Is Obamacare Officially A Money Laundering Scheme?

Could the failed Obamacare exchanges have been merely an excuse to direct payola to safely Democratic states?

Based on a new report from the Government Accountability Office, and the actions of acting head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) Andrew Slavitt, the answer may well be yes.

Let’s start with the report. Americans for Tax Reform summarized its findings:

In all likelihood, officials were aware of the issues facing these states before exchanges launched. According to GAO, CMS conducted reviews on 15 state-based exchanges in August and September of 2013.

Even though these tests found multiple issues related to the functionality of state exchanges, CMS passed all states. GAO’s report notes several examples where CMS found a state to have severe operational deficiencies ahead of launch, yet officials ultimately ignored these findings. GAO found documentation revealing that officials were aware that Maryland’s exchange had 100 “outstanding high-priority defects” and almost 500 defects in total, while Massachusetts had reported 1,170 defects.

As the report concludes, these problems were so severe in four states (Massachusetts, Maryland, Nevada, and Oregon) that these exchanges had to rely on alternative ways to enroll customers during the first enrollment season.

While several exchanges have already defaulted back to the federal system, and many others have been characterized by severe operational problems and inept management, GAO reports that just over $1 million of the $4.5 billion of taxpayer money [spent on exchange grants] has been returned to the federal government. Got that? The Federal government spent $4.5 billion on grants to states building their exchange programs. And despite some states demonstrably failing to use that money, like Maryland ($125 million price tag) and Oregon (over $300 million price tag), the Federal government has only managed to recover $1 million of it.

Under any other circumstances, it would be easy to chalk this up to traditional Obama-administration style incompetence. However, to do so would be to miss the details of how the Obama administration has conducted recouping its funds. As David Catron at The American Spectator reports:

When Maryland’s Attorney General announced last summer that his office had negotiated a settlement whereby $45 million would be recouped from the IT contractor that botched the state’s Obamacare exchange, it was widely reported as good news for taxpayers. It appeared that their investment in the mismanaged project would not be a dead loss. But the AG’s statement included this curious passage: “The agreement… will lead to the recovery of funds for both Maryland and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS].”

What’s so odd about that? Well, the state didn’t contribute any money to the project.

There is, of course, no legitimate argument that Slavitt could make that would justify giving recouped federal grants to any state.

Combine this with the news earlier this year that Maryland not only failed to set up its exchange, but actually overcharged the government for what an exchange would cost, and the fact that the most spectacularly failed exchanges were in Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada, and Maryland (all relatively blue states), and a very ugly picture starts to form.

One can’t know without further investigation from the House Oversight Committee (which is currently looking into the Oregon debacle), but given the scale of corruption in that state alone, something like the following may have happened: Obama administration officials, knowing that Democrats’ backs were up against the wall over the failure of Obamacare even in blue states like Oregon and Maryland, may well have allowed money to be sent to those states under the guise of grants for the exchanges, when really, they were only intended as easy money for the states’ embattled Democrat-led governments. Nevada is an exception to this last point, but given that it’s the home of former Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and had its governorship up for grabs in 2014, the logic still would’ve held.

Ironically, if this blatant payola laundering scheme did happen, it clearly didn’t help, seeing as Maryland and Massachusetts recently gained Republican governors, Nevada has retained Brian Sandoval, also a Republican, and John Kitzhaber of Oregon has been forced to resign.

Nevertheless, the question remains whether pure incompetence of political malfeasance are at the root of the federal government’s apparent inability to recoup its own investments in failed Obamacare exchange schemes.

And one way or another, it’s time that Congress did something to answer that question.

Insurance fraud is an old, old scheme-—pols use to get into office and keep themselves in office. Read on.

EXHIBIT ONE: a NJ school supt was arrested in the fall of 2010 and charged with 17 counts of bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud.

Authorities say that while serving as NJ high school superintendent, he and his co-conspirator, a Maryland insurance broker, concocted a scheme to inflate school insurance charges and kick back part of the money as bribes.

The two are accused of concealing more than $1 million in bribes from insurance brokers and other service providers. The company, Federal Hill Risk Management, served as the insurance broker for the NJ Regional school district from 1978.

Court documents say the two men spent stolen money on home renovations, watches that cost tens of thousands of dollars, and other personal expenses......and also allegedly bought a girlfriend - also on the school district payroll - a car and other gifts, including money for the college tuition of one of her relatives, according to court papers.

A federal investigation of the insurance broker of Baltimore has to do with NJ municipalities and NJ school plans-—he is under state indictment for allegedly bilking $2.6 million from one school district and more than $200,000 from the muni, and was indicted by a federal grand jury.

The broker’s son-in-law and a business partner were charged with stealing $216,000 from the NJ muni for a nonexistent wellness program for city workers.

