WASHINGTON DC – Treasury Department officials didn’t check to make sure they had the legal authority to delay an Obamacare mandate before issuing guidance that flouted the text of the law, a department official told House investigators.
Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur, who announced the employer mandate delay in a blog post, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he didn’t remember anyone considering the legal basis for the delay.
“Did anyone in the Department of the Treasury inquire into the legal authority for the delays?” Mazur was asked.
“I don’t recall anything along those lines, no,” he replied. He gave a similar answer when asked about the IRS and the Executive Office of the President. (read more)
Within the insurance industry: Q1 (Jan-March) cost/expense/enrollment information is collected. Q2 (April-June) calculations are made to costs (projections) for the following year. In Q3 (July-Sept) those projections become “premium rates” and are presented to State Insurance regulators for review and notification. In Q4 (Oct-Dec) the customer (YOU) are notified of the new rate.
What you are seeing now in Q1-2014 are the cost projections, the raw data, being collected and recording an astonishing reality. And Insurance executives warning that based on current data collection – Q2’s calculations will necessarily skyrocket.
Trying to stop the publicity of this is why Obama DID THIS. He’s trying to buy time by saying the feds will ramp up payments to insurance carriers – so please don’t tell people their rates are going up.
WASHINGTON DC – Health industry officials say ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country, countering claims recently made by the administration.
The expected rate hikes will be announced in the coming months amid an intense election year, when control of the Senate is up for grabs. The sticker shock would likely bolster the GOP’s prospects in November and hamper ObamaCare insurance enrollment efforts in 2015.
The industry complaints come less than a week after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sought to downplay concerns about rising premiums in the healthcare sector. She told lawmakers rates would increase in 2015 but grow more slowly than in the past. (more…)
Democrats sunk millions into TV commercials and GOTV efforts for a very well known candidate, Alex Sink.
The DNC was relying on this win to showcase a possible path forward through the minefield that lay ahead in 2014. Mrs. Sink was a former candidate for Governor, and still lost in her home congressional district….. Now the spin begins.
WASHINGTON DC – Republican David Jolly won the special election to fill the House seat left vacant by the death of his former boss, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.).
With nearly all of the votes counted Tuesday night, Jolly had 48.5 percent of the vote to Alex Sink’s 46.7 percent. Libertarian Lucas Overby had 4.8 percent.
The GOP underperformed tonight in the #FL13 – a district they've held for decades. Here's why: http://t.co/1Yb516372f
— Debbie Wasserman Schultz (@DWStweets) March 12, 2014
Sink lost the 2010 governor’s race to Rick Scott. The Democratic Party sunk extensive ad funding into the congressional battle, and DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) tried to paint the loss as a positive. (more…)
(Via Political Wire) – A new Public Policy Polling survey in Florida’s 13th congressional district finds Alex Sink (D) leading David Jolly (R) by three points, 48% to 45%.
The district is comprised entirely of Pinellas County – The special election is tomorrow.
CLEARWATER, Fla. – Special elections rarely attract this much attention. But the race for Florida’s 13th Congressional District is a hot one — with so much at stake in November, what happens here is seen as a possible indicator of how the midterm elections could break.
(more…)
Trying desperately to take advantage of a media cycle filled with all things Ukrainian – John Podesta smooth’s White House agenda under the radar….. What the administration is trying to do is keep an electorate from feeling the consequences of Obamacare and trying to retain power despite it….
(Washington Examiner) – The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it would allow insurers to keep until October 2016 health plans that do not meet Obamacare regulations, pushing back another Affordable Care Act deadline well past November’s midterms.
Facing the prospect of another wave of cancellation notices this fall, the administration took even further action to mitigate the blowback from President Obama’s broken promise that all Americans could keep their health care plans under Obamacare.
The Department of Health and Human Services had already given insurers the option of continuing those plans facing cancellation through 2014, and on Wednesday said those policies could remain in effect an additional two years. (more…)
This must be some high falutin’ fancy schmancy restaurant. I mean $2.49 for a glass of Iced-Tea ? Forget the Obamacare tax part. $2.49 for tea ? That’s nuts.
(VIA CNN) Several restaurants in a Florida chain are asking customers to help foot the bill for Obamacare.
Diners at eight Gator’s Dockside casual eateries are finding a 1% Affordable Care Act surcharge on their tabs, which comes to 15 cents on a typical $15 lunch tab. Signs on the door and at tables alert diners to the fee, which is also listed separately on the bill.
The Gator Group’s full-time hourly employees won’t actually receive health insurance until December. But the company said it implemented the surcharge now because of the compliance costs it’s facing ahead of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate kicking in in 2015. (more…)
Hoax and Chains
Progressive community organizing is based around a principle you have to deceive people in order to maintain a ruse of assistance. How weak is your position when your only hope for support is to convince ? (HatTip Weasel Zippers)
(Boston) The head of the state’s beleaguered health insurance marketplace, which was once a national model, broke down in tears Thursday, as she described how demoralizing it has been for her staff to struggle with a broken website that has left an unknown number of people without coverage.
Jean Yang, the executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, wept at a board meeting, where it was disclosed that 50,000 applications for health insurance are sitting in a pile, and have yet to be entered into a computer system.
Each one of those applications requires two hours to process, adding to a mountain of work facing Connector staff as they scramble to prevent people from losing insurance, officials said.
“These people came here to lead and innovate, and instead they’re doing manual workarounds, and they are embarrassed to tell friends and family that they work for the Health Connector,” Yang said at the board meeting. […] (more…)
HatTip Stormy – (who shares) Did you see the segment on Kelly Files about the other little nugget that Beezlebub’s Administration put in the new regulations: small business owners cannot, under penalty of perjury, change the numbers of employees, or the hours of their employees in order to get into a more advantageous group for the Obamacare mandates.
Those free-citizen small business owners have to provide a sworn affidavit to the IRS to that effect.
Welcome to 1984.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/the-kelly-file/index.html#/v/3183622188001
The transparency of the progressive movement is obvious. In the 2012 election cycle we were introduced to Sandra Fluke and her demands of tax-payer funded contraception; this evolved into the ‘War On Women’ faux-outrage campaign.
In this 2014 election cycle the angst needs additional victimization check boxes. Ergo you are being introduced to a “black” (check box one for race/victimization), “gay” (check box two for sexual orientation/victimization), “collegiate football player” (check box three for youth vote/victimization), Michael Sam, who announces his sexual orientation as a measure of his fluke-like worthiness to the progressive left.
Whether Michael Sam is a good football player, a man of strong moral fiber, or an intellectual powerhouse, is irrelevant to the cause.
If he does not get drafted into the NFL the narrative will be because he’s gay and the NFL is homophobic – A successful victim, very useful.
If he does get drafted into the NFL it will be because the world is changing and *despite his victimization* he has succeeded. A successful victim, very useful.
One only needs to look at how the progressive left is scripting the introduction to know that YOU WILL SEE THIS NAME EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR.
“His story sends a message to LGBT, young people, especially young black men, that you are free to show up in the world as your authentic self and others will embrace you”. (USA Today)
If he does get not drafted a coast-to-coast “Democrats In 2014” bus tour campaign win begin. Eventually leading to Michael Sam being the Missouri 2016 Senate or House Candidate. (more…)