Obama’s “Navigators” & Community Organizing (HB 136)
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste ... it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” [Rahm Emanuel, (D) Mayor of Chicago, past Chief of Staff for Barack Obama]
“We the people” paid $67 million to register democrat voters by Obamacare’s nationwide traveling Obamacare salesmen called “Navigators.” HHS awarded that much tax money to pay over 100 pro-Obama leftist groups in 34 states to sign up enrollees for Obamacare and show how enrollees can register to vote at the same time.
Among the Navigators are Planned Parenthood affiliates, homosexual activist organizations, United Way groups, Area Aging agencies, consumer health groups, Community Action Agencies, Migrant Health and the Virginia Poverty Law Center. http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Programs-and-Initiatives/Health-Insurance-Marketplaces/Downloads/navigator-list-10-18-2013.pdf Navigators can be felons, do not have to be bonded, or receive the education and training required of regular insurance agents.
On page 59 (of the 61 page HHS Obamacare application) the applicant is asked, "Would you like to register to vote?" The close proximity of such a voter registration question to the certification of a government subsidy surely must suggest the two are somehow linked.
Navigator Abuses
The US House Oversight Committee conducted a hearing on Navigators (12/6/13). Among other issues, Chairman Darrel Issa noted, “In Dallas, Navigators have been caught on camera advising individuals to commit tax fraud by under reporting income in order to gain higher subsidies.”
Delegate Marshall’s Legislative Response
Because of these and other problems I introduced HB 136 which provides that any Obamacare Navigator or affiliated group must be licensed by the State Corporation Commission and would require completing a training program, passing an exam, and submitting a criminal history. The SCC will not issue or renew a license to a “Navigator” for felony conviction involving fraud, misuse of funds, misuse of information, being required to register with the Sex Offender Registry, or knowingly providing inaccurate information to uninsured persons regarding premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions.
HB 136 also makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor for a Navigator to provide applicant information to any political party or private group or person for voter registration, to disclose a social security number or any other personal information of any applicant or to encourage or direct an individual to knowingly make any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations to an exchange or government agency in connection with enrollment for Obamacare. http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?141+ful+HB136
Obama’s Health Care Vote Buying
Obama and his “progressives” are using tax money to increase their own political power, not just for one election, but for decades. Navigators nationwide will create a class of voters heavily dependent on tax-paid healthcare giveaways. Obama meant it when he said he would change America, and he is doing it with our tax money.
Our tax dollars are subsidizing millions of Obamacare recipients and will create a new constituency motivated to turn out at the polls to vote for liberal democrats. Talking the virtues of a Free Market economy to such voters won’t cut it. Democrat political party bosses in 1890’s New York City Tammany Hall would have loved to have such leverage!
Cautions from Social Security Commissioner
Michael Astrue [HHS general counsel (1989-92) and Social Security Commissioner (2007-13)] recently wrote: “HHS opened the door to large-scale fraud by providing funding for tens of thousands of ‘navigators’ ... to persuade the uninsured to apply for coverage ... Instead of hiring well-screened, well-trained, and well-supervised workers, HHS decided to build political support for the Affordable Care Act by pouring money into supportive organizations ... these navigators are unaccountable, and yet they will be asking people for Social Security numbers and other sensitive information.” [Weekly Standard, 10/21/13]
Citizens need to remember that, “At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to... the agency’s inspector general. ... IRS field office ... decided to focus on groups making statements that ‘criticize how the country is being run’ and those that were involved in educating Americans ‘on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.’” [Washington Post, 5/12/13]
It is naive beyond description to think that Barack Obama, the most power-grasping president in American history, would not want to use this opportunity to solidify power for himself and fellow progressives.
State Attorneys General Weigh In
Thirteen Attorneys General wrote HHS Secretary Sebelius in August, 2013 to express their concerns with the lack of security of data integrity furnished by Obamacare applicants:
“... the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ... guidelines appear to provide significantly less protection to consumers with respect to navigators than the states have provided with respect to insurance agents and brokers. ... state-level ... licensed agents and brokers are personally liable if they fail to comply with these laws and requirements, and are obligated to maintain professional liability insurance to protect consumers.
Your guidance does not include comparably rigorous training or educational requirements for navigators. ... impose specific liability for disclosing ... private information that will be given to counselors. Existing laws criminally prohibit sharing certain forms of consumer information ... but those laws do not cover all the information consumers will provide to these HHS-sponsored programs.
.... HHS will be giving its stamp of approval to every counselor who interacts with a consumer. This position of trust will allow counselors to gain access to a wide variety of personal information from unsuspecting consumers.”
