How do companies make millions of dollars with a really bad idea?
They advise state governments on how to comply with federal Obamacare mandates, and then help the states build new websites.
The subject of Obamacare scarcely came up as a topic in the recent election, and it remains overwhelmingly unpopular. Yet it is already costing taxpayers lots of money, and has created a whole new stream of corporate welfare.
The President’s “if you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor” promise and his pledge to “bend the healthcare cost curve downward” are both fiction. What is non-fiction, however, is the fact that state governments are paying private consulting firms big bucks to lay the groundwork for our nation’s new healthcare bureaucracies. Among the beneficiaries of the new government spending are both Democrats, and Republicans, and they’re scooping-up taxpayer dollars in both Red and Blue states.
Chief among the concerns of individual state governments has been figuring out how to comply with the “health insurance exchange” mandate that has been imposed by the feds. And what, precisely, is a “health insurance exchange” anyway? Most of the consultants can’t actually say with certainty what any particular state’s “health insurance exchange” should consist of (a point on which I’ll elaborate later). But generally speaking, the states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are envisioning that each state would have its own website that lists all the various health insurance policies that are authorized to be bought and sold in that state, along with links to the respective insurance companies’ websites. It’s also likely that each state exchange will include a call center, with a toll-free number where consumers can get their questions answered.
Federal mandates of Obamacare’s magnitude pose new challenges for the states. So many of the states have hired private business consulting firms to figure out how to set up an insurance exchange that complies with the federal requirements, while many other states are soliciting proposals from these companies in anticipation of creating a future exchange.
So how difficult and costly could it be, do you suppose, to set up a website and a call center for the residents of one individual state? In the world of private enterprise, most small to midsize companies doing business within a specific region of the U.S. would be foolish to spend much more than a hundred thousand dollars for their customer service website and the infrastructure for a call center, and in many cases the project could be completed for much less.
But this is where the corporate welfare of Obamacare kicks in to high gear. Companies, careers, and personal fortunes are being made by people who are consulting the states, as firms bill the individual states millions of dollars for the website and call center set-ups.
Take for example a company called Leavitt Partners, LLC. Founded by the former Republican Governor of Utah (and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services) Michael Leavitt, the company describes itself as a “healthcare intelligence business,” and is focused solely on state-by-state Obamacare compliance (they have already completed Utah’s insurance exchange start-up).
Last month Leavitt Partners representatives traveled north and proposed to build an exchange for their neighboring state of Idaho, a state with a population of less than 1.7 million people and with elected leaders who haven’t yet decided which direction they will take with the federal mandates. Once the Leavitt representatives unveiled their proposed price tag to build an exchange - $70 million-an incredulous member of Idaho’s state insurance task force asked “does Governor Leavitt really believe that this is a good idea?” Company associate Brett Graham replied with the nuanced explanation that “Governor Leavitt doesn’t like the feds dictating to the states,” however, the Governor also believes that the states should “stand inside the circle with the feds rather than stand outside of it” (it’s also noteworthy that while Leavitt is making millions of dollars showing states how to do Obamacare, he also publicly endorsed the presidential candidate who vowed to repeal it – Mitt Romney – and was chosen to oversee the Washington transition team had Romney won the election).
Leavitt’s proposal is not the most expensive that the sparsely populated Idaho has received. The global accounting and consulting firm KPMG weighed-in with a price tag of $77 million, and when a state official asked what the residents of Idaho would get in return for such a large expenditure, KPMG representative Andrew Gottschalk was vague: “It’s hard to explain exactly what you get…It’s hardware, it’s software, there’s infrastructure, there’s people and staffing” he stated. “There would likely be a call center. It’s all kinds of things… there’s a lot of stuff….but it’s hard to be specific.”
States spending millions of taxpayer dollars, and receiving “all kinds of things” and “a lot of stuff” in return. That’s our present-day reality with Obamacare. Along with Leavitt Partners and KPMG, global consulting firms Maximus and Mercer are also cashing-in. These firms employ well educated, highly skilled professionals with JD’s, MBA’s, and advanced degrees in information systems and healthcare management, most of whom would undoubtedly reject the idea that they are welfare recipients. As the Maximus corporate website states, “we leverage our extensive experience and strong commitment to ethics to provide high quality services and solutions.”
Yet the need for finding “solutions” to the federal government illustrates Obamacare’s problem. The fact that states as small as Idaho are even considering spending tens of millions of dollars to employ highly educated “experts” to create new statewide bureaucracies that are in full compliance with the already cumbersome federal bureaucracy demonstrates that government is our problem in the healthcare markets, and not our solution.
(Warning: The following contains disturbing information of a sexual nature.)
