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Is this possible? The Wonkblog site shows zero accounts created so far for California, Nevada, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, and Washington.

Certain prisoners to get health coverage under ObamaCare Prisons could relocate medical costs to the federal government LOS ANGELES — Soon certain prisoners who need medical treatment could get it through Obamacare. Watch the video (go to link) for more information.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) didn’t defund Obamacare. He drove a government shutdown. His party is tanking in the polls. But he couldn’t be happier. At a press conference on Wednesday, Cruz called the House’s actions a “remarkable victory” and a “profile in courage.” Cruz has emerged as the latest celebrity politician who doesn’t need big policy achievements to build his cred, but a following on the far right of his party.

IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF 'SETTLED LAW' IS October 16, 2013 No major legislation has ever been passed like Obamacare -- and I'm using the word "passed" pretty loosely. It became law without both houses ever voting on the same bill. (Say, is the Constitution considered "settled law"?) Not one Republican voted for it -- and a lot of Democrats immediately wished they hadn't. Historically, big laws have been enacted with large, bipartisan majorities. In 1935, President Roosevelt enacted Social Security with a 372-33 vote in the House and 77-6 in the Senate. In 1965, Medicare passed...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released the following statement in advance of an expected vote in the Senate to reopen the federal government and temporarily increase the government’s statutory borrowing authority: This is a massive relief for tens of thousands of families and businesses in Connecticut and millions more across the country. The bipartisan compromise reached in the Senate today will send federal employees back to work and restart the critical services that veterans, seniors, small business owners, and countless others rely on every day from the federal government. But this deal should be no cause for celebration - keeping...

Via Facebook: This photo of my son and nephew ran in our local newspaper about 15 years ago. I’m betting dollars to doughnuts our president skipped this universal childhood lesson in Economics 101, and perhaps that explains his problem understanding the tragedy to befall us as America drowns in debt. Running a lemonade stand teaches you to progress by the sweat of your brow and live within your means. It taught these boys that it was unacceptable and self-defeating to keep coming back to mama for more money for ingredients needed to concoct a product to sell to the public. Obviously...

CGI Federal is the Canadian IT contractor responsible for creating most of the ObamaCare website. Tuesday, after describing the site as a "complete train wreck," the Washington Post took an in-depth look at the company -- its origins, track record, and how it landed the ObamaCare contract. It is all worth a read, but one staffer told the Post that the working environment at CGI is so awful today that "People are getting sick, fainting in conference calls." The healthcare.gov debacle has taken its toll on the working environment at CGI Federal's 10-story complex in Fairfax, Va., according to a...

Congressmen and Senators, At this critical juncture, on the cusp of what most conservatives now expect to be another massive sellout of the people and of principle, I would like to take this opportunity to point out a few crucial facts concerning political ownership of public policy. FACT If you AGAIN fund Obamacare, you own it. FACT If you AGAIN vote to fund Planned Parenthood, you own it. FACT If our Posterity is further burdened with crushing debts to which they could not possibly consent, and you AGAIN vote for it, you own it. FACT If any immoral and/or unconstitutional...

With John Boehner receiving low marks from both moderates and conservatives over his handling of the now- resolved government shutdown and debt-ceiling battles, discussion is rife over whether any fellow House Republican will challenge him as speaker. Though the conventional wisdom is that the wily Ohioan will survive, there is enough residual anger to make his continued hold on the position something less than a foregone conclusion. The name being mentioned most as his potential successor is Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who resisted pressure to challenge Boehner at the start of the 113th Congress in January. …

Breitbart News has obtained a legislative summary of the provisions in the Senate deal to reopen government and extend the debt ceiling. Breitbart News has also obtained a copy of the legislative text. Currently, Senate staff are able to review the summary and legislative text in the Senate cloakroom, but aren't allowed to retain a copy or make it public. In the interest of transparency, we have included the document below. [8 page document] As expected, the deal provides full back-pay for furloughed federal workers who haven't been at work for two weeks. It also provides back-pay, though, for state...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there's so much out there that seems on the surface to be inexplicable. The problem in this country, as a majority of people recognize, I mean, look at this poll here. Look at this. It is a poll from the Pew Research Center. The bottom line: 81% of the people in this country are dissatisfied. Eighty-one percent are dissatisfied. Do you think they're dissatisfied with Ted Cruz? Do you think they're dissatisfied with the Tea Party? Do you think they're dissatisfied with the opposition to Barack Obama? The Republican Party obviously thinks so, but...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Ted Cruz is decrying a deal brokered by his U.S. Senate colleagues to avert a default and reopen the government - but isn't planning a filibuster to derail it. In a statement Wednesday, Cruz slammed the Senate and Washington in general for not doing more to shield Americans from the nation's new health care law. But he also praised the House for its "bold stance" during the government shutdown and debt-limit fight.