As proof of this, a Minnesota Obamacare exchange employee “accidentally sent an e-mail file to an Apple Valley insurance broker’s office ... that contained Social Security numbers, names, business addresses and other identifying information on more than 2,400 insurance agents.”
“An official at MNsure, the state’s new online health insurance exchange, acknowledged it had mishandled private data. A MNsure security manager called the broker, Jim Koester, and walked him and his assistant through a process of deleting the file from their computer hard drives. Koester said he willingly complied, but was unnerved.”
“‘The more I thought about it, the more troubled I was,’ he said. ‘What if this had fallen into the wrong hands? It’s scary. If this is happening now, how can clients of MNsure be confident their data is safe?’” [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 9/13/13 http://www.startribune.com/business/223564521.html]
The answer is you can’t. And Obama doesn’t care because his law is primarily geared to securing votes for the next several elections with a tenuous promise to Americans they will have health care. In mob pressure tactic fashion, Americans were ordered to sign up for Obamacare or pay a fine. Even King George III never made American colonists buy tea! Your personal security is secondary to Obama’s political goals.
Garner Support
Please ask your delegate and senator to support HB 136. And ask you friends to do the same. Go to http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/VGAMain?openform to learn who your delegate and senator are. Ask that they co-patron HB 136 or at least vote for it.
“You can Keep Your Insurance.” (HB 236)
A December, 2013 USA Today/Pew research poll found that Americans who viewed Obama as trustworthy fell 14% “from 66% to 52%. This is Obama’s lowest rating for trustworthiness ... This decline in Obama’s credibility may well reflect public reactions to his promise that if people like their current health care plans they would be able to keep them under the Affordable Care Act.”
When Republicans in Congress wanted to delay Obamacare’s implementation for a year, Obama said he would not negotiate with Republican obstructionists. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement saying the President would veto the bill rather than delay Obamacare, adding, “Republicans decided they would rather make an ideological point by demanding the sabotage of the health care law.”
During the late September 2013 shutdown fight looming in Congress, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md, accused Republicans in the House of Representatives of "rampant irresponsibility" for seeking a year’s delay in implementing Obamacare. Then all of of a sudden, millions of Americans started receiving notices that their individual coverage policies would be cancelled, which the Administration knew would happen.
Obama Does About Face
Obama has now completely reversed himself and embraced policies he previously denounced without even a whimper of protest from his defenders in the media or his slavish congressional supporters for taking actions his press secretary characterized only weeks before as “the sabotage of the health care law” by Republicans.
U. S. Senator Mark Warner also made similar false claims about being able to keep your insurance and your doctor. And so with literally millions of Americans losing their individual coverage health plans, which the Administration knew would happen, Obama, without passing a new law or citing any Congressional authority from his abominable Affordable Care Act, just issued a directive to HHS that Americans could renew their old non Obamacare compliant policies. (Where he gets such wizard-like authority is a subject for a different alert.)
Obama tells HHS to Amend his own Law
On December 19, 2013, HHS, not the White House, issued a memorandum, minus any citation of legal authority from the ACA to do so, allowing Americans in the individual insurance market to purchase their prior catastrophic plans for another year. http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Regulations-and-Guidance/Downloads/cancellation-consumer-options-12-19-2013.pdf As for those millions of Americans who already purchase the much more expensive Obamacare replacements with higher deductibles and who will not now be able to see their previous doctor, well, compassion has run out for them at the White House.
I called Virginia’s Insurance Commissioner regarding Obama’s flipflop statement. She told me that in Virginia, we have to follow the law--a concept apparently foreign to Washington. She said that because the General Assembly passed a law conforming our health insurance statutes to Obamacare (which I opposed), she was powerless to initiate an administrative switch to allow Virginians to simply renew their previous health insurance policy.
Delegate Bob Marshall’s Legislative Response
I introduced HB 236 which provides that a health insurance carrier may offer or renew a previous catastrophic coverage health benefit plan that would otherwise not be allowed because it does not meet the many requirements of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. If enacted, my law would allow Americans to purchase the prior catastrophic coverage plans as long as the Obama Administration suspends the Affordable Care Act. HB 236 has an emergency clause to allow former health insurance plans which Obama criticized as inadequate, substandard, or lacking in so-called essential protections, to be purchased or renewed immediately. http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?141+ful+HB236
Please ask your delegate and senator to co-sponsor or vote for HB 136 so Virginians who lost their individual catastrophic coverage may still be able to purchase such coverage at least for the next year. And please ask you friends to do the same. Go to http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/VGAMain?openform to learn who your delegate and senator are.
Thank you for your support.
No comments:
Post a Comment