 75-20 to confirm the Morris nomination and 58-39 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Susan P. Watters to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Montana, 77-19 to confirm the Watters nomination, and 58-39 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Deborah Lee James to be Secretary of the Air Force.

This morning, the Senate voted 79-6 to confirm the James nomination and 51-34 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

The House was not in session today.  They are schedules to resume On Monday, Dec. 15, at 11 AM.  Yesterday the House passed the following bills:
H.R. 3695 (Voice Vote)— "To provide a temporary extension of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 and amendments made by that Act, as previously extended and amended and with certain additional modifications and exceptions, to suspend permanent price support authorities, and for other purposes."
H.R. 1447 (Voice Vote) — "To encourage States to report to the Attorney General certain information regarding the deaths of individuals in the custody of law enforcement agencies, and for other purposes."
H.R. 3509 (Voice Vote) — "To direct the Secretary of State to submit to Congress a report on the status of post-earthquake recovery and development efforts in Haiti."
H J RES 59 (332-94-7) On Motion to Recede and Concur in the Senate amendment to H.J.Res. 59 (Bipartisan Budget Act FY 2014), with a House Amendment. Sixty-two Republicans and 32 Democrats votes in the House against the Budget Resolution. Within the Republicans, principled conservatives voted against the bill. Votes were often divided in their respective state Delgations. For example in the Arkansas House delegation, Reps. Rick Crawford (AR-01) and Tom Cotton (AR-04) voted against the bill while Reps. Tim Griffin (AR-02) and Steve Womack (AR-03) voted for the bill.
H. Res. 441 (350-69) — "Providing for the concurrence by the House in the Senate amendments to H.R. 3304, with an amendment."

While the budget deal allows for 1% a cost-of-living increase next year for Federal workers it reduces the Cost of Living pay adjustment for military retirees (who were never paid as much as civilians) under age 62 to less than one percent of the normal adjustment. Which in recent years could have resulted in zero or very minimum pay increases. In addition for DOD civilian pensions, the deal requires new civilian employees to contribute a greater share to their pensions. Question, why are the rest of the Nation's civil service and Congressional and White House staffers not required to have their pensions revised and cost of living reduced for retirees?

In addition, the budget deal added a hidden  tax increase in the deal which will affect most Americans one way or another. Travelers are currently charged $2.50 per flight under the Transportation Security Administration’s airline security “fee.” Under the budget deal, that would increase to $5.60 per flight or $11.20 for a round-trip ticket. This will be in addition to the Domestic Transportation Tax (7.5 percent), Travel Facilities Tax ($8.40), and U.S. International Transportation Tax ($17.20). Note that in the case of this airline security fee increase, the money isn’t even going back to the TSA to fund or improve security. Instead, as Heritage’s Cassandra Lucaccioni explained, “it will be deposited annually into a general fund of the Treasury.” And, we all know how that money is easily wasted. So expect to pay more when you fly. And to also pay more for goods and services as businesses recoop this cost in the prices of goods and services.

Speaker Boehner expressed frustration even though he won what he wanted by the requested house vote. He railed against “outside groups” like Tea Party members and other conservatives saying “they’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals.” Mr. Speaker Boehner momentarily forgot that these members of Congress are not his members but the the Representatives of their constituents who elected them.

In a must-read story titled “Obamacare: One punt after another,” Politico writes, “On Thursday, the Obama administration gave customers permission to pay their premiums as late as Dec. 31 for coverage that starts Jan. 1, and officially gave customers an extra week — until Dec. 23 — to sign up for January coverage. The move was just the latest in a long list of extensions, delays and punts that have plagued the health care law. . . . [P]iece by piece, the Obama administration keeps giving itself extensions on smaller parts of the law, because there’s always some piece that isn’t quite ready. It’s an attempt to put out fires — but it’s also a painful admission that, yes, there are fires. The administration is also extending a critical program — the temporary high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions — through the end of January, to make sure none of them suddenly lose their health coverage because they can’t sign up for new Obamacare insurance by Jan. 1. That’s after it postponed the employer coverage requirements for a year, delayed the online enrollment for the federal health insurance exchanges for small businesses, and told health insurers they can extend people’s coverage for an extra year — a last-minute attempt to un-cancel millions of canceled policies. It also delayed the Spanish-language website . . . . It even postponed next year’s enrollment period, pushing it conveniently past the November elections. ‘This is the least shocking thing since the sun came up in the east. This is what they do,’ said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum. ‘They’ve essentially established that there’s going to be a rolling start to this thing.’ There was also a tone to Thursday’s announcement that was close to pleading for help, as the administration urged insurers to cut the new customers a bit of slack — looking the other way if they sign up a few days late, and making their coverage retroactive if they pay a bit late. . . . And, of course, the one deadline that probably should have been delayed — the Oct. 1 of HealthCare.gov — wasn’t delayed, and the administration has been paying the price ever since. But it may be hard for the administration to hold the line when it keeps moving so many other deadlines for the law — always a subtle admission that some component of Obamacare wasn’t quite ready when it was supposed to be.”

