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Posted on 05/22/2014 1:13:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The lack of ObamaCare accountability extends farther than just the boundaries of the Beltway. In fact, as The Oregonian discovers, it goes from sea to shining sea. The reviled director of Cover Oregon, whose failed web portal has prompted a federal investigation into potential fraud, supposedly resigned his post and got kicked out of his government sinecure. It turns out that he’s just on an extended vacation (via Drudge Report):
Bruce Goldberg, the respected, long-time director of the Oregon Health Authority, offered to resign on March 18. Two days later, with the Cover Oregon tech mess going from bad to worse, Gov. John Kitzhaber announced that he’d shown Goldberg the door.
The resignation was “effective immediately,” said officials in the governor’s office.
Or so we thought.
It turns out, Goldberg never really left and is now drawing a full-time salary from the state. Oregon officials confirm Goldberg returned to full-time status at the Oregon Health Authority on May 15 and will use his accrued vacation pay until July 18.
He’s getting paid $14,425 a month.
Let’s not forget that Oregon taxpayers are footing that bill to pay for exactly zero enrollments through their $250 million web portal. Governor John Kitzhaber laid all of the blame for the failure at Goldberg’s feet over the past few weeks, no doubt hoping to escape culpability himself. Oregon taxpayers already on the hook for hundreds of millions of wasted dollars might have assumed at that point that at least they weren’t paying for Goldberg’s incompetent leadership any longer, and for very good reason.
What happened? Cover Oregon and Oregon Health Authority played a shell game with Goldberg. His resignation didn’t stop his paycheck at the latter until April 10, when Goldberg officially got paid $3600 a month to be a “consultant” to Cover Oregon. Why Cover Oregon needed to have the man Kitzhaber blamed for its utter failure on hand as a consultant is another question Oregon taxpayers should be asking themselves, but that arrangement only lasted five weeks. That’s when OHA brought Goldberg back on at full salary — and full health and pension benefits, which provides knife-twist irony to this story.
Last week, federal investigators issued subpoenas to Cover Oregon, OHA, and its officials in the criminal probe:
The federal criminal investigation of Oregon’s health insurance exchange took a step into public view Tuesday when the U.S. Attorney’s office issued broad subpoenas seeking information from Cover Oregon and the Oregon Health Authority.
While the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interest in the exchange debacle had beenpreviously reported, the legal demands dated May 13 indicate things may have moved beyond a preliminary inquiry to a full-blown investigation.
The investigation, led by federal prosecutors and the FBI, is seeking documents, memos, and emails between the two state entities that oversaw the botched health exchange with U.S. authorities in charge of dispensing federal money for the project.
At least they’ll know where to find Goldberg. Maybe Kitzhaber can take a page from the Barack Obama playbook and put Goldberg in charge of the state’s investigation into Goldberg’s alleged failures.
Money laundering. Democrat government employees getting big bucks and passing some of it on to the Democrat Party. They have to have some money to buy the press. It comes from you and me.
Its the Chicago style
Makes sense.
Was this not the one run by criminal illegals
from South America?
They have to keep the theft ongoing,
and the destruction of records.
Just another perk that the lords and ladies who work for the government get that the private sector serfs don’t. And if you ask why your state taxes are going up to pay for this, you are a heartless racist who wants children and the elderly to starve.
Obama will get to the bottom of this. Soon.
“Let them eat pain pills.”
The corruption in Oregon politics goes right to the top.
Nothing happens in OR without approval of PERS and the RATS who run the show.
Nothing is going to happen until Oregon politicians are put in prison in large numbers and SEIU is booted out of OR.
$14K a month!!
Good gawd. These people are all thieves
This is the same state that passed a wind farm subsidy that rewarded companies by the number of “farms” they built, not the number of turbines or the amount of power produced. They paid out millions to companies that never produced any power.
And we thought “Portlandia” was fiction...
But, that’s not obama’s fault. There were crooks working for Bush, too. And besides, Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction. /s
RE: And besides, Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction. /s
OK, I’ll accept that, provided they also concede that everyone who voted for military action — John Kerry, Hillary, John Edwards, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Jay Rockefeller, etc. ALL participated in the lie.
That’s not how it works. Those people who voted for the war didn’t have all the intel that Bush had. They voted for the war because Bush lied to them, too. Geez, do I have to teach you everything? /s
Rockefeller and (future VP candidate), John Edwards were in the Senate pre-war intelligence committee. Evan Bayh was in the committee too and voted FOR the war.
And oh yeah, I forgot to add Joe Biden. He voted FOR the war too.
Harry Reid voted FOR the war too.
ALL of them were briefed by intelligence before the vote. They CANNOT escape responsibility and blame it solely on Bush.
But yeah, if anyone of them were to be asked to be college commencement speaker, there would be no objections. Only Condoleeza Rice is guilty.
Rockefeller and (future VP candidate), John Edwards were in the Senate pre-war intelligence committee. Evan Bayh was in the committee too and voted FOR the war.
And oh yeah, I forgot to add Joe Biden. He voted FOR the war too.
Harry Reid voted FOR the war too.
ALL of them were briefed by intelligence before the vote. They CANNOT escape responsibility and blame it solely on Bush.
But yeah, if anyone of them were to be asked to be college commencement speaker, there would be no objections. Only Condoleeza Rice is guilty.
“Obama will get to the bottom of this. Soon.”
...but he can’t comment on it, because it under investigation.
It will ALWAYS be under investigation.
I’ll skip to the final LIV response: “I don’t believe it.”
Doubt it will ever happen. Oregon’s legal/political system is totally corrupt. How many lawyers were punished by the state bar for their role in the coverup of a recent governor’s child rape activities? Yup, none of them.
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