Tag: con job

Obamacare: Gruber, Graft, and Money-Grubbing Weasels

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

AFBranco Obamacare 11182014Remember when we found out in the 1980s that the Department of Defense had supposedly been buying $500 hammers and $600 toilet seats?

They were pikers.

FoxNews.com has the story…

“My job was just to see if the numbers added up,” Jonathan Gruber, the controversial architect of ObamaCare, told PBS two years ago.

And add up the numbers he did – at least in terms of Gruber’s consulting fees. A Fox News review of state and federal websites, as well as published reports, finds the MIT economist and his firm have secured millions in federal and state contracts stretching back over the last fifteen years.

Most famously, the Department of Health and Human Services retained Gruber in March 2009 to produce, as the contract stipulated, “a series of technical memoranda on the estimated changes in health insurance coverage and associated costs and impacts to the government under alternative specifications of health system reform.”

That contract netted Gruber $95,000, and an additional HHS contract, inked that June, added $297,600 to the deal – steering almost $400,000 to the creator of the Gruber Microsimulation Model. Still another contract with the agency, as reported here, was said to have exceeded $2 million in value since 2007.  

The National Institutes of Health clinched a deal for a like amount ($2.05 million), and the Department of Justice contracted with Gruber for nearly $1.74 million. DOJ? You might ask. Why would the Justice Department be hiring the architect of ObamaCare? Records show Gruber earned the DOJ fee for helping to develop viable incentives to be extended to the tobacco companies in order to dissuade them from targeting teen smokers.

Similarly, Gruber collected $103,500 from the State Department for his services as an expert witness, providing testimony in a NAFTA dispute with a Canadian tobacco firm.

Then there are the state governments. The Fox News review finds Gruber and his firm have consulted for, or provided computer modeling to, at least fifteen states. Glenn Kessler, the widely respected Washington Post columnist who writes under the moniker “The Fact Checker,” reported last week that “at least eight states” have hired Gruber to assist with the launching of their health care exchanges – and Kessler added: “It’s safe to say that about $400,000 appears to be the standard rate for gaining access to the Gruber Microsimulation Model.”

Fox News found that Gruber and his firm shared in a $481,050 contract with Michigan, a $400,000 deal with Wisconsin, and a contract with Minnesota worth nearly $330,000. Other contracts included deals with California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts – where Gruber notably worked with then-Gov. Mitt Romney – Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime Gruber critic, told Fox News on Monday that the economist has never been as transparent as he should have been in divulging his consulting contracts to lawmakers when he was testifying before them. “This is not saying the amount of money he made was wrong,” Grassley said, “but when he’s testifying before Congress, there ought to be full disclosure of this so that you know if he’s got a non-biased opinion — or not.”

By all accounts, Gruber is among a handful of economists with top-tier expertise in developing the kind of models that HHS and other agencies depend upon in the formulation of massive initiatives like ObamaCare, and one expert in government contracting told Fox News the MIT professor has carved out a “lucrative” niche.

Let’s sum up what Citizen Gruber has related to us, through those off-the-cuff videos, which have surfaced during the last week…

In one of the videos that surfaced in recent days in which the man described by the Obama campaign as having helped to write Obamacare describes the many ways voters he calls stupid were easily misled about the bill by those pushing it, Gruber says the Cadillac tax will do exactly what the president pledged it would not — dissuade employers in general from providing insurance for its employees .

“Economists have called for 40 years to get rid of the regressive, inefficient and expensive tax subsidy provided for employer provider health insurance,” Gruber said at the Pioneer Institute for public policy research in Boston in 2011. The subsidy is “terrible policy,” Gruber said.

“It turns out politically it’s really hard to get rid of,” Gruber said.

Gruber said the only way those pushing for Obamacare could get rid of the tax subsidy for employer provider health insurance was to tax the more generous, or Cadillac, plans — “mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know it’s a tax on people who hold those insurance plans.”

The second way was have the tax kick in “late, starting in 2018” and have its rate of growth tied to the consumer price index instead of to the much higher rate of medical inflation. Eventually, the 40% tax on the more expensive plans would impact every employer-provided insurance plan.

“What that means is the tax that starts out hitting only 8% of the insurance plans essentially amounts over the next 20 years essentially getting rid of the exclusion for employer sponsored plans,” Gruber said. “This was the only political way we were ever going to take on one of the worst public policies in America.”

By 2018, Gruber said, those who object to the tax will be obligated to figure out how to come up with the trillion dollars that repealing the tax will take from the U.S. Treasury, or risk significantly adding to the national debt.

This is obviously exactly what Obama told voters in 2009 he had “taken off the table.” It is exactly a process to “eliminate the tax deduction that employers get for providing you with health insurance” that five years ago Obama noted would result in “a lot of employers then would stop providing health care, and we’d probably see more people lose their health insurance than currently have it.”

In other words, Obama and his fellow Liberal Weasels screwed us all.

The harsh reality of my future existence being controlled by a Federal Government, who cannot even properly construct a stinkin’ website, makes me glad I place my faith in God and not in a President.

