Maryland's ObamaCare website sent customers to Seattle pottery store

The Maryland website for ObamaCare mistakenly listed an 800 number that sent some Maryland residents attempting to pick a health insurance provider to Seattle Pottery Supply, instead of the state's call center.
The number appears under the words "State Advantage" and "call a representative," according to The Baltimore Sun.
The correct number for help shows up multiple times on the marylandhealthconnection.gov site before the incorrect number appears.
Critics of the state-run site said Saturday this is just the latest in a long series of problems for the Maryland health exchange.
"You can't make this stuff up, and I guess if it wasn't so serious, it could be funny," said state Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican.
A state spokeswoman said Saturday that she had no update on efforts to fix the problem. Maryland officials were unaware of the problem until contacted Friday by the newspaper.
Maryland is one of 14 states that chose to build its own website to sell health insurance as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
State officials have set a goal of signing up 150,000 people for private insurance by the end of March; 22,512 had signed up on the website as of Jan. 11.
The site’s problems have become the major issue in this year’s gubernatorial race in which front-runner and Democratic Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown was Gov. Martin O’Malley’s point man on developing the health exchange.

White House reportedly delays ObamaCare equal coverage provision

The Obama administration is reportedly delaying enforcement of another aspect of ObamaCare, one that prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than those being offered to regular employees.
According to The New York Times, tax officials said they would not enforce the provision in 2014 as they had not yet issued the appropriate regulations.
The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate “in favor of highly compensated individuals” with respect to either eligibility or benefits, and provides a tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, while demanding employers not provide better coverage to higher-paid employees.
Yet Bruce I. Friedland, a spokesman for the I.R.S., told the New York Times that employers would not have to comply until the agency issued regulations or other guidance.
Under ObamaCare, an employer that has a fully insured health plan that discriminates in favor of high-paid executives could face a steep penalty: a tax of $100 a day for each individual affected negatively.
Among the issues holding up the implementation of regulations, according to the Times, are how to measure the value of employee health benefits, how to define "highly compensated" and what exactly constitutes discrimination against less-paid employees. 
As a result, the Times reports, officials have decided to review the existing nondiscrimination rules for self-insured companies, even as they try to write new rules for employers that buy commercial health insurance.
“Under the Affordable Care Act, for the first time all group health plans will be prohibited from offering coverage only to their highest paid employees. The Departments of HHS, Labor and the Treasury are working on rules that will implement this requirement of the ACA, taking into account public comments that were previously requested,” Erin Donar, a spokesperson for the Treasury told Fox News in a statement Saturday evening.
“As we continue this work, employers still have the same incentives they always have had to offer coverage to their employees as part of a competitive compensation package, and will have additional incentives under the Affordable Care Act starting this year and next.”
The enforcement delay is the latest in a list of deadline extensions and exemptions to the controversial law by the Obama administration to minimize disruption from the new health care law, which is sure to play in key role in this year’s midterm elections.

American Hustle

Media Doesn't Want Accurate ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers

As I write this Chuck Todd is using his MSNBC show "The Daily Rundown" to spread the fabricated myth that 2.2 million Americans "enrolled" in ObamaCare. This isn't true and if Todd doesn't know it isn't true he is not a tenth as smart as I think he is. Sadly, Todd's willingness to spread government propaganda without qualification is not unique among a media that obviously don't want to push for the release of accurate ObamaCare enrollment numbers.

You are not "enrolled" in ObamaCare or any insurance plan until you have paid your first month's premium. Scattered reports from various insurance companies tell us that anywhere from 95% to 50% of those the White House are counting as enrolled have not paid and therefore are not really enrolled.
The numbers the White House and its mouthpiece media are using do not fall under the accepted or standard definition of "enrollee." We are being told 2.2 million enrolled when the truth is that 2.2 million only went as far as to place a health plan in their shopping cart. How many of those 2.2 million are truly enrolled is a number the White House isn't releasing and the media are not publicly pressuring them to release.
If the mainstream media wanted the true enrollment figure, they could easily do what they always do when they want something: coordinate a narrative throughout every media outlet that pressures the administration to release the numbers and criticizes them for not doing so.
Instead, senior White House correspondents like Chuck Todd are, without qualification, repeating the number as though it's an accurate number.
But why would we expect the media to push for a truth that might hurt President Obama's signature piece of legislation, and one the media championed and refused for three years to vet for fear it might derail the entire program?
This kind of sloppy reporting and parroting of Obama talking points has defined our media since the day Barack Obama became a national figure.


Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC       

Most ObamaCare enrollees already had health plans, report says

The majority of the more than 2 million Americans who signed up for health insurance under ObamaCare through the end of December were already enrolled in employer-sponsored plans or had previously bought their own coverage, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Early data from insurers, brokers and consultants suggest that the marketplaces are popular with consumers who were previously covered elsewhere, raising questions about a law intended to expand coverage to millions of healthy, uninsured Americans to help offset costs.
A survey by management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that only 11 percent of consumers who purchased new coverage under ObamaCare were previously uninsured. The survey was based on a sampling of 4,563 consumers between November and January, according to The Wall Street Journal.
HealthMarkets Inc., an insurance agency that signed up about 7,500 people in exchange plans, reported that 65 of its enrollees had prior coverage, the report said. Fifteen percent of enrollees had their individual plans canceled, and 40 percent switched over from previous individual plans.
"One of the intents of the law was to address the uninsured problem in our country," David M. Cordani, chief executive of insurer Cigna told the newspaper. Some insurers said the early data on newly insured consumers is falling short of expectations.
Insurers in Michigan expected 400,000 of the state's 1.2 million uninsured people to join private plans this year, according to an analysis provided Michigan-based Priority Health. As of the end of December, only 76,000 people had signed up, many of whom were previously covered, according to the report. 
"I don't know we're growing the number of people with insurance here, so much as we're just adding complexity," Geoff Bartsh, vice president for policy at Minneapolis-based Medica Health Plans told the Journal. 
Federal health officials told the newspaper they don't yet know the number of people who have signed up for coverage through the exchanges who had insurance when they enrolled. Consumers have until the end of March 31 to purchase plans under ObamaCare.
"We are in the middle of a sustained six-month open-enrollment period, and we have seen a strong interest in the product overall across the range of demographics so far," said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "We are ramping up outreach activities so that more Americans learn how they can now benefit from affordable health insurance."
Overall, adults ages 55-64 were the most heavily represented in the signups, accounting for 33 percent of the total. Nationwide, the premiums paid by people in that demographic don't fully cover their medical expenses. Some are in the waiting room for Medicare; that coverage starts at age 65.
Young adults from 18 to 34 are only 24 percent of total enrollment, the Obama administration said Monday in its first signup figures broken down for age, gender and other details. Enrolling young and healthy people is important because they generally pay more into the system than they take out, subsidizing older adults.

Bloggers have First Amendment protections, federal court rules

  A federal appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation: If the issue is of public concern, plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial in a defamation lawsuit brought by an Oregon bankruptcy trustee against a Montana blogger who wrote online that the court-appointed trustee criminally mishandled a bankruptcy case.
The appeals court ruled that the trustee was not a public figure, which could have invoked an even higher standard of showing the writer acted with malice, but the issue was of public concern, so the negligence standard applied.
Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.
"It's not a special right to the news media," he said. "So it's a good thing for bloggers and citizen journalists and others."
Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., now living in Port Townshend, Wash., was sued for defamation by Bend attorney Kevin Padrick and his company, Obsidian Finance Group LLC, after she made posts on several websites she created accusing them of fraud, corruption, money-laundering and other illegal activities. The appeals court noted Padrick and Obsidian were hired by Summit Accommodators to advise them before filing for bankruptcy, and that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court later appointed Padrick trustee in the Chapter 11 case. The court added that Summit had defrauded investors in its real estate operations through a Ponzi scheme.
A jury in 2011 had awarded Padrick and Obsidian $2.5 million.
"Because Cox's blog post addressed a matter of public concern, even assuming that Gertz is limited to such speech, the district court should have instructed the jury that it could not find Cox liable for defamation unless it found that she acted negligently," judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote. "We hold that liability for a defamatory blog post involving a matter of public concern cannot be imposed without proof of fault and actual damages."
The appeals court upheld rulings by the District Court that other posts by Cox were constitutionally protected opinion.
Though Cox acted as her own attorney, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who had written an article on the issue, learned of her case and offered to represent her in an appeal. Volokh said such cases usually end up settled without trial, and it was rare for one to reach the federal appeals court level.
"It makes clear that bloggers have the same First Amendment rights as professional journalists," he said. "There had been similar precedents before concerning advocacy groups, other writers and book authors. This follows a fairly well established chain of precedents. I believe it is the first federal appeals court level ruling that applies to bloggers."
An attorney for Padrick said in an email that while they were disappointed in the ruling, they noted the court found "there was no dispute that the statements were false and defamatory."
"Ms. Cox's false and defamatory statements have caused substantial damage to our clients, and we are evaluating our options with respect to the court's decision," wrote Steven M. Wilker.

