Editor’s Note – Here comes Campaign 2013. No, not an actual election campaign, but one just the same. The topics: Egypt, Health Care, the Federal Budget, the Debt Ceiling, Corporate Taxes, and other “Cornerstone” issues. Of course, it all comes as we come close to the brink as usual.
Its time to go back out on the campaign trail, first to New York and Pennsylvania, then much more, all after six rounds of golf on Martha’s Vineyard with a who’s who list of cronies as Egypt was melting down. Instead of leading, and working with both parties in both branches of Congress, he is forcing the hand of his opponents and preaching to the people how Congress wont work with him. When will the rest of America see that the ’emperor has no clothes’?
Part of this tour will involve much rhetoric involving ObamaCare and the attempt by some in Congress to cut off the spending on it. But if it was such a great plan, why is their such a need to sell it again to the masses? Easy, America didoes not want it, and never did.
He will accuse them of wanting to shut down the government but we all know it really is more his style – brinkmanship. But now, the administration is going to be spending hundreds of millions to sell a law already on the books – wait, the law that keeps getting delayed unilaterally by the President, illegally, and the law that has missed 50% of its deadlines already.
$700 Million?, write a song to win a prize for selling ObamaCare, and more, its like a day time TV game show now:
It will make you stronger. It will give you peace of mind and make you feel like a winner. Health insurance is what the whole country has been talking about, so don’t be left out.
Sound like a sales pitch? Get ready for a lot more. As President Barack Obama’s health care law moves from theory to reality in the coming months, its success may hinge on whether the best minds in advertising can reach one of the hardest-to-find parts of the population: people without health coverage.
The campaign won’t come cheap: The total amount to be spent nationally on publicity, marketing and advertising will be at least $684 million, according to data compiled The Associated Press from federal and state sources. (Read the rest here.)
But wait, there is more fun to anticipate. It just can’t stop releasing putrid, rank odors as it rolls out. Look what our friends at Judicial Watch have uncovered – potential corruption in ObamaCare? Cronies getting tons of money to ‘facilitate’, even ACORN:
Obamacare: Multi-Million Dollar Corruption Central
In a frightening glimpse of the potential for corruption in Obamacare, the government is giving dozens of leftist organizations $67 million to help people “navigate” health insurance exchanges that haven’t even been fully established.
The “navigators” receiving the taxpayer dollars will help people shop for and enroll in plans that will eventually be available on the new federal government market places. The so-called navigators will perform their duties in a “culturally competent manner,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency doling out the cash.
The money will be divided between 105 mostly leftist groups (surprise, surprise) that will help the uninsured sign up for coverage and understand their options. Here are a few examples of the community organizations receiving navigator grants from the government; an Arizona nonprofit called “Campesinos Sin Fronteras” that provides services to farm workers and low-income Hispanics; a south Florida legal group that will provide navigators in “racially, ethnically, linguistically, culturally and socioeconomically diverse” communities; three Planned Parenthood branches—in Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire—got a combined $655,000 to serve as navigators.
Here are a few other grant recipients worth mentioning; the Arab Community Center in Michigan is getting nearly $300,000 to reach out to and engage uninsured community members through “multicultural” media. A Black Chamber of Commerce in South Carolina is receiving north of $230,000 to “provide outreach around new coverage options” and a Hispanic aging group in Texas will receive over $646,000 help members that are “socially isolated due to cultural and linguistic differences.”
It’s tough not to see that there is a huge racial component in the administration’s efforts. The government is spending big bucks targeting minorities in a seemingly desperate effort to salvage the president’s hostile takeover of the nation’ healthcare system. There is another factor in all of this; for Obama’s healthcare law to succeed millions of people must purchase insurance through the government’s new markets and it doesn’t appear like that’s going to happen.
That helps explain the frantic, multi-million-dollar outreach effort announced this month. HHS has already launched a 24-hour consumer call center in 150 languages. Additionally, the administration has recruited museums and libraries to help out with signing up people for healthcare and community health centers are sharing $150 million in federal grants to help enroll people. The $67 million navigator initiative is simply the latest investment.
“Navigators will be among the many resources available to help consumers understand their coverage options in the Marketplace,” says Obama HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “A network of volunteers on the ground in every state – health care providers, business leaders, faith leaders, community groups, advocates, and local elected officials – can help spread the word and encourage their neighbors to get enrolled.”
Also, this week HHS announced a contest that awards cash prizes—$30,000 in all—to those who create hip videos promoting Obamacare. The goal behind that brilliant idea is to inform young people about health insurance coverage under the new law. After all, Obamacare promises to make health care “more affordable and accessible for 19 million uninsured young adults across the country,” according to an HHS.
There seems to be no limit to the administration’s costly plan to make this disastrous healthcare law work. Just this week the president’s hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, blasted Obamacare in an editorial that referred to the measure as a “clumsy monstrosity.” The bottom line, according to the editorial: “Let’s delay and rewrite this ill-conceived law.”
