clusterfuck – The Burning Platform

Illinois Obamacare Co-Op Goes Bust Leaving Tens of Thousands At Risk

Tyler Durden's picture

by Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The fact that Obamacare is a gigantic train wreck barreling uncontrollably into a brick wall is pretty much undeniable at this point. I’ve covered this reality from several angles in 2016, with one of the more popular posts being, The Health Insurance Scam – “Coverage” Doesn’t Mean Affordability or Access, in which I noted:

Politicians, particularly those of the Democratic persuasion, love to throw around statistics about how many additional people have healthcare coverage without ever talking about the cost of such coverage, or whether it actually translates into actual access in the real world.

While a greater number of Americans having health insurance is a good thing when it comes to protecting against unexpected catastrophic events or extended hospital stays, it doesn’t tell you anything about two very important variables: 1) How much does it cost? 2) What kind of access does it provide? As usual, the devil is in the details.

We’ve all seen headlines about higher monthly premiums, but that’s just the tip of iceberg. Once you’ve paid your premium, you’re far from off the hook. Another one-two punch of deductibles, copays and out of pocket maximums appear which can collectively run into the thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars for families.

In my opinion, the above situation represents the number one failure of Obamacare, but there are others. Today’s piece focuses in on the state of Obamacare co-ops, which were “created under the federal health law to provide cost-effective coverage and competition in state insurance markets.”

Continue reading “Illinois Obamacare Co-Op Goes Bust Leaving Tens of Thousands At Risk”

ANOTHER PHILLY CLUSTERF*CK

Another example of Philly incompetence, corruption, and terrible decision making. The morons running SEPTA decided to replace their functional 1960s produced trains with the cheapest foreign made trains and then had them assembled by union workers in South Philly. After 4 years of service all of the new trains are defective and could derail at any time. These boobs now have to take 33% of their fleet offline for months.

You can be sure this company has feathered the nests of the politicians who chose them. When black thugs aren’t terrorizing passengers on the platforms, their brand new trains are falling apart. They are so well run that revenue comes up only $850 million short of expenses. Taxpayers are forced to subsidize their massive loss. Maybe another advertising campaign using taxpayer funds will rectify this slight problem. Philly is the clusterfuck capital of the world. I can’t wait for the DNC in three weeks.

Via BillyPenn.com

Silverliner V 101: The problematic backstory of SEPTA’s futuristic cars

Just like that, a third of the cars on SEPTA’s incredibly popular Regional Rail line went out of service, one day into the holiday weekend that best showcases Philadelphia.On Saturday, the transit authority abruptly sidelined 120 of its Silverliner V passenger cars due to a “significant structural defect” after staffers noticed they were “leaning.” Ominously, the move set the stage for a potential commuting mess when the 130,000 people who ride the Regional Rail try to do that again after the July 4 holiday.

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Viral Video Shows Nightmare TSA Line Stretching “For Miles”

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/16/2016 13:16 -0400

After questioning whether a self-imposed process to make airline check-ins more rigorous, knowingly increasing wait times, was a Federally-funded scheme to force travelers to enroll in pre-check programs, thus manipulating people into cooperating with authoritarian strategies; it seemed rather appropriate that the following video, which went viral, shows what is simply a stunningly long TSA line wait at Midway Airport.

As WaPo reports, when Sean Hoffman arrived at Midway Airport last week for his flight home to Oregon, he said he was taken aback by the comically long line to get through security.

“I got to the end, (and) I was like, holy (expletive), people would probably like to see this,” Hoffman recalled in an interview.

And so he did…

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THE OBAMACARE DISASTER ACCELERATES

Via Breitbart

UnitedHealth, America’s largest health insurance provider, says it will exit from most ObamaCare exchanges next year, citing more than $1 billion in losses.

CEO Stephen Hemsley says his company “cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers,” as reported by the Associated Press.

The announcement came after UnitedHealth revised its projection for 2016 to $650 million in losses, up from a previous estimate of $525 million, after ending 2015 some $475 million in the red.

As the AP tells it, UnitedHealth had “second thoughts” almost immediately after announcing it would expand participation from four state exchanges to 34.

As of last November, the company was debating a complete exit from all ObamaCare exchanges, but has apparently decided to remain active in a “handful” of states, which Hemsley did not specify in his conference call to report company earnings. It has already been announced that the company was pulling out of Arkansas, Georgia, and Michigan.

