Posted on 03/02/2013 5:14:09 AM PST by IbJensen
NEW YORK CITY, March 1, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – An insurance company known for not keeping its contractual obligations has received $340 million in federal loans to set up a health care exchange under ObamaCare. Critics say the only apparent criteria for the loan is the fact that the company is led by a friend of Barack Obama during his community organizer days. She is also a former leader of a George Soros-funded politically radical organization.
The confluence of incompetence, cronyism, and political donations have many asking if the arrangement is above-board – and what that signals about America's future after the health care industry is rearranged.
Congress has opened an inquiry into the eligibility of President Obama’s close friend Sara Horowitz and her embattled health insurance company to receive $340 million in taxpayer-funded loans.
Horowitz, a former labor lawyer and community organizer, heads the Freelancers’ Union and the related Freelancers’ Insurance Company (FIC).
Despite the name, the Freelancers’ Union is not a union. It is the parent organization of Horowitz’s for-profit health insurance company, which serves 200,000+ customers, mostly freelancers who are ineligible for benefits through their employers.
FIC has been rated the “worst” insurer in New York for the past two years by state regulators, and has weathered numerous public relations and customer service crises since it launched in 2008. The company is so unpopular it has spawned its own hate blog, “Upset Freelancers’ Union Members,” where those who buy their healthcare from FIC meet to complain, strategize, and give each other tips on how to navigate labyrinthine restrictions and try to get results from the notoriously frustrating customer service hotline.
In 2011, the New York State Insurance Department ranked FIC dead last in customer satisfaction among insurers. Despite its relatively small size, FIC had the most complaints of all the state’s insurance providers. Last year, FIC again ranked “worst” in complaints. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says FIC’s complaint rate is more than seven times the national average.
In half the complaints lodged against FIC by its customers, the insurance department ruled that “the health insurer did not comply with statutory or contractual obligations.”
None of this stopped the Obama administration from handing Horowitz a $340 million loan from the American taxpayers to start ObamaCare health care cooperatives.
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Horowitz’s loan is the single largest payout given under a little-known ObamaCare program that will pay about $2 billion to establish 24 such co-ops, which will compete against private insurers and state health insurance exchanges.
The tax-free loans are administrated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Consumer Insurance Information and Oversight (CCIIO).
Horowitz’s payday has raised eyebrows in Washington, leading some to question the screening process for loan applicants, and fueling criticisms of cronyism in the White House.
Horowitz is a longtime close friend of Obama’s. When he was in the Illinois state senate, Horowitz and Obama worked together to launch the George Soros-funded liberal think tank Demos, a group that worked hand-in-hand with the controversial ACORN community organizing group, which Obama also worked alongside with its voter registration program, Project Vote.
Horowitz isn’t the only one getting the side-eye over her connections to Obama and subsequent taxpayer-funded payday. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that another recipient of a $56.4 million loan, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative in Wisconsin, “is the Milwaukee affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, a famed community organizer and author of Rules for Radicals. The organization, based in Chicago, bills itself as the oldest and largest community organizing network.” The group got much of its initial funding from the Gamaliel Foundation, Obama’s former employer in Chicago.
“The question you have to ask, what [are] the screening criteria, if any, or on what basis are these awards based?” said Thomas P. Miller, a health care expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
It’s difficult to find concrete information about how CCIIO screened applicants for the co-op loans. The agency’s website says, “CO-OP applicants underwent background checks that included public records searches at the local, state, and national level as well as searches of federal debarment databases.”
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said he thought the main criterion was a previous connection to Obama. “The Saul Alinsky-affiliated, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative of Wisconsin was formed in August, 2011, just three short months prior to applying for the taxpayer money,” said Wilson. “In true Rules for Radicals fashion, Obama’s administration found this group worthy of receiving $56,416,000 in taxpayer largesse.”
“These grants/loans reek of political payola,” Wilson said.
WHOA! Now that’s cold! LOL
An estimated $21 Trillion is “hidden” in offshore accounts. .
“Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, “protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy“. According to Henry’s research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn [$6.2 trillion] in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.”
Millions of dollars are sent anonymously to political campaigns known as PACS, how do they get such ridiculous amounts of money? Most of their donations are not disclosed.
