Conservative Blogger
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Obamacare Website to be Shut Down for Repairs
Bedeviled by technology glitches that frustrated millions of
consumers, the Obama administration is taking down its health overhaul
website for repairs this weekend.
Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday. The website will remain open for general information.
Technology problems overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets Tuesday, embarrassing the administration just when the health care law was supposed to be introduced to average consumers.
"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."
The administration is putting the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers. "Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.
The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."
The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.
Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.
Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program. The HHS release did not provide a specific schedule for this weekend's repairs.
The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site and others encountered glitches that prevented them from successfully completing their applications.
Many encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.
Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.
Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.
At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.
However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.
"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."
The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.
By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.
The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.
The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.
Enrollment functions of the healthcare.gov site will be unavailable during off-peak hours this weekend, the Health and Human Services Department said Friday. The website will remain open for general information.
Technology problems overwhelmed the launch of new health insurance markets Tuesday, embarrassing the administration just when the health care law was supposed to be introduced to average consumers.
"Americans have seen once again that Obamacare is not ready for prime time," Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement. "A dysfunctional website is the least of that law's problems."
The administration is putting the best face on the situation, noting the unexpectedly strong interest from millions of consumers. "Americans are excited to look at their options for health coverage, with record demand in the first days of the marketplaces," said the release announcing the planned fixes.
The statement was headlined: "Health Insurance Marketplace Open for Business - Week One Success."
The state-level markets were designed to be the gateway to health insurance for people who don't have access to coverage on the job. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy government-subsidized private plans, while the poor and near-poor will be steered to Medicaid in states agreeing to expand the program.
Federal and state websites experienced problems this week. Some states, including Maryland, have also announced they are scheduling repairs.
Credit card companies, banks and other online service providers regularly take down websites for repairs. That may also become a feature of the new insurance program. The HHS release did not provide a specific schedule for this weekend's repairs.
The federal site, which serves 36 states, drew millions of users, an indication of strong consumer interest. Yet many people were unable to get on the site and others encountered glitches that prevented them from successfully completing their applications.
Many encountered a screen that told them to wait, and they did, sometimes for hours. Refreshing the screen only sent them to the back of the line.
Quite a few got hung up trying to create security questions to protect their accounts. The drop-down menus providing the questions would not populate. As a result, consumers could not advance through the application process and learn if they were eligible for a tax credit to help pay premiums, much less pick a plan.
Some who did make it through were timed out because they took too long comparing plans.
At the end of the first day at most a handful of people had managed to successfully enroll through the federal site.
However, by Friday, enrollments seemed to be picking up — though not yet at desired levels. The administration is not releasing numbers.
"We are pleased that enrollment for health care coverage through the new marketplaces is picking up," the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a statement. "We expect enrollment to continue to increase."
The so-called Blues are major players in the individual insurance market, but some smaller insurers have yet to see any new customers.
By Monday, "there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience," HHS said.
The upgrades include extra capacity for more users to get into the system, more technicians working round-the-clock to fix problems, and new pathways to get to the application faster. No details were given. Call centers are also getting more staff and HHS said wait times are now down to less than a minute.
The administration previously announced it is adding equipment to handle the high volume of users. Now it looks like software fixes are also needed.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to enroll for coverage that starts Jan. 1.
Obamacare: Worst Law Passed in Four Decades Must Be Stopped, Says Stockman
A backlog of Americans tried to get onto the Obamacare exchanges that went live on Tuesday, amid delays and glitches (and high demand/traffic) with the marketplaces.
Meanwhile, a shutdown continues as the GOP tries to defund, delay, or otherwise defang the law.Related: Obamacare Could Mean Steep Rate Hikes in These Four States
David Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan Administration, former member of Congress, and author of “The Great Deformation,” essentially says: bring it on. This, despite Obamacare being the law, passed in 2010 by a president who was re-elected in 2012 (while the candidate who ran on repealing it was defeated), and which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.
So why should it be repealed?
“It is the worst law ever passed in the last four decades by the federal government,” Stockman argues in the video above. “It is a massive entitlement to end all entitlements. It is going to cause a fiscal hemorrhage that is not even yet anticipated. It will tie up one-sixth of GDP in the most monstrous, massive, bureaucratic snarl that you can’t imagine. So therefore this needs to be stopped before it becomes operational.”
