Senate Passed Budget Deal Without Protecting Active Duty And Military Retirees | Obamacare A Mess But Obama Admin Still ‘Hasn't Fired Anyone’
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| by William Warren |
Today in Washington, D.C. - Dec. 19, 2013The House reconvened at 11 AM for five minutes and received a message from the that yesterday they had passed without amendment H.R. 3588, H.R. 185, H.R. 2251. S. 1847, and S. 947. The House recessed until Dec. 23 when they will meet pro-forma at 10 AM. All Representatives are on there way home for Christmas.
The Senate reconvened at 10 AM today and resumed post-cloture consideration of H.R. 3304, the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense authorization bill. If all post-cloture time is used, a vote on final passage of the bill is scheduled for 11:30 PM. Following that vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indicated the Senate would likely vote on cloture (to cut off debate) on the controversial nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to be Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.
Reid is also trying to force through a number of other nominations, including Janet Yellen to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve System and John Koskinen to be IRS Commissioner even though the investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups has not yet been completed.
Yesterday, the Senate voted 64-36 to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H. Res. 59 (which passed the budget resolution). The nine Republicans who voted in favor of the bill were Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Orin Hatch (R-UT), John Hoeven (R-ND), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Ron Johnson (R-WI), John McCain (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rob Portman (R-OH).
The budget has a a continuous provision will reduce by 1 percent cost of living adjustments to the retirement pay of working age military retirees but not Federal employees. Thirty veterans groups and military associations, as well as members of Congress, have objected. The Military Officer Association (MOAA) president Norb Ryan said the provision a breach of faith to men and women in uniform because it reduces retired pay, survivor benefit values and is an unfair cut in military career benefits. Under the plan, he said, an E-7 in 2013 with 20 years of service would lose an average $3,700 per year by the age of 62, for a total of about $83,000 and an 0-5 would be out more than $6,200 a year for a total, cumulative loss of more than $124,000.
The Senate also voted 71-29 to invoke cloture (cut off debate and amendments) on H.R. 3304.
The Wall Street Journal reports, “The leader of Minnesota's health-insurance marketplace resigned after taking a two-week vacation in late November when the state's website was experiencing technical problems, making her the fourth state health-insurance chief to be ousted. April Todd-Malmlov's resignation late Tuesday highlighted the divide among the 14 states running their own exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. . . . [A]t least four of the 14—Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota and Oregon—have had serious technical problems, and all four have now replaced directors less than three months after opening their exchanges. As of Dec. 1, fewer than 4,500 people had managed to sign up for private insurance in Minnesota, according to an Obama administration report. . . . Hawaii, Maryland and Oregon also now have interim leaders in place. Maryland's former leader, Rebecca Pearce, also faced criticism over a late-November vacation to the Cayman Islands. Oregon's director took a medical leave in early December. Hawaii's director resigned in late November. By Dec. 1, only 44 people had managed to sign up for private insurance in Oregon and the state has been forced to rely on paper applications. In Hawaii, 960 people had enrolled as of Dec. 14, a spokesman said.”
In Iowa, which is using the troubled federal website, the Des Moines Register reports, “Thousands of modest-income Iowans who filled out health insurance applications via the government’s new online marketplace could be without coverage on Jan. 1, because of a lack of communication between federal and state officials. The issue involves people who might qualify for Iowa’s version of Medicaid, the public insurance program for the poor, or related programs. The federal website, healthcare.gov, has made an initial determination that more than 10,000 applicants should qualify for the public insurance, according to a report issued last week. But federal officials have not yet sent complete information on those people to state administrators, who are supposed to review the applications and enroll people in the programs. The upshot is that some Iowans who dutifully signed on to healthcare.gov, worked their way through online glitches and thought they would receive public health insurance could be disappointed if they need to see a doctor in early January. . . . The Iowa Department of Human Services installed a $59 million computer system this year, financed mainly with federal money tied to the Affordable Care Act. One of the system’s main tasks is to accept information from healthcare.gov to enroll Iowans into Medicaid or related programs. A spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said federal officials have sent such information to 10 other states, and they are working to send it to Iowa and the rest. However, she couldn’t say whether the information would be transmitted to Iowa by the end of the month.”
