Oh, the horror, the horror!
"White House won’t commit on health care promise; Obama had said existing coverage could be kept" by David Espo | Associated Press, November 06, 2013
WASHINGTON — Under growing pressure, the administration declined repeatedly to state a position Tuesday on legislation formalizing President Obama’s oft-stated promise that people who like their existing coverage should be allowed to keep it under the new health care law.
Senate Democrats spoke dismissively of the proposals, signaling they have no intention of permitting a vote on the issue that marks the latest challenge confronting supporters of Obama’s health care overhaul.
Now who are the obstructionists?!?!
An earlier controversy appeared to be ebbing on a law that has generated more than its share of them.
What's that, the crap website?
Even so, one strong supporter of the health care law, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, good-naturedly told an administration official, “Good luck getting through this mess.”
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In her testimony, Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the agency involved in implementing the law, also sought to reassure lawmakers who expressed concerns about cybersecurity at healthcare.gov.
WHAT?!?! All the tax records are being sent over from the IRS, too!
Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, cited the case of a Columbia, S.C., lawyer who used the website to look for coverage, only to learn later that some of his personal information had been made available to a different browser, a man in North Carolina.
“Has this happened before?” Scott asked. “Can you guarantee that Social Security numbers . . . are secure? Will you shut down the website, as my friends from the left have already suggested, until security issues are fixed?”
I love it when Tea is brewed with a little leftist lemon.
Tavenner offered reassurances, and said officials from her agency were attempting to get in touch with the man whose information had been disclosed....
Those are no longer reassuring to a sickened public.
The controversy over the ability of consumers to keep their existing plans flared last week, when insurance companies mailed out millions of cancellation notices, often citing the new health care law as the reason.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Obamacare Has Been Cancelled
Yeah, but it is only 5% of policyholders so it is no big deal, or so I am told, which is interesting because "as NBC News reported on Monday, “the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”
The unfortunate medical fact we may have to face is that the president may be a delusional egotist.
Somebody sign him up for Obamacare, quick!
House Republicans intend to vote as early as next week on legislation that permits insurers to reinstate the canceled plans, which fall short of the coverage requirement under the health care law.
That should help them recover from the alleged shutdown drubbing they took in the polls.
One Democrat, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, has proposed requiring insurers to do so.
But the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Democrats had voted unanimously against similar proposals in the past and were having “foxhole conversions.”
“I think what will be really interesting to see in the Senate is the number of Democrats in very red states who are up in ’14 and what they start demanding . . . in terms of adjustments to this law,” he said....
Obama will lose the Senate next year because Israel is unhappy with his about-face on Syria and Iran.
In words Republican critics cite frequently, Obama pledged in mid-2009: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period” and “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
I suppose it is bad form to say the fuhrer is a liar, like the words could be called back and magically expunged from history.
In recent days, Obama and top aides have sought to amend or clarify the pledge, a tacit acknowledgment that it hasn’t been kept.
Translation: HE LIED!
But hey, it was for the greater good, right?
--more--"
Also see:
Why Obamacare can’t replicate Mass.
Don’t blame Obamacare for health system’s age-old woes
I'm not; I'm blaming a bull-headed and ob$tinate administration for going ahead with this when they delayed the requirements for big business while eliminating patient payment caps and hustling up the deadline to $ign.
Mitt Romney criticizes ‘dishonesty’ by Obama
"In a Sunday interview with the Globe, Romney did not criticize the Tea Party specifically, suggesting the public is considering him in a new light."
As unhappy as I am with the current administration, I'm not into propaganda pre$$ rehabilitation of Republican war criminals or corporate job killers.
"Documents show few health care plan enrollees; Numbers cover first two days after site launch" by Alex Wayne | Bloomberg News, November 02, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchanges enrolled just 248 people in their first two days, as website outages and software errors hindered sign-ups, according to documents obtained by a congressional oversight committee.
Notes from three meetings at an Obama administration ‘‘war room,’’ obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, show six people had enrolled on Oct. 1, the first day of the website’s operation. The summary of an Oct. 2 meeting stated that ‘‘direct enrollment is still not working’’ and about 40,000 applicants were idling in a virtual ‘‘waiting room.’’
The documents were circulated by Republican opponents of the health law who are seizing on the botched rollout even as a new poll shows more Americans than not want to expand the Affordable Care Act or keep it intact....
As if believed any poll the agenda-pu$hing media cites. I have a formula for gauging the real results, but I'll save that for another visit.
The flawed debut of the federal website is tarnishing President Obama’s signature first-term legislative achievement and threatens his second-term agenda.
They are worried about that health, not yours!
About 48 percent of Americans said the federal government is doing a ‘‘poor’’ job of implementing the health law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Friday. Still, about 47 percent said the law should be kept or expanded, compared with 37 percent who said they want the law repealed.
Obama is trying to implement a program that received no Republican votes when it passed through Congress. House Republicans have since voted unsuccessfully more than 40 times to defund or dismantle the health law.
Obama has accused the program’s critics of misleading the public about how the exchanges work....
He may need a mental health examination.
He accuses them of misleading the public?
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized at a House hearing for the website failures. While Sebelius declined to provide the number of sign- ups, she said initial enrollment is going to be low.
‘‘There’s no question that given our flawed launch of healthcare.gov, it will be a very small number,’’ she told the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
She said the government would release the first month’s enrollment by mid-November.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led by Marilyn Tavenner, had been responsible for building and running the exchange website.
She appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee this week and, according to the White House, met with Senate leaders Thursday.
Sebelius and Tavenner are scheduled to appear before Senate committees next week for more questioning.
About 8.6 million people visited the federal website in the first week, though most were greeted by long waits that prevented many from even registering.
HHS has said that capacity is being added to the system and multiple upgrades are being made to the software code, though as of two days ago error messages were still being displayed for some users.
Jeffrey Zients, the former Office of Management and Budget official appointed by Obama on Oct. 22 to help Sebelius’s department sort out the website’s problems, has said the site will work smoothly by the end of November....
And we were not going to see much more about it until then -- and then the cancellation notices went out.
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Also see: Appeals court deals blow to birth control mandate
