Voters Remorse Over Obama | Obamacare's Train Wreck: Day Cares Forced To Close, Website Problems Persist, Exchanges Are Disaster Zones

Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb. 20, 2014
The Washington Post reported yesterday that "Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered the cancellation of a plan by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to seek a national license-plate tracking system. The order came in the wake of a story by The Washington Post reporting that ICE last week solicited proposals from companies to compile a database of license-plate information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers."

The Senate and House are not in session today. The Senate will reconvene for a pro-forma session at 10:30 AM on Friday.

The House will return at 11 AM on Feb. 21st. The Senate will return for legislative business on Monday, February 24th, when it will vote on cloture on the nomination of Jeffrey Meyer to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut.

As Democrats continue to push a federal minimum wage increase that would cost jobs, it’s a good time to survey the latest effects of another job-killing Democrat policy, Obamacare.

In West Virginia the health care law is playing a part in forcing 3 day care centers to close, according to The Charleston Gazette. “Citing financial problems, three Kanawha County daycare facilities will close next month. The West Virginia Public Employees Daycare, the Shawnee Daycare and the Elk Center Daycare announced Tuesday they will end services by March 28 or sooner. The daycare centers, which currently serve 120 students and have 40 people on staff, have operated at a loss for the past several years, and since the school year started, have lost about $65,000, according to Bob Calhoun, Kanawha County Schools Executive Director of Elementary Education. . . . In a letter addressed to parents on Tuesday, Calhoun and Community Education Program Director Clara Jett pointed to the Affordable Care Act as another contributor to the closures, citing looming insurance costs for employees. ‘We would have to start offering an insurance to employees. Right now, [employees] are contracted. So we'd have to start offering benefits, either that or double staff and reduce their hours, and it's just not something we're able to do,’ Calhoun said.”

In Florida, The New York Times reports that left-wing groups committed to Obamacare are having trouble even finding people to sign up. “The hunt for the uninsured in Broward County got underway one recent afternoon when 41 canvassers, armed with electronic maps on Samsung tablets, set off through working-class neighborhoods to peddle the Affordable Care Act door to door. Four hours later, they had made contact with 2,623 residents and signed up exactly 25 people. Many of their targets, people identified on sophisticated computer lists generated in Washington as unlikely to have health insurance, had moved away. Some were not home. Many said they already had insurance through Medicare, their parents or a job. A few were hostile at the mere mention of President Obama’s health care law. ‘We’re going to repeal that,’ one man said gruffly as he shut the door in the face of a canvasser, Nancy Morwin, 58, a retired social worker. Such are the limits of microtargeting the uninsured as groups supporting the Obama administration take to the streets on behalf of the president’s most important domestic initiative. . . . The efforts are important for Mr. Obama, who has been damaged politically by the initial failures of his health care website.” And even when they find someone, they’re still running into website problems. The Times notes, “Ryanbo Morales, 27, a Planned Parenthood worker and a former campaign volunteer for Mr. Obama, searched for the uninsured one recent day with the same zeal he brought to looking for voters during the president’s 2012 re-election campaign. But when he finally found Chrystal Rhodes, 24, who said she did not work enough hours at JetBlue to qualify for its health insurance, his efforts to help her sign up on his Samsung tablet were stymied when she kept getting an enrollment error. ‘This is really unfortunate,’ Mr. Morales said.”

That’s not the only ongoing problem with the Obamacare site. Earlier this week, the Washington Free Beacon noted an Orlando TV station’s report on continued problems with the Spanish version of the Obamacare website. “Spanish speaking Americans are stumped over incorrect translations on the Spanish version website of healthcare.gov. WFTV Reporter Nancy Alvarez confronted Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the website problems during her visit to Orlando. Alvarez noticed incorrect translations and consulted with Mike Nieves, head of a local marketing firm that specializes in cutting through cultural barriers. ‘Honestly, I was dumbfounded,’ Nieves told Alvarez. Incorrect translations make it difficult for Spanish speaking Americans to understand what they are enrolling in.”

And then there are the struggling state exchanges in Democrat-dominated states like Maryland and Oregon. The Baltimore Sun reported Monday on yet another problem with Maryland’s struggling health care exchange, people who tried to sign up early but are stuck in limbo because their applications are lost or stuck. The Sun wrote, “Three days after the Maryland health exchange launched its online marketplace for the uninsured and underinsured, Lynn Baklor enthusiastically logged on. Three months later, she gave up in frustration. ‘You win,’ she wrote in mid-January to Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, the governor's point man on the Affordable Care Act. ‘I raise my white flag and surrender.’ The Baltimore corporate consultant's application was one of roughly 11,000 stuck in the exchange website since its Oct. 1 launch, and a top exchange official said they all came from ‘early adopters’ like her — yet another problem plaguing Maryland's exchange. . . . Other applications are ‘ghosts,’ or are no longer current or needed, according to Isabel FitzGerald, Maryland's secretary of information technology, now charged with sorting out the exchange's technology problems. . . . The backlog is the most intractable problem facing the state exchange, which has frustrated users with frozen screens, mistaken identities and other problems. Servers have also crashed and the call center has been overwhelmed. Officials say they face obstacles to fixing the problems because of contractor in-fighting and problematic software. . . . But that doesn't help those with applications still stuck in the system, including Kia Jacobson of Takoma Park. She's self-employed as a personal assistant and tried over several months to enroll in health coverage through the exchange. ‘After multiple log-ins and phone calls, two completed applications — one is incorrect, and had to be abandoned — a third incomplete application, incorrect subsidy results, and a myriad of other problems … and I'm unsure as to whether I have health care coverage,’ she wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun. ‘I'm so disgusted that my tax dollars have been spent on such a flawed process that should have been stopped in its tracks months, if not years ago,’ she said.”

The Daily Caller looks at the ongoing disaster in Oregon: “Five months, hundreds of millions of dollars and two top exchange officials later, Oregon’s Obamacare exchange was scheduled to finally launch a partial version of its website last week — and then delayed it again. Despite $340 million in federal funding and another $160 million from state taxpayers, Cover Oregon’s site was unable to enroll any customers online on day one in October and officials quickly gave up on having online enrollment ready anytime soon. The partial launch would make enrollment available only for insurance agents and brokers certified by Cover Oregon. So far, Oregon’s implosion is unparalleled even by Obamacare standards. The exchange’s failure led to the resignation of director Rocky King (for ‘medical reasons’) and of top tech official Carolyn Lawson (for ‘personal reasons’).”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said recently, “[T]his much is now clear: Obamacare is just not working the way the Administration promised. It’s hurting the middle class, it’s eliminating incentives to work in the middle of a jobs crisis. And it will lower overall compensation – things like salaries, wages, and benefits – for the American people with those who earn the least potentially the most negatively impacted of all.”

A new Economist/Yougov poll was conducted on February 6th and 7th. The results were released yesterday showing 71% have "voter remorse."

The poll asked people who voted for Obama during the 2012 election a very basic question: "Do you regret voting for Barack Obama?”

• 71% of the total respondents answered "yes."
• 80% of white voters said "yes"
• 100% of Latino voters said "yes"
• 26% of black voters said "yes" and 13% "not sure."
• 61% of men said "yes"
• 84% of women said "yes"
• 77% of voters age 35-44 said "yes"
• 77% of voters age 45-64 said "yes"
• 100% of voters over 65 said "yes"
• 71% of independents said "yes"
• 100% of Republicans said "yes"
• 55% of Democrats said "yes"

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