One other Obama scandal to watch

On top of everything else, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced on Monday that it will probe Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ efforts to shake insurance companies down for cash, to help “educate” the public about the ObamaCare disaster it hates.

That would be the same ObamaCare that will employ the corrupt Internal Revenue Service as enforcers.  What else does anyone need to know about it?

Those congressional subcommittee hearing rooms are going to be steaming like short-order grills for the next few months.

 

Holy Crap: HHS Secretary Sebilus Is Extorting Money From Health Care Industry To Promote ObamaCare

Are you kidding me? And you wonder where she got the $150 million for publishing propaganda fees.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone hat in hand to health industry executives, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law.Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress has repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving Health and Human Services to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on a shoestring budget.

Sebelius has, over the past three months, made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and directly asked that they contribute to non-profits that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law, according to a Health and Human Services official familiar with the Secretary’s outreach who spoke on condition of anonymity.

What do these calls sound like, “Hi I’m HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. You may recall I have tremendous discretionary power over your company and entire industry. Would you like to donate to my favorite cause? Propagandizing healthcare for us? You would? Thank you so much.”

How much power over the healthcare industry does ObamaCare give Sebelius?

There are more than 2,500 references to the secretary of HHS in the health care law (in most cases she’s simply mentioned as “the Secretary”). A further breakdown finds that there are more than 700 instances in which the Secretary is instructed that she “shall” do something, and more than 200 cases in which she “may” take some form of regulatory action if she chooses. On 139 occasions, the law mentions decisions that the “Secretary determines.” At times, the frequency of these mentions reaches comic heights. For instance, one section of the law reads: “Each person to whom the Secretary provided information under subsection (d) shall report to the Secretary in such manner as the Secretary determines appropriate.”The powers given to Sebelius are wide ranging. In the coming years, if she remains in office, the former Kansas governor will be able to determine what type of insurance coverage every American is required to have. She can influence what hospitals can participate in certain plans, can set up health insurance exchanges within states against their will, and even regulate McDonald’s Happy Meals. She’ll run pilot programs that Democrats have set up in an effort to control costs, and be in a position to dole out billions of dollars in grant money.

But the full breadth of her powers will be known only over time, due to the ambiguity of the language in many parts of the health care legislation. As conservatives make the case for repealing ObamaCare over the course of the next several years, it will be imperative to highlight the arbitrary new powers given to an unelected bureaucrat.

I’m sure people who decline her generous invitation to pay up won’t suffer and negative consequences. Why it’s not like we just found out today Obama used the IRS to target conservatives. Oh, right. And naturally there won’t be a little something extra in the regulations for those that pony up. They are just doing it out of the goodness of their tiny, black, capitalist hearts.

You may recall, Sebelius was previously cited for violating federal law for mixing politics with her official duties.

Second look at Richard Nixon?

HHS budgets $150m to teach people how to enroll in Obamacare

Why would you need this if ‘wasn’t it supposed to be easy’.. Apparently not. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday that HHS will spend $150 million to teach people how to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, after a Democratic senator scolded her for running a poor “public information campaign.”

Isn’t it finny with Democrats they always take the position if only they knew …

 

Proof That ObamaCare Will Fuel Health Care Inflation

You have probably heard healthcare costs are going up, up and up some more, we have to give healthcare to all those illegals, what did you expect it would do???

Health Costs: Americans were promised that ObamaCare would make their health care more affordable. But a pair of studies show the new system has done nothing to lower health costs and will sharply raise them.

Between 2009 and 2011, U.S. health spending rose just 3.9% a year, the lowest annual gains in decades. The Obama administration was quick to claim credit for the slowdown, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying ObamaCare had “contributed to the slowest sustained growth in health spending in 50 years.”

But two new studies make it clear that ObamaCare wasn’t behind the slowdown in health spending growth, and its “reforms” will undermine proven cost-control efforts in the years ahead.

Read more at news.investors.com …

 

You’re Gonna Pay …

The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, a stop-gap measure for those who cannot get health insurance now until the Obamacare mandate kicks in next year, is running out of money because – surprise! – it has major cost overruns.”

It’s looking like those cost overruns will be dumped on the states, many of which haven’t approved the Medicaid expansion yet:

In a letter this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, state officials said they were “blindsided” and “very disappointed” by a federal proposal they contend would shift the risk for cost overruns to states in the waning days of the program. About 100,000 people are currently covered.

“We are concerned about what will become of our high risk members’ access to this decent and affordable coverage,” wrote Michael Keough, chairman of the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. States and local nonprofits administer the program in 21 states, and the federal government runs the remaining plans.

“Enrollees also appear to be at risk of increases in both premiums and out-of-pocket costs that may make continued enrollment cost prohibitive,” added Keough, who runs North Carolina’s program. He warned of “large-scale enrollee terminations at this critical transition time.”

The crisis is surfacing at a politically awkward time for the Obama administration, which is trying to persuade states to embrace a major expansion of Medicaid under the health care law. It may undercut one of the main arguments proponents of the expansion are making: that Washington is a reliable financial partner.

This is jut the tip of the ice berg, I’m afraid.

Obamacare to Cover Train Wrecks, White House Says

Who is driving now?

