The Patriot Post® · Plan-demonium! U.S. Not Sold on ObamaCare

ObamaCare was supposed to give Americans more health care coverage. There’s just one problem: no one wants it! That’s the conclusion of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which added to the law’s heap of troubles with its latest projections. Turns out, even hefty fines can’t persuade Americans to buy into the president’s system, as millions opt not to enroll. After predicting business would top 20 million people, CBO broke the bad news that enrollment would miss the mark by a whopping 40 percent.

Adding to the government’s woes, a huge slice — 11 of the 13 million — will need government subsidies just to buy the insurance. And unfortunately for taxpayers, those subsidies don’t come cheap. As the number-crunchers at CBO warned, “Subsidies and related spending are expected to increase by $18 billion in 2016, reaching a total of $56 billion.” Still, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell insists the health care exchanges “have seen ‘unprecedented demand’ and ‘steady progress signing up new customers.’”

But unlike the Obama administration, the numbers don’t lie. With just five days left in the sign-up window, enrollment is lower now than it was in 2015. Only in liberal speak is that “progress!” And, as several experts point out, fewer customers means higher costs. “For middle-class families, premium hikes this year have only made a further mockery of the Affordable Care Act’s name,” Forbes chastised. “A typical family making 400 percent of the poverty level — the cutoff for ObamaCare’s subsidies — must spend almost 10 percent of its income on insurance premiums, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And that’s for a health plan that could still saddle them with thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.” The CBO report sent a tremor through insurance companies, who were already skittish about their involvement in ObamaCare’s sinking ship. Most have two options: charge more or leave the exchange altogether.

UnitedHealth, one of America’s largest health insurers, has already taken a half-billion dollar hit for joining the system. “We can’t subsidize a market that doesn’t appear at this point to be sustaining itself,” CEO Stephen Hemsley said in November. Three months later, its involvement with ObamaCare is dragging the entire company down. “No company can sustain the kinds of losses UHG is experiencing … and stay in this market long, nor should they,” wrote Joel White of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage. With enrollment drying up and sick customers outweighing healthy ones, “it looks like the start of a death spiral,” he warned.

Meanwhile, the only death spiral Americans are interested in is the law’s. Congress did its part, sending a bill to repeal the major pillars of ObamaCare to the president’s desk. He stood by his namesake (and its failures) by vetoing the measure. Next week, the House and Senate will try to find the votes to override him.

Originally published here.

Law and Border

If there’s one thing the Obama administration hasn’t been accused of, it’s being overly cautious. From Syrian refugees to Iran’s nuclear deal, the president’s team consistently puts safety second. The same seems to be true in the border wars of southern Texas, where young migrant children are spilling into the U.S. to escape persecution.

Or so they thought. According to a startling report, these young people are being subjected to just as much abuse here as at home. Why? Because the administration, in another stunning leave of its senses, stopped vetting the homes where U.S. officials place the children. The AP broke the explosive story, which explains that HHS has relaxed its protocol — and kids are paying for it. “Without enough beds to house the record numbers of young arrivals, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lowered its safety standards during border surges in the last three years to swiftly move children out of government shelters and into sponsors’ homes,” reporters point out.

For starters, the article explains, the government stopped finger-printing the adults housing the children. Then it decided not to require birth certificates or basic background checks. And the results have been jaw-dropping: more than two dozen documented cases of child “sexual abuse, labor trafficking, or severe abuse and neglect.” People close to the situation are shocked, arguing that the government would never place U.S. foster children into homes with so little scrutiny. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee blasted the administration for making a bad situation worse.

First the president wouldn’t secure the border — now he won’t secure the children streaming across it. “The ongoing surge at the southwest border is a crisis of President Obama’s own making,” Goodlatte argued, “and places innocent children’s lives at risk. The Obama administration’s policy of non-enforcement has encouraged these children to take the long and perilous journey to the U.S. in the first place, and now these children also face very dangerous situations once they arrive as a result of the Obama administration’s lack of due diligence. Because the administration took shortcuts in the vetting process, several children have been delivered into the hands of criminals and abusers and have faced horrific situations. This is tragic and unacceptable.”

House members had already sent the Protection of Children Act to the floor in hopes of putting a policy in place to safely return these kids home. Next week, when both chambers are back in session, Rep. Goodlatte promises to make an even stronger statement by holding hearings about the border surge. In the meantime, it’s obvious that the president’s immigration free-for-all isn’t good for America — or the children being pushed across the border.

Originally published here.

Free at Last, Free at Last!

For the past three and a half years, Pastor Saeed Abedini was living a real-life horror story. Locked away in an Iranian cell and tortured for his faith since 2012, Saeed said he survived by praying — sometimes as much as 20 hours a day. With only the clothes on his back, he was left in solitary confinement, seeing people only when it was time for routine beatings — or, in one of the brighter spots of his captivity — sharing a cell with fellow prisoner and U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati.

[Monday] night, after more than three and a half years of praying for Saeed, Americans finally had the chance to hear from him. In an emotional sit-down with Greta Van Susteren, the pastor explained that as awful as his experience was, he was still more fortunate than most. “The worst thing I saw was when they took some Sunnis for execution, it was in front of our eyes, and they took like tens of them to hang, every Wednesday.” Violent interrogations were regular occurrences for the U.S. pastor, but medical treatment following them was not. Left to bleed internally, Saeed said the “best thing” he could do was “pray.” Passing the long hours was an even greater struggle, since — with the exception of the 60 days with Amir — Saeed had no one to talk to and nothing to read.

Now, waking up in the safe and comfortable surroundings of Rev. Franklin Graham’s North Carolina retreat, Saeed hopes to start healing more than his body. No one, Rev. Graham said, can “begin to understand or appreciate what Saeed has endured after being imprisoned in Iran because of his Christian faith.” We rejoice with the Abedinis that their loved one is home — and continue to pray for the thousands of Saeeds suffering around the world, waiting for governments like the United States’ to notice.

Originally published here.