CIA Witch Hunt Cartoon

Federal, state health insurance sites brace for 2015 sign-up deadline

President Obama's healthcare reform push faces the biggest test of its second year in existence Monday, the deadline for customers to choose an insurance plan for 2015. 
Midnight Pacific time is also the deadline for current enrollees to make changes that could reduce premium increases ahead of the new year.
HealthCare.gov and state insurance websites are preparing for heavy online traffic before the deadline, which gives consumers in the East until 3 a.m. Tuesday to enroll.
Wait times at the federal call center started creeping up around the middle of last week, mainly due to a surge of current customers with questions about their coverage for next year. Many will face higher premiums, although they could ease the hit by shopping online for a better deal. Counselors reported hold times of 20 minutes or longer for the telephone help line.
About 6.7 million people now have coverage through Obama's signature law, which offers subsidized private insurance. The administration wants to increase that to 9.1 million in 2015. To do that, the program will have to keep most of its current enrollees while signing up more than 2 million new paying customers.
People no longer can be turned down because of health problems, but picking insurance still is daunting for many consumers. They also have to navigate the process of applying for or updating federal subsidies, which can be complex for certain people, including immigrants. Many returning customers are contending with premium increases generally in the mid-to-high single digits, but much more in some cases.
Consumers "understand it's complicated but they appreciate the ability to get health insurance," said Elizabeth Colvin of Foundation Communities, an Austin, Texas, nonprofit that is helping sign up low-income residents. "People who haven't gone through the process don't understand how complicated it is."
Last year's open enrollment season turned into a race to salvage the reputation of the White House by fixing numerous technical bugs that crippled HealthCare.gov from its first day. With the website now working fairly well, sign-up season this year is a test of whether the program itself is practical for the people it is intended to serve.
New wrinkles have kept popping up, even with seemingly simple features of the Affordable Care Act.
For example, most current customers who do nothing will be automatically renewed Jan. 1 in the plan they now are in. At this point, it looks like that is what a majority intends to do.
While that may sound straightforward, it's not.
By staying in their current plans, people can get locked into a premium increase and miss out on lower-priced plans for 2015.  Not only that, they also will keep their 2014 subsidies, which may be less than what they legally would be entitled to for next year.
Doing nothing appears to be a particularly bad idea for people who turned 21 this year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington group that advocates for low-income people.
Researchers at the center estimate that 21-year-olds will see a 58 percent increase in the sticker price for their premiums just because they're a year older. An age-adjustment factor used to compute premiums jumps substantially when a person turns 21. A 20-year-old whose premium was $130 per month in 2014 will see the premium climb to $205 a month in 2015, solely because of that year's difference.
Tax-credit subsidies can cancel out much or even all of the impact. But if consumers default to automatic renewal, their tax credits will not be updated and they will get the same subsidy as this year.
"Even in the best possible scenario of how many people we can expect to come in, we will still see a substantial number of people defaulting," said Judy Solomon, a health care policy expert at the center. She worries that some young adults may get discouraged and drop out.
Reviews of HealthCare.gov and state health insurance exchanges are mixed.
An Associated Press-GfK poll this month found that 11 percent of Americans said they or someone else in their household tried to sign up since open enrollment began Nov. 15. Overall, 9 percent said the insurance markets are working extremely well or very well. Twenty-six percent said the exchanges are working somewhat well, and 39 percent said they were not working well. The remaining 24 percent said they didn't know enough to rate performance.
So far it has been a frustrating experience for Marie Bagot, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She and her husband are in their 60s, but not yet old enough for Medicare. The husband, who works as a chef, will turn 65 around the middle of next year and qualify for Medicare. Bagot said they were happy with their insurance this year under Obama's law.
"As you get older, you worry about your health," she said. "I was very pleased with the price we got."
But Bagot said she received a notice from her insurer that her current plan will not be available next year in her community. The closest alternative would involve a premium increase of more than $350 a month, even with their tax credit subsidy. After days of trying to find a comparable plan through the federal call center and after visiting a counselor, Bagot said she opted to keep their current coverage, while hoping costs go down after her husband joins Medicare.
"I cannot afford it, but I'm going to try to," she said.
Monday is not the last chance for consumers like Bagot. Open enrollment doesn't end until Feb. 15.

Warren's present-tense denial adds to speculation she will run in 2016

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a rising Democratic star, fueled speculation Monday that she might run for president in 2016.
While the freshman senator said “I am not running for president” four times during an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition,” political insiders argue that Warren’s use of the present tense leaves open the possibility she might launch a 2016 campaign.
Speculation about a White House run by Warren, whose populist, anti-Wall Street rhetoric has captured the interest of many disaffected Democrats, has been circulating for months in Washington and across the country.

“I am not running for president.”- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Her opposition to the $1.1 trillion spending bill that Congress passed last week -- over a provision that weakens the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill -- appears to have attracted even more support.
And her remarks Monday likely will do little to stop or slow those who see her as a better candidate or at least a strong challenger to Hillary Clinton, the clear front-runner in her likely bid for the party’s 2016 nomination.
More than 300 former campaign staffers and organizers for President Obama have signed a letter urging Warren to run.
They say in a letter released last week that they want someone who will "stand up for working families and take on the Wall Street banks and special interests."
The letter was released by Ready for Warren, a grassroots group promoting a potential campaign.
And MoveOn.org has recently announced that it was starting a draft Warren campaign and promoting her in early presidential states Iowa and New Hampshire.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Friends and family of Sydney hostages tell intense tale of captivity

