Free Republic

Remember the good old days when the Pentagon was spending [1] only $640 for a toilet seat and $400 for a hammer?Yes, I wrote “only.” (And yes, I understand that the problems at the Defense Department had far more to do with bureaucratic bloat than with genuine fraud or abuse.)It turns out that procurement officers there were, relatively speaking, wise stewards of taxpayer dollars, at least when compared to the Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS has given the American people the $11,500 paper Obamacare application — and that may be a lowball estimate.On July 1...

When Obamacare operatives aren't busy trashing the private health insurance market and squandering billions on useless technology, they're busy ... being idle. File the latest example of government health care profligacy under "Caution: Your tax dollars not at work." According to at least one Obamacare paper-pusher, employees at an application-processing center in Wentzville, Mo., are getting paid to sit around and do nothing. Investigative reporter Chris Nagus of the St. Louis television station KMOV News 4 spoke to the whistleblower. "They want to hire more people even though we still don't have work to keep the people that we have...

The CEO of Serco, a British-based company whose North American division received one of the largest contracts to work on the Obamacare insurance exchanges,[1] resigned Friday amid allegations that the company had defrauded the British government of millions of pounds. Even as myriad other allegations emerged about its work around the globe, Serco spent heavily on lobbying in Washington, D.C., and secured a multi-year contract potentially worth $1.249 billion to handle paper applications for the Obamacare exchanges. Serco did not respond to e-mail and voice-mail requests for comment. Public records demonstrate Serco’s concentrated effort to woo the U.S. government. In...

Serco has been awarded the DHS contract to design and implement a Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions II (EAGLE II) contract.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that President Obama is “frustrated” by snags in the Obamacare rollout. But how about American citizens who either are having trouble enrolling in Obamacare or are suffering from the shock of rising healthcare insurance premiums AND the size of their deductibles? The anecdotal stories of “sticker shock” are legion (for example, here is a story from New Jersey). And physicians in New York are howling as well. Of course, there are many winners in the Obamacare rollout. Some households will receive added benefits and healthcare benefits that they previously didn’t have. But the biggest winners...

The Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday it was bringing in outside help to resolve some of the technical woes that have beset the federally run insurance exchanges, which the agency acknowledged “has not lived up to the expectations of the American people.” “We are committed to doing better,” agency officials said in a blog post that also said that “our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve healthcare.gov.” Spokespeople for the agency didn’t immediately respond to questions seeking more...

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that President Obama is “frustrated” by snags in the Obamacare rollout. But how about American citizens who either are having trouble enrolling in Obamacare or are suffering from the shock of rising healthcare insurance premiums AND the size of their deductibles? The anecdotal stories of “sticker shock” are legion (for example, here is a story from New Jersey). And physicians in New York are howling as well. Of course, there are many winners in the Obamacare rollout. Some households will receive added benefits and healthcare benefits that they previously didn’t have. But the biggest winners...

A British multinational being paid $1.2 billion to implement Obamacare’s federal insurance exchanges is under investigation after allegedly overcharging the British government by tens of millions of dollars. Reuters reports that Britain’s Serious Fraud Office is now looking into Serco, a massive service and security firm employing 120,000 worldwide, after the company reportedly overbilled its government client as much as $80 million for criminal electronic monitoring devices. Around one in six of the criminals listed were already in prison, had left the country, were not required to wear a device, or were even dead.

Grand Junction, Colo. (AP) -- At least three crude bombs exploded and two others were disarmed Friday outside homes in western Colorado. No injuries were reported, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Authorities were focusing on "two people of interest" as officers continued searching for clues, said Police Sgt. Paul Quimby. "We are concerned there are others out there that no one has discovered yet," he said. The bombs were described as black, office-style trash cans covered in silver duct tape. One explosion scorched the front of a garage door and melted vinyl siding. . . . The...