Obama Golfs While Obamacare Train Wreck Continues

Obama's Affordable Golf Ball Act

Today in Washington, D.C. - Aug. 22, 2014
The President is on vacation - Golfing most days. He returned to Washington, D.C. for two days to meet with staff. However even the press wonders what he is doing as chaos rumbles across the globe especially in Iraq.

It has also been noted by all active duty and veterans that President Obama failed to attend the funeral of Major General Harold "Harry" J. Greene who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month. General Green was buried on August 14th in Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Gen. Green the highest-ranking U.S. service member killed in a combat zone since the Vietnam War. Greene, 55, deputy commander of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, was killed Aug. 5 at an Afghan military academy near Kabul by a man believed to be an Afghan soldier — an insider attack that sent shock waves through the U.S. military. The assailant wounded 15 other military personnel, including eight Americans, before he was killed by Afghan security forces.

The House and the Senate are adjourned for August recess to allow senators to work in their home states.

The Senate will return for legislative business on Monday, September 8th. When the Senate returns, votes are scheduled on nominees to the Social Security Advisory Board and on the nomination of Jill Pryor to be a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though many things in Washington are quieter in August, news of Obamacare’s problems rarely takes a break. The law is so flawed that there’s almost always a new report of some broken promise, failing system, or negative consequence.

Yesterday, The Denver Post wrote, “The Colorado Division of Insurance has reported that there were about 2,100 health-plan cancellations in the state over the past two months, bringing this year's total to more than 6,150. The division reported the figures for June 15-Aug. 15 to Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman last week. Senate Republicans have requested monthly on the numbers. Since 2013, there have been about 340,000 policy cancelations in Colorado. Many customers received notices last fall as the Affordable Care Act was rolling out. . . . Opponents of the Affordable Care Act cite the cancelations as proof that it is hurting consumers more than helping.”

And while these stories always feature some Obamcare proponent making excuses for the unpopular law, the fact is that the president pledged in 2009, “If you like your current plan, you will be able to keep it.” And numerous Democrats made similar promises, like Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) saying, “If you like the insurance that you have, you'll be able to keep it”; and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) claiming that “people who have insurance they're happy with can keep it.”

Meanwhile, the bureaucratic snafus of Obamacare continue apace. The administration, just a couple months out from this year’s enrollment period is still struggling to reconcile problems and inconsistencies from last year’s enrollment. According to The Hill, “Federal health officials are warning some consumers to send in citizenship and immigration documents or forfeit their ObamaCare coverage on Sept. 30. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is sending the notices to consumers whose ObamaCare application data was inconsistent with federal records. . . . At issue are hundreds of thousands of disparities between ObamaCare applications and federal records pertaining to immigration status and citizenship. Many consumers obtained coverage before an inconsistency in their application was rectified. While HHS believes that most of the problems are not the result of fraud, some Republican critics of the healthcare law said the system is too loosely monitored to protect itself against bad actors.”

In addition, the Obama administration is being less than transparent when it comes to the security protocols of its infamously flawed health care exchange website, leaving Americans with few assurances that their data is safe. The AP reported last week, “After promising not to withhold government information over ‘speculative or abstract fears,’ the Obama administration has concluded it will not publicly disclose federal records that could shed light on the security of the government's health care website because doing so could ‘potentially’ allow hackers to break in. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied a request by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act for documents about the kinds of security software and computer systems behind the federally funded HealthCare.gov. The AP requested the records late last year amid concerns that Republicans raised about the security of the website, which had technical glitches that prevented millions of people from signing up for insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law. . . . Obama instructed federal agencies in 2009 to not keep information confidential ‘merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.’ Yet the government, in its denial of the AP request, speculates that disclosing the records could possibly, but not assuredly or even probably, give hackers the keys they need to intrude. . . . Keeping details about lockdown practices confidential is generally derided by information technology experts as ‘security through obscurity.’ Disclosing some types of information could help hackers formulate break-in strategies, but other facts, such as numbers of break-ins or descriptions of how systems store personal data, are commonly shared in the private sector. ‘Security practices aren't private information,’ said David Kennedy, an industry consultant who testified before Congress last year about HealthCare.gov's security. Last year, the AP found that CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner took the unusual step of signing the operational security certificate for HealthCare.gov herself, even as her agency's security professionals balked. That memo said incomplete testing created uncertainties that posed a potentially high security risk for the website.”

Despite Democrats blowing smoke about embracing Obamacare or its fading as an issue of concern to Americans, Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report writes, “Has this issue [Obamacare] finally run its course? Short answer: No. Obamacare remains a liability to Democrats this fall. It remains widely unpopular in southern red states where control of the Senate will be determined. It may not be the issue this cycle, but it is still a top negative for Democrats. Plus, the more unpopular the President, the more politically toxic any issue associated with him or his administration.”

Obama response - fore!

Obamacare has been a bureaucratic train wreck from the beginning. Each passing week only brings more stories of Americans who lost coverage or can’t get coverage as well as an endless stream of more regulations, red tape, higher costs, premium increases and technological troubles, all of which were predicted by those who opposed this legislation in the first place. It needs to be repealed and replaced with real step-by-step reforms to health care that will actually lower costs.

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