The Lies Continue as Obama Destroys America's Private Health Care System

Acknowledging that serious problems remain behind the catastrophic rollout of the health care website, President Obama's top health official has called for an investigation into management and contracting decisions. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius posted a blog early Wednesday to say that she's asking the HHS inspector general to investigate the contracting process, management, performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch of the Obamacare website. The website had major technical problems that turned it into a frustrating bottleneck for millions of consumers. It's working better now, but still not as it should, after two months of repairs. Sebelius went to Capitol Hill for another round of questioning Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Lawmakers have dozens of questions about the website's design, workability - and security, which has been called seriously below internet standards by Representative Mike Rogers, House Intelligence Committee chairman and a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that has held numerous hearings to investigate issues surrounding Obamacare. Rogers says the website should be shut down until it is made secure for consumers. Congress also wants to know why Sebelius and other top officials repeatedly assured them everything was on track. Some Republicans have called for Sebelius to resign. Democrats have urged Obama to fire those responsible. The White House has instead brought in outside experts to help Sebelius and her department. The secretary's unusual pre-dawn announcement of an inspector general probe indicates that she realizes she's still on the hot seat. "I believe strongly in the need for accountability, and in the importance of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars," Sebelius said in her announcement. She didn't add that the website has cost taxpayers more than $600 million so far, according to the congressional Government Accountability Office. Sebelius has also ordered the hiring of a new "chief risk officer" at the Medicare agency that oversees new programs created to expand health insurance coverage under Obamacare. That official will focus on making sure technology programs work as advertised. ~~~~~ While Sebelius was touting the improvements in the Obamacare website, the latest Obama administration monthly enrollment report showed a total of 137,204 people enrolled in the states served by the federal website by the end of November, up from 26,794 in October, but far below the 1.2 million that had been predicted by the end of November. California, running its own market, led the nation, with more than 107,000 signups. Oregon, also running its own market, had the lowest total, with just 44 people enrolled. Florida was the leader among states with federally run markets, with nearly 18,000 signups. Nationally, an additional 803,077 people have been determined to be eligible for Medicaid, the safety-net program that appears to be the health overhaul's early success story. That's about double the number for October. Nonetheless, state Medicaid directors are reporting accuracy problems with information on prospective enrollees that the federal government is sending them. ~~~~~ Two Americans signing up for Obamacare in November were Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham, long a critic of Obama's healthcare plan, said, "I don’t think members of Congress should get a special deal. Obamacare is being pushed on the American people and we should live under it just like everyone else.” Graham could have taken advantage of a taxpayer subsidy that would have paid for about 75% of his insurance premium. "My insurance costs are going up about $400 a month, more than 200%, under Obamacare. In addition, my health care coverage will be a fraction of what it used to be," he said in a press release. "Sadly, I’m not the only one who will feel the negative effects of Obamacare....The worst is yet to come, but I will continue my fight to repeal, replace, defund and allow Americans to opt-out of this horrible government program,” he said. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reported : "Under Obamacare, my insurance costs me about $4,500 more than it did before....because it is age-related and it wasn't like that before." Reid, noting that 150 million families get insurance through their employers, said "so should all federal employees." Reid's comments came as he denied a CNN story claiming he is the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy coverage through the Obamacare exchanges. "I followed the Affordable Care Act,” Reid said. “It is the law. The law says that if you have committee staff, leadership staff, they stay where they are. If you have other staff, which is most everyone, they go to the exchanges." Reid is worth $2.8 to $6.2 million, according to an OpenSecrets.org report, so he would not qualify for subsidies that would lower his costs. But his rate hike is an eye-opener after promises made by people like House Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who told Meet the Press last year that "everybody would have lower rates" under Obamacare. She denied to The Weekly Standard that she'd made the statement, saying she doesn't "remember saying that everybody in the country would have a lower premium." But, as reported by Forbes, a study earlier this year by two members of the American Academy of Actuaries found that tens of millions will see higher insurance costs, with or without the subsidies. ~~~~~ That's right. Even with the federal tax breaks and subsidies promised through Obamacare, many consumers will find their out-of-pocket costs much higher than expected, according to a Forbes analysis of the healthcare law's problems. Consumers can benefit from two different subsidies, according to Forbes contributor and physician Scott Gottlieb, who also serves as a Republican appointee on a federal health policy committee. "Premium tax credits, based on family income, are designed to offset the overall costs of health insurance plans, while cost-sharing subsidies help pay for out-of-pocket expenses and help lower costs when catastrophic limits kick in. But so far, technical glitches on the website have caused miscalculations of cost estimates for uninsured individuals and families trying to sign up, leading to confusion and fears that the costs may end up not being as affordable as promised," Gottlieb noted. Part of the problem, according to Gottlieb, stems from the fact that the website cannot communicate correctly with other federal and state agencies to share the data needed to help calculate costs. Because the system is defective, data sharing with other agencies has led to errors in cost calculations on enrollment applications that have gone through. In many cases, the system simply crashed on some applicants as they tried to calculate costs. The Obama administration calculates that subsidies over the next 10 years could cost about $149 billion - a cost for taxpayers, that is, a fact not mentioned by Obama. But if the subsidies are cut, under the law insurance plans could be forced to absorb the shortfalls. Not a good idea, said Gottlieb, given the fact that many insurance companies have already been burned by the bungled rollout of the federal healthcare program. "Given the failed launch of Obamacare, many insurers will be looking at far lower enrollment numbers, and losses on their new exchange health plans....Expect Wall Street analysts to cut their earnings projections on the major health plans in the coming weeks. If that happens, many health plans will likely be pulled from the marketplace, and Obamacare could fail fast unless the administration lobbies Congress to stop sequester cuts from hitting cost-sharing subsidies. For all of these reasons, the Obama administration should approach its failed rollout with much more humility and candor," Gottlieb said. "These website woes aren’t merely 'glitches.'" ~~~~~ Dear readers, the website catastrophe is just the start of the Obamacare disasters. There will be insufficient enrollments and most will require subsidies. This will make the already high - almost double - premium costs rise even more. The deductibles and out-of-pocket costs are already much higher. And for these extremely high costs, Obamacare will offer less choice of doctors and hospitals and poorer quality care as many high quality doctors and hospitals, such the Mayo Clinic and Cedars-Sinai, are dropped by Obamacare insurance providers to save costs. And perhaps 100 million Americans will have their private health insurance cancelled because it doesn't match the freakish Obamacare requirements. Welcome to the socialized medicine that will ruin the best private health care system in the world. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid - and President Obama, for lying to Americans while you dismantled their health care system.