ObamaCare enrollment deadline delayed to 2014 elections

WASHINGTON – A new administration tweak in ObamaCare deadlines conveniently delays the next enrollment period until just after the 2014 elections.

Open enrollment – which is already causing political headaches for the administration this year – had been set to start Oct. 15, 2014.

That date is now being pushed back a month, a Health and Human Services official told Bloomberg News.

The administration cited technical reasons, saying the date gives insurers “more time to prepare new plans and rates.”

But the new date happens to fall 11 days after the Nov. 4 elections – where Democratic control for the Senate is at stake. Democrats are also hoping to beat back the odds and retake the House.

Any spike in insurance rates would most likely be revealed during the enrollment period — and could infuriate voters.

ObamaCare and the timing of its creation has had significant political consequences ever since Obama signed it into law, before Republicans regained the House in 2010.

The law signed by President Obama instituted a number of popular reforms before his own 2012 reelection – including a ban on discrimination against people with preexisting conditions, and a provision that lets parents cover their children on their own plans until the kids through age 26.

The new health care exchanges that began under the disastrous rollout of the new government website began this fall – when Congress wasn’t up for reelection.

“Consumers will not see their 2015 premiums until after the midterm elections, instead of immediately before,” former industry lobbyist Mike Tuffin told Bloomberg News. “One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to divine the motive here.”

Republicans were quick to pounce on the delay. “Clearly, President Obama does not want voters to see increased prices, more cancelations and decreased options under ObamaCare before they go to the ballot box,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. “If ObamaCare is so great, why are Democrats so scared of voters knowing its consequences?”

http://nypost.com/2013/11/22/obamacare-enroll-deadlines-delayed-until-after-2014-elections/


whate a snake...enough said

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/10-people-obama-should-fire-over-healthcaregov-100080.html


10 People Obama Should Fire Over HealthCare.gov
By KEITH KOFFLER
November 19, 2013

President Barack Obama has gamely acknowledged that the HealthCare.gov disaster is “on me,” and surely this is one of the more accurate assertions he’s made related to his signature health care program.


But no president could have pulled off HealthCare.gov alone. After all, as he put it, “I don’t write code.” It truly takes a team effort to come up with something so impressively catastrophic.

Indeed, this serving of Pasta Fiasco was whipped up by a cadre of chefs, toiling together in spectacular incompetence, each doing their part to create one of the greatest flops in modern political history.

Each should be marched right out of the kitchen with alacrity. But Obama, who once said during another crisis — the 2010 Gulf oil spill — that he was searching for an “*** to kick,” hasn’t really found one this time.

And yet, with respect to the creation of HealthCare.gov, there’s really no shortage of *****. Herewith, as a service to our flummoxed commander in chief, 10 candidates for the chopping block.

1. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough
This goes without saying — and actually, that’s the only reason I can think of that no one’s saying it.

Obama claims he didn’t know how badly the website would perform. And yet, given that it had failed rudimentary tests and wasn’t even close to being ready, people in the administration had to know.

It is the White House chief of staff’s responsibility to ensure the right documents and people are getting before the president — to establish a smooth process by which the president gets the information he needs.

Obamacare is the ballgame when it comes to the Obama presidency. Ensuring it was up and running right should have been McDonough’s can’t-fail mission. According to a June 20 article in Time magazine, McDonough was supposedly spending “two hours a day” on Obamacare implementation. If that’s so, it’s inexcusable that he somehow missed that the website was months from being ready — even with the current “24/7” fix-it drive — at launch time.

If Obama requires any further reason to cashier McDonough, he need only survey the wreckage of his second-term agenda and his cratering approval ratings.

2. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

Sebelius needs to be hustled out the door without delay, and everyone in town knows it.

The White House has defended her, pointing to her earlier achievements. This is approximately like noting the sublime performances of the actor John Wilkes Booth.

Only in government would someone in a leadership position be permitted to claim they did some other good stuff after supervising an unmitigated disaster that might bring down the whole operation. One hopes Obama is only keeping her on temporarily because she knows something about how to clean up the mess.

3. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Director Marilyn Tavenner

CMS is the agency within HHS that was responsible for developing the website. In the months before the rollout, Tavenner suggested in testimony to Congress that testing of the website was on track. She is the one who signed off on the website she was overseeing.