Related: Obamacare Could Mean Lower Rates in These Three States
Healthcare consultants like Jon
Kingsdale -- who helped set up some of the state exchanges -- say these
online Obamacare insurance “stores” will affect only the 5% to 10% of Americans who are uninsured
(where they can now shop for insurance with transparency). Americans
who purchase insurance this way qualify for government subsidies so that monthly premiums are not more than 9.5% of their income.
But Stockman expects these numbers to spike, speculating that more companies will follow the lead of GE (GE) and Walgreen (WAG) who have announced they will move employee or retiree healthcare benefits to private exchanges.Once millions of additional Americans are “dumped” onto Obamacare exchanges, Stockman expects the cost to the government of subsidizing (with tax credits) these Americans’ insurance to swell.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Fox News Poll: Voters support delaying Obamacare, but oppose defunding it
By Dana Blanton
FoxNews.com
Two extraordinary events happened on Tuesday: The opening of
insurance exchanges at the center of President Obama’s health care law
and a partial government shutdown stemming from disagreement over the
federal budget and whether to defund or delay Obamacare.
While voters oppose defunding the health care law, they say implementation should be delayed, and a majority wants all or part of the law repealed.
Voters also view the shutdown negatively and clearly think it is a serious problem, yet a majority believes their family won’t be significantly affected by it.
That’s according to a Fox News national poll conducted after the shutdown began.
The new poll, released Thursday, finds that an overwhelming majority thinks the shutdown is a serious problem, including 58 percent who see it as “very” serious. And two-thirds think the government closing is “definitely a bad thing.” That’s more than twice the number who say it “could be a good thing” (67-30 percent).
A 59-percent majority says their family won’t be “significantly affected” by the shutdown, while a sizable 37-percent minority says they will.
Meanwhile, a quarter of voters blame “Republican leaders such as John Boehner” (25 percent) for the shutdown and about the same number point the finger at President Obama (24 percent). Some 17 percent blame “Tea Party Republicans such as Ted Cruz.” Just 8 percent blame “Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid.” Another 20 percent think all of them are responsible for the shutdown.
By a 48-39 percent margin, voters say they trust Republicans in Congress more than President Obama when it comes to cutting government spending enough to make a difference in the deficit while at the same time not cutting so much that valuable programs are hurt.
Those who identify with the Tea Party movement are more likely to think the government shutdown is not a serious problem (53 percent) and most say it could be a good thing (71 percent). Nearly half of Tea Partiers place blame for the shutdown solely on Obama (49 percent).
President Obama’s overall job rating has improved 5 percentage points over last month: 45 percent approve now, up from 40 percent in September. That comes mainly from an increase in approval among his party faithful. Some 84 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s performance now, up from a record-low 69 percent last month during the situation with Syria.
The president’s approval for his handling of health care is also up. In the new poll 45 percent of voters approve, while 38 percent approved in September.
In addition, while about twice as many voters overall have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama as Ted Cruz, the Texas senator has a healthy 60 percent favorable rating among Tea Partiers. That’s lower than Obama’s 86 percent favorable rating among Democrats, yet it tops Boehner’s 35 percent among Republicans and Reid’s 34 percent among Democrats.
Health Care Law
A 54-percent majority of voters would like to see all or part of the health care law repealed. That’s down from 58 percent who felt that way in June, and a high of 61 percent in January 2011. The current 54 percent supporting repeal of at least some of the law matches a low recorded twice before in October 2012 and October 2010.
Most people are happy with their current health care coverage (76 percent). And by a 52-36 percent margin, they say the pre-Obamacare system would be better for their family than the new law.
Yet despite a 57-percent majority saying the law “should be delayed for a year until more details are ironed out,” voters oppose defunding the law by 53-41 percent.
Some 39 percent of Democrats favor delaying implementation of Obamacare, along with 55 percent of independents and 80 percent of Republicans.
Last week Sen. Cruz, a supporter of the Tea Party movement, took to the Senate floor to make the case for getting rid of Obamacare. Voters are more likely to think Cruz’s 21-hour speech did more to hurt (36 percent) rather than help (19 percent) his cause. Nearly 4 voters in 10 aren’t familiar enough with the speech to offer an opinion. Among Tea Partiers, 50 percent think Cruz’s speech helped, while 16 percent say it did damage.
