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Human Events...
The $4 Billion
ObamaCare slush fund for progressives
by Michelle Malkin
02/24/2012
If you like how the Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar
“investments” in bankrupt solar companies have turned out, you’ll love
the latest federal loan program to nowhere. It’s the Obamacare loyalty
rewards program for progressives.
To appease liberal Democrats pushing for the so-called “public option”
(the full frontal government takeover of our health care system), the
White House settled for the creation of a $6 billion network of
nonprofit “CO-OPs” that will “compete” with private insurers. It’s
socialized medicine through the side door. House Republicans sliced
about $2 billion from the slush fund in last spring’s budget deal and
proclaimed the program dead. Hardly.
On Wednesday, the White House trumpeted the release of nearly $700
million in taxpayer-funded low-interest loans for seven CO-OPs in eight
states. Administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
the fund will pour more money into CO-OP plans nationwide throughout
the next year. In 2014, according to Washington bureaucrats, the plans
will be offered on the federally approved and federally monitored state
health exchange “marketplace.”
Some marketplace. Given how Team Obama has dispensed special Obamacare
waivers to scores of campaign donors, it’s a sure bet the
CO-OP/exchange mechanism will be brazenly rigged against
non-subsidized, for-profit insurers. And against taxpayers. Obama
health officials assure us that there will be an “early warning system”
in place before loan recipients get into financial trouble. But we know
from the half-billion-dollar Solyndra scam that when this
administration sees red flags, it’s full speed ahead.
In fact, the Obamacare CO-OP overseers already predict a nearly 40
percent default rate for the loans, according to Kaiser Health. Welcome
to the Chicago-on-the-Potomac reverse rule of holes: When you’re in
one, keep digging.
So, who are the lucky winners of the Obamacare slush fund lottery?
Freelancers CO-OP of New Jersey, New Mexico Health Connections, Midwest
Members Health in Iowa and Nebraska, Common Ground Healthcare
Cooperative in Wisconsin, Freelancers CO-OP of Oregon, Montana Health
Cooperative, and Freelancers Health Service Corporation in New York.
You won’t be surprised to learn that the Freelancers Union -- the
largest CO-OP loan beneficiary to date, with a total $341 million
subsidy -- is a left-wing outfit founded by a self-described “labor
entrepreneur” and MacArthur “genius.” Sara Horowitz has already snagged
countless grants from the city and state of New York, the liberal Ford
Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Horowitz and Obama served together, along with former green jobs czar
Van Jones, as advisers for the progressive think tank Demos -- which in
turn partnered with fraud-ridden community organizers ACORN and Project
Vote. She also runs a political action committee called “Working Today”
that crusades for an expanded government safety net. Crowing about the
CO-OP loan from her fellow progressive warrior, Horowitz exulted: “It’s
like venture capital for health care.” Or more accurately, to borrow
South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint’s phrase, venture socialism.
While Horowitz plots to rope in 200,000 new clients, existing customers
protested in The New York Times over lousy customer service and abrupt
changes that resulted in “higher premiums, higher deductibles and more
holes than their current plans.” Horowitz is more preoccupied with
ensuring that the “social-purpose company” meets social and
environmental justice goals than with customer needs.
Another of the Obamacare slush fund winners, Common Ground Healthcare
Cooperative in Wisconsin, scooped up a $56.4 million federal loan. The
group describes itself as a “coalition of religious groups and other
organizations.” Its pedigree is much more radical than that. As the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted, Common Ground “is the Milwaukee
affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, founded in 1940 by Saul
Alinsky, a famed community organizer and author of ‘Rules for
Radicals.’ The organization, based in Chicago, bills itself as the
oldest and largest community organizing network.”
The Industrial Areas Foundation was funded largely by the Gamaliel
Foundation, which employed Obama in Chicago. As I first reported in
2009, Gamaliel’s Gregory Galluzzo wrote that he “met with Barack on a
regular basis,” that Obama “acknowledged publicly that he had been the
director of a Gamaliel affiliate,” and that “we are honored and blessed
by the connection between Barack and Gamaliel.” No kidding. As
Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson put it: “These
grants/loans reek of political payola.”
Cronies reap. Taxpayers weep.
Read this and other articles at Human
Events
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