“I want to apologize to you that the website is not working as well as it should,” Tavenner told the Ways and Means Committee last month. “I’m in charge of the program,” she said.

Enough said. Get out.

4. CMS Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao
Chao, deeply knowledgeable about the website, fretted for months about how it would perform. But he suggested to Congress things would run smoothly.

In March, he wisecracked at an insurance industry forum, “Let’s just make sure it’s not a Third World experience.”

In a July 16, 2013, email, Chao expressed concerns about the launch, writing that he needed “to feel more confident they are not going to crash the plane at take-off.”

The very next day, he testified before Congress that HealthCare.gov would be ready to launch on time.

In late September, Chao also signed off on a memo to Tavenner saying there were no significant security risks with the website. He recently claimed he was not included on a memo from CMS Chief Information Officer Tony Trenkle warning that such security risks existed.

Bye-bye.

5. CMS Chief Information Officer Tony Trenkle

Actually, Trenkle resigned and left CMS Friday to join the private sector, according to CMS. But he should have been fired instead of being allowed to quietly seek greener pastures, having supervised the dropping of fertilizer all over this one.

Trenkle’s memo on security risks shows he knew of such issues before the website launched. What he did about it is unclear.

But, whatever — he was in charge of IT at the agency that put together the world’s most famous technological boondoggle. He needed to be denied the “spend more time with my family” excuse and fired instead.

6. White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park
Where was he?

Park reportedly was not heavily involved in the latter stages of the website’s development. Is that really the case?

But if not, why not? If you were the president, wouldn’t you expect your chief tech guy to be all over your most important technological project, reporting back to you on progress and running the traps to make sure everything was going smoothly? Park must go.

7. White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri

In this crisis, as it did with the Benghazi videotape fairy tale, the White House started running at the mouth before it had any idea what was happening.

The communications on the website debacle have been abysmal. Remember how Obama took to the Rose Garden on Oct. 1 and proclaimed the website was suffering a bad case of the “glitches” and compared it to Apple rolling out “a new mobile operating system”? Or his absurd appearance in the same spot three weeks later, hawking call-center phone numbers like some 2 a.m. infomercial host?

Moreover, Obama’s explanations of his false promise — “If you like your plan, you can keep it” — featured the hideously inaccurate assertion that he had said he was referring only to plans in existence before Obamacare was signed.

The boss has been made to look like a fool too many times.

8. Jeffrey Zients

Zients is in charge of HealthCare.gov CPR. “By the end of November, HealthCare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users,” he said in October. That sounded like just about everybody could use it — pretty much fixed. But now we’re talking four out of five users. And there are growing indications that even 80 percent might be ambitious.

If the latest Obamacare promise doesn’t pan out, its deliverer, Zients, should be fired from his ad hoc post as chairman of the Department of Website Surgery, and Obama should consider preventing him from becoming National Economic Council director as scheduled Jan. 1. The clock is ticking, Jeff.

9. White House health policy adviser Jeanne Lambrew

Was Obama’s White House health care guru in some kind of trance?

Few if any in the White House have had more to do with implementing Obamacare or understand it better than Lambrew. Did she fail to ensure that the requirements for the Obamacare website were understood and heeded by the techies? As the former director of the now-defunct HHS Office of Health Reform, Lambrew presumably had extensive contacts at HHS to ensure things were going smoothly and if not, to sound the alarm at the White House. She apparently didn’t. Clean out your desk.

10. HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary of Information Technology Frank Baitman

During his opening remarks at a Nov. 13 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, Baitman seemed to place responsibility for HealthCare.gov squarely on CMS while taking credit for a list of exciting achievements at HHS, prompting panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to cut him off, dryly remarking, “Mr. Baitman, we know how great a job you’re doing — that’s why you’re here today. Could you please wrap up?”

According to his HHS bio, Baitman’s “emphasis is on delivering improved business outcomes from the agency’s IT investments.”

Is that so? HealthCare.gov was the agency’s top tech project. Why wasn’t he on top of this?