According to a Washington Post report Wednesday morning, 59-year-old Janice Baker officially became the first confirmed enrollee in the Delaware Obamacare exchange that opened, as most other exchanges did, on October 1. Having tried to sign up online and via telephone starting on October 1, and continuing her efforts over the course of more than two weeks, Baker was repeatedly frustrated by error messages online and hours of waiting on the phone. She finally succeeded after deleting all temporary data, browsing history, and cookies on her computer. According to the report, Delaware Health and Social Service officials were so happy...

Consider for a moment what will come next for Obamacare, in the context of Ezra Klein’s five thoughts on the disastrous launch of the program – a bellwether of sorts for obamacare-logo_fullhow the administration failed to live up to the expectations it sold to the law’s supporters and opinion leaders.There are a few different directions it can go from here, but the worst case scenario hasn’t really entered people’s consciences yet, in part because the insurers are staying quiet at the moment. The reality now is that the system is at least a month from actually working, and likelier two...

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NOW AND TELL THEM TO REMOVE BOEHNER AS SPEAKER TODAY BEFORE THE EVENING VOTE! LIGHT UP THE PHONE LINES!

The Insurance Industry is not happy about this:Hmmm... I've had two policies stall on the Income Verification section. It says try again in 24 hours. This was as of 1:30.

WASHINGTON, DC – House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement regarding the bipartisan Senate agreement to reopen the federal government and avoid a national default: “The House has fought with everything it has to convince the president of the United States to engage in bipartisan negotiations aimed at addressing our country's debt and providing fairness for the American people under ObamaCare. That fight will continue. But blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us. In addition to the risk of default, doing so would open the door...

Just heard Boehner say this on the hourly news five minutes ago regarding the Senate compromise. Hey John, THERE HASN'T BEEN A VOT IN THE HOUSE YET. You are deciding we didn't win when you can still defeat this compromise which gives us NOTHING! Lead, help...or get the hell out of the way! If you pass this with the Democrates and a minority of Republicans you need to be out as the GOP leader and Speaker of the House tomorrow.

I thought that all revenue bills had to start first in the House of Reps... Is Reid's move unconstitutional?

My fellow Americans, the President, the Democrats and the News Media have won a great political victory today, but the American people have lost an important battle. Republicans were elected to control the House of Representatives to stop the hemorrhaging of taxpayer monies. We have tried valiantly to rein in the spending, to stop this headlong sprint to bankruptcy that will happen to our beloved country. Those of us trying to do the responsible thing for the USA have been ridiculed, demeaned and degraded by those who pretend they wish for a 'more civilized' dialogue. We have been called terrorists,...

Urges House Not to Accept Deal and Receive Nothing in Return WASHINGTON, D.C.— The Tea Party Patriots today blasted the deal by Senate Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “The Ruling Elites in Washington, D.C. have completely abandoned the American people,” said Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “The deal cut in the Senate does NOT protect the American people from this unfair and unworkable law.’ “The Senate deal is a complete sellout. Speaker Boehner and the House should stand firm and reject this deal to reign in the Executive branch’s power before it is too...

House Republicans have signaled they are giving up. They’ll merge their ideas with Mitch McConnell’s ideas. The result will be a funded government, raised debt ceiling, and nothing done with Obamacare. Throughout this fight, Harry Reid has outsmarted Mitch McConnell. Repeatedly, Reid used the Senate’s rules to toss aside numerous proposals from the House while McConnell looked on not knowing how to fight back. Reid knows how to beat McConnell. If Reid fights hard, McConnell backs down and tries to blame others. McConnell’s lieutenants attack Ted Cruz so “the Leader” can deflect from his own legislative impotence. And he continually...