A state grand jury issued an indictment in July charging money laundering, conspiracy, forgery and theft by deception. Authorities said they bilked $2.6 million from the schools over a six-year period.

A third man, of Bernardsville, pleaded guilty to theft by deception and false representation for a government contract in the same scheme targeting the school district.

The co-conspirators are alleged to have lied to the school’s insurance carrier, Cigna——they told Cigna that the school board authorized the insurance carrier to pay fees on behalf of the school board from its medical claims bank account for health care related programs and services that never existed, authorities said. That money, stolen from Nov 2003 to July 2009, went into personal bank accounts, the indictment alleges.

EXHIBIT TWO: Judy Rapfogel a 37-year Silver employee-—now COS to NY Dim Speaker Sheldon Silver-—is under investigation after her husband, William Rapfogel, was fired as CEO of the NY Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Investigators said Mr Rapfogel bought insurance policies for the Met Council at inflated prices and pocketed some of the excess funds as kickbacks....and directed other funds from the insurer to NY political campaigns.

INSURANCE SCAM OF LONG-STANDING-—NYT REPORT—Sixteen years ago, Judy Rapfogel, now chief of staff to Democratic Sheldon Silver, ran for the NY City Council-—the seat was in Mr. Silver’s home district and was unusually heavy on political firepower, especially when compared with Judy Rapfogel’s rather modest campaign budget of $160,000.

But among the various campaign expenditures for Council candidate, Judy Rapfogel, was a disproportionate sum spent on a seemingly peripheral need: automobile insurance. The insurance payments accounted for 6 percent of Judy Rapfogels campaign’s spending, and cost more than double what the campaign spent to lease the vehicles themselves.

Fast forward to 2013-—sixteen years after her losing campaign, a criminal complaint filed against Ms. Rapfogel’s husband has cast new light on Judy’s long-ago insurance payments. Mr. Rapfogel is accused of conspiring for more than 20 years to pad payments from the tax-exempt Met Council (largely subsidized by state, city and fderal taxpayers), to a small Long Island insurance brokerage in exchange for kickbacks from the brokerage.

Century Coverage Corporation, the insurance brokerage at the center of Mr Rapfogel’s criminal complaint, is the same one that Judy Rapfogel’s 1997 campaign paid for unusually large insurance coverage.

A spokesman for Mr. Silver said that Ms. Rapfogel was also not aware that her 1997 campaign had paid Century. The treasurer for Ms. Rapfogel’s campaign, Freda Fried, did not return calls or e-mails. Ms. Fried is Mr. Rapfogel’s sister.

Judy Rapfogel has not been implicated in the criminal case against her husband but is now being connected peripherally via the Century Insurance payments for her 1997 campaign.....she has hired a lawyer.

Authorities said Rapfogel is suspected of stealing $5 million and kept at least $1 million in kickbacks for himself with the rest going to unnamed co-conspirators....... and paid no taxes on the ill-gotten gains.

Investigators seized about $400,000 in bricks of cash Rapfogel stashed in his and Judy’s home. Judy Rapfogel said “she did not know” about her husband’s stash and did not know about the $100,000 cash gift he gave to their son to purchase a house.

Since 2003, city and state politicians have steered $5 million to the Met Council in discretionary funds known as “member items.” By law, charities like the Met Council cannot return the favor by assisting candidates directly or indirectly. But Rapfogel appears to have pushed the interpretation of that law, and at times, Rapfogel’s role as a fund-raiser has been quite direct.

Mr Rapfogel is listed in campaign finance records as collecting $18,250 for assorted candidates from 1994 to 2007. Nearly half of that money — $8,500 — came from people tied to Century Coverage. Century executives and their relatives have also donated or raised $130,000 for politicians who have funded the Met Council, records show.

One such politician is Speaker Silver, who has appropriated $868,000 in discretionary funds to the Met Council since 2006, and received $8,500 for his political committees from Century employees, records show.

Democrat David Weprin is another. From 2004 through 2009, when he was a city councilman, Weprin’s campaign committee received eight checks totaling $4,950 from Century employees. During that time, Weprin sponsored $700,000 in discretionary funds for the Met Council. Weprin, now an assemblyman, did not return calls seeking comment.

Taxpayers still have not felt the “big bang” — the entire cost will zoom into the trillions to keep the behemoth afloat.

We need to recognize that this was a money-raking scam from Day One-—greedy politicians frequently use insurance to perpetrate scams to enrich themselves.

Now let’s examine the REAL reasons why the affordable US healthcare system was upended. Egged on by Pelosi, Democrats slavishly voted for Obamacare by an historic straigt-party line vote. It contained a massive, multi-billion-dollar slush fund that was deliberately kept hidden from us “stupid taxpayers”.