______________________________________________

still can't believe these people haven't been FIRED along with a lot more...it is ridiculous that a president would support such incompetency...and it is inexcusable that no one has been fired...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/11/17/george_will_obama_is_using_white_house_press_room_as_a_third_legislative_chamber.html

GEORGE WILL: "Well, I think Republicans have offered serious alternatives all along. But right now -- no, I mean, the president, his name is on it. He did it without any other votes, so live with it.

One Republican put it brazenly, Scalise of Louisiana -- congressman. He said the president is like a man who burns your house down and then shows up with an empty water bucket, and then delivers a lecture on how bad your house was before he burned it down. That's an untenable position for the president to be in.

It was nine months ago, an official of the Centers on Medicaid and Medicare Services told a conference, what we want to avoid a shirt world experience. And we've had the third world experience.

And what Judy rather delicately the president's accommodation looks to a great many of us to be illegal. What we're told in grade school when we study civics is that in that building behind you are the two legislative chambers of the federal government, Senate and the House. It turns out there is a third, it's called the White House press room, into which the president can, on a whim, sashay and rewrite laws. It's an extraordinary civics lesson."

______________________________

and it's about to get worse...insurers are pushing Obama for the authority to directly enroll people with government subsidies thus effectively bypassing the website Healthcare.gov...there is NOT a provision anywhere in the law for that...love the analogy above about the house fire...

not so it seems...

Adriana's photo has been removed from the website, but a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services says it was not taken down at the request of the model.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obamacare-model-health-care-website-felt-bullied-critics-article-1.1515206#ixzz2kvJgIpra

The press was already sniffing out her identity and it was only a matter of time before the citizenship issue would have been reported...that would have been another embarrassment on top of the already disastrous rollout...I'm pretty confident that's probably the real reason for her disappearance...oddly though, it has been reported that she was eligible for Obamacare but the decision to use a person that is not a US citizen on signature legislation of this magnitude and controversy is just more major incompetence from an administration that bungles just about everything it touches...

my bad...did u miss the point of the post because of that...I think not...lol

and now we know the real reason this girl's face was removed from the website...she is Columbian and not a citizen of the United States...wow...wonder what idiot approved that one...that is worst than using Chinese made uniforms for the US Olympic team...

YUP...EXACTLY...Obamacare would have been even more unpopular if the idiots would have had to get their wallets out first...lol

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/people-leaving-workforce-droves-means-businesses-175800458.html

People Are Leaving the Workforce in Droves: What it Means for Businesses

What will happen to your business when more of your customers don't work than do?

Given the sheer size of our country, it seems a question that we never need ponder. But the trends in employment numbers, as reflected in this morning's Labor Department report, show that the scenario may be closer than we realize.

While the economy added more jobs than expected, more people dropped out of the workforce altogether. According to the latest report, 720,000 people were no longer included among the working. All told, there are 91.5 million people of working age who are not working.

That helped cause an unusually sharp drop in the labor-force participation rate to just 62.8 percent from 63.2 percent a month earlier. That is the lowest rate since 1978. While some are blaming that drop on the government shutdown, when federal workers were furloughed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics itself is not. While there may be some difficulty in classifying those furloughed workers as employed or unemployed, since most were still receiving pay or at least on a temporary layoff, all are included in the workforce numbers, so the shutdown had no effect on participation itself.

Related: Why Everyone Will Have to Become an Entrepreneur (Infographic)

No, sadly, more people are simply leaving the workforce. Here is the scariest part: As Zero Hedge notes, at this rate, the number of people out of the labor force will surpass the number of working Americans in about four years.

Ponder that a moment. There will be more people not earning a regular income from their labor than there are people collecting a real paycheck. In the simplest terms, more takers than makers. Even if that rate slows, the overall trends are terrible. Participation has been collapsing since 2008.

There are business and policy considerations that come from having a country where more people don't work than do. First, think of government policies. No matter where one stands on the debate over safety-net programs like welfare and food stamps, or massive federal undertakings like Obamacare, everyone agrees that those need taxation to fund them. Taxes come from businesses and individuals. Both groups, though, when takers outnumber makers, will have less in income off which to be taxed.

You might argue that a healthy junk of the non-working population will have non-government income, in the form of drawdowns from investments squirreled away for retirement. True, but this will trigger a negative market effect. Using retirement savings requires selling securities. The more people selling against fewer people buying since fewer are employed, means a drop in asset prices. Markets have been fueled by the steady stream of 401(k) and pension purchases over the past few decades. That will trickle as more people sell than buy.