My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
My dear friend and colleague Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting law professor at Liberty University School of Law, recently guest lectured during “Sexual Behavior and the Law,” a course I teach. Dr. Reisman’s lecture was filmed by CSPAN and will be airing soon.
In past years, Dr. Reisman has served as scientific consultant to four U.S. Department of Justice administrations, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is a world renowned expert on the discredited research of bug doctor turned “sexologist,” Alfred Kinsey.
Kinsey, though married to a woman who took part in his many filmed “scientific” orgies, was a promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist. He managed to completely upend and twist the world’s perception of human sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s with his world famous “Kinsey Reports.”
Even today, most are completely unaware that during his tenure at Indiana University, Kinsey facilitated, with stopwatches and ledgers, the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds, if not thousands, of children and infants – all in the name of science.
Among other things, Kinsey asserted that children are “sexual from birth.” He further concluded, based upon experiments he directed and documented in his infamous Table 34, that adult-child sex is harmless, even beneficial, and described child “orgasm” as “culminating in extreme trembling, collapse, loss of color, and sometimes fainting. …” Many children suffered “excruciating pain,” he observed, “and [would] scream if movement [was] continued.” Some “[would] fight away from the [adult] partner and may make violent attempts to avoid climax, although they derive[d] definite pleasure from the situation.”
Yeah. Sounds like it.
It’s little wonder that Dr. Reisman identifies Kinsey as a “sexual psychopath.” These children were as young as 2 months old.
Disturbing though that may be, what’s equally disturbing is that nearly all of today’s liberal “comprehensive sex education” curricula – such as that pushed by groups like the National Education Association (NEA), PlannedParenthood and the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) – is derived entirely from the criminally fraudulent research of Alfred Kinsey.
But even more troubling is a recent discovery by Dr. Reisman. She found that the Obama administration, which fully embraces the debunked Kinsey sex-education model, has begun pushing a curriculum that, in many ways, eerily mirrors the “FBI Molester Grooming Paradigm.”
In short, she found that both Obama’s HHS and many public sex-education programs are doing to children, constructively, what pedophiles do to “groom” them for sex:
According to the FBI, child molesters:
Demonstrate sex acts to children. Offenders commonly use pornography to teach or give instructions to naïve children about how to masturbate, perform oral sex and/or engage in sexual intercourse.
Lower the sexual inhibitions of children. Some children naturally fear sexual activities. Some offenders show pictures of other children engaging in sexual activities to overcome these fears, indicating to their intended victims that it is all right to have sex with an adult because lots of other boys and girls do the same thing.
Desensitize children to sex. Offenders commonly show child pornography to their intended victims to expose them to sexual acts before they are naturally curious about such activities.
Sexually arouse children. Offenders commonly use pornographic images of other children to arouse victims, particularly those in adolescence.
During her lecture, Dr. Reisman shocked the 50-plus in attendance by illustrating that today’s Kinseyan-based sex education – as promoted by Obama’s HHS – does much of what the FBI describes above.
Graphic sexual images and explicit “values neutral” talk of sex and sexuality are rampant throughout classrooms across America, effectively desensitizing children and numbing their natural inhibitions. These inhibitions help protect children from potential predators.
According to Dr. Reisman, “the brain data fully support [the] finding” that such “sex education” literally changes the neural pathways of a child’s brain. There is mounting scientific evidence to support this hypothesis.
Whatever its motive, the Obama administration is guilty of employing these grooming techniques on children.
Consider, for instance, that just last year, the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Questions and Answers About Sex” website provided a “Quick Guide to Healthy Living” section which, like Kinsey, outrageously claimed that “Children are human beings and therefore sexual beings … which is healthy and normal.”
Get the implication? And what do “sexual beings” do? Well, they have sex, of course. “It’s hard for parents to acknowledge this,” admitted the page.
You think?
The HHS link then suggested that youth “may also experiment with sexual experiences, including those with members of the same sex, during the years they are exploring their own sexuality.”
Sound familiar? Remember, the FBI indicates that pedophiles will “teach or give instructions to naïve children about how to masturbate, perform oral sex and/or engage in sexual intercourse.”
Who needs pedophiles when we have today’s “comprehensive sex education”? It does all that and more.
Speaking of masturbation and other “sort of ‘sexual’ behavior … young kids exhibit,” the HHS is right there to help. The link says “Parents should only be concerned about masturbation if a child seems preoccupied with it to the exclusion of other activities.”
Otherwise, masturbate away, I guess.
Today’s Kinseyan “comprehensive sex education” model, embraced by Barack Obama and other “progressives,” is nothing short of educational malpractice. It’s child corruption. It’s criminally reckless. It’s undeniably “grooming” children for sex.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, a then-Sen. Barack Obama spoke about teaching “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners: “It’s the right thing to do … to provide age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools,” he said.