Parents of high school students in Montgomery County School District in Maryland were outraged recently by a survey given to sophomores under the new Common Core education standards. The survey asked numerous intrusive questions that a school has no business asking students. Among them were questions like "what is your sexual orientation," "what's your religion," "what's your parents' political affiliation" and "should assault rifles be banned?" Angry parents notified the news website The Blaze about the survey, and shortly after a Blaze reporter began to ask about it, the survey disappeared from the Poolesville High School website. According to The...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday he was disappointed that fellow Senate Republicans didn’t unite with House Republicans to make the dismantling of ObamaCare part of any deal to end the Washington fiscal crisis, but vowed not to block a Senate proposal to end the stalemate and continue efforts to stop the health care law. “I have nothing to gain from delaying this vote by one or two days,” said Cruz, who last month spoke 21 straight hours on the Senate floor in a filibuster-like attempt to defund ObamaCare.

Despite no evidence in financial markets of a default, House Speaker John Boehner (RINO-OH) will bring the Senate clean Continuing Resolution (CR) to The House floor for a vote. The endless spending and debt growth in Washington DC will continue now that the Senate has turned over the power of pursestrings to The President (once House Republicans agree). Obamacare was already a tremendous transfer of power and control to the Executive Branch, and now capitulating to President Obama gives the Executive Branch overwhelming power and control. In order to honor our career politicians in Congress and the Administration, the Washington...

In a 2003 speech, then Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.) discussed his House management guidelines that became known as “The Hastert Rule.” The rule calls for a leader not to send legislation to the House floor for a vote unless it has the support of the majority of the majority. On Wednesday, with just hours left to raise the debt ceiling or risk default, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)–who has been holding fast to the Hastert Rule–has to decide whether to break it.

If the near-collapse of the ObamaCare computer system were temporary, that would be bad enough. But the real problem isn’t the computer system — it’s the law itself. -snip The problem is as it always was: America’s health-care system is vastly complicated and enormously expensive. But it worked fairly well for most people, with some 80 percent saying they were satisfied. That was before ObamaCare, which twists, squeezes and taxes the whole system as part of an incomprehensible plan to “fix” it. The law won’t work because it can’t. It fails for the same reason that all massive utopian plans...

Many can remember as youngsters doing something wrong, for which they knew punishment was deserved. In order to avoid the punishment, they would try to create a diversion of some type in order to distract the attention of parents or teachers who, hopefully, would not notice or would forget about the original infraction. The PC world of the secular progressives still uses this tactic quite effectively when they try to refocus attention on an individual or organization that opposes their agenda. This was certainly the case last week, when at the Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C., I stated that...

Kathleen Pender, who has a piece at the San Francisco Chronicle blog SFGate in which she shares her own vision of an Obamian socialist utopia. In Pender’s world, as in Obamas, there are givers and takers. She explains in several easy steps how to become a taker in the free-for-all bloodsport of Obamacare: People whose 2014 income will be a little too high to get subsidized health insurance from Covered California next year should start thinking now about ways to lower it to increase their odds of getting the valuable tax subsidy. ‘If they can adjust (their income), they should,’...

Health Care: In a stunning admission, our Health and Human Services secretary admits ObamaCare is part of the fundamental transformation of America away from a free market in anything to a nanny state on steroids. Maybe Kathleen Sebelius was being sarcastic, or maybe she thought it might be a good way to reach the "young invincibles" who feel they had better things to do with their money than enroll in ObamaCare. But her recent appearance on Jon Stewart's show on Comedy Central went about as well as ObamaCare's train wreck of a rollout. Stewart hammered her and ObamaCare, as we...

Every time I post that the IRS is clearly forbidden from punishing you for not paying the fine/tax, I get the same fictional responses. Maybe their goal is to make it sound so scary so that Obamacare gets magically repealed(poof) , but given that wont happen anytime soon this misinformation can have the unintended consequence of fooling/scaring people into complying and helping make Obamacare work. I found the section in the bill text and will posted it below as a vanity for future reference skip tp SPECIAL RULES. CHAPTER 48—MAINTENANCE OF MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE ‘Sec. 5000A. Requirement to maintain minimum...