Related: The Cold, Hard Facts About Small Business Hiring (Infographic)

Then there is the practical business impact. It is not that the takers have no money to spend. They do, either by government-entitlement check, retirement drawdown or savings reduction. But they are on a fixed or more limited income than someone who works for a living. Businesses want people who make money – and are in a position to make even more. A country where more people are on a fixed income than an elastic one is quite simply bad for business.

Is it all doom and gloom? Certainly not. As with all challenges there are, of course, opportunities. Technological advances have a way of reversing, or at least dramatically altering, economic trends. The boom years for employment and balanced federal budgets in the 1990s had everything to do with the emergence of the Internet rather than with any enlightened economic policies. New emerging technologies can easily create new companies and, therefore, new jobs, attracting people who have dropped out back into the workforce – but entrepreneurs know that already.

Still, there is more reason for pessimism than optimism in the numbers, particularly since they reflect a lack of labor ethic that is not usually associated with being American. The country, it seems, has some work to do, and that starts with Americans getting back to work.
________________

another grove of cancellations will come when the EMPLOYER mandate takes effect...many of those policies also don't meet so called minimum Obamacare qualifications...and that is the real reason why Obama delayed the employer mandate for 1 year...gives him and the insurers a chance to come up with another sales pitch (LIE) like - oh no those aren't "cancellations" but "transitions"...in the meanwhile, employers know this and will have to steer employees to new plans or make adjustments like not covering spouses, reducing workers to part time, sending workers to the exchange, etc and Obama is hoping that that fallout will be directed at employers and not him...

Obama needs to say I WAS WRONG...FIRE THOSE RESPONSIBLE...and then an apology might actually be considered sincere...of course if he knew all along he should RESIGN...after all his promise was about as ironclad as one can make...

http://www.news-record.com/news/local_news/article_9cd01b2c-4661-11e3-8315-001a4bcf6878.html

Burlington man given S.C. man's data via health care website


COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man said Tuesday he wants his personal information removed from the federal health care marketplace after his data inadvertently went to a Burlington, N.C., man trying to log onto the government website.

Columbia attorney Thomas Dougall said he's upset that federal officials have yet to contact him about the incident.

The Burlington man who was given access to Dougall's records, Justin Hadley, said he was shocked.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said. "After the initial shock wore off, I knew I needed to contact him so he knew what was going on."

The case prompted questions in Washington about the security of the website that's been riddled with technical problems since its Oct. 1 launch.

Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner acknowledged the breach Tuesday while testifying before a Senate committee.

"We implemented a software fix yesterday to fix that," said Tavenner, whose agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was put in charge of carrying out the Affordable Care Act. "That would be treated as a personal identification issue, and we will do a complete follow-up on that."

Dougall, a retired Army officer, said he still doesn't know the extent of the breach, and he wants his data deleted.

"All I want is for the information to be removed from their website. It should be a simple computer function, but they won't call me or deal with the problem," he said. "That's the part I'm a little angry about."

Dougall, who buys his own insurance, said he went to the online marketplace out of curiosity, to see if he could save money on a new policy. But when he got through the online process Oct. 8, he realized his current plan is much cheaper. And he makes too much to qualify for any subsidies.

He thought nothing more of it, he said, until he got home Friday night and played a message from Hadley, who said he received Dougall's personal information after logging on under his username.

At first, Dougall said, he thought Hadley was scamming him for more information. But then Hadley emailed him screen shots.

"He clearly had my information," Dougall said. "I knew he was legit."

Hadley had been trying to sign up for a new policy after receiving notice from BlueCross BlueShield that his current plan would no longer exist in 2014. He is among the millions nationwide receiving such notices because their plans don't comply with the Affordable Care Act.

Hadley said last Thursday was the first time he was able to get past the website's login screen. That's when he received links to documents meant for Dougall.

The experience has made him decide to go without health insurance and pay the federal penalty. He no longer trusts the website, and the premiums for the closest plan his insurer suggested cost nearly double, with higher deductibles.

"The way I look at it, I would come out cheaper to save my money," said Hadley, 29. "I consider myself fairly young and healthy. I rarely go to the doctor anyway."