The Washington Post cites a Kaiser Family Foundation study that estimated about 1.1 million ObamaCare customers would be left with a single insurance provider to “choose” from, if UnitedHealth withdrew from every ACA exchange. According to this analysis, “the impact could be significant in some areas, particularly in rural areas in Southern states.”

The Associated Press notes that some other big insurance players, such as Aetna, have reported heavy losses from the ACA exchanges, and are expected to “trim their exchange participation in 2017.”

“A dozen nonprofit health insurance cooperatives created by the ACA to sell coverage on the exchanges have already folded, and the survivors all lost millions last year,” the AP adds.

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Health Insurance

Guest Post by Stilton Jarlsberg

obama, obama jokes, political, humor, cartoon, conservative, hope n' change, hope and change, stilton jarlsberg, obamacare, health insurance, blue cross, hell

I’m aware that people come to Hope n’ Change for a pithy analysis of the news rather than to hear my personal woes, so let me handle the headlines first: “smoking gun” emails from Hillary have been revealed that show she committed felonies. She will get away with them. An angry Muslim shot a policeman multiple times in the name of Allah because police enforce non-Shariah laws. Authorities assure us this had nothing to do with Islam. And finally, tomorrow will be Barack Hussein Obama’s final “State of the Union” speech, and he will tell not an iota of truth.

Aaaaaaand that’s the news. And now to turn to the lighter side…

And when I say “lighter” it’s because I wish I was currently holding one under a bong filled with weapons-grade hashish to dull my current Obamacare-inflicted woes.

On Saturday, I received a phone call from daughter Jarlsberg (in her 20’s), who was upset because she’d gone to the pharmacy to pick up her epilepsy medications (important, right?) and had her spanking new insurance card rejected at the cash register because the policy had been “terminated.” Rather than immediately go into seizures, she paid cash for the prescriptions at the uninsured price – over $300 which she doesn’t have to spare.

Continue reading “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Health Insurance”

PAPAL LOCKDOWN

The total lock down of Philadelphia began yesterday. The socialist, left wing, rockstar pope arrives in the U.S. today, causing mass gridlock, lost economic productivity, and another opportunity for our Orwellian police surveillance state to flex its muscles and treat its citizens like cattle and sheep. It started with the lock down of Boston a couple years ago as the all-powerful State took a giant shit on the Fourth Amendment as they hunted down two teenage utensil bomb terrorists. The DHS thugs have continued to militarize Barney Fife police forces around the country. Every man, woman and child is treated like a terrorist when going to a god damn baseball or football game. As reported by Marketwatch, the pope will inconvenience millions in three large US cities over the next six days.

Pope Francis’ historical six-day visit to the U.S. will bring some of the tightest security in Washington, D.C., New York and Philadelphia this week. Pope Francis, 78, will arrive from Cuba at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Tuesday, Sept. 22. He’ll then meet with President Barack Obama, be honored in a parade on the National Mall in Washington that’s expected to draw more than 200,000 people, hold mass and address a joint session of Congress. The pope will then travel to New York by plane,where he’ll address the United Nations, parade through Central Park and hold mass at Madison Square Garden. He will then fly from JFK airport to Philadelphia. On Sunday morning, he’ll visit a prison and later that afternoon will lead a mass that is expected to draw as many as one million people. He’ll head back to Rome on Sunday. Sept. 27.

The Secret Service, who can’t keep idiots from jumping the White House fence and getting in to see Obama, are in charge of keeping the pope safe from the thousands of terrorists roaming the streets of the US who want to kill him. This is really an inconvenience for the top notch secret service agents because it cuts into their time banging whores and allowing planes to land on the White House lawn. Of course, we’ve already had the “terrorist plot foiled” bullshit story released to the media to prove they are keeping us safe. They are now scrapping the the bottom of the barrel with 15 year olds posting on facebook.

Continue reading “PAPAL LOCKDOWN”

No Kidding: IRS starts Punishing Businesses for Helping Workers Buy Insurance

Obamacare – the gift that keeps on taking. Not only hasn’t it covered the 30 million uninsured, saved families $2,500 per year, added one cent to the national debt, or improved healthcare, but it is now destroying more small businesses with outrageous fines for not complying with its ridiculous mandates. Read it and weep if you are a small business owner or employee of a small business. Obamacare started out as a shitshow and has graduated to a clusterfuck. But at least we now know what’s in it. Thanks Pelosi.

