Trump HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price on Patients

Stop Being Such a Groober!

Dr. Jonathan Gruber, PhD, the wunderkind Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist who was the co-author consultant of Obamacare finally had a chance to explain his "stupid" comments on Capitol Hill.  Government Reform member Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC 4th) had said that: "[W]hen you have an insomniac with Tourette's Syndrome, you let him keep talking..." in reference to the glib Mr. Gruber coming to Washington.  The arrogant elitist from M.I.T. did not disappoint.

Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D testifying before House Government Reform Committee 12/09/2014

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH 4th) asked Mr. Gruber how much he earned from his consulting for the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare).  The ordinarily adroit academic amazingly could not remember how much Gruber garnered from his Obamacare contracts.  The reality is that Dr. Gruber earned $400,000 from HHS,  $2.1 million from the National Institute of Health (NIH), $1.7 million from the Department of Justice (DOJ), $100,000 from the State Department and there were other state contracts in conjunction to Obamacare.  It figures that such a smart economist did not want to go on the record for how much he bilked American taxpayers and then called them "stupid".

When Congressman Gowdy got around to questioning Dr. Gruber, Gruber was impeached by his prior statements. Gruber's smugly tried to squirm from his statements by claiming that he was trying to make himself sound smarter than he actually was.  That is about as believable as President Obama's promise: "If you like your health care plan than you can keep it."

As Gowdy promised when Gruber's "stupid" comments finally caught the national attention in mid-November, the former federal prosecutor asked Gruber if he was sorry because he said it or because he meant it.  The economist's answer was as credible as the rest of his testimony.

While the Feinstein Intelligence  Report condemning decade old interrogation tactics by the CIA might have provided sufficient public cover for the day, the American people are not fooled by throwing one academic under the bus..  As more insured individuals are thrown into Obamacare and the Cadallac health care tax comes into being,  smarmy  delay tactics from the District of Calamity (sic)  will not salve the ire of the American body politic.  

However, Republicans should not rest on their laurels.  The GOP won an impressive victory in the midterm elections under the banner of rolling back Obamacare.  If those words were mere wind, the wintery winds of discontent from the middle class can easily make those political gains from the GOP- Cocktail Party may well also be gone with the wind, presuming that voters resist being groobered by bread and circuses. 

h/t: Jeff Darcy

Obamacare Countdown?

Didn't the George Orwell dystopian novel nineteen eighty-four  begin with the ominous phrase "It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. That's not military time or being an Euro poseur.  The clock's thirteenth stroke indicates an event which calls into question everything previously believed.

Or it could just be extra-legal Obamacare extensions by the Executive Branch electoral whimsy. When Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) made motions do delay things, he was vilified.  When President Obama and his HHS minion Kathleen Sebilius do the same thing, the Cocktail Party nomenklatura and the lapdog Lamestream Media let is pass without comment.

It's not just that the  Obamacare (ironically officially titled the Affordable Care Act) is not just bad law which does not accomplish its alleged objectives.  This capriciously changing countdown to Obamacare is instilling a culture of lawlessness in our governance and consolidates Executive Power at the expense of the will of the people embodied in the legislative branch and the states.

Revealing Politics-- The Crook

Karl Marx claimed that: "History repeats itself..first a tragedy, then as a farce."  in reference to Napoleon I and Napoleon III of France.  Astute political observers can appreciate the irony of that aphorism in American politics today considering President Richard M. Nixon's  deceptiveness and the untruthful antics of President Barack H. Obama.

Yet there is disparate treatment by the Lamestream Media.  Nixon was hounded by a hostile media about the subterfuge and political corruption, leading to his resignation just before the House impeached him.

 In the run up to the passage of the so called "Affordable Care Act", Mr. Obama's often repeated a promise to sell the legislation:

"We will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period.”

But it has been recently revealed that the Obama Administration knew this would not be the case soon after the passage of Obamacare.   Moreover, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius interpreted the law to nix private employer health care policies which make any changes.

And after there was hue and outcry from the public, President Obama unilaterally changed the ACA (again) with a questionable "Administrative Fix" which allowed insurers to maintain cancelled plans, if they wanted to do so.  But only for a year, when workers would have to step up to a better model, like a new car with seatbelts. 

During the 1960 campaign, there was a slogan against then Vice President Nixon seeking the highest office of the land "Would you buy a used car from this man?"

Has history repeated itself again in a very expensive farce?

Bet you can get set up with quite a deal on a Volt from Government Motors too.

Rose Garden Shamwow

Three weeks after the launch of Obamacare open enrollment, President Barack Obama held an event in the Rose Garden regarding the so called Affordable Care Act. 

With all of the reports of problems with the Obamacare launch, there was some expectation in the Lamestream Media that no drama President Obama would get mad about what Time called "His Broken Obamacare Website". Maybe the President would act like a leader and fire those in charge of the bureucratic bungle, such as HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.   

