Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the Obama Administration on the list, in alphabetical order, include:

• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

The Fast and Furious operation by itself should have resulted in Holder’s resignation, but it is the cover-up that has prompted serious calls for Holder’s ouster. (more…)

From The Hill:

President Obama is against repealing the health law’s long-term care CLASS Act and might veto Republican efforts to do so, an administration official tells The Hill, despite the government’s announcement Friday that the program was dead in the water.

“We do not support repeal,” the official said Monday. “Repealing the CLASS Act isn’t necessary or productive. What we should be doing is working together to address the long-term care challenges we face in this country.”

Over the weekend, The Hill has learned, an administration official called CLASS Act advocates to reassure them that Obama is still committed to making the program work. That official also told advocates that widespread media reports on the program’s demise were wrong, leaving advocates scratching their heads.

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From Reuters:

A key recommendation for medical coverage standards under President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul will be released on October 7, according to the organization preparing the report.

The Department of Health and Human Services has asked the influential Institute of Medicine, an independent agency in Washington, to recommend how HHS should determine the basic health benefits for millions of Americans who will qualify for coverage sold through insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.

IOM spokeswoman Christine Stencel on Thursday said the agency will release the report on October 7, just a week later than the self-imposed deadline of the end of September.

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If you need evidence of the turmoil created by Barack Obama’s socialist health care overhaul, you could certainly look at the myriad of legal challenges currently working their way through the courts. (A date with the Supreme Court is a certainty.) Or you could look at the massive influx of applications from unions and companies scrambling to get out from under the law’s oppressive requirements by obtaining waivers from the Obama administration.

The Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced an arbitrary September 2011 cutoff for waiver applications, but right up to this deadline these exemptions continue to proliferate. According to The Hill, 106 new waivers were granted in July, bringing the total to 1,472 unions and companies that have been granted exemptions from Obamacare. And yet, the Obama administration continues to be super secretive regarding just how these waiver applications are evaluated.

But here’s one thing we do know. Approximately 50% of the waivers granted cover employees of unions even though union workers represent about 12% of the total workforce according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics!

Why are unions seemingly getting a disproportionate number of waivers? That’s just one of many questions at the center of a Judicial Watch investigation.

Recently, for example, we obtained 3,497 pages of Obamacare documents from the Obama HHS pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed on January 4, 2011.

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Comedy gold or a pathetic partisan ploy can characterize Kathleen Sebelius’s testimony when she attempts to minimize the immense authority granted to the Independent Medicare Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), when so many of us know the raw real deal. On July 13, the House Subcomittee on Health and Energy held hearings on the controversial IPAB, in which Sebelius attempted to minimize and circumvent the truth (pdf and a must read) with regards to the IPAB.

Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX and yes, he is also Dr. Burgess) questioned Secretary Sebelius on several key factors, including the unelected 15-person panel, their potential recess appointments to avoid Senate confirmation, and the ultimate effects of this panel in reshaping the health care system. Burgess does not let Sebelius off the hook, but pushes her on the IPAB’s power and lack of judicial oversight. The entire exchange is worth watching:

Sebelius touts that the IPAB is only a “fail-safe” and only makes recommendations if Congress does not act:

But Sebelius was defiant against claims that IPAB risks usurping the power of Congress to make changes to Medicare. “All final decisions remain in the hands of Congress,” Sebelius said in her prepared statement. “If Medicare costs are rising at an unsustainable rate, it’s Congress’s choice whether to accept those recommendations, or come up with recommendations of its own to put Medicare spending on a stable, sustainable path.” She reiterated her argument from yesterday’s Budget hearing that IPAB serves as a “backstop to ensure Medicare remains solvent for years to come.”

However, former OMB Director Peter Orszag has a quite different analysis regarding the IPAB with this interview, highlighted by Naked Emperor News for Breitbart TV:

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That is, if she wants to be critical of Paul Ryan’s plan.  HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was quick to say that seniors would “die sooner” under the Ryan Medicare plan, but did she even read it and furthermore does she even understand it?

One would think that she would understand “premium support” as she’s a former insurance commissioner.  Kaiser Health News reviews premium support and its history (emphasis mine):

Under a premium support system, the government would pay a percentage toward the insurance premium for each individual; there would likely be more help for low-income and sicker people. And enrollees could kick in more money to get better coverage.

Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former head of the Congressional Budget Office, in 1995 were among the first to explore alternatives to Medicare’s system of paying for individual services. And in 1998, President Bill Clinton’s National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, chaired by then-Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and then-Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La., developed a “premium support” idea, but it never became a formal recommendation. Breaux and then-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried unsuccessfully to advance the plan as separate legislation.

Let’s take a look at her ‘confuzzled’ look as she was clearly caught off-guard by Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX and a physician) as seen here at the July 13 subcommittee hearings (skip to 0.59 to 2:16):

The Weekly Standard also  reiterates and shreds her original comment:

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From The Daily Caller:

The Daily Caller has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rate review rules, which it finalized on Thursday, exempt “Medigap” policy providers, like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), from oversight when such providers increase payment rates for their supplemental insurance plans.

Insurance providers who aren’t exempt from Obamacare’s rate review rules are required to publicly release and explain some health care payment rate increases.

The AARP is the nation’s biggest seller of Medigap policies, or supplemental healthcare plans that add onto what Medicare won’t cover for seniors. The senior citizens interest group advocated for Obamacare to include an attack on Medigap policies’ biggest competitor, Medicare Advantage.

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In an unannounced Friday news dump, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly posted newly accepted waivers to 221 businesses and two entire states exempting them from damaging provisions of ObamaCare, bringing the grand waiver total to seven entire states and 1,372 businesses. I have one simple question for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: Where’s MY Waiver?

There’s a good argument that every American is about to be harmed by ObamaCare, whether through the $500 billion in tax increases, the $500 billion in Medicare cuts, the individual mandate forcing citizens to purchase health insurance, the myriad of one-size-fits-all regulations, and the mountainous debt it creates. In the land of equal protection under the law, shouldn’t we all be equally protected from ObamaCare’s harm?

Of course, the only way to guarantee that no harm is done is by repealing the law in its entirety, which can transpire at the earliest in 2013 if Republicans take back the Presidency and the Senate. In the meantime, Secretary Sebelius has a moral responsibility to treat us all equally with regards to the two areas in which she is currently granting waivers: the medical loss ratio requirement and the limited benefit restrictions.

To date, she has utterly failed to do so.

Sebelius has already denied waivers to 79 businesses from the limited benefit restrictions that rendered illegal the mini-med plans they formerly offered employees. Worse, she arbitrarily decided not to allow individuals and families to apply for these same waivers. Folks that were only able to afford mini-med plans suddenly found them illegal and unlike businesses and states, have no recourse available.

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Only in Washington would running out of money and prematurely limiting a program be considered a success. This Friday (May 6,) Obamacare’s first handout program will cease accepting new applications, but not before billions of dollars have been redistributed or promised from taxpayers to the political savy and well connected.

The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) was intended to bridge the time gap between Congress’s passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the law’s implementation. But it has done much more than that. ERRP is saturated with handouts, inaccurate funding assumptions, and shifts an ever greater burden onto the taxpayer.

The Obama administration implemented ERRP on June 1, 2010, as a provision in the president’s health care law. The $5 billion dollar program was supposed to last until 2014, but it has already burned through almost $1.8 billion in less than one year. On March 31, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which administers ERRP, announced that the program had doled out that sum to 1,300 participants.

Administered by the HHS, ERRP disburses funds to unions, corporations, and state governments who then subsidize early retirees’ health care, without any means testing. A business, union, or state simply needs to fill out an application and have workers retiring early—between the ages of 55 and 65—to qualify for the free money.

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The American people do not support Obamacare. This much we know. So I’m willing to bet they’re going to be furious when they learn that the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants to spend as much as $200 million on a propaganda campaign to convince them they’re wrong about the president’s socialist health care overhaul.

Last week Judicial Watch obtained documents from HHS that provide new details on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare) and other HHS policy initiatives (such as the anti-obesity — or food control — campaign that is a vanity project of Michelle Obama). According to the records, which we obtained through a March 23, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the total cost of this campaign, which notably targets Obama’s electoral coalition, could reach as much as $200 million over the next five years!