So banks offshore accounts aren’t required to disclose information to the US, and PAC’s aren’t required to report donations under $200.00. It’s all legal except pretending the donations are coming from individual citizens, and are under $200.00. But who is going to tell? PAC political donations
Another example of the many awards that don’t make sense is Wells Fargo, who received over $664 Million of unpaid funds, In 2008, 2009, & 2010 they paid $0 TAXES, despite having reported profits.
U.S. Profits: $49,370,000,000 Taxes Paid: -$681,000,000
You Won’t Believe Who Is Getting Away With Paying Zero Taxes While The Middle Class Gets Hammered
Google CFO says company keeping $48 billion cash stash for possible acquisitions, investments Google pays ZERO taxes, and has $48 BILLION in overseas tax havens
Trillions of dollars of our own money used against us can buy anything. It certainly explains the media complicity. Romney NEVER stood a chance, and neither do we?
Ben Franklin while representing Pennsylvania at court tried to line up one of his buddies,if not his own son ( can’t remember all the details,too lazy to look it up now), as a Stamp Act agent. The general public outcry was great enough that no stamps were ever sold in the colonies and a few of the agents were tarred and feathered. One of those applying the pitch in New Haven , Ct., was none other than Benedict Arnold. Politics is always a twisted mess. But Ms. Horowitz should certainly be at the head of the sequester before “diabled kids and poor kids.”
I swear, these clowns make corruption look good!
With all those customer complaints, makes ya wonder how “Freelancer” would have dealt with Stanley Ann Durham Obama Soetoro in her final sickness, the exaggerated/fabricated story of which her son used to convince enough people that we need this monster called “Obamacare.”
The development of the Milwaukee health exchange (Common Ground Coop) was funded by an Archdiocese-approved $40,000 grant of Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Common Ground Coop will be providing free abortifacient contraceptives when it opens its doors in less than a year. We Catholics are funding your own demise.
Yeah forgot about that aspect and setting up a monopoly on healthcare coverage. Why does money always seem to be the end all of everything government? Oh yeah the Mafia, I mean government, loves money...
Yeah, I read about this crony crap a few days ago...and once again thought: Where the heck is the MSM? They must know that all these scandals will eventually bring Down Low Barry down...and I keep waiting for someone (I thought Jake Tapper) to realize the golden opportunity they had to be the, oh well, let’s say Wodward of this day and age...and start releasing the stories they’ve been holding back.
But...once again...this huge story of cronyism is mentioned on a few sits like this and then it just...goes....away.
I’m still sure this little fraud BHO will go down, and I still think there is ONE msm journo out there that will go for the brass ring....I just can’t figure out—especially with Benghazi still hanging....WHY THEY DON’T...
I do like that Bill Plante spoke the truth about the Regime....but you all saw how he was derided for being an “old” fool that will be put out to pasture. Any guesses who in the MSM is going to be the one to bolt and start REPORTING AGAIN?
You know it’s going to be great when the liberal idiots finally realize that Obozocare and all the other socialist programs failed so badly because the elitist puppetmaster were never concerned about their welfare and that they were just manipulated so they could stuff their pockets using other people’s money. I have a vision...a vision where every liberal hangs their head in shame and can’t look you in the eye because they realize what a big dummy they are and realize that all of their college education didn’t teach them the facts of life, common sense, wisdom or virtues. You can’t hold a book (or computer) at night or have one take care of you in your old age...lol
After this massive failure of a soial experimnt we will never hear of socialism again...
Get out the news what is happening when the first confiscation takes place, and let the Icelander begin.
I think a lot of people are starting to see the consequences of Obama’s actions beyond the immediate payoff. If we go down, so does everybody else. Even if Obama gets away with blaming everything on Republicans it doesn’t solve the problem, and many self serving people/countries like China understand that.
The Roberts vote, it includes those that hoisted MassachusettsExtortionCareRomney.
>>After this massive failure of a soial experimnt we will never hear of socialism again...<<
When your bank accounts have been drained, your assets taxed and mortgaged to pay new fines issued by the agency bureaucrats, private property has been determined as unlawful and you are on your knees virtually and literally, then and only then socialism will fade into the night.
fun to print and leave around my company breakrooms
http://www.cchfreedom.org/files/files/15-REASONS-TO-OPPOSE-EXCHANGES.pdf
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