Washington, DC – An obscure IRS rule took effect on July 1 under which small businesses that get caught helping their workers buy insurance or pay medical bills can be fined 18 times more than larger employers that don’t provide coverage at all, warned the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) today.

“It’s the biggest penalty that no one is talking about,” said NFIB Policy Director Kevin Kuhlman. “The penalty for compensating employees for healthcare-related expenses is enough to destroy most small businesses.”

Under the rule, which appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act, employers who do not offer a group health plan, but give their workers additional pay to compensate for the purchase of health insurance or direct medical expenses can be fined $100 per day, per employee. Over the course of a year that’s $36,500 per employee up to $500,000 in total. The penalty on businesses for failing to comply with the employer mandate is only $2,000 per year.

“It’s hard to believe Congress or the President intended to punish employers much more severely for actually helping their workers,” said Kuhlman. “Nevertheless, that’s the consequence and most small businesses don’t know it.”

Continue reading “No Kidding: IRS starts Punishing Businesses for Helping Workers Buy Insurance”

LATEST OBAMACARE F#@K UP

Obamacare is the biggest government clusterfuck in history. It is proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything the government touches or tries to control turns into a big steaming pile of shit that will cost trillions of dollars. Their shit for brains website is still a disaster. Obama changes the law as he goes. Like most of Obama’s initiatives, they are making it up as they go along. This was about as well thought out as Nancy Pelosi’s plastic surgeries.

They announced earlier today that they are extending the sign up period to April 15. Deadlines are meaningless. We are now about to experience the massive losses from the fraud that has occurred in the last year. Billions in subsidies have been paid out in error or due to fraud. How much do you think will be paid back by the Free Shit Army brigades? How long before Obama issues a proclamation telling the IRS to not enforce the penalties or to try and collect the fraudulent subsidies paid out?

And amazingly, most of the ignorant masses think Obamacare is a wonderful new program and is helping millions of poo people. Luckily the iGadget addicted, math challenged masses don’t remember that Obamacare was going to cover the 30 million uninsured Americans, not add one dime to the national debt, and save the average family $2,500 per year in insurance premiums. How are those promises working out?

Wrong tax information sent to 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers

By Robert Schroeder

Published: Feb 20, 2015 12:12 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — About 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers got tax forms from the government with incorrect information, a Treasury Department spokesperson said Friday. The errors were on 1095-A forms that HealthCare.gov sent to consumers who get coverage through the federal insurance marketplace. Treasury said those who have not filed taxes should wait to do so until they have received a corrected form. Treasury said corrected forms will go out in early March.

HAVE YOU BEEN “INVITED” TO GO INTO THE HEALTHCARE MARKETPLACE?

EFFORTS to refine Obamacare dross into gold are turning into self-parodies of liberal spin.

At a recent hearing conducted by the Virginia legislature, federal Health and Human Services official Joanne Grossie told lawmakers that people shouldn’t view the cancellation of insurance policies due to Obamacare as losing insurance. It’s really an “invitation” to get another policy, Grossie said.

“If you got one of the notices that your policy was going to be discontinued because it didn’t adhere to the law, it meant that now you could go into the health insurance marketplace,” she said. “So, I just want to remind you that you weren’t losing insurance; you were just losing that insurance plan and were now being invited to go into the health insurance marketplace.”

Gosh, that puts things in a whole new perspective! No doubt, the administration’s new logic can be applied to a wide range of situations in both politics and daily life.

Your wages haven’t been stagnant thanks to President Obama’s economic policies. You’ve merely been “invited” to live an increasingly frugal lifestyle. You weren’t fired from your job. You were “invited” to look for other employment opportunities. Your spouse didn’t divorce you. You were merely “invited” to return to the single life.

You didn’t … well, you get the idea. That federal officials offer farcical answers in response to serious questions shows this administration’s disdain for, or cluelessness about, the general public. Remember, Obama promised that we could keep our coverage if we liked it. That invitation got lost in the maelstrom that characterizes the Obamacare fiasco.

