Posted on 10/25/2013 6:58:56 AM PDT by Qbert
The principal contractors responsible for the federal government's troubled health insurance website say the Obama administration shares much of the responsibility for snags that have crippled the system.
Executives of CGI Federal, which built the federal HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, and QSSI, which designed the part that verifies applicants' income and other personal details, testified Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Meanwhile, figures released Thursday say the total cost of the deeply flawed website and healthcare exchange has topped $1 billion, according to a devastating new report by a widely respected government analyst.
How? A surge in government spending on the Obamacare exchanges before they went live pushed the price paid to top government contractors over the $1 billion mark, The Hill reported, quoting the new study.
The report released Thursday by Bloomberg Government analyst Peter Gosselin says that federal spending ramped up in the months leading up to Oct. 1, with $352 million of the $1 billion in federal contracts to the top 10 Obamacare contractors awarded during this time.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
They didn’t need to build the website in the first place.
Just ask Amazon to add a section on health insurance. Done. Cost to the taxpayer? Zero.
I have some problems, however, with your call for more than a year's delay.
First, one does not file an injunction one commences a lawsuit and applies for an injunction which is rarely given and only under the most emergent circumstances showing irreparable harm and a clear right to the relief.
Second, one has to demonstrate that the harm is irreparable, that is that it cannot be fixed with some other remedy such as money compensation.
Third, one has to demonstrate that the harm is personal and thereby secure standing to be a party in such action. It is not clear the two United States senators serve for that role.
Fourth, one must demonstrate that the court has jurisdiction.
Fifth, one must demonstrate that this is not a political question which to be settled not by article 3 court but by politicians in article 2 and in article 1 constitutional offices.
Sixth, even assuming the granting of an injunction which is quite improbable, the time of its application goes out of the control of those who seek to save the country from Obamacare and passes to the court.
Our dilemma here is that a year and a month, in my judgment, would serve Obama quite nicely. I think he would prefer to have the reckoning come after the 2014 election, not before. If we are not careful we would be throwing Obama and Obamacare into the briar patch he so desperately desires or at least needs.
I refer you to the following vanity:
No Time for Schadenfreude, Get out in Front Now
Our dilemma here is that a year and a month, in my judgment, would serve Obama quite nicely. I think he would prefer to have the reckoning come after the 2014 election, not before. If we are not careful we would be throwing Obama and Obamacare into the briar patch he so desperately desires or at least needs.
You are correct. Obama and the Dems must suffer the consequences of this.
Obama must not be rescued.
IMHO, that's one of the tragedies here. I doubt the companies are making huge margins, maybe 10 or 15 percent, and the people who I would suppose did the crony-priming can't capture more than a small fraction of that. So maybe the crony-connected people make a few million--they don't care, because it was no risk. The fact that nearly a billion was wasted doesn't matter to them.
A similar thing happened with Solyndra, but I believe the payoff was bigger. