Impeach Cartoon

ObamaCare sign-ups hit snag on big weekend

WASHINGTON –  Consumers trying to sign up for health insurance ahead of a looming deadline are getting snagged by technical difficulties, the Obama administration said Saturday.
Administration spokeswoman Katie Hill said some people trying to get coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law haven't been able to get their income information electronically verified.
That's crucial because the amount of financial assistance to help pay premiums is based on people's income. The health care law offers subsidized private insurance to people who don't have coverage on the job. More than 8 in 10 of those who apply qualify for help. Without it, most can't afford the coverage.
The Internal Revenue Service handles income verification for the HealthCare.gov website. In a statement, Hill said the problem was due to issues with "external verification sources."
The glitch seemed to be affecting people with new applications.
People who previously submitted their income details -- but hadn't completed the final step of picking a plan -- were still able to do so.
The technical problems tied up some consumers who'd come out Saturday to an enrollment event in the central Illinois city of Jacksonville.
"They were frustrated, but they were nice about it," said Miranda Clark, who was helping people sign up. "They can come back tomorrow or call ... or log back into their account and do it on their own."
Officials posted an advisory on the home page of the HealthCare.gov website.
It reassured consumers that they would still be able to get coverage once the glitch is resolved. "Keep checking back for updates," it said.
The official deadline in the 37 states served by HealthCare.gov is 2:59 a.m. Eastern time Monday.
Last year, HealthCare.gov stumbled at the start. Numerous technical problems with the website were a huge headache for consumers, and an embarrassment for the tech-savvy White House. This year, the process had worked fairly smoothly.
The administration has set a goal of 9.1 million people signed up and paying their premiums in 2015.

Fool of the Week: MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry

The thing about this honor (“Fool of the Week”) is that it can be awarded for a single comment stemming from a momentary lapse in judgment. We’ve all been there.
Or it can be given to a repeat offender. A “fool trail” that they’ve left behind over a longer span of time.
That said, this week again provided me with a full docket  of potential Fools of the Week…
Here are some of this week’s nominees:
President Obama for using selfie sticks.
Howard Dean for attacking Scott Walker’s education.
The radical Girl Scouts of Oakland, California
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for admitting she was not 100% sober during the recent State of the Union address.  (Actually, I would have needed a few vodka clubs to sit through that, too. So she was immediately crossed off the list)
But this week’s awardee was so foolish,  she crushed her competition for the Fool of the Week:
With just a few minutes to interview high profile political guests, television hosts usually ask questions Americans want answers to.
With that in mind, here’s what MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry  asked outgoing attorney general Eric Holder:
 “Will you quack like a duck” for the MSNBC viewers?”
Wow. From the host who once hung feminine hygiene products from her ears. On air!!
Melissa Harris Perry… you are the Fool of the Week!
And by the way, MSNBC viewers, if that’s your idea of good TV, well, knock yourselves out. We will be bringing the truth to our “Cashin in” viewers on Fox News this weekend which airs simultaneously opposite Ms. Perry’s hard-hitting interviews.
Have a great weekend everybody!

As Supreme Court case on ObamaCare nears, focus is on plaintiffs and GOP's post-decision plan