World's greatest hacker calls Healthcare.gov security 'shameful'

Security expert -- and once the world's most-wanted cyber criminal -- Kevin Mitnick submitted a scathing criticism to a House panel Thursday of ObamaCare's Healthcare.gov website, calling the protections built into the site "shameful" and "minimal."
In a letter submitted as testimony to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Mitnick wrote: "It's shameful the team that built the Healthcare.gov site implemented minimal, if any, security best practices to mitigate the significant risk of a system compromise."
Mitnick's letter, submitted to panel Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, held comments from several leading security experts.
Mitnick concluded that, "After reading the documents provided by David Kennedy that detailed numerous security vulnerabilities associated with the Healthcare.gov Website, it's clear that the management team did not consider security as a priority."
RAW DATA: Security experts on Healthcare.gov issues
His comments were backed up by testimony by Kennedy, who is CEO and founder of TrustedSec LLC and a self-described "white hat hacker," meaning someone who hacks in order to fix security flaws and not commit cybercrime. In November, Kennedy and other experts testified before the same panel about security issues on Healthcare.gov.
Kennedy testified that most of the flaws they identified at the time still exist on the site, and said "indeed, it's getting worse," telling the panel that he and other experts have seen little improvement in the past two months.
"Nothing has really changed since our November 19 testimony," Kennedy said.
Only one-half of a vulnerability has been found and plugged since then, he told the committee. "They did a little bit of work on it and it's still vulnerable today."
Also speaking at the panel were Michael Gregg, chief executive officer of Superior Solutions, Waylon Krush, co-founder and CEO of Lunarline, and Dr. Lawrence Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute.
There have been no confirmed security breaches or hacks of the site yet, despite the alarming current and past testimony from the panel. (At the November panel, Kennedy said the website "may have already been hacked.") The flaws that have been found are mere speculation, pointed out Krush, whose firm has done security work for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Nobody here at this table can tell you there is a vulnerability,” he said during testimony. To actually test the flaws would require hacking the website itself, which would mean breaking the law, he noted.

American POW's fate could hang in balance as US, Afghanistan struggle to strike security pact

Efforts to search for America's only living POW currently held by the Taliban could be seriously set back if the U.S. and Afghanistan governments cannot agree on a vital security pact.
The Obama administration has set a new deadline of Jan. 28 for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign the agreement, which would provide U.S. troops with protections they need in order to stay after 2014.
But few think the unpredictable Afghan president will sign before he leaves office in April. And military experts say that without an agreement, all U.S. troops will likely be pulled from the country at the end of this year.
For Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban in 2009 and traded to a Pakistani faction known as the Haqqani group, failure to sign the security agreement could be a death sentence, officials say -- as it would make it increasingly difficult to track him and secure his safe release.
A new video intercepted by the U.S. government marks the first time Bergdahl has been seen in three years. The proof of life shows a prisoner who is in deteriorating health, which has U.S. Defense officials worried. It makes reference to Dec. 14, 2013 and Nelson Mandela's death, which has led U.S. intelligence analysts to conclude that the video was made recently.
Bergdahl's parents pleaded in a written statement to his captors to release their only son and gave words of encouragement to Bergdahl himself.
"As we have done so many times over the past  4 and a half years, we request his captors to release him safely so that our only son can be reunited with his mother and father," Bowe's parents wrote from their home in Idaho. "BOWE - If you see this, continue to remain strong through patience. Your endurance will carry you to the finish line. Breathe!""
But the security agreement talks loom over their efforts.
Among the revelations in former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new book, "Duty," is just how difficult it's been to secure status of forces (SOFA) and bilateral security agreements at the end of America's contentious wars. Gates recalled how he was told by his commanders -- in this case, Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the surge forces in Iraq -- that Iran was in fact paying Iraqi officials not to consent to the agreement which would allow U.S. forces to stay after the Iraq war ended.
"Petraeus told me an Iranian brigadier general had been arrested in Iraq for bribing legislators with $250,000 each to vote against the SOFA," Gates wrote in his memoir. "Later in the fall, we learned that the head of the Iranian Quds Force, Major General Qassem Suleimani, had told President Talabani that Iraq should not sign any agreement with Bush."
Similar meddling by those who do not want the U.S. to keep its influence in the region after 2014 can be assumed to be occurring in Afghanistan.