EXHIBIT ONE-— In the fall of 2009, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was trying to get the necessary 60 Dimocrat votes to pass the Affordable Care Act. He needed every Dim on board, which gave waffling senators a great deal of leverage. In Landrieu’s case, she connivingly saw that selling her aye vote could get her maybe $200 million federal dollars. Obama complied. Reid chalked up another vote for Obamacare——not the measly $200 million but $4.3 billon was attached to the Obamacare bill earmarked for Landrieu.

How $4.3 billion to Landrieu was calculatedly attached to the Obamacare bill, and how Obama and Reid (cough) “failed to catch and fix it,” is yet another indictment of the Obamacare atrocity.

The $4.3 billion handoff to Landrieu should be investigated as an indication of how EVERY Democrat came to vote for Obamacare....and how tax dollars were laundered to get lock-stepping Democrats’ votes.

FBI TIPS PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov

EXHIBIT TWO -— The Untraceable $8 Billion ObamaCare PR Budget-—truly govt fraud at its finest.

O/Care is a huge money-laundering operation-—everybody got a cut. From F/L Michelle and her pal who made zillions botching the rollout web site using a phony company-—all the way to Obama admin insiders...Jonathan Gruber, and of, course, salivating Dumbocrats.

Not one Democrat told Americans about Obamacare’s Section 4002-—which mandates an $8B untraceable fund to “promote” Obamacare (apparently b/c Boobamba had so little confidence in his signature legislation).

THE PAYOFF—WHO GOT THE MONEY? In 2010 Taxpayers are extorted $500 million, in 2011, $750 million, 2012, $1 billion, 2013, $1.25 billion, 2014, $1.5 billion, and, in 2015 and on, $2 billion

<><> Where is all that money going?

<><> Was cashing-in the incentive in getting the thing passed?

The sound of West Wing wire-transfers to states and to offshore banks is almost palpable.

REFERENCE—ACA SEC. 4002. PREVENTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH FUND.

(a) PURPOSE. It is the purpose of this section of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to establish a Prevention and Public Health Fund (referred to in this section as the ‘‘Fund’’), to be administered through the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary, to provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs.

(b) FUNDING.—There are hereby authorized to be appropriated, and appropriated, to the Fund, out of any monies in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated—

(1) for fiscal year 2010, $500,000,000;
(2) for fiscal year 2011, $750,000,000;
(3) for fiscal year 2012, $1,000,000,000;
(4) for fiscal year 2013, $1,250,000,000;
(5) for fiscal year 2014, $1,500,000,000; and
(6) for fiscal year 2015, and each fiscal year thereafter, $2,000,000,000.

(c) USE OF FUND.—The Secretary shall transfer amounts in the Fund to accounts within the Department of Health and Human Services to increase funding, over the fiscal year 2008 level, for programs authorized by the Public Health Service Act, for prevention, wellness, and public health activities including prevention research and health screenings, such as the Community Transformation grant program, the Education and Outreach Campaign for Preventive Benefits, and immunization programs.

(d) TRANSFER AUTHORITY.—The Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of may provide for the transfer of funds in the Fund to eligible activities under this section, subject to subsection (c).

EXHIBIT THREE — IRS Watchdog: $67 Million Missing from Obamacare Slush Fund
ATR ^ | 9/25/13 | John Kartch / FR Posted by Libloather

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The IRS is unable to account for $67 million spent from a slush fund established for Obamacare implementation, according to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report released today.

The “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare.

According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify approximately $67 million [from the slush fund] of indirect ACA costs incurred for Fiscal Years 2010 through 2012.” The report also found several other abuses of taxpayer funds, including: (Excerpt) Read more at atr.org ...

WHERE IS THE MONEY?

FBI TIPS PAGE https://tips.fbi.gov

More and more, every day, it becomes more practical to fracture the territory once known as “the United States of America”, into to separate but parallel sectors. The division should not be by existing state lines, but much more segmented than that, by Congressional districts, and based on whether these districts are “red” or “blue”.

The “red” districts form a nearly contiguous region, while the “blue” districts are fragmented and often widely scattered. The “red” region would set up their own separate governing body, and base their form of government on the now existing US Constitution, with certain of the amendments invalidated, particularly the 16th, 17th, 18th and 21st. In their place an amendment calling for a balanced budget EVERY year the nation is not engaged in widespread foreign conflict, and another amendment limiting the terms to any Federal elective office, and appointment to any Federal court, not to exceed twelve years total.

The “blue” districts may set up whatever kind of cockamamie governance they choose. But, emigration from the “blue” districts to the “red” region would be strictly limited, and subject to review and retraction at any time, should the applicant try to raise discontent within the “red” region. Needless to say, all traffic or movement of people between the “red” region and the “blue” districts would be RIGOROUSLY enforced.

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