Like everyone, I'm eventually going to need to see a doctor. Something is eventually going to go wrong with me and I'll need someone to fix it. My employer's health insurance rates go up every year. And our president has spent the last five and a half years promising affordable health care...and that insurance rates would go down if we'd just enact this sweeping change to the medical system in America. It was with these facts in mind that I decided to see what rates I could get from Mr. Obama's vaunted "affordable Care Act" and its online presence, "Healthcare...

With the federal government on the brink of a default, a House Republican effort to end the shutdown and extend the Treasury’s borrowing authority collapsed Tuesday night as a major credit agency warned that the United States was on the verge of a costly ratings downgrade.

Psst. Anic-Pay! Bloomberg‘s Megan McArdle (who has been on an incredible roll lately**) takes issue with the idea that the Obama administration needn’t panic about Obamacare, as long as it can get its glitch-plagued health care exchanges up and running by the end of the year. Wrong, she suggests. It’s time to panic. Now. Why? Because the exchanges are the way to sign up young, healthy people and prevent the fabled “death spiral,” in which only older, sicker people sign up for insurance, causing rates to rise and healthier people to drop out, causing rates to rise even more, etc....

<p>SELBYVILLE, Del. (AP) — Delaware officials are celebrating the state's first health insurance exchange enrollee.</p> <p>Department of Health and Social Service officials have declared 59-year-old Janice Baker of Selbyville the first confirmed resident to enroll in the marketplace. It opened Oct. 1 as part of the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act.</p>

If you've tried to sign up online for health coverage under the problem-plagued Obamacare exchange, our sympathies. Many people have tried to create accounts and shop for insurance under the new law. Few have succeeded. Those that have enrolled have found that the system is prone to mistakes. Some applications have been sent to the wrong insurance company. Wait. It gets worse. Those who have managed to browse the marketplace have often been hit by sticker shock. Take Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner and single father from Carpentersville. He sought the same level of coverage on the exchange as he...

A New York Times investigative article based on two dozen interviews with industry insiders and confidential Obama Administration documents reveals that the catastrophic $500 million Obamacare rollout "has deeply embarrassed the White House" and has the technology companies involved "publicly distancing themselves" from the Obamacare fiasco. "These are not glitches. The extent of the problems is pretty enormous," an insurance executive who participated in Obamacare conference calls told the Times. "At the end of our calls, people say, 'It's awful, just awful.'"

In a much-discussed post titled "Five Thoughts on the ObamaCare Disaster," the Washington Post's Ezra Klein manages to cycle through the first three of Elisabeth Kübler Ross's five stages of grief: • Denial. "In the weeks leading up to the launch I heard some very ugly things about how the system was performing when transferring data to insurers--a necessary step if people are actually going to get insurance. I tried hard to pin the rumors down, but I could never quite nail the story, and there was a wall of official denials from the Obama administration. It was just testing,...

Nothing is more important for a startup burning through cash than winning customers and revenue. So problems with the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces, also known as exchanges, aren’t just an inconvenience. They’re a threat. Nobody is pushing the panic button. March 31, the end of enrollment, is several months away. Co-ops are well financed with federal loans. Evergreen holds enough capital to be in good shape even if it doesn’t reach what Beilenson calls “self-sustaining” membership of 15,000 or 20,000 in the first year, he said. But with few confirmed customers so far and no revenue, Evergreen and its...

Talking Points: If ObamaCare's liberal friends are calling its launch a "failure," an "inexcusable mess" and "beyond the pale," why are ObamaCare's Republican enemies completely tongue-tied about this unfolding train wreck? Earlier in the week, former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs called ObamaCare's launch "excruciatingly embarrassing." The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, one of ObamaCare's most shameless boosters, said it was a "disaster" and that the administration deserves "all the criticism they're getting and more." Jon Stewart suggested that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius lied about why the law's individual mandate couldn't be delayed. True, these liberals have a...

Implementation of the Affordable Care Act eventually could cost the Aiken County School District from $300,000 to $400,000 a year, District Comptroller Tray Traxler told School Board members on Tuesday. Those costs are rough estimates based on the number of employees who may or could average 30 hours of service every week. Each employee formally added to the program could cost the District $3,000 to $6,000 annually as its contribution, depending on whether the employee has a child who qualifies. Probably the biggest headache for Traxler's department is the requirement that the District must provide continuous monitoring of such employees'...

