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A beneficiary of President Obama's signature healthcare law standing behind the president during his speech Monday in the Rose Garden nearly fainted toward the end of his remarks. Karmel Allison, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes according to information provided by the White House, began holding the hand of a woman standing next to her at the event and breathing deeply. Noticing the disruption, Obama halted his remarks to turn around, just as Allison appeared to be falling backward. Another event attendee braced her from behind while the president held her arm to prevent her from falling. A White...

Just prior to the president's ObamaCare pep rally in the White House Rose Garden, Monday morning, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released the following statement regarding Obamacare's failure to live up to Obama's many promises: Today President Obama will draw the media’s attention to a handful of persons who have applied for Obamacare while ignoring the untold number of Americans who are losing the plans they liked because of Obamacare. Yesterday, Kaiser Health joined numerous other news outlets by confirming a new victim of Obamacare: Americans who are receiving cancellation notices from their insurers due to the Affordable Act. “Health...

Consumer Reports, which publishes reviews of consumer products and services, advised its readers to avoid the federal healthcare exchange “for at least another month if you can.” “Hopefully that will be long enough for its software vendors to clean up the mess they’ve made,” the magazine said, having tested the site themselves over the course of the past three weeks.Noting that only 271,000 of the 9.47 million people who tried signing up in the first week managed to create an account, Consumer Reports then provided a few tips to those attempting to slog through the application process. From attempting...

Barack Obama will speak to the nation today at 11:25 a.m. EDT from the Rose Garden with citizen props standing around him to tout the glories of Obamacare. The White House has leaked to the press Obama is "frustrated" about the problems with the government exchange website.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is expected to acknowledge that widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. Obama was scheduled to speak Monday from the Rose Garden, his first health care-focused event since the scope of the problems became apparent. The troublesome rollout of the health care exchanges has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama's signature legislative achievement. White House officials say the president will discuss steps the administration is taking to address the failures, including ramping up staffing at call centers where people can...

President Barack Obama goes back on the virtual campaign-trail Monday, with a midday rally in the Rose Garden to champion his crippled takeover of the nation’s health-sector. “The President will be joined by consumers, small business owners, and pharmacists who have either benefitted from the [Obamacare] health care law already or are helping consumers learn about what the law means for them and how they can get covered,” said a White House statement. “The group will include individuals who have already applied for and enrolled in quality, affordable coverage through the Marketplaces and those who are planning to after exploring...

HealthCare.Gov Needs Five Million Code Lines Rewritten By Andrew Johnson October 21, 2013 9:13 AM Comments 42 Obamacare’s online exchanges have been riddled with problems since they came online three weeks ago, and those issues may continue for at least the next few weeks. Contractors said fixing the problems by the November 1 deadline set by the administration would be “unrealistic,” according to the New York Times. From the sluggish websites to garbled enrollment information, the flaws require the extensive rewriting of code: “One specialist said that as many as five million lines of software code may need to be...

Technical difficulties are still plaguing the federal website for health insurance sign up, but that hasn't stopped dozens of Charleston's homeless residents from signing up for health insurance over the last two weeks. The non-profit agency has a drop-in center for homeless people, some of whom live outside or in shelters. As trained community assisters, Herlihy and other Covenant House staffers were supposed to connect their clients to other helpers that were to actually lead people through the application process. But directing their clients, many of whom have mental illnesses, to other agencies would have been more difficult than leading...

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...

“Disaster,” “embarrassment,” “humiliating” and “train wreck” are just a few of the colorful terms being used to describe it. The Obama administration’s incompetent half-billion-dollar rollout of its incompetent multi-trillion-dollar signature achievement is but a tragic metaphor for this man’s entire presidency. (It’s not hyperbole when it’s true.) Nearly three weeks in and the utopian promise of “affordable care” for all has yielded but a handful of folks who’ve even been able to sign up for this clinic in socialism. That Obamacare – something billed as a health-care panacea for the collective – is something that the collective neither asked for,...

A top Democratic senator said Sunday that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius will testify before Congress about the problem-plagued ObamaCare website, amid a growing call for her to accept requests to testify. “Ultimately, Secretary Sebelius will testify,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, told “Fox News Sunday.”