Unfortunately, the press availability in the Rose Garden seemed like an extended  25 minute Shamwow commercial. The only element missing was the pitch line "But wait, there's more."

The big news per Jake Tapper at CNN is that the website malfunctions were not called glitches but were upgraded to kinks.   So after funneling $500 million to Quebec's CGI to set up the fatally flawed web portal Healthcare.gov, President Obama suggested using the call center, or letting health navigators assist them in signing up for the mandatory coverage lest they be taxed. 

Despite the $54 million which HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has earmaked for health care navigators , they had no  background checks and the staffing contracts were awarded to Seedco in Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee and New York.  Seedco  is the same company which settled a civil fraud lawsuit in 2012 for faking at least 1,400 of 6,500 job placements under a $22 million federal contract. 

Signing up for Obamacare involves revealing all sorts of personal information that is rife for identity theft.  There are already reports by Watchdog.org in Tennessee that scam artists are posing as navigators who coax medicare recipients for their information.   But there also shady characters who are designated as ACA Navigators.  Rosilyn Wells, the only Obamacare navigator in Lawrence, Kansas had an outstanding warrant for check kiting and has a $1700 state tax deficit.  This makes USIS's flawed background checks on Wikileaker Edward Snowden and Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis look thorough. 

Sadly, Sebelius does not have any time to testify before Congress  about the flawed Obamacare roll-out, but could attend the inaugural Kennedy Center forum the night before.  Perhaps to quell the blow back from this P.R. faux pas, Senate Majority Leader Dick Durban (D-IL) went on Sunday talking head shows to insist that Sebelius will ultimately testify.  Presumably, it will be before the Senate so there is a choreographed kabuki show where Democrats chastise Sebelius more in sorrow than in anger.

Vince Offer (a.k.a. Shlomi)

But such factual side shows take the focus away from the center stage in the Rose Garden rally.  One of the stalwart arguments against Tea Party Conservatives efforts to attach defunding Obamacare to the Continuing Resolution was the mantra that "It's the law".  Listening to the Celebrity-in-Chief's sales pitch, he soft peddled the kinks but felt compelled to sell stories to the American people of why it was a good deal for you.  If Obamacare were a good deal, the White House stenographers pool known as the elite liberal media (a.k.a. the Lamestream Media) would have plenty of positive stories to buttress the ACA.  Instead, Mr. Obama had to try to channel the spirit of Billy Mays or imitate Vince Shlomi,  the Shamwow Guy, to sell his already passed public policy.

If that was not enough, it just so happened that a person prop in back of President Obama fainted and the President caught her.

This was a phenomenon quite prevalent when candidate Obama was running for President in 2008.  It seemed to have mostly disappeared during the first term, but made some reappearances while on the hustings for his Re-Election campaign in 2012.

Considering the content of the Presidential high pressure pitch for "the law" despite its evident early shortcomings, fainting seemed apropos for the Rose Garden feint. 

  

Some of Dr. Dean's Delayed Diagnosis of IPABs

Although  former Vermont Governor and 2004 Presidential Candidate Howard Dean (D-VT) has been out of the practice of medicine for a number of years in lieu of politics, the Doctors delayed diagnosis of IPABs is right on the money.

Recently, Howard Dean wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he prognosticated:  "The IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them."   For those who did not thoroughly study the 2,700 pages of legislation that comprised the ironically titled "Affordable Care Act", otherwise know as Obamacare, IPABs are the 15 member Independent Payment Advisory Board which the HHS Secretary Sebilus appoints that decides the amount that the government will reimburse physicians for medical procedures. 

This was  supposedly intended as a cost control mechanism for Medicare, but in reality will act as a rationing board.  The IPAB name implies that these opinions are advisory, but those opinions become the reality.

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Instead of cajoling vulnerable senior citizens to just "take a pill", the patient is cut out of the process by "Advisory Boards" which make certain treatments financially unviable, depending upon one's status.  When Sarah Palin labled IPABs as "death panels", she was roundly criticized as a scare monger who was stupid, don't cha know?  

A couple of years later,  Dr. Dean  diagnosed IPABs as rationing boards,  it makes  more sense, right?

Howard Dean suggested that: "Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on."  Obviously, the former DNC chair has not gotten with the program to think that Obamacare is about improving healthcare in America.  It seems that it more about control.

Unless Tea Party House Republicans are successful in defunding Obamacare from the FY2014 budget, all Americans will be mandated to participate in the program or pay a tax.  Nevertheless, the IRS will be in charge of collections and monitoring all of the health information.  Recent reports have indicated that health records will be vulnerable to hackers and scammers.  In addition, the IRS has shown political partisanship in vetting Tea Party tax exempt applications and for surrepticiously sharing this information.  Why couldn't the Obamacare cost cutting extend to denying treatment to political opponents?

Allow me to dispense a rhetorical palliative to Obamacare opponents– as P.J. O’Rourke put it: “If you thought that health care is too expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”  Alas, the Affordable Care Act is doubling many peoples’ rates and may cost some their hides. 

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