Family and friends of several hostages taken by gunman Man Haron Monis inside a Sydney cafe recounted the fear and terror the hostages experienced with Guardian Australia Tuesday.
No one paid attention to Monis at the café and the only time anyone heard anything from him is when he took his shotgun and held it up in fury yelling at patrons to stand with their hands raised.
Monis told customers he was a representative of ISIS and there were bombs in the building. Minutes later, a customer approached the already locked doors of the café but was deterred by Monis.
The customers alerted the police and the operation began.
Meanwhile, Monfis reportedly was yelling at his captives spreading messages of fear while they cried. Monfis finally got someone to listen to him.
The gunman surrounded himself with the staff members, the paper reports. He used them to control messages to social media. He directed them what to do and what to say.
Hostages called media outlets across Australia to relay Monfis’ demands; a live on-air broadcast with Australian prime minister Tony Abbot, a public declaration that this was an act of terror from ISIS and a black Islamic State flag.
None of his demands were met.
Videos of Monfis controlling the staff members were deleted from YouTube early on. A woman is reading a prepared statement and the “director” of the video reportedly spoke confidently to those on camera.
A Sydney lawyer, Julie Taylor, was one of the hostages forced to speak.
“My name is Julie Taylor, I’m a barrister in Sydney, this is a message for Tony Abbott. We are here with … ummm … our brother, who has asked for three simple things, and the first is that Tony Abbott calls him, live in the media, to have a short conversation. If he does that five of us will be allowed to go. We can’t understand why that hasn’t happened.”
Taylor continued to relay the demands of Monis on the video.
With the situation dragging, Monis reportedly realized his message was not getting out.
One hostage told Guardian Australia that Monis was getting “angrier and angrier.”
Monis did allow the captives to take drinks of water and for one woman to take her medication.
Monis granted bathroom breaks and made sure there was an escort to those who needed to use the restroom.
Two men who asked to go to the bathroom asked a staff member if they pressed the green button at the base of the door, would it open. The employee was unsure.
The men took a risk and made a run for it. They pressed the button sliding the open doors and made their escape, the café employee went through the fire door sparking two more to do the same later.
As night fell, the power was cut. An agitated Monis was only getting more furious.
Details emerged after the rescue operation that one hostage attempted to grab Monis’ gun. Gunshots were heard, which prompted police to move in.
When the dust cleared, Monis was found dead on the ground with two victims, 38-year-old Katrina Dawson and 34-year-old Tori Johnson, the manager of the café.

Sony Pictures hack takes yet another weird twist

The Sony Pictures Entertainment hack has taken yet another weird twist with hackers apparently offering to withhold data stolen from the company’s employees.
On Sunday the group claiming responsibility for the crippling Nov. 24 hack offered not to release some email correspondence from Sony Pictures' employees. The group urged employees to contact them if they don’t want their correspondence released.
There was no way to determine how many, if any employees, had supplied their details.
The post, which claimed to be from the shadowy Guardians of Peace, or GOP, group, appeared on file sharing sites Pastebin and Friendpaste, according to the website Recode.
“Message to SPE Staffers,” it read. “We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees. If you don’t want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data.”
Sunday’s message also contained links to several file sharing sites for obtaining the group’s latest leaks. Clearly keen to maintain the pressure on Sony, the group vowed to release “larger quantities of data,” which it described as “a Christmas gift,” reiterating a similar GOP message posted on Saturday.
Experts have noted the resolve of the attack’s perpetrators, who seem intent on prolonging Sony’s pain.
“Whoever it is, they must feel like they are immune to retaliation,” Jim Lewis, director and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told FoxNews.com, in an email. “They are also really motivated to keep it up this long – most of these incidents are more like smash-and-grab.”
Sunday’s post is the latest in a flurry of cyber assaults aimed at Sony Pictures, which have included leaks of confidential data and unreleased movies, as well as threats against Sony employees. The producers of James Bond films have also acknowledged that an early version of the screenplay for the new movie "Spectre" was among the material stolen in the massive Sony Pictures cyberattack.
“Sony is receiving repeated body blows from the breach, which is perhaps indicative of the intention to damage the reputation of the company,” wrote Chris Boyd, malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes Labs, in an email to FoxNews.com. “Typically a big company breach is all about stealthy data theft and low profile operations, however in this case the motivation appears focused on creating crippling headlines - it could almost be the beginning of a Bond film itself.”
The finger of suspicion has already been pointed at North Korea over the hack, although Sony Pictures recently denied a report that it was poised to blame Pyongyang for the attack. The studio’s forthcoming film “The Interview,” starring Seth Rogen and James Franco as journalists enlisted to assassinate dictator Kim Jong-un, has outraged North Korea.
There has also been plenty of speculation that the cyberattack was an inside job.
With the shockwaves from the hack still reverberating, Sony Pictures has reportedly demanded that at least three media outlets stop reporting stories based on documents obtained by hackers.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Lewis told FoxNews.com that the attack has also shone a spotlight on hackers’ use of file sharing sites such as Pastebin.
While Saturday and Sunday’s GOP posts have been removed from Pastebin, a GOP message titled  “Gift of Sony for the 8th day: GOP at Christmas (2),” which apparently corresponds to Sunday's Pastebin message, is still available on Friendpaste.
A spokesman for Pastebin told FoxNews.com that it received two requests about the posts related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). "We always comply with such request when the items in question contain sensitive data," he added, in an email to FoxNews.com.
Friendpaste was unavailable for comment.
Sony Pictures Entertainment has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from FoxNews.com. A spokeswoman for the FBI, which is investigating the hack, told FoxNews.com that its probe is ongoing.