Businesses across the nation, including the Pinellas County school district, are adjusting their health care plans to comply with the Affordable Health Care Act, but one variable may end up costing the school district millions: substitute teachers. By 2015, the act requires the school district to provide health care benefits to all employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Last school year, there were 1,798 part time employees, including substitute teachers, working in instructional and administrative positions, according to the school district. “We have substitutes that work on a regular basis and over a certain period of time...

As the realities of Obamacare continue to sink in, more and more people are getting letters from their health insurance providers telling them that their plans no longer comply with federal requirements under Obamacare. We just brought you the story of “Trick Shot Titus” and his family facing significant increases in the cost of their health care plans. Now, a community blogger on the far-left Daily Kos website has penned a blog post complaining that both he and his wife are facing a nearly 100 percent increase in their monthly premiums. He claims he is canceling his insurance and refuses to pay any “f***ing...

Dan Pfeiffer’s fingerprints are all over the White House’s strategy of not negotiating with congressional Republicans over the government shutdown and debt ceiling. The senior adviser to President Obama has been plotting the White House’s every move, and is described by some within the administration as the “relentless guardian” of Obama’s no-negotiations stance. “He’s been the most ferocious on that principle,” one senior administration official said. “He was quite adamant and relentless about this. And on the face of it, it’s not an easy argument to make.” Even before the shutdown began on Oct. 1, Republicans had turned their fire...

Consider for a moment what will come next for Obamacare, in the context of Ezra Klein’s five thoughts on the disastrous launch of the program – a bellwether of sorts for how the administration failed to live up to the expectations it sold to the law’s supporters and opinion leaders. There are a few different directions it can go from here, but the worst case scenario hasn’t really entered people’s consciences yet, in part because the insurers are staying quiet at the moment. The reality now is that the system is at least a month from actually working, and likelier...

When CNSNews.com asked Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) if he had read all of the 10,535 pages of final regulations published by the administration to implement Obamacare in the Federal Register, he said he had not and described them as “incomprehensible.” “Well, of course, I voted against [Obamacare], and I have not read all the rules and regulations,” Fleming told CNSNews.com earlier this month at the Capitol. “They’re extremely complex. An average person even with a law degree or a medical degree like me can’t understand them,” Fleming said. “They’re incomprehensible.” When asked if he was surprised by the large number...

".........I am tired of funding Republicans who campaign against Obamacare then refuse to fight. It’s time to find a new batch of Republicans to actually practice what the current crop preaches. The irony in all of this is that Obamacare’s individual mandate is going to be delayed. Just wait. Liberals are already whispering that it has to happen. They can’t get the computers up and running. People aren’t signing up. They whole process is broken. But they also do not want to cave in to the GOP. So they will wait. Barack Obama will wait for the GOP to surrender,...

".......A day that was supposed to bring Washington to the edge of resolving the fiscal showdown instead seemed to bring chaos and retrenching. And a bitter fight that had begun over stripping money from the president’s signature health care law had essentially descended in the House into one over whether lawmakers and their staff members would pay the full cost of their health insurance premiums, unlike most workers at American companies, and how to restrict the administration from using flexibility to extend the debt limit beyond a fixed deadline.............."

The irony is rich. President Obama told Maryland college students just days before the launch of his healthcare “marketplace” that it would take just a few keystrokes to compare prices and policy details. “Don’t take my word for it, go on the website,” Obama told a crowd at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, MD, five days before the launch. “See for yourself what the prices are. See for yourself what the choices are and then make up your own mind. That’s all I’m asking.” But the bureaucrats in his administration clearly weren’t listening. They created a website that is...

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Sen. Ted Cruz did not stand at the podium to give the keynote address Tuesday night at the 30th annual gala for the Republican Women of Huntsville. Instead, one of the nation's most outspoken GOP leaders addressed a packed ballroom at the Huntsville Marriott through live video from Washington on two screens set up in the corners. It didn't seem to matter as the junior senator from Texas received a warm, half-hearted standing ovation upon his introduction and a more raucous, more unanimous standing ovation upon the conclusion. He outlined his plan for American economic recovery, harshly...