There are literally no comparisons to current rates. That is, [the Department of Health and Human Services] has chosen to dodge the question of whose rates are going up, and how much. Instead they try to distract with a comparison to a hypothetical number that has nothing to do with the actual experience of real people. —Douglas Holtz-Eakin President, American Action Forum[1] Enrollment in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges has proven to be a somewhat difficult process amidst technical glitches and delays. Aside from the issues associated with actually purchasing health care, once an individual gets a quote for health insurance...

RACINE COUNTY, WI — National numbers on the federally run insurance marketplace aren’t out until mid-November, but locally the question “How many have enrolled online?” is easy to answer — none. At least, that’s how many the county knows of. Racine County officials said continued technical issues with the Affordable Care Act’s healthcare.gov site are to blame. Meanwhile, organizations seeking federal certification to assist with enrollment are seeing progress, albeit slowly. Halfway through the marketplace’s first month, “It’s just been kind of anti-climactic,” said Hope Otto, who heads in-person enrollment for the Racine County Health and Human Services Department.

Rich Sitko can’t wait to buy a new health insurance plan. Sitko, 64, from Essex Fells, now has an indemnity plan from Aetna for which he pays $1,178 per month with a $2,500 deductible. He believes he will find a less costly option on the new health insurance exchange — the online marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act. His new plan, he said, will still most likely cost close to $10,000 a year and won’t have any of his doctors in network. To get a plan similar to the one he has now, he’d actually have to pay more...

A Kansas Obamacare “navigator” stormed the property of the Republican secretary of state earlier this year, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.“It is shocking that the Obama administration has hired as a navigator a person who has been caught trespassing and attempting to intimidate a public official,” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told TheDCNF.“This kind of thug activity is bad enough, but giving this person federal tax dollars is sickening,” he added.Under the Affordable Care Act, 105 organizations have received $67 million in federal to help guide Obamacare enrollees through the process of obtaining health insurance under the...

Young people in 45 states will see their health insurance premiums increase under Obamacare because the law relies on the money they pay into the system to offset the cost of caring for older enrollees, according to a new study. Virginia leads the pack, as individuals aged 27 and under will see their health insurance premiums jump by 252.5 percent -- $416.55 -- according to the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. Virginians under the age of 50 will see their premiums jump by an even greater percentage, rising from $228 to $991.03. Such increases are not a surprise to...

The White House announced weeks ago it would not release Obamacare enrollment data until November. On Saturday, though, it gave application data to the AP – but the information doesn't really make clear how many people will actually sign up for health plans. I've started two separate applications on HealthCare.gov and a handful on other state marketplaces. I account for about a half-dozen of those 476,000 applications. Other reporters are no doubt doing the same, as are curious shoppers across the country. Applications started might be a good measure for curiosity, but not necessarily coverage. Most health insurance plans don't...

Nancy Pelosi: Obamacare Rollout Glitches ‘Unacceptable’ By Amber Kiwan Oct 20, 2013 10:29am ABC nancy pelosi this week jt 131020 16x9 608 Nancy Pelosi: Obamacare Rollout Glitches Unacceptable ABC News This morning on “This Week,” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the website glitches around the rollout of the president’s signature health care law were “unacceptable.” “As far as the Affordable Care Act, as I call it, the fact is, that yes what has happened is unacceptable in terms of the glitches,” Pelosi told ABC’s Martha Raddatz on “This Week.” “This has to be fixed, but what doesn’t have...

By five, I mean, literally, five. Here’s an image from today’s email from the White House.  From a communications perspective, this is a pretty stupid email. Everyone who has been paying attention knows that Healthcare.gov is a gigantic mess, and most people who have logged onto it have not been able to buy insurance through it. Everyone also knows that the White House and HHS have been hiding the ball on Obamacare’s enrollment numbers from the beginning. How may have enrolled? That’s for them to not really know and for you certainly not to find out.So, in effect, the first...

October 20, 2013 Sebelius to Skip Obamacare Hearing to Attend Gala Audrey Hudson Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will not testify at a congressional hearing investigating glitches in the rollout of Obamacare's $800 million website but will instead attend a gala at the Kennedy presidential library in Boston. CNN reported the scheduling conflict while reporting a story that the Obamacare website would go offline this weekend for maintenance. The gala at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston Wednesday night will honor progress made in helping individuals with mental illness. "She'll be in Boston at...