And talk about low information voters, 42% don’t have a clue what’s coming down the track.

Scrappleface writes:

After Montana Democrat Sen. Max Baucus Wednesday told the Health and Human Services Secretary that Obamacare implementation looks like “a huge train wreck” the White House released a statement noting that “train wrecks would be covered under the Affordable Care Act, including preexisting train wrecks, like Medicaid.”

Sen. Baucus should not be alarmed at the chaos and confusion surrounding the startup of state-based health care exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid, slated to begin October 1, the White House said.

“Not only will train wrecks be covered,” according to the Obama administration, “but also injuries caused by clown cars and goat rodeos. So, the senator has nothing to worry about. The federal government has a long track record of consistent performance in delivering personal services in a way that most people have come to expect from government.”

Press Secretary Jay Carney added, “As the president has said, under Obamacare, you can keep your own deficit and it won’t add a dime to your doctor.”

What If the Seuqester Stands and Nothing Happens

SPIN METER: In budget fight, sky is falling again…

It’s called backoff … at the AP sometimes it’s interesting how their news and commentary merge. This is commentary.

The SpinMeter at AP …

Here is CALVIN WOODWARD’s editorial:

President Barack Obama and his officials are doing their best to drum up public concern over the shock wave of spending cuts that could strike the government in just days. So it’s a good time to be alert for sky-is-falling hype.

Over the last week or so, administration officials have come forward with a grim compendium of jobs to be lost, services to be denied or delayed, military defenses to be let down and important operations to be disrupted. Obama’s new chief of staff, Denis McDonough, spoke of a ‘‘devastating list of horribles.’’

For most Americans, though, it’s far from certain they will have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day if the budget-shredder known as the sequester comes to pass. Maybe they will, if the impasse drags on for months.

For now, there’s a whiff of the familiar in all the foreboding, harking back to the mid-1990s partial government shutdown, when officials said old people would go hungry, illegal immigrants would have the run of the of the land and veterans would go without drugs. It didn’t happen.

Sebelius: Decrease in Human Beings Will Cover Cost of Contraception Mandate

Was there ever any doubt about the goals in all this Obamacare. How could you be so ignorant. It’s all about Gaia, and how humans hurt her, didn’t you know? And America is the worst offender.

But now when you here someone like the Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius come right out and say this, abortion is so we don’t fill up the planet with the little people. The wrong people …

Wasn’t it the NAZIs who viewed things this way? It’s now the goal of the federal government?

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House panel Thursday that a reduction in the number of human beings born in the United States will compensate employers and insurers for the cost of complying with  the new HHS mandate that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is “down not up.”

Sebelius took questions from the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health about President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal.

You want government with that religion, or is government your religion,

Because the Catholic church teaches that sterilization, contraception or abortion are wrong and that Catholics must not be inolved in them, the regulation forces Catholics–and members of other religious denominations that share those views–to act against the teachings of their faith. Numerous lawsuits have already been asserting that the rule violates the First Amendment’s guarantee to the free exercise of religion. Many of the nation’s Catholic bishops have published letters saying: “We cannot–we will not–comply with this unjust law.”

And here you thought the First Amendment prevented this, right? Well it does, when you have a legitimate law abiding President, A lawless one, who doesn’t care, well you decide …

CNS has the hearing video. These are evil people, from Obama on down, remember that when you look them in the eye.

 

Uphold And Defend What?

HHS Secretary and former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution. Since then, it’s apparently been out of sight, out of mind.

We’re Saved, Answers Magically Popping Up All Over: Sebelius: Youth Violence Leads to Asthma and Obesity

Brilliance is found under every apple tree, plunk there comes one now. Violence is a critical health issue. Who knew.

I guess it’s just amongest select groups of virulent people.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday that youth violence is a “chronic health issue” that can lead to asthma, obesity, or depression for “the youth who are involved,” although she did not make clear whether she was speaking solely about the victims of youth violence or the perpetrators or both.

“But it’s important to remember–you just heard from the law enforcement side of this–it’s important to remember that the costs of violence go beyond deaths or injuries or tolls on families and communities,” Sebelius said at a Department of Justice conference Monday on youth violence. “Violence is also a chronic health issue.”

“It leads to asthma, it leads to obesity or depression among the youth who are involved,” Sebelius said at the event in Washington, D.C.

Sebelius went to say, “It’s an economic issue. Currently, it’s thought to cost about $14 billion in medical costs and lost productivity, not just for those acts of violence. And that clearly doesn’t include the economics of the violence itself on communities.”

Youth violence “creates an incredibly vicious cycle since those who witness violence are more likely to become violent themselves,” said Sebelius. “And what all of you today have recognized is that just as the cost of youth violence can affect the whole community, the solutions to youth violence have to come also from the whole community. And at the Department of Health and Human Services, I’m here to tell you that we are committed to supporting that work, both here with our strategies and policies in D.C. but also through our regional offices and our assets on the ground throughout the country.”

Question: Doesn’t this woman have a really important job? Apparently so, because I doubt it’s in diagnostic medicine. At least not a doctor I would choose.

Let’s hope the Supreme Court says she is redundant.