Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Exchange Information Disclosure Act (H.R. 3362) by a bipartisan vote of 259 to 154. This is the second of two bills that bring more transparency to exactly what is happening with respect to security and actual enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. I wrote […]
Maryland, My Maryland
On Sunday, January 12, the Washington Post wrote a highly critical article of the Maryland Health Connection, the state’s website for its health insurance exchange. The website has been a disaster since October 1, opening day for all the Obamacare exchanges. On the following Tuesday, the government official in charge of implementing the exchange, the state’s Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown […]
Medicaid Expansion – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
CAGW is against the expansion of Medicaid. It is a terrible healthcare system that is paid for by taxpayers and consumes on average 24 percent of a state’s budget. The Congressional Budget Office predicts Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, will grow 8 percent and cost taxpayers approximately $554 billion […]
Transparency Bills for Obamacare
Today, the House passed H.R 3811, the “Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act.” The bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to notify Americans within two days of learning that personally identifiable information has been compromised or breached on the Healthcare.gov website. It passed by a vote of 291 to 122, […]
2014 — Now We Get to Find Out What is in Obamacare!
Happy New Year! CAGW is pleased to announce that it will reconstitute its Healthcare and Science Division. Why you ask? The October 1, 2013 roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, and the following chaos demonstrated the need for CAGW to increase its focus on health policy. I’ll be heading up […]
Pesky Lawsuits Threaten Obamacare
Obamacare is a top-down, authoritarian law that has already spawned untold confusion, astronomical costs, and widespread dysfunction. Still, in an attempt to confer an air of finality to the whole mess and deter the law’s opponents from attempting to repeal or replace it, Obamacare supporters are vested in the narrative that it is “settled.” However, it is far from settled legally and its authority is being threatened by several lawsuits rising from below, the states.
Obamacare Rollout – It’s More Than Just Glitches
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), when queried on October 18 about the problems with the disastrous Obamacare online rollout on October 1, said:
There’s no question that what’s happening with the systems, the national plans is something that has to be improved. They were overwhelmed by the traffic. Okay, but now let’s see how long it’s going to take to have that be fixed. But, that’s about the technology — about the benefits, about the liberation of people to a healthier life of liberty, freedom to choose their happiness, that all remains.
Fraudsters Eating Your Lunch
In July, the New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) released an investigative report entitled, “Fraudulent School Lunch Program Applications Filed by Public Employees.” The OSC discovered that 83 public employees, 26 individuals that were a spouse or partner of the public employee, and eight individuals that were another member of the employee’s family provided false information regarding their household income on applications for the school lunch program. Even more disturbing, six elected school board members from Newark, Paterson, and Pleasantville were part of the scam.
The Agency of Healthcare Potentates
As taxpayers begin to grasp the sheer magnitude and the $787 billion price tag of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the “stimulus,” more and more details are being exposed as policy makers have time to read and analyze the legislation. There is one section of the bill that has little to do with stimulating the economy and everything to do with overseeing the kind of healthcare Americans will, or will not, receive in the future.
A Word of Caution for President Obama
President Obama and Congress are in the process of putting together a “stimulus” package in order to spur the economy and create or save 3 million jobs. The House of Representative’s proposal contained $275 billion in tax cuts and $526 billion in “carefully targeted priority investments” for a total cost of $820 billion. It would be better to call it a de-stimulus package because each of the 3 to 4 million jobs that the President and his allies claim to be saving and creating will cost taxpayers about $275,000.