The following are highlights from the documents, which you can read in full here:

• An April 27, 2010, Department of Health and Human Services Acquisition Plan entitled “National Multimedia & Education Campaign & Grassroots Outreach,” details a comprehensive five-year communications program covering a variety of HHS policy initiatives, including “health care reform.”
  •According to a section of the Acquisition Plan entitled, “Independent Government Cost Estimate,” the Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA) states: “ASPA is unable to provide a definitive government cost estimate. Campaigns vary is [sic] size and scope. Some campaigns involve radio, some TV, and some print. Other campaigns may involve all of those avenues plus on ground events, website, bus tours, etc.” However, “ASPA is letting this contract in order [to] produce three to four campaigns per year through the life-cycle of the contract. We are requesting a contract with a $200,000,000 maximum.”
• According to a subsequent March 14, 2011, contract included among the documents, HHS hired The Ogilvy Group “to provide services to design, develop, and execute a multiplatform educational media campaign to promote the new website Healthcare.gov, including the new Spanish language version of the website.” The total amount of the contract awarded was: $3,998,928.
• The Ogilvy contract “task order” describes the purpose of the Healthcare.gov website: “To accompany such a monumental piece of legislation [The Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare], the law charged the Department of Health and Human Services with the creation of a website to aide [sic] Americans about the health insurance coverage options available to them.” (U.S. Senator Charles Grassley has deemed the HHS online program “state-sponsored propaganda.”)
• The Ogilvy contract also describes the “audiences” that will receive “targeted messaging” during the campaign: “Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Young People, Women/Mothers,” all considered key target demographics for the Obama reelection campaign.
  •According to the Ogilvy contract, HHS sought to receive “media training” in the following areas, among others: “controlling your message,” “handling hostile interviews,” “artful repetition,” “identifying loaded questions” and “being persuasive.”

And now for the really creepy part…

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Since the healthcare reform legislation passed, the discussion has centered on the fear of a government takeover of healthcare, but maybe this should not be the focus. Perhaps we should be worried about a corporate takeover of healthcare.

HIPPA (Health Information Portable Accountability Act) was signed into law in 1996 ostensibly to protect a patient’s privacy. It involved “covered entities” such as physicians, administrators who administer health plans for employers, and anyone who is involved in transactions including business associates. Over time it has evolved into a legal club that consists of fines and or jail time that can be used to punish those who have been deemed to violate the rule. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services the power to determine the amount of fines and whether civil penalties will be applied to those who violate HIPPA.  As with many other tenants of Obamacare, this was not present within the healthcare reform bill. It is simply another example of a legislative sleight of hand that makes it easier to slide in questionable pieces of legislation that may not be popular by distracting with one hand while the other is doing the dirty work.

If the over 700 waivers to the healthcare mandate granted by Secretary Sebelius to big corporations such as Waffle House and Foot Locker, and supporters of  Obamacare such as Aetna, Cigna and the SEIU are any indication, those who oppose the administration need to watch their backs. Dr Milton Wolf wrote an article for The Washington Times (The Tawdry Details of Obamacare) that provides an excellent synopsis of the privileged treatment bestowed upon friends of the administration. Clearly, this highlights what the president said about rewarding friends. Those who are not lucky enough to receive these waivers will have the thankless task of being under the mandate yolk and therefore picking up the tab. In the age where the government constantly talks about ‘fairness’ how fair is that?  It is yet another example of rules that are applied unequally.

Now that the cozy relationship between Google and the government has been brought to light it leads one to wonder what other favors will Google be granted?

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According to an official estimate by the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), at least 222 companies and unions have received waivers from Obamacare so far. Yet, as this number continues to soar, HHS refuses to explain to the American people how decisions are being made regarding which organizations receive a waiver and which do not.

One certainly cannot find any explanation in the Obamacare law itself. The Obama administration did not anticipate (despite repeated warnings) how much chaos would be created by the requirements of their massive healthcare overhaul. And so they have been forced to resort to a slapdash and politicized approach where officials at HHS are reviewing requests on a case-by-case basis with no set standards in place.

Now, here’s why this seemingly arbitrary and capricious policy is so dangerous: Companies able to secure these coveted Obamacare exemptions are given an unfair competitive advantage over their rivals — which, of course, blows the door wide open to influence peddling and corruption. Just yesterday, Karl Rove pointed out that the leftist Obama ally AARP, which spent millions on ads for Obama’s health “reform” effort, received an “extravagant gift” from Obama in the form of the very waivers Judicial Watch is investigating.