Views split over lawmakers’ attempts to cut off funding for the health care law. Forty-six percent see it as “an important effort.” The same number consider it “a waste of time and effort” (46 percent). Fully 74 percent of Tea Partiers and 59 percent of Republicans call it an important effort, while 61 percent of Democrats view it as a waste of time.
In the end, 64 percent of voters believe Obamacare will survive these battles and remain the law of the land. That’s up from 56 percent who felt that way in 2011.
Poll Pourri
How are things working in the country today? Almost all voters -- 88 percent -- say “the government is in charge of the people.” That includes 83 percent of Democrats, 88 percent of independents and 94 percent of Republicans.
Only 8 percent feel “the people are in charge of the government.”
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 952 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from October 1-2, 2013. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
While voters oppose defunding the health care law, they say implementation should be delayed, and a majority wants all or part of the law repealed.
Voters also view the shutdown negatively and clearly think it is a serious problem, yet a majority believes their family won’t be significantly affected by it.
That’s according to a Fox News national poll conducted after the shutdown began.
The new poll, released Thursday, finds that an overwhelming majority thinks the shutdown is a serious problem, including 58 percent who see it as “very” serious. And two-thirds think the government closing is “definitely a bad thing.” That’s more than twice the number who say it “could be a good thing” (67-30 percent).
A 59-percent majority says their family won’t be “significantly affected” by the shutdown, while a sizable 37-percent minority says they will.
Meanwhile, a quarter of voters blame “Republican leaders such as John Boehner” (25 percent) for the shutdown and about the same number point the finger at President Obama (24 percent). Some 17 percent blame “Tea Party Republicans such as Ted Cruz.” Just 8 percent blame “Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid.” Another 20 percent think all of them are responsible for the shutdown.
By a 48-39 percent margin, voters say they trust Republicans in Congress more than President Obama when it comes to cutting government spending enough to make a difference in the deficit while at the same time not cutting so much that valuable programs are hurt.
Those who identify with the Tea Party movement are more likely to think the government shutdown is not a serious problem (53 percent) and most say it could be a good thing (71 percent). Nearly half of Tea Partiers place blame for the shutdown solely on Obama (49 percent).
President Obama’s overall job rating has improved 5 percentage points over last month: 45 percent approve now, up from 40 percent in September. That comes mainly from an increase in approval among his party faithful. Some 84 percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s performance now, up from a record-low 69 percent last month during the situation with Syria.
The president’s approval for his handling of health care is also up. In the new poll 45 percent of voters approve, while 38 percent approved in September.
In addition, while about twice as many voters overall have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama as Ted Cruz, the Texas senator has a healthy 60 percent favorable rating among Tea Partiers. That’s lower than Obama’s 86 percent favorable rating among Democrats, yet it tops Boehner’s 35 percent among Republicans and Reid’s 34 percent among Democrats.
Health Care Law
A 54-percent majority of voters would like to see all or part of the health care law repealed. That’s down from 58 percent who felt that way in June, and a high of 61 percent in January 2011. The current 54 percent supporting repeal of at least some of the law matches a low recorded twice before in October 2012 and October 2010.
Most people are happy with their current health care coverage (76 percent). And by a 52-36 percent margin, they say the pre-Obamacare system would be better for their family than the new law.
Yet despite a 57-percent majority saying the law “should be delayed for a year until more details are ironed out,” voters oppose defunding the law by 53-41 percent.
Some 39 percent of Democrats favor delaying implementation of Obamacare, along with 55 percent of independents and 80 percent of Republicans.
Last week Sen. Cruz, a supporter of the Tea Party movement, took to the Senate floor to make the case for getting rid of Obamacare. Voters are more likely to think Cruz’s 21-hour speech did more to hurt (36 percent) rather than help (19 percent) his cause. Nearly 4 voters in 10 aren’t familiar enough with the speech to offer an opinion. Among Tea Partiers, 50 percent think Cruz’s speech helped, while 16 percent say it did damage.
