Obamacare Tax Dollars Pouring Into ACORN, MoveOn, LaRaza…
Sebelius Spends Your Taxes On Community Organizations
From Investors Business Daily . By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was criticized last week for soliciting private contributions to Enroll America, a non-governmental organization run by former Obama campaign operatives.
The real monkey business is what the secretary is doing with taxpayers' money — pouring it into community organizations.
The pretext is that community organizations will do a better job than government employees in enrolling the uninsured in ObamaCare. But the likelihood is that these community organizations will steer the uninsured into the Democratic Party.
And beware. The Senate immigration bill tries to repeat this unsavory use of community organizations. It pays community organizations to educate immigrants about American civics and the path to citizenship.
Last week's brouhaha came about because Sebelius raised money for Enroll America after House Republicans refused to approve more funding for ObamaCare enrollment efforts.
So what is Enroll America? Its board of directors is made up of insurers and hospital organizations that will benefit from enrolling millions of people in ObamaCare. But its management is 100% political.
Its president is Anne Filipic, formerly deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement in the White House, where she networked with community organizers. Before that, she had a top job at the Democratic National Committee, and before that she managed Obama's victorious 2008 Iowa Caucus bid.
To design a media campaign, Enroll America hired Lake Research, which also manages messaging for Acorn, MoveOn.org, LaRaza and 39 members of Congress, all Democrats.
Sebelius' fundraising for Enroll America was inappropriate, but it's minor compared with delivering taxpayer dollars to community groups.
Yet Sebelius isn't breaking the law. Amazingly, the Obama health law requires that community organizations be hired as "navigators" to enroll the uninsured.
So far Sebelius has announced $45 million in navigator grants. Who qualifies? You don't have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted.
The odious presumption is that only Asians can assist Asians, only blacks can enroll blacks, only Harlem residents can help Harlem residents.
In addition to navigator grants, last week, HHS announced $150 million for community health centers to "hire and train staff to conduct community outreach efforts." Behind those weasel words is the truth that many community health centers engage in political activism.
The National Association of Community Health Centers states that part of its mission is registering people to vote and collecting patients' signatures on desired legislation. Employees hired by the community health centers can say and do things government employees can't. That's the problem.
Here's more monkey business.
Section 4201 of ObamaCare authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to hand out over $100 million a year in "community transformation grants" to improve the emotional and social wellness of their community, combat environmental hazards, foster healthy living and reduce disparities between the races. That mandate is so broad it can justify anything.
In September 2012, the CDC awarded $7.9 million to Community Health Councils, based in Los Angeles. Community Health Councils' executive director, Lark Galloway-Gilliam, has led protests under the organization's banner against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil drilling.
Community Health Councils announced that part of the $7.9 million would be used to "educate community members about environmental hazards" and the rest would be distributed to neighborhood partners.
No matter how you feel about ObamaCare, it's outrageous that money is going for this, rather than covering the uninsured.
The Senate immigration bill includes the same misuse of community organizations. Sections 2106, 2534, 2535 and 2536 fund community organizations to educate immigrants about citizenship. This started in 2009, and a past recipient is the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, which claims to "build political power through citizenship drives and voter registration."
Immigrant education should not be outsourced to community organizations. The Office of Citizenship (part of the Department of Homeland Security) provides nonpartisan materials to teach immigrants about citizenship.
Its activities are subject to public oversight. That's where the responsibility should stay.
The nation has a community organizer for president. He knows better than anyone that outsourcing government functions to community organizations invites abuse. Why aren't Republicans in Congress protesting these provisions and demanding their removal?
END OF INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY COLUMN.
Obamacare allows for the establishment of Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP). A CO-OP is a federal program created to assist in the development of non-profit, member-run health insurance issuers. The issuers will offer qualified health plans in the individual and small group markets. Organizations participating in CO-OP programs must be non-profit entities.
Once formed at great expense to the taxpayer, they can put the co-op into the healthcare exchange to compete even though it is known they can’t compete.
Many of the people starting up the exchanges have no experience. One has experience providing the poorest service in New York. [Greta Van Susteren expose April 4]
Co-ops are fatally flawed. They can’t compete with the government-subsidized option and they can’t compete with large insurance companies. Enrollees are in charge of decisions affecting costs – no conflict of interest there. They can succeed if they move beyond what they are and join forces with other co-ops and the moon and the stars are correctly aligned in the heavens. [rwjf research]
The government has given co-ops $3.8 billion taxpayer dollars to start up though the failure rate could be about 35% to 40%. No one expects it to be 40% but they’re just mentioning it as a possibility. [the hill]
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform under Darrell Issa would like information on the co-ops to see where our money is going. They asked in February but Sebelius failed to comply. They asked again at the end of March and have greatly expanded their probe.[Washington Examiner]
Immediately after Obamacare passed, slews of ACORN-like (Alinsky-style) co-ops formed. Heavily subsidized with tax dollars, the co-ops need not be set up by anyone who has any experience or record of success. With all the rules being thrown out by HHS, they didn’t feel the need to have any rules about this?
One of these co-ops is The Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, an Alinsky-style ACORN group. It formed in August, 2011 at the same time the tax dollar incentive became known.
Obama gave this co-op $56 million to start up their health insurance company even though they have basically no experience in the area.
The Alinsky group is an operation out of Chicago.
…A Saul Alinsky-tied group has been awarded a $56 million federal loan to start up a nonprofit health insurance company — one of several organizations across the country this week tapped to launch a new network of insurers under the sponsorship of the federal health care overhaul.
The Wisconsin group, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, was awarded the funding on Tuesday. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the group is expected to provide coverage statewide within five years after starting on a smaller scale in early 2014…Read more: FoxNews
The complexity of this whole nationalized health care scam is mind boggling. But it is obvious to me that whole purpose is to make the Democratic Party the permanent majority.
Welcome to the new socialistic Republic.
This is what happens when a community organizer becomes president.
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