The Chicago Tribune editors are basically disgusted with the whole mess. They write today, “If you're scrambling to make last-minute arrangements, or waiting to hear if your insurer has actually received and approved your application, we know this is not your fault. For weeks, the government's HealthCare.gov website repelled customers with the brutal efficiency of a nightclub bouncer. Even if you thought you completed the process, chances were good that your application information wasn't accurately sent to insurers. If you're among the millions who had their individual policies canceled because of Obamacare, you may still be confused about the conditions under which your insurer will extend those policies and at what cost. Last week, federal officials piled on more confusion when they urged insurers to relax coverage rules. . . . You think the Obamacare run-up to Jan. 1 has been a train wreck? Now it gets worse. You'll soon be hearing more stories of people who thought they'd signed up for coverage, only to find that their paperwork was gobbled by computer gremlins. . . . But insurers say they are still finding errors and the government is overstating improvements to HealthCare.gov, The New York Times reported. . . . Looming question: How many people have gained coverage versus those who have lost it? No one knows — yet. HHS is fond of boasting of rising numbers of people who have signed up for coverage, but officials don't keep track of how many have paid premiums to start coverage.”
While problems are occurring all across the country thanks to Obamacare, at least some of the states are holding some people accountable. Compare that to the federal government. As the WSJ writes, “Only one person who helped oversee HealthCare.gov has left so far: Tony Trenkle, the chief information officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for developing the site. He resigned in November. Asked why the Obama administration hasn't fired anyone, a Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman pointed to a statement in which Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said new management was brought in to run HealthCare.gov and a general contractor was named after problems emerged.”
In an editorial today, the WSJ marvels at this contrast. “President Obama has responded to the ObamaCare debacle by bringing in Beltway liberal mastermind John Podesta as a senior West Wing hand, and he promptly announced his arrival by likening House Republicans to ‘a cult worthy of Jonestown’ in an interview with Politico. The states running their own insurance exchanges are exacting more accountability for their ObamaCare failures. Enrollment and technical dysfunctions and security breaches akin to the 36 federal exchanges continue to beset Minnesota's operation, called MNsure. On Tuesday, April Todd-Malmlov, the exchange's executive director since 2011, resigned under political duress. The state's problems are severe—4,478 have selected a plan so far—but were not severe enough to disrupt her two-week vacation in Costa Rica late last month with her partner, James Golden, who runs the state's Medicaid program. . . . Poorly timed Caribbean R&R also sealed the fate of Rebecca Pearce last week. The chief of Maryland's ObamaCare exchange absconded for the tonier destination of the Cayman Islands as her exchange floundered. . . . Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley promised his state would "lead the nation" on the Affordable Care Act and he is leading Minnesota by a click or two, with 5,179 sign-ups. Maryland's performance glitches are still so atrocious that on Monday Mr. O'Malley said he's weighing a Plan B that would desert Ms. Pearce's handicraft and shift residents to the federal Healthcare.gov website. Yes, it's that bad. Out in Hawaii, Coral Andrews stepped down from her position running that state's exchange on the same day as Ms. Pearce. Fewer than 500 people have enrolled thus far in the Aloha State's exchange, despite having received $205,342,270 in federal exchange planning and establishment grants. That sounds bad unless the point of comparison is Oregon, where enrollment stood at all of 44 people at the end of November. The Beaver State's $303,011,587 in grants in hand works out to about $6.9 million a head. Enrollment since has improved to 7,597 as the state abandoned trying to fix the digital site and moved to all-paper applications and direct insurer recruitment. Rocky King, the functionary responsible for that anachronism, was placed on extended medical leave this month. Is Mr. Podesta or Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius due for a holiday? A flap over an inopportune vacation might be the only thing that would force the White House to hold someone responsible for ObamaCare.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week, “There’s a lot of ivory tower thinking that goes on in this city. Way too much of it. And it’s time for our Washington Democrat friends to finally climb out of the ivory tower and see the reality of their ideas in action – to witness the failure of their policies first hand. It’s time for Washington Democrats to drop their refusal to change anything of real substance in Obamacare and it’s time for them to listen closely to the people who sent us here in the first place. And here’s what so many Americans are saying: that they want Democrats to start working with Republicans to improve our nation’s health care system in a positive way – to help us implement real, patient-centered, common-sense reforms that can actually lower costs and improve the quality of care. ...So let’s erase that mistake and start over with real reform.”
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