Views split over lawmakers’ attempts to cut off funding for the health care law. Forty-six percent see it as “an important effort.” The same number consider it “a waste of time and effort” (46 percent). Fully 74 percent of Tea Partiers and 59 percent of Republicans call it an important effort, while 61 percent of Democrats view it as a waste of time.
In the end, 64 percent of voters believe Obamacare will survive these battles and remain the law of the land. That’s up from 56 percent who felt that way in 2011.
Poll Pourri
How are things working in the country today? Almost all voters -- 88 percent -- say “the government is in charge of the people.” That includes 83 percent of Democrats, 88 percent of independents and 94 percent of Republicans.
Only 8 percent feel “the people are in charge of the government.”
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 952 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from October 1-2, 2013. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Want Obamacare, this is what your gonna get!
Harry Reid is holding our government hostage
“It’s my way or the highway.” That’s the message D.C. Democrats are
sending to America. “I will not negotiate,” says President Obama.
“There’s no need for conversations,” says Harry Reid. “We’ve spoken loudly and clearly, and we have the support of the president of the United States.”
The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, didn’t even bother to show up for the House vote to keep the government open.
Reid, who calls advocates of defunding the dysfunctional ObamaCare “anarchists,” took the weekend off.
Must be nice. Those of us trying to fix Washington may be
“anarchists” in the eyes of the Democrats’ Senate majority leader, but
at least we show up for work.
Talking heads have been painting hyperbolic imagery of a shutdown Armageddon for weeks.
Cars speeding off fiscal cliffs, cans getting kicked down roads of economic destruction, chaos in the streets, pure pandemonium -- all because of those Tea Party “wacko birds” – as the distinguished Republican Sen. John McCain called his colleagues – and their “dangerous game of political chicken,” according to former Republican U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette.
This could have all been avoided, of course. The House has already sent three bills to the Senate that would fully fund the government.
The first continuing resolution would have permanently defunded the president’s broken health care law. The second would have delayed it for a year, while the third would have delayed just the individual mandate and included a version of the Vitter Amendment (named for Sen. David Vitter) which subjects Congress to the same ObamaCare costs and restrictions as the rest of America.
All three were rejected by an obstinate Democrat-controlled Senate, unwilling to move forward unless Harry Reid gets everything he wants.
So instead of pursuing defunding ObamaCare, House Republicans offered to simply delay it the wildly unpopular individual mandate.
According to my scoreboard, that puts the count at three Republican compromise solutions to the Democrats’ zero. House Republicans have already come to the negotiating table. They shouldn't negotiate with themselves anymore.
Republicans should wait until the president and the Senate majority leader show up to work, to negotiate common ground in good faith.
They may have to wait a while.
The Democrats seem hell bent on feeding into the slimdown scare in the public eye, rather than being cooperative and helping House Republicans to put the fire out.
Where, exactly, is that spirit of compromise and bipartisan solutions that the Democrats keep talking about these days?
In a desperate attempt to preserve the last remnants of the president’s wilting legacy, Harry Reid is holding government funding hostage.
The problem is, everyone is beginning to see the president’s poorly designed health care takeover for the train wreck that it is.
If the Senate majority leader believes that he could just take the weekend off, quietly plant the political hot potato back in the House at the last minute, and then wave his arms in melodramatic disgust on C-SPAN for all to see, he is greatly mistaken. This is not your grandfather’s shutdown showdown.
Unlike 1995, grassroots America is paying close attention, and they’re doing it in real-time. Citizen activists, armed with social media and a community of principle-driven peers, have fundamentally changed the power structure in Washington.
Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that a decentralized network of individuals nationwide could out-muscle the lobbyists and Washington’s political class to successfully pass a spending plan that fully defunds ObamaCare.
These are the same activists that helped elect the conservative heroes leading the charge on this fight, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.
Over the last few weeks, FreedomWorks activists alone drove over 60,000 calls to Congress demanding a continuing resolution that funds every part of the government without funding ObamaCare, with no sneaky procedural strings attached.
The House did its job – three times, actually.
Now it’s time for the Senate Democrats to meet them halfway.
No matter how many ways he tries to spin it, Harry Reid is holding the hot potato. And if he’s not careful, Democrats will have to explain to a lot of angry Americans why preserving Obama’s legacy was worth shutting the government down.