Now, see if you can follow this:

I have actually been told by Liberals and “Fiscal Conservatives” (but, I repeat myself) that I am “selfish” in my concern that, as a lifelong severe asthmatic, I will not have an affordable, life-saving, health insurance plan available to me in 2014, after ObamaCare.

According to projections, which the Obama Administration itself issued back in July 2010, officials knew the devastating impact of ObamaCare 4 years ago.

Additionally, According to the Federal Register, its mid-range estimate was that by the end of 2014, 76 percent of small group plans would be cancelled, along with 55 percent of large employer plans.

The reason?

Current plans don’t meet the requirements of ObamaCare, which dictate that each plan must cover a list of essential benefits, whether people want them or not.

“Essential benefits” like Free Birth Control and Maternity Care.

Excuse me, Soooper-Geniuses…but, after a certain age, those “benefits” are not longer “essential”.

I am alive today, thanks to the American Healthcare System that your “messiah” and the rest of you Liberal idiots, on both sides of the political aisle, are trying to turn into a money-making arm of the Federal Government, not out of any altruism, but out of an unbridled lust for control of Americans’ lives from cradle to grave.

Now that the little. money-grubbing weasel has spilled the beans, as to how this Administration and their fellow weasels in Congress really feel about the people whom they are supposed to be serving…can’t you just see some of the Democrat Congresscritters, huddled in a Congressional Cloakroom?

We’ve got to protect our phony-boloney jobs, gentlemen! Hrumph!

German-American Political Theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) once said,

The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.

And, since Obama and his Democrat minions had no clue as to what was actually in The Affordable Care Act”, and they did not want us to either, as Nancy Pelosi, herself, once quipped,

…we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…

Now, that we have found out what is in it, Americans don’t want it.

And,  our entire nation, including Obama and the Democrats, are paying the price for all of their inefficient lies.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Obama and Obamacare: A Con Man Pulling A Con Job. Lies have Consequences.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Obama-Shrinks-2Once upon a time, America’s Legendary Showman, P.T. Barnum, was reported to have said,

There is a sucker born every minute.

It was this philosophy that led the 44th President of the United States of America and his slavish minions in a Democrat-controlled Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act in the middle of one cold dark night, against the wishes of the American people.

After a disastrous launch, Obama is now attempting to escape from a suffocating spider’s web of his own  design.

Obama, speaking at an Organizing for America Campaign Event, yesterday, said,

Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed. So we wrote into the Affordable Care Act, you’re grandfathered in on that plan. But if the insurance company changes it, then what we’re saying is they’ve got to change it to a higher standard. They’ve got to make it better, they’ve got to improve the quality of the plan they are selling. That’s part of the promise that we made too. That’s why we went out of our way to make sure that the law allowed for grandfathering.

If we had allowed these old plans to be downgraded, or sold to new enrollees once the law had already passed, then we would have broken an even more important promise — making sure Americans gain access to health care that doesn’t leave them one illness away from financial ruin. The bottom line is that we are making the insurance market better for everybody and that’s the right thing to do.

On Saturday, August 8, 2009, during his Weekly Address, “The Smartest Guy in the Room” said,

As we draw close to finalizing – and passing – real health insurance reform, the defenders of the status quo and political point-scorers in Washington are growing fiercer in their opposition. In recent days and weeks, some have been using misleading information to defeat what they know is the best chance of reform we have ever had. That is why it is important, especially now, as Senators and Representatives head home and meet with their constituents, for you, the American people, to have all the facts.

So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true. This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. Under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.

And while reform is obviously essential for the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, it will also provide more stability and security to the hundreds of millions who do. Right now, we have a system that works well for the insurance industry, but that doesn’t always work well for you. What we need, and what we will have when we pass health insurance reform, are consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and that insurance companies are held accountable.

So, the President of the United States of America, lied. And now, he is lying, in a desperate, but futile attempt to cover up that lie.

The fact that Obama only lies when his lips are moving, is not a revelation.

The problem is the irrefutable fact that lies have consequences. And, in the case of Obamacare, the consequences apply to American lives.

In a Sunday Op Ed for The Wall Street Journal, Edie Littlefield Sundy, who is suffering from Stage 4 Gallbladder Cancer, wrote the following,

Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.

My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.

Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don’t have a clue how to best proceed.

Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.

Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.

But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.

You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego).

So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.

Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.

What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.

For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.

The experts are now predicting that 129 million Americans will lose their private Health Insurance Coverage to the ill-conceived National Catastrophe, known as Obamacare.

These Americans will not have the option of “shopping around”. With 68% of private policies expected to be eliminated, and the Obamacare Policies themselves un-affordable, average Americans will be in a no-win situation..

Oh, by the way, if you are over 76, and you get Cancer…pick out your ice floe…because Obama’s “perfect” “Affordable” Care Act is neither…and, you will be denied life-saving coverage under Obamacare.

It was a Con Job from the get-go. Lies told freely, with no conscience or thought of the consequences…the pain and suffering Obamacare would be bringing to American Lives.

Never forget this moment, Americans. It is a time when the United States President is revealing himself to be everything that Conservative Bloggers, like myself, warned you that he was and would be.

God protect us.

Until He Comes,

KJ