He said that by late Monday when he logged in, the links to Dougall's information were gone. He too wants all of his information deleted and someone from the federal agency to call him back.

"This whole experience has been stressful," he said.

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Ain't that the TRUTH !!!

I love how Obama now defines CANCELLATION (aw, Mr. president did u even think to look at one of the notices ???? cause that's exactly what's on the notices from the insurers) not Transition...what a CROCK !!!

Obamacare provides health insurance to those not covered while jeopardizing the coverage of those who already have health insurance...

Wal-Mart gets most of their employees salary back anyway (directly or indirectly)...at our local Walmart, employees buy their groceries there, buy their medicines there, buy their eyeglasses there, have their cars fixed there, and eat out at McDonalds there...

http://cnsnews.com/commentary/rich-galen/obamacare-spiraling-downward

I am not cheering as I write this column. The Presidency of Barack Obama is spiraling downward largely because of Obamacare and it is not clear to me that Mr. Obama can avoid a Presidential face plant.

Earlier this week Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius testified before a House committee about the ongoing disaster that is the Obamacare website.

She didn't know who was responsible or what went wrong any more than she could have pulled out a stack of code three feet high and walked the Committee Members through it line-by-line.

Republicans were ugly to her. Democrats tried to find some way to defend her. They were both wrong.

But, the Secretary's lack of knowing what had gone wrong actually paled before a pretty simple question asked by Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo) as to whether she would join members of Congress and their staff in purchasing insurance on the federal insurance exchange, even though the law did not require her to.

As CNN reported on its website: After consulting with Office of Health Reform Director Mike Hash, who was seated behind her, Sebelius responded that it would be "illegal" for her to join the exchange because she receives insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

That, it turns out, is true for employees of the Executive Branch, but that is not why she wouldn't be allowed to join Obamacare.

The reason is, she was born on May 15, 1948 making her 65 years, 5 months and 2 weeks old. That means she is eligible for, and required to join, Medicare.

Medicare recipients are not allowed to go into the exchanges under Obamacare.

Consistent with the longstanding prohibitions on the sale and issuance of duplicate coverage to Medicare beneficiaries.
(section 1882(d) of the Social Security Act), it is illegal to knowingly sell or issue a Qualified Health Plan (QHP) to a Medicare beneficiary.

Medicare is run by CMS. CMS is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is Kathleen Sebelius.

I would have been far more comfortable if she had known that as a Medicare recipient, Obamacare was not an option for her. Or if any of the crack HHS staff sitting behind her had known that.

I did.

On the other end of the Truth-or-Consequences scale is the President said during the sales job for Obamacare and continues to say that if you like your health care plan you can keep it.

According to the Washington Post, the exact quote was: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. 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.

"This is, to put it mildly, a lie. Ok, maybe not a lie but an untruth. All right, not an untruth but a mis-lead.The Post has a "fact check" that links to a YouTube video in which Obama is quoted no less than 23 times saying "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.

"The Post ends its lengthy examination of the "If you like your plan..." statement with this: "The president's promise apparently came with a very large caveat: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan - if we deem it to be adequate.

"It is such an egregious lie, that the Post gave it its highest (or lowest) score for honesty: Four Pinocchios.

It is fair to ask why the national press corps, which is now hot on the trail of the "If you like your plan..." statement didn't notice the regulations issued by HHS (run by Kathleen Sebelius) that negated that promise, even as the President kept making it.

--------------------------

Sebelius had no clue what had gone wrong.

Sebelius and her crew didn't even know why she couldn't enroll in Obamacare

And what position does she hold...UNBELIEVABLE INCOMPETENCY...

Please do us a favor and RESIGN...take your staff with you too

one of the goals of Obamacare was to provide subsidies to people who could not afford health insurance...these people still can't afford health insurance because the health insurers just raised rates in effect capturing 100% or more of the government subsidies...so in actuality the government subsidies only pad the profits of the health insurers...

Sebelius has surely proved that she is beyond INCOMPETENT to oversee Obamacare...

Did anyone hear what Biden said...that even Obama himself couldn't log on...

I'm thinking he can/guess incompetence or misleading isn't a good enough reason though !!!

She is dense...Obama should flat out fire her...