It’s hard to identify any parts of Obamacare that were ready when they were supposed to be. Problems are evident everywhere. The Los Angeles Times reports, “Thousands of Californians have overcome long waits and website glitches to sign up for Obamacare insurance, but now enrollment snags may prevent some of them from actually having coverage starting Jan. 1. Some people who picked a health plan as far back as October through the Covered California exchange say insurers are telling them they still have no record of their enrollment. As a result, bills haven't gone out and consumers can't pay their initial premium to ensure coverage takes effect in less than three weeks.” And in New Jersey, the Bergen County Record reports, “With just 12 days to go before the first deadline to enroll in health plans under the Affordable Care Act, New Jersey residents are still having trouble getting on the federal website to purchase medical coverage. Technical glitches with the website continue to stymie efforts by both individuals and the application counselors who are trying to help them. They have until Dec. 23 to enroll if they want coverage to begin on Jan. 1. . . . Joe Porzio, a 57-year-old construction worker in Wayne, has bought his own insurance through Aetna for years. When he received a letter saying his plan was being canceled by Dec. 31, he began looking at the federal marketplace for new options soon after it went live Oct. 1. He was eventually able to fill out an application, but the website locked him out and he has not been able to access it. He finally completed a new application last week by phone but, as of Wednesday, was unable to access that one also. ‘The deadline is approaching, and I’m still in limbo,’ Porzio said. ‘I also found out that my doctors, who I have been seeing for years, will now only accept the highest offered plans. So, it’s true, you have to pay to keep your doctors.’”

And according to USA Today, “Insurers struggling with garbled and missing information on applications from the federal healthcare site report the quality of the information is improving, but they're still grappling with missing and duplicate applications that could hamper their ability to enroll people by Jan. 1. . . . Insurers for the first time Wednesday got an accounting from HHS on everyone who enrolled for their plans on HealthCare.gov from Oct. 1 to Dec. 10. This data is the government's attempt to reconcile the files it has on consumers who have signed up with the files received by insurers in the daily feeds from HealthCare.gov. Industry officials refer to it as a ‘mini-reconciliation’ because the system that would automatically reconcile files is, perhaps not surprisingly, down. . . . While insurers all agree the information flow from HealthCare.gov has improved, at least one said it's not by enough. ‘The data, while it has improved, is not where it needs to be to get us where we need to be on Jan. 1,’ said one official with a major insurer, who asked to remain anonymous so he could be more candid. ‘We are still seeing errors. The ones that trouble us the most are the orphan ones.’ So-called orphans are described by industry officials as people who think they have signed up for insurance, but the insurer, HHS — or both — don't have a record of the application. . . . Problems seem most common on files involving couples or families with dependents, insurers say. Insurance brokers have told USA TODAY applications for dependents and couples have tended to be the ones most likely to be inaccurately qualified for Medicaid. ‘It's a mess with the files, period,’ says health care consultant Kip Piper, a former insurance company official and state regulator. ‘With anyone applying for more than one person at a time, this reconciliation process is unable to give a clean and correct file for every individual.’”

At this point even Obamacare cheerleaders like Ezra Klein are asking the obvious question: “Obama clearly decided that the people nominally in charge of his signature legislative achievement weren’t up to their jobs. The rescue effort wasn’t led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, or Marilynn Tavenner, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The legislative outreach isn’t being managed by Rob Nabors, the White House's former director of legislative affairs who is now a deputy chief of staff, or by Miguel Rodriguez, the current director of legislative affairs (who appears to be mostly unknown on Capitol Hill). All of which raises a question: If these people aren’t up to the most important tasks of Obama’s second term, why haven’t they been fired and replaced by people who are? . . . Though the health insurance Web site is working vastly better today than it was two months ago, the debut of HealthCare.gov was a genuine disaster. Specifically, it was a management disaster. The CMS IT department botched its job as systems integrator for HealthCare.gov. The management of CMS botched the job of recognizing the CMS IT department was botching its job. The management of HHS botched the job of recognizing that the management of CMS was botching the job of recognizing that the CMS IT department was botching its job. The management of the White House botched the job of recognizing that the management of HHS was botching the job of recognizing that the management of CMS was botching the job of recognizing that the CMS IT department was botching the job of building HealthCare.gov. It wasn’t just the technical challenges of HealthCare.gov that the administration managed poorly. The White House was completely unprepared for the furor over canceled insurance plans; that’s a political problem that Sebelius, a former insurance regulator, should’ve seen coming. . . . Somewhere in this chain of colossal, consequential screwups, there are surely a few people who deserve to be fired.”

Meanwhile, Americans continue to feel the negative consequences of the health care law beyond the website and IT screw-ups. The New York Times writes, “Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it. They are part of an unusual informal health insurance system that has developed in New York in which independent practitioners were able to get lower insurance rates through group plans, typically set up by their professional associations or chambers of commerce. That allowed them to avoid the sky-high rates in New York’s individual insurance market, historically among the most expensive in the country. But under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals, responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior coverage. . . . The people affected include not just writers, artists, doctors and the like, they said, but also independent tradespeople, like home builders or carpenters, who work on their own. . . . But many professionals make too much money to qualify for the subsidies, and even if they are able to find comparably priced insurance, the new policies do not have the coverage they are accustomed to. . . . It is not lost on many of the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people – liberal, concerned with social justice – who supported the Obama health plan in the first place. . . . It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative classes to be in. “We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. ‘I’m for it,’ she said. ‘But what is the reality of it?’”

---

Tags: IHouse, Budget deal, Senate, Nuclear Option,  confirmations  Obamacare, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!