Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP, MACE
It seems that all official Obama administration reports that portend bad news for the administration’s policy are released late Friday afternoon when everyone is heading home for the weekend.It is a time when the news of the reports and press releases are least noticed.
The late Friday afternoon report on August 2, 2013 was released the afternoon congress was going on summer recess for the month of August.
The HHS Inspector General announced that Obamacare’s privacy protections program is way behind schedule. It will not be ready by October 1st when policies will be available to the public. It opens the door for rampant violations of the law.
The Privacy Act of 1974 mandates that each agency of the federal government utilize administrative and physical security systems to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records.The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 requires the executive branch to ensure that Americans’ private records are protected from misuse and security breaches.
The Obama administration is ignoring these laws. On his road show this week he said the health insurance exchanges will start selling insurance on October 1,2013 to go into effect January 1, 2014.
“In the case of the Obamacare hub, any serious security breach could result in identity theft.”
The Obamacare “Hub” computer system cost the government $267 million so far. It is supposed to provide the government with the means to see which applicants qualify for what programs.
On another Friday afternoon during the July 4th weekend,” Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post discovered that the Obama administration had buried in the Federal Register the announcement that the government won’t be able to verify whether or not applicants for Obamacare’s insurance exchange subsidies are actually qualified for the aid, in the 16 states that are setting up their own exchanges."
"Instead, until at least 2015, these states will be able to “accept the applicant’s attestation [regarding eligibility] without further verification.”
I think these announcements warrant the term ”Weekend Surprises” or DBA “I hope no one notices.”
Under FISMA, the Obama administration must adhere to the guidelines of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in achieving these safeguards, before the Obamacare exchanges can legally operate.
It seems it is much more convenient to ignore the law written by the Obama administration and Democrats. Unfortunately, Republicans have not pointed this out to the people.
It gets worse. This policy not only ignores the law of the land it encourages fraud and abuse.
According to the law, a person or family is not eligible for Obamacare’s subsidies if your employer has offered you what the government considers “affordable” coverage.
Employers are not going to have to report whether or not they’ve offered “affordable” coverage. How can the government verify whether or not workers are eligible for subsidies?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. “The exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in an eligible employer-sponsored plan…without further verification, instead of following the procedure in §155.320(d)(3)(iii).”
The Obama administration will also allow people to gain means-tested subsidized coverage on the exchanges without having to have the IRS do means testing on their income.
According to CMS,
“For income verification, for the first year of operations, we are providing Exchanges with temporarily expanded discretion to accept an attestation of projected annual household income without further verification.”
Another President Obama trick. If enough people enroll in the new entitlement it will be politically impossible for Republicans to repeal Obamacare in the future.
These ad-lib rules deliberately encourage tens of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Who is going to suffer in the long run? Hard-working taxpayers. These taxpayers will not receive subsidies. Many of them do not support Obamacare.
Where is the Republican outrage?President Obama anticipated the Republican outrage this week on his political road show.
President Obama blamed Republicans for doing everything in their power to torpedo Obamacare implementation during a Friday afternoon “press conference” before going on his $7.6 million dollar a week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.
“There’s not a pretense how they’re going to replace it with something better,” Obama said. He accused Republicans of an “ideological fixation.” He then compared the Obamacare rollout glitches to glitches in Apple rolling out a new iPad. “I make no apologies” for such glitches, he stated.
Notice President Obama's use of words.
Pure unadulterated well crafted demagoguery.When are the Republicans’ going to respond? When are the people going to recognize President Obama’s game.
Hopefully not before it is too late.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
Please have a friend subscribe
Comments