In order to make sure this doesn’t happen, we need transparency.

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Inside the Beltway, Democrats are touting the achievements of the outgoing Congress.  Historian Alan Brinkley asserted that this is the most productive Congress since the Great Society.  These congratulatory assessments stand in stark contrast to the fact that Democrats, for all their labors, suffered a defeat of such historic proportions that it gave rise to a new word: “refudiation.”  What explains this paradox?

First, much of the legislation passed in the 111^th Congress is not really legislation at all.  For all of its verbosity, and for all the outrage surrounding provisions like the individual mandate, the health care legislation enacted in 2010 makes precious few decisions.  Instead, vast discretionary authority is vested in dozens of different agencies and officials, in particular the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

When confronted with tough decisions, Congress prefers to let someone else make laws.  Congressmen can then claim credit for providing Americans with health care, while evading blame for increased costs and premiums, poorer quality of care, rationing, massive uncertainty, and higher wait times.  The rules that led to those unfortunate consequences were made by regulators, who will give shape to legislation, and who would bear the brunt of public ire.

Second, Washington insiders tend to subscribe to the belief that what Americans expect of Congress is that it produce a certain quantity of legislation.  Outgoing House Rules Committee chairman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) captured this belief when she lamented that “what we did was work, and our reward was, ‘Get out of here.’”  The volume of legislation produced by the Democratic 111^th Congress should have been reason enough for voters to sustain Democrats in office.

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Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would cut off late-stage breast cancer patients from Avastin, the Obama Administration announced it would create “end of life counseling” program for Medicare patients. How convenient. The government is sentencing women to death but will try to make them feel better about it.

It’s no surprise that the announcement of the creation of “end of life counseling” comes from the rationer-in-chief Donald Berwick — the unconfirmed head of the Office of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has said that “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the [British] National Health Service, I love it.” Here’s another Berwick quote: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

It’s clear the bureaucrats have begun to ration care with their “eyes open” but the question is the American people seeing what is happening?

For decades, America was not only the golden land of opportunity; it was the place where the sick would come for cutting edge treatments that could not be found anywhere else. The socialist health care systems of Europe could not save your life, but a trip to America often could. Americans took this for granted. But we cannot anymore.

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I’m going to take the death panel end-of-life planning conundrum down one point at a time to make this very clear for Americans to understand what the Pelosi-led Democrats have done to your healthcare and their attempt to take cover under a Bush-era law–the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.

The Hill reported that the Obama White House attempted to calm Americans’ fears of the dreaded death panels:

The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans accused the administration of withholding care from the sick, elderly and disabled.

However, an administration spokesman said the regulation, which is less specific than the reform law’s draft language, is actually a continuation of a policy enacted under former President George W. Bush.

“The only thing new here is a regulation allowing the discussions … to happen in the context of the new annual wellness visit created by [healthcare reform],” Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Medicare added a consultation visit for seniors new to the program, according to the Journal. Another 2008 law, enacted under Bush, said the visit can include “end-of-life” planning discussions.

However, what The Hill’s Jason Millman forgot to mention in his article was that President Bush VETOED the 2008 bill and the Democrats, along with some “good-willed” Republicans OVERRODE Bush’s veto forcing him to sign the legislation into law.  The bill dealt with doctors’ reimbursements and more, but the Democrats slipped in the end-of-life planning by opening up the Social Security Act, which I have stated many times is dangerous. Once the act is changed, it is difficult to amend again and allows for tinkering with the Medicare fee schedule and covered services definitions and requirements

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111 companies and organizations were granted waivers by Obama’s Dept. of Health and Human Services so that they could get out of having to comply with Obamacare and unions were particularly well rewarded by the HHS with these waivers.

Interestingly, there was no great announcement of these waivers issued to the press. The HHS buried the waiver announcement six layers deep on its webpage and posted them on Friday when they imagined no one would notice. It’s a typical Friday evening document dump so common when an administration wants to avoid the prying eyes of the people. So much for the “most transparent administration in history,” eh?

One thing is sure about these waivers. Obama rewarded his union pals quite well. Som 15 unions and union healthcare or financial fund and insurance providers fill the list of companies and groups that will not have to operate under Obamacare’s destructive rules.