Via The Oklahoman

1 OUT OF 6 OBAMACARE ENROLLEES ARE FRAUDS

You have 360,000 frauds who faked their income levels. You have another 966,000 illegals who have fraudulently signed up. It seems the PR number of 8 million enrollees is really 6.7 million. And these are just the frauds the administration is admitting to. You know it is far worse. There are probably 5 million legitimate enrollees and most of them already had insurance coverage before Obamacare. This abortion of a program was sold to the American people as the salvation for the 30 million uninsured Americans. Obama has managed to drive healthcare premiums up by 50% to 100% since 2009 and has only covered 10% of the uninsured population. I can’t understand why the Democrats don’t want to run on their prize piece of legislation and Obama has delayed the really bad shit until 2015 after the elections. What a clusterfuck.

Via The Hill

Administration threatens to cut off ObamaCare subsidies to 360,000

By Sarah Ferris – 09/15/14 04:30 PM EDT

The Obama administration announced Monday it will cut off tax subsidies to about 360,000 people if they do not offer proof of their income in the next two weeks.

Officials will send final notices this week to individuals who signed up for ObamaCare with income levels that didn’t match government records. The announcement marks the administration’s first move to tackle the politically charged issue of income verification, which has remained a key GOP argument against the healthcare reform law.

Those who don’t confirm their income levels could lose their tax credit and face higher premiums and higher deductibles.

Nearly 90 percent of the 8 million people who signed up for ObamaCare have received government subsidies. The average consumer pays $82 per month for a $346 plan, receiving an average subsidy of $264.

The administration had already warned that it would end coverage for the 966,000 individuals whose immigration status could not be confirmed by the government.

About 115,000 people will lose coverage this month if they do not submit their paperwork, Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters Monday.

A total of 1.2 million people have had income inconsistencies since the launch of ObamaCare last year. About 800,000 people have since submitted verification.

The federal government is still missing paperwork for nearly a half-million people who signed up for insurance over the last year. Slavitt stressed that individuals may be able to regain their coverage during a special enrollment period if they can prove their citizenship status or income level.

The administration will continue calling and sending letters to individuals who have not submitted the paperwork. Many have already been contacted up to a dozen times, Slavitt said.He stressed that people with income verification issues will not lose their coverage.

“If people still pay their premiums and can demonstrate their eligibility, they’ll continue to be enrolled,” Slavitt said Monday.

Many of the verification problems stem from the HealthCare.gov website, which experienced technical glitches throughout its rollout. Slavitt was brought this year in to resolve some of the problems.

Some immigration advocates have blamed the website as a barrier for people trying to provide documentation of their citizenship.

“I’m hopeful and confident that people will continue to respond to a greater degree,” Slavitt said, predicting a last-minute surge before the deadline. “We recognize that we still have work to do here.”

At a hearing last week by the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, Republicans accused the Obama administration of using “the honor system” when asking consumers to self-disclose their income.

“That’s why the White House has lost, in my view, the trust of the American people,” subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told Slavitt at the hearing.

OBAMA RESPONSIBLE FOR DOUBLE DIGIT INSURANCE PREMIUM INCREASES

Obamacare is such a clusterfuck and Obama has unilaterally changed, delayed, and manipulated his own law so many times that insurance companies don’t know whether to shit or wind their wristwatch. When in doubt about what Obama will do next, just raise insurance premiums by 10% or more. The Savior has delayed the truly horrific aspects of the law until after the mid-term elections because we wouldn’t want the Democrats to take credit for this national disaster.

I had a doctor appointment on Wednesday and with no prompting from me, the nurse was blaming Obamacare for the huge increases in premiums and the deterioration of care. I also had to provide my driver’s license for the first time ever and they scanned it into some machine. I’m sure they are now doing this for my benefit and care.

Do you think the CEO of Aetna will be audited by the IRS in the near future?

Via Breithbart

Aetna: ‘On the Fly’ Obamacare Changes Responsible for Half of 2015 Premium Jump

America’s third-largest health insurer said on Thursday that customers can expect 2015 premium spikes that in some states will be “over double digits” because of the Obama administration’s endless “on the fly” Obamacare changes.

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told reporters that his company prefers to stay at its current level of Obamacare participation in just 17 states and said customers can expect health insurance premiums to climb, despite the Affordable Care Act. Specifically, Bertolini said that, depending on a customer’s state and the mix of sick versus healthy patients, customers should be prepared for insurance hikes ranging from “the very low single digits” to “some that will be over double digits.”

Aetna says the Obama administration caused so much uncertainty with its myriad regulatory changes that half of Aetna’s premium increases are due to President Barack Obama’s administration’s constant shifts in decisions, rules, deadlines, and regulations.