The simmering debate about ObamaCare reemerged in Washington this week amid questions about the plaintiffs in the upcoming Supreme Court case on the health law and Republicans sounding more urgent about preparing for the ruling.
The high court will hear arguments in early March over whether the health-care law allows people in states without their own insurance markets to receive federal tax credits that reduce coverage costs.
The number of uninsured could rise by 8 million if the subsidies disappear, two independent think tanks have estimated.
“We have to have a contingency plan,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Friday.
Republicans and Democrats agree that a ruling for the plaintiffs could wipe out subsidies for millions of Americans, in three-fourths of U.S. states, and result in the law being rewritten.
A ruling is not expected until at least June. Ryan did not say Friday when a contingency plan would be finished but made clear it would not be fixes to the law.
“The idea is not to make ObamaCare work better or actually authorize ObamaCare,” he said.
Republicans, who control Congress after having won the Senate in November, say dismantling ObamaCare remains a priority. But they appear to think their best chance of undoing the 2010 law is the court case. And they have so far taken a wait-and-see approach, instead of trying to immediately repeal the law or dismantle it in parts.
Questions are being asked about the four challengers’ legal right to bring their lawsuit, though experts don’t think court will be deterred in deciding King v. Burwell, referring to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. 
The challengers, who live in Virginia, object to being forced to get insurance or pay a penalty. If the subsidies were not available, they would not pay a penalty for failing to be insured because even the cheapest health plan would be too costly, according to sworn statements they filed in 2013.
But the Wall Street Journal reported that two are Vietnam veterans who probably could obtain health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs, meaning they would not be affected by the subsidies issue. The newspaper and Mother Jones reported that a third plaintiff lived in a motel at the time that her address and age were used to calculate the cost of insurance. She now lives elsewhere in the state.
The fourth is a substitute school teacher in Richmond who said she could not recall how she became involved in the case.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, an anti-regulatory group, is paying for the legal challenges and recruited the four.
The right to get into court on an issue is known as standing.
"The important thing is there has to be someone in the case who is actually injured by the law," said Tara Grove, a law professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. "That is what determines whether the court has jurisdiction." It takes just one person who has been harmed to keep a lawsuit alive, Grove said.
The Obama administration or the justices could ask lawyers for the challengers to address the questions that have been raised about the four. The Justice Department contended that two would have earned too little to be subject to the penalty, but lower courts rejected that argument. The administration did not challenge the presence of any of the four at the Supreme Court.
The court could raise the topic on its own. But given its decision to take up the health law even in the absence of the usual requirement that lower courts be divided on an issue, several legal experts doubted the plaintiffs' situations would derail the case.
"For a test case, these are not the best people one could put forward. It's hard for them to demonstrate that they've had an actual injury," said Robert Dudley, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
But the court creates its own rules on whether it can reach a decision in a case, Dudley said. "I can cite the rules, but it's up to the court and the court will often take some very shaky cases because an issue is important. I honestly think this won't affect the court much," he said.
Questions about a party's standing seem to become important at the Supreme Court only when a majority is unwilling to settle an issue or the court is unable to produce five votes for any particular outcome. In 2013, the challenge to California's Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban foundered on the issue of standing. The result left in place a lower court ruling holding that the ban was constitutional.
Jonathan Adler, a law professor who helped formulate the challenge to the subsidies, said efforts to sink the case over questions about the plaintiffs fit with the desire of the administration and health law supporters to delay a resolution of this case. Adler said they believe that it becomes harder to undo the tax credits the longer people receive them.  "It would surprise me if the information in the affidavits wasn't true and there was suddenly any problem for all the plaintiffs in this case," Adler said.
Supporters of the law said questions about the plaintiffs make a broader point about the case.
"To me, what all this confirms is that people who weren't really affected by the statute are bringing ideologically and politically based claims that will substantially affect millions of other people. This is the use of the courts as a political forum," said Robert Weiner, a former Justice Department official who was deeply involved in the 2012 Supreme Court case that upheld the law.
There's nothing unusual about interest groups on the right and the left driving suits and seeking plaintiffs willing to be the faces of a court fight, Grove said. "You know courts are influenced to some degree by the facts of the case," she said. "It's just good lawyering to make sure you have clients who are sympathetic."

Police kill man believed to be gunman behind 2 Copenhagen shootings

Danish police killed a man early Sunday suspected of carrying out the shooting attacks at a free speech event and at a Copenhagen synagogue that left two men dead and five police officers wounded.
Officials said it is possible he was imitating the terror attacks that took place in Paris last month carried out by Islamic radicals at the Charlie Hebdo newsroom and at a kosher grocery store that left 17 dead.
"Denmark has been hit by terror," Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said on Sunday. "We do not know the motive for the alleged perpetrator's actions, but we know that there are forces that want to hurt Denmark. They want to rebuke our freedom of speech."
Denmark’s Jewish Community identified the victim of the attack at the synagogue as 37-year-old Jewish man Dan Uzan. He was guarding the building during a bar mitzvah when he was shot in the head. He later died from the injuries sustained in the attack.
The foot shooting occurred Saturday evening at 4 p.m. Police said a gunman used an automatic weapon and shot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cultural center during a discussion on freedom of expression which featured controversial Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. Vilks had been threatened previously about his caricatures featuring the Prophet Muhammad.
Three officers were injured in the attack, but a 55-year-old man died from the injuries he sustained, authorities said.
Minutes after midnight Sunday, the Jewish man was killed and two officers were wounded in the second shooting outside the synagogue.
Investigator Joergen Skov said the shooter was confronted by police as he returned to an address that authorities were keeping under surveillance. Investigators have not identified the man, but described him as 25 to 30 years old with an athletic build carrying a black automatic weapon. A blurred image was released of his face earlier Saturday.
Vilks, a 68-year-old artist who has faced numerous death threats for depicting Muhammad as a dog in 2007, told The Associated Press he believed he was the intended target of the first shooting, which happened at a panel discussion titled "Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression."
"What other motive could there be? It's possible it was inspired by Charlie Hebdo," he said, referring to the Jan. 7 attack by Islamic extremists on the French newspaper that had angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad.
Police said it was possible the gunman had planned the "same scenario" as in the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Leaders across Europe condemned the violence and expressed support for Denmark. Sweden’s security service said it was sharing information with its Danish counterpart, while U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said U.S. officials were ready to help with the investigation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu decried the attack and is planning to encourage a “massive immigration” of Jews from Europe.
"Again, Jews were murdered on European soil just because they were Jews," Netanyahu said at the start of his Cabinet meeting Sunday. "This wave of attacks is expected to continue, as well as murderous anti-Semitic attacks. Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home."
Vilks has faced numerous death threats and attempted attacks on his life. He depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog in 2007. A Pennsylvania woman received a 10-year prison sentence last year for planning to kill Vilks.
The depiction of the prophet is deemed insulting to many followers of Islam. According to mainstream Islamic tradition, any physical depiction of the Prophet Muhammad — even a respectful one — is considered blasphemous.

While many Muslims have expressed disgust at the deadly assault on the Charlie Hebdo employees, many were also deeply offended by its cartoons lampooning Muhammad.