“There’s no need for conversations,” says Harry Reid. “We’ve spoken loudly and clearly, and we have the support of the president of the United States.”
The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, didn’t even bother to show up for the House vote to keep the government open.
Reid, who calls advocates of defunding the dysfunctional ObamaCare “anarchists,” took the weekend off.
Those of us trying to fix Washington may be “anarchists” in the eyes of the Democrats’ Senate majority leader, but at least we show up for work.
Talking heads have been painting hyperbolic imagery of a shutdown Armageddon for weeks.
Cars speeding off fiscal cliffs, cans getting kicked down roads of economic destruction, chaos in the streets, pure pandemonium -- all because of those Tea Party “wacko birds” – as the distinguished Republican Sen. John McCain called his colleagues – and their “dangerous game of political chicken,” according to former Republican U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette.
This could have all been avoided, of course. The House has already sent three bills to the Senate that would fully fund the government.
The first continuing resolution would have permanently defunded the president’s broken health care law. The second would have delayed it for a year, while the third would have delayed just the individual mandate and included a version of the Vitter Amendment (named for Sen. David Vitter) which subjects Congress to the same ObamaCare costs and restrictions as the rest of America.
All three were rejected by an obstinate Democrat-controlled Senate, unwilling to move forward unless Harry Reid gets everything he wants.
So instead of pursuing defunding ObamaCare, House Republicans offered to simply delay it the wildly unpopular individual mandate.
According to my scoreboard, that puts the count at three Republican compromise solutions to the Democrats’ zero. House Republicans have already come to the negotiating table. They shouldn't negotiate with themselves anymore.
Republicans should wait until the president and the Senate majority leader show up to work, to negotiate common ground in good faith.
They may have to wait a while.
The Democrats seem hell bent on feeding into the slimdown scare in the public eye, rather than being cooperative and helping House Republicans to put the fire out.
Where, exactly, is that spirit of compromise and bipartisan solutions that the Democrats keep talking about these days?
In a desperate attempt to preserve the last remnants of the president’s wilting legacy, Harry Reid is holding government funding hostage.
The problem is, everyone is beginning to see the president’s poorly designed health care takeover for the train wreck that it is.
If the Senate majority leader believes that he could just take the weekend off, quietly plant the political hot potato back in the House at the last minute, and then wave his arms in melodramatic disgust on C-SPAN for all to see, he is greatly mistaken. This is not your grandfather’s shutdown showdown.
Unlike 1995, grassroots America is paying close attention, and they’re doing it in real-time. Citizen activists, armed with social media and a community of principle-driven peers, have fundamentally changed the power structure in Washington.
Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that a decentralized network of individuals nationwide could out-muscle the lobbyists and Washington’s political class to successfully pass a spending plan that fully defunds ObamaCare.
These are the same activists that helped elect the conservative heroes leading the charge on this fight, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.
Over the last few weeks, FreedomWorks activists alone drove over 60,000 calls to Congress demanding a continuing resolution that funds every part of the government without funding ObamaCare, with no sneaky procedural strings attached.
The House did its job – three times, actually.
Now it’s time for the Senate Democrats to meet them halfway.
No matter how many ways he tries to spin it, Harry Reid is holding the hot potato. And if he’s not careful, Democrats will have to explain to a lot of angry Americans why preserving Obama’s legacy was worth shutting the government down.
Leaked Emails: Boehner Worked With Reid to Save Lawmaker Subsidies
House Speaker John Boehner Monday called on colleagues to ban an
exemption lawmakers and staff receive for health insurance, but he and
his aides had worked for months with Democratic leaders to save the
subsidies, leaked documents and emails show.
The documents were provided to Politico, which revealed Tuesday morning that Boehner and aides were working closely with Democratic rivals to protect the payments.
Roll Call had earlier reported that Democrats were mulling divulging the private communications between Boehner Chief of Staff Mike Sommers and Reid Chief of Staff David Krone as proof that Boehner was trying to protect the payments.
Urgent: Do You Support Sen. Ted Cruz's Efforts to Defund Obamacare? Vote Here.
The revelations are sure to cause more friction between Boehner and more conservative members of the House of Representatives, who have been pressing for all Obamacare exemptions for Congress to be scrapped.
