It's Alive

Exec at HealthCare.gov contractor went to school with first lady, donated to Obama campaign

As the problems pile up for HealthCare.gov, attention is now turning to the relationship between the Canadian company largely responsible for the website and the Obama administration.
Top officials at CGI Federal, a lead contractor tasked with developing the site, have a three-decade link to the Obamas. Toni Townes-Whitley, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, is also a Princeton University classmate of first lady Michelle Obama -- and a political donor.
Mike Caddell, a spokesman for Princeton University, confirmed to FoxNews.com that Townes-Whitley went to the school and graduated in 1985. According to a Princeton alumni publication in 1998, Townes-Whitley also volunteered for the Peace Corps and was stationed in West Africa. She raised six children before returning to work.
Both Townes-Whitley and Michelle Obama are members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.
According to Federal Election Commission Records, Townes-Whitley gave $500 in 2011 and 2012 to Obama's reelection campaign, and another $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.
Election records also show that Townes-Whitley's boss, George Schindler, the president for U.S. and Canada for CGI Federal's parent company CGI Group, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company won the ObamaCare contract.
But according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign donations, CGI Group was fairly even-handed when doling out political contributions.
Reps. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Kay Granger of Texas were among the Republican politicians who received donations from the company during the 2012 election cycle.
CGI, a relatively unknown company to many in the U.S., gained national attention after problems with HealthCare.gov turned out to be much more than a short-term glitch. Since its debut on Oct. 1, the software code and basic infrastructure of the site's design have been sharply criticized.
According to a document obtained by the fiscal conservative group FreedomWorks, CGI Federal also was hired by New York housing officials in May to help distribute $1.7 billion in federal Superstorm Sandy relief money.
According to the document, the company, a U.S. subsidiary of the Canada-based CGI Group, states CGI Federal was paid $49,000 for a short-term deal and will get $4.3 million through 2016.

White House knew as early as 2010 millions would lose health plans under ObamaCare

Conservative commentator Marc Thiessen accused President Obama of a “bold-faced lie” Monday after Fox News confirmed the White House knew as early as 2010 that over 10 million people would lose their current doctor under ObamaCare.
Megyn Kelly reported Monday on “The Kelly File” that an IRS regulation pushed by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 estimated that millions would be unable to keep their health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act.
Thiessen told Kelly he believes the Obama administration intended for people to lose their current health insurance, despite Obama’s repeated claims that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”
“The smoking gun is there in your hand," he said, referring to Kelly’s copy of the IRS form. "Look, they knew."
He claimed the administration needs these Americans to move into the ObamaCare exchanges to subsidize the law for those who cannot afford health insurance.
However, Thiessen said the White House did not prepare for the issues with the law’s website, which are creating a situation where not only will Americans get dumped from their health insurance plan, they will be unable to buy a new one.
“What the unanticipated consequence of this they’re pushing all these millions of people out of the health care that they liked into ObamaCare, except the people can’t get into ObamaCare,” he said.

Smoother Rollout

Half of Americans Get Government Benefits

Newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that in the fourth quarter of 2011, nearly half of all Americans — 49.1 percent — received benefits from one or more government programs.

Out of a population then estimated to be 306.8 million, 151 million received benefits from at least one government agency.

More than 82 million people lived in a household in which one or more people received Medicaid benefits, and 46.4 million people got Medicare benefits.

Nearly 50 million people received Social Security payments, 49 million got food stamps, 20.2 million got Supplemental Security Income, 13.4 million lived in public or subsidized rental housing, 5 million received unemployment compensation, and 3.1 million got veterans' compensation.

About 23.2 million people were in the Women, Infants, and Children program, and 5.8 million received benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, according to the data released on Oct. 22.

Other funds paid out in the last three months of that year include those for Railroad Retirement benefits, workers' compensation, and veterans' educational assistance.

The figures for means-tested programs such as food stamps and Supplemental Security Income include anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program.

The Census Bureau also reported that out of 118.8 million U.S. households, 29.5 percent received Medicare benefits, 20 percent got Medicaid benefits, and 32 percent received Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits.

Also, 15.4 million households, or 13 percent of the total, received food stamps.

When and if Obamacare is fully implemented next year, a new benefit program will begin — Americans earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level for their households will qualify for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance.

Who is that girl? The mysterious face of Healthcare.gov

You can bet she is not out there seeking autographs!

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER

Harry Reid says that Republicans will have to agree to tax increases to have any hope of achieving a grand budget bargain, saying Americans, 'including the rich,' are willing to pay more.

Bailey Comment: Does the statement Americans willing to pay more include all of the non working leaches that are sucking us dry already?

New Unemployment Data Reveals a Depressing State of Affairs

After a two-week delay, thanks to the good old government shutdown, the September jobs report was released on Tuesday.
The big takeaway – at least, according to most mainstream media outlets like The Wall Street Journal – is that the unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 7.2%.
Keep in mind, only four years ago, the headline unemployment rate stood at a staggering 10%.
So the labor market is improving, right? Wrong!
The official government unemployment rate is nothing but a statistical deception.
With that in mind, it’s time to serve up a big dollop of truth with the help of a timely chart. Not only can you handle it, you deserve it!
The true unemployment situation holds profound investment implications.
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
The U.S. economy added 148,000 jobs in September.
Economists expected more (180,000). But the August number was revised up by 24,000 jobs.
So no one really panicked about the miss. Especially since the unemployment rate managed to tick a tenth of a percentage point lower.
Here’s the problem…
You’d think a downtick in the unemployment rate would mean that more people are employed.
However, there actually aren’t more people working. Not when we dissect the data based on the percentage of able-bodied Americans.
Turns out, the number of Americans 16 years or older who have decided not to participate in the nation’s labor force increased by another 136,000 in September.
All told, a record 90,609,000 Americans don’t have a job – and aren’t looking for one, either.
In turn, the labor force participation rate (the percentage of Americans who have a job or are looking for one) stands at a 34-year low.
A simple chart really drives home the depressing state of affairs.

As you can see, in previous post-recession periods, the precipitous drop in the unemployment rate was always accompanied by an increase in the labor force participation rate.
In other words, the economy was improving so much – and so many new jobs were being created – that it enticed people who previously stopped looking for work to dust off their resumes. And not only did they start looking for work again, they found it.
Not this time around.
The economy might be adding jobs, but it’s not adding enough to keep up with the growth in available workers. So the drop in the unemployment rate is a total fraud. It has materialized based on more and more people opting out of finding work, instead of actually finding it.
As James Pethokoukis from the American Enterprise Institute points out, if the labor participation rate was the same today as it was when the recession started, the unemployment rate would actually be 11.2% right now, not 7.2%.
How’s that for some truth?