• The Service Employees Benefit Fund
• United Food and Commercial Workers Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust Fund
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union No. 195
• Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
• Employees Security Funds
• Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
• United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227
• United Food and Commercial Workers Maximus Local 455
• Service Employees International Union Local 25
• United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1262
• Musicians Health Fund Local 802
• Hospitality Benefit Fund Local 17
• Transport Workers Union
• United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund
• International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (AFL-CIO)

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“…to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”

John Adams, Samuel Adams and James Bowdoin, Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1780

In a blatantly unconstitutional move, the Feds have let McDonalds off the hook from some of ObamaCare’s requirements. This violation of the Equal Protection clause is just one more reminder, as if we needed it, that D.C. is now completely ignoring the rule of law and deciding issues based on political pressure and pull.

“McDonald’s and 29 other firms have received waivers from a requirement to up the minimum benefit covered by insurance, making it possible for their employees to continue to buy low-cost coverage. But thousands of other workers are not exempted and will not be able to afford the government’s idea of good insurance.

Starting next year, insurers will be required to cover up to $750,000 in costs, ratcheting up over the next few years so that coverage must be unlimited by 2014. The administration calls that a consumer protection, but it only protects you if you can afford it.

Firms that hire low-wage workers, such as McDonald’s, can offer “mini-med” plans that provide lower benefits than a typical comprehensive health plan at a correspondingly lower cost. By far the most popular mini-med plan offered by McDonald’s costs $24.30 a week and covers doctor visits, hospital stays, and some prescription drugs, up to $5,000 each year.

Raising the benefit cap to $750,000 would put insurance out of reach for workers who clearly want coverage. They are buying that insurance with their own money, without the government telling them they have to. Fortunately, they can now keep that coverage, at least for next year.

True, that’s always gone on. But it used to be hidden, and when discovered heads rolled. Or, at least newspaper headlines made the perpetrators uncomfortable. Now, it’s done in the open and without apology. Though Sebelius did offer this quasi-defense: “We can’t waive a regulation that doesn’t exist.”

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the unexpected unemployment figures, what the waiver of McDonalds and other companies from Obamacare means for our republic, and the latest in currency issues.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment.com and Stephen Clouse and Associates. We’d also like to let you know that we’ve set up a standalone site at CoffeeandMarkets.com for easier browsing of our past broadcasts.

You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

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When President Obama sold his health care plan to the American people, he did so based on the broad notion that government really can run your life better than you can, even when it comes to your own health care. He did this in spite of massive evidence to the contrary from all walks of life, confident that Washington bureaucracy knows best.

Yet even before the major portions of Obamacare have been put in place, government bureaucrats are already falling behind and failing to keep their legislative promises to us. A new report from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, commissioned by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and others, finds astounding proof of the total administrative failure in implementing Obamacare. Coburn, who last week introduced an innovative new legislative package to stop Medicare and Medicaid fraud, continues to take the lead in pointing out the administrative problems of this big government regime.

According to the report, HHS has already missed one-third of the deadlines contained within the legislation for the first six months under Obama’s law. Below the fold is a list of the seven missed deadlines. Additionally, there were four deadlines where CRS could not reach a conclusion based on their research — meaning even more could have been missed. And this is just at the six month mark — imagine where we’ll be by 2014!
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The Obama-Pelosi Regime took control of one-sixth of the nation’s economy when they passed their nationalized health care bill and signed it into law in late March. The bill was never popular but Democrats persisted and rammed the bill through Congress. Now, there are even reports that the Obama Administration sat on damning information and hid it from the public until after their bill was passed into law.
* * * * *

Results from a report released a month after the health care vote were troubling. The report released by Medicare and Medicaid actuaries showed that medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law.

Of course, these were ALL things that President Obama and Democratic leaders assured us would not happen.

Via Special Report:

Six months after democrats voted to take over the nation’s health care industry and force Americans to purchase their government plan the administration has already missed several deadlines. Here are a few stats on this awful bill:

–4,103 – Pages of regulations issued on the health care law through Sept. 17, 2010
–12 – Number of final regulations not subjected to public scrutiny before taking effect
–5 – Missed implementation deadlines to date.

Rep. Michael Burgess M.D. (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Regulations called for Secretary Sebelius to come before the committee and explain some of her troubling comments and the flawed bill.

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