More problems for Obamacare

Yet another snafu has cropped up in implementing Obamacare. It seems that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “unexpectedly” has run out of Obamacare money needed to implement the insurance exchanges.

Here is what has happened recently.  HHS has gone to Congress seeking an additional $5.9 billion to get the exchanges up and running.  This is a mere $2 billion more than HHS estimated last year, and, of course, $5.9 billion more than Obamacare anticipated in its original funding.  Both the House and Senate Democrats denied the request.  Undaunted by this rebuke, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has announced a fall back position.

Obamacare created a slush, er Prevention Fund that so far has been used for such laudable projects as,

… bike-path signs[and] to patronage for liberal pressure groups lobbying for fast-food taxes.

There is some $5 billion left in the slush fund, and so, HHS has announced that it will raid that fund to pay for the costs of the exchanges.

The House of Representatives, however, has a different approach.

As you know, the Obamacare fund created to cover those with pre-existing medical conditions and who are unable to obtain insurance, went broke some ten months sooner, and about 150,000 thousand people fewer, than Obamacare anticipated.  The House wants to take the remaining $5 billion in the slush fund and use it to provide care for those with pre-existing conditions who are now shut out of the pre-existing conditions program.

Interesting…what do Senate Democrats do when confronted with such a bill?

Do they spend the slush fund on people who need care, or spend it on bureaucracy?

 

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

7 Comments

  1. cherwin on April 23, 2013 at 7:51 pm

    Should I be shocked? No! There will never be enough money until they stop the waste. They will have to take all the money from all the people who work to pay for all the people who don’t work. Then there won’t be anyone left to pay anything.????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? These co called healthcare plans (socialized medicine) has not worked in anything other civilization where it has been instituted and it never will be good for the people. As far as the ones instituting the plans they don’t care because they don’t have to be part of it. It makes me sick.



  2. SeeingRed on April 24, 2013 at 8:16 am

    I have a $10 that says bureaucracy rules the day!



  3. Dimsdale on April 24, 2013 at 10:35 am

    I wonder how much all those giant signs proclaiming the “goodness” of the various make work ARRA projects around the country cost? ? I say this as I recall real road signs in CT fading into uselessness.
    ?
    There always seems to be money to grease supporters, but never enough to go to genuine needs in the country.
    ?
    That’s the ?bama Way (soon to be a street in a city near you!)
    ?
    ?
    ?



  4. Lynn on April 24, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    So, I guess I just can’t say don’t spend the slush fund, right?



  5. kateinmaine on April 24, 2013 at 9:50 pm

    why are there slush funds?? for everything?? if slush funds were eliminated and depts had to function within their budgets, real ‘progress’ could be made without ‘investment’ spending, draconian cuts or deficit borrowing.? that may be too creative for the ‘new math’ crowd.? regardless, even that won’t save o’care.? the further they implement, the more skeletons emerge–you can only spend the same dollars so many times before someone notices something is off. . .



  6. JollyRoger on April 25, 2013 at 1:02 am

    There’s an old Lending Tree commercial on YouTube with a guy named Stanley Johnson; he’s got the big house, nice car, country club… ?Finally he admits he’s up to his eyeballs in debt, and then stoically begs for help while faking a smile. ?If SNL did a skit where Obama is Stanley with all sorts of grand but unfunded programs- they might attract an audience!



  7. stinkfoot on April 25, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    When the lawmakers are seeking exemptions for themselves and their staffs it indicates that they know full well that the law is a heaping truck full of steaming pork excrement.



  8. SeeingRed on May 3, 2013 at 7:49 am

    But Harry Reid says that we need more dough to take us from the ‘menu’ to the actual items listed (or some crap like that).? If they need billions more?$ to get us to the items, I don’t need to eat (forcefed) what’s on their menu.
    Before our very eyes,?DEMOCRATS have?taken the best healthcare system in the world and are in the process of turning it into a socialist ideal that has never, and will never, work to deliver higher quality healthcare to more patients at a lower cost.? Never gonna happen.



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