And by “science-based,” of course, he meant “Kinsey-based.”
So, what is age appropriate, science-based sex education? Well, we know what Alfred Kinsey thought was “age appropriate.” We know what he considered “science-based.”
I’d expect such “educational” grooming tactics and opinions from Alfred Kinsey or Jerry Sandusky, but not from public educators – not from the U.S. government.
And most certainly, not from the president of the United States.
If re-elected, Barack Obama says he’s “open to amending” it.
But regardless of who wins the presidency next month, conscientious voters need to know this: Obamacare is already costing taxpayers lots of money, and within the next few months it will cost millions of dollars more.
It’s bad enough that President Obama’s “if you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor” promise has proven false. And it’s bad enough that his promise to “bend the healthcare cost curve downward” has proven to be fictitious, as well (according to MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber prices for private insurance will likely increase 30% by 2016 – this, despite Gruber’s support of the President’s claims in 2009).
Now, state governments are spending taxpayer-funded time and resources figuring out how to comply with the federal mandates. The Obamacare law has imposed a deadline of November 16th, whereby the states must explain to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services what they intend to do about the establishment of their respective “healthcare exchanges” - the government organized group of standardized health insurance plans from which citizens private citizens and organizations will be permitted to purchase health plans – and the states are deciding now how to proceed.
According to the law, each state can choose one of three options when it comes to setting up an exchange:
the state can establish an exchange on its own;
the state can let the federal government set up an exchange on the state’s behalf; or
the state can choose a “hybrid” approach, and co-mingle both state and federal authorities and resources and produce an exchange together.
Back in August of this year, members of the U.S. House of Representatives heard testimony about the exchanges from Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Cannon noted at the time that, given the way the Obamacare law is written, the sitting Secretary of Health and Human Services (whomever that happens to be at any given time) has broad authority to impose requirements and restrictions on a “state exchange,” regardless of whether the individual state government constructs the exchange or if the federal government does it for the state. In cases where a state seeks to set up an exchange, the federal government will ultimately determine which health insurance plans will be “allowed” to be bought and sold in that state, and what those health insurance plans will cover.
Cannon spelled-out this reality in no uncertain terms: “If what you want is a federally run health insurance exchange in your state – a government agency controlling the private health insurance market – if what you want is the federal government to control your state, the best thing you can do is establish an exchange” he told the congressional members. He also noted that once a state makes the overture towards creating an exchange, there is probably no turning back on that decision, legally speaking; the state at that point will have forfeited its sovereignty and will likely not regain it.
For states that don’t want a “federally run health insurance exchange,” Cannon had a fascinating suggestion: don’t do anything. “If the state does not establish an exchange then there might not be an exchange at all” Cannon noted. The reason for this is simply because Congress never approved any funding for the state health insurance exchanges, and given how politically unpopular Obamacare is today, Congress probably won’t approve any such funding for the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, state government officials are consulting with outside “experts,” and each other, in hopes of determining how to proceed. Just last week, a task force selected by Idaho Governor Butch Otter met and heard over six hours of testimony from both private consultants, and officials from other states.
Bruce Greenstein, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, told the Idaho task force that Louisiana has chosen not to create its own exchange.“There is really no way to effectively estimate the state’s costs for creating an exchange and the provisions in the law are vague,” he said. His associate, Carol Steckel, added that “we view this law as a ‘one size fits all’ effort that cannibalizes the private insurance markets. It doesn’t work for us here in Louisiana.”
Jonathan Hurst, a policy advisor to Texas Governor Rick Perry, described the insurance exchange mandate as a “logistical and administrative nightmare,” and noted that “90 percent of the rules that will govern these things have yet to be written” (the hastily drafted Obamacare law makes reference to “future rules” that haven’t been established yet). Hurst said that Texas is not pursuing a state exchange, noting that there are “too many risks and unknowns” in the law, and a state that pursues an exchange today could be held liable for violating rules that will be established sometime later.
Perhaps most striking was the testimony heard in Idaho from representatives of KPMG, the global accounting and professional services firm. Hired by Idaho to research the costs of creating a state exchange, KPMG reported the price to be approximately $77 million to design and implement the exchange, with recurring operational costs estimated to be $10 million annually.
When asked by one of the Idaho task force members what the state would get in return for this estimated $77 million expenditure, KPMG representative Andrew Gottschalk was vague: “It’s hard to explain exactly what you get…It’s hardware, it’s software, there’s infrastructure, there’s people and staffing” he stated. “There would likely be a call center. It’s all kinds of things… there’s a lot of stuff….but it’s hard to be specific.”
But there are two things we can be specific about. As states spend taxpayer dollars crafting programs and plans, the cost of healthcare continues rise.