The documents show Boehner and his aides discussed the matter with the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, and others. Further, the documents show that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell knew of the discussions.
A possible legislative solution was drafted, the documents show, and they continued to push for a solution from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Further, Boehner and Reid asked for a meeting with President Barack Obama to lobby him for help, the documents show. The meeting never happened, but a senior Boehner aide was able to speak to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the Speaker's wish to retain the employer subsidy.
Obamacare requires lawmakers and staff to join insurance exchanges, and the debate over whether they should continue collecting the employer contribution from the federal government has been the source of many heated discussions.
The OPM ruled that lawmakers and their staff could not receive employer payments once they went into the subsidies. The office reversed its decision, saying the employer payments could continue.
But Boehner put the issue into the government shutdown debate, attaching an amendment ending the subsidies to a House GOP funding bill.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told Politico the White House should solve the problem, and that "we always made it clear that House would not pass any legislative fix."
He said Boehner was aware that Reid and the White House had been discussing the issue and that the speaker's "fix is repealing Obamacare."
Boehner's office said the leak shows how concerned Democrats are.
"Any emails from Mr. Sommers will reflect the Speaker’s position: he voted against ObamaCare, and he wants to repeal Obamacare," Steel said. "If the Senate Democrats and the White House want to make a ‘fix’ to the law, it would be their fix. The Speaker’s ‘fix’ is repeal. This is just a desperate act by Harry Reid’s staff to protect their own subsidy."
ObamaCare: You Can Win With The Facts
Reid communications director Adam Jentleson, meanwhile, said his boss worked closely with Boehner and was grateful for his help.
Roll Call reported the communications could back up Democrats' claims that Boehner's decision to add an amendment revoking the contributions was a shot at vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2014, such as Kay Hagan of North Carolina or Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
The documents were provided to Politico, which revealed Tuesday morning that Boehner and aides were working closely with Democratic rivals to protect the payments.
Roll Call had earlier reported that Democrats were mulling divulging the private communications between Boehner Chief of Staff Mike Sommers and Reid Chief of Staff David Krone as proof that Boehner was trying to protect the payments.
Urgent: Do You Support Sen. Ted Cruz's Efforts to Defund Obamacare? Vote Here.
The revelations are sure to cause more friction between Boehner and more conservative members of the House of Representatives, who have been pressing for all Obamacare exemptions for Congress to be scrapped.
The documents show Boehner and his aides discussed the matter with the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, and others. Further, the documents show that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell knew of the discussions.
A possible legislative solution was drafted, the documents show, and they continued to push for a solution from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Further, Boehner and Reid asked for a meeting with President Barack Obama to lobby him for help, the documents show. The meeting never happened, but a senior Boehner aide was able to speak to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the Speaker's wish to retain the employer subsidy.
Obamacare requires lawmakers and staff to join insurance exchanges, and the debate over whether they should continue collecting the employer contribution from the federal government has been the source of many heated discussions.
The OPM ruled that lawmakers and their staff could not receive employer payments once they went into the subsidies. The office reversed its decision, saying the employer payments could continue.
But Boehner put the issue into the government shutdown debate, attaching an amendment ending the subsidies to a House GOP funding bill.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told Politico the White House should solve the problem, and that "we always made it clear that House would not pass any legislative fix."
He said Boehner was aware that Reid and the White House had been discussing the issue and that the speaker's "fix is repealing Obamacare."
Boehner's office said the leak shows how concerned Democrats are.
"Any emails from Mr. Sommers will reflect the Speaker’s position: he voted against ObamaCare, and he wants to repeal Obamacare," Steel said. "If the Senate Democrats and the White House want to make a ‘fix’ to the law, it would be their fix. The Speaker’s ‘fix’ is repeal. This is just a desperate act by Harry Reid’s staff to protect their own subsidy."
ObamaCare: You Can Win With The Facts
Reid communications director Adam Jentleson, meanwhile, said his boss worked closely with Boehner and was grateful for his help.
Roll Call reported the communications could back up Democrats' claims that Boehner's decision to add an amendment revoking the contributions was a shot at vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2014, such as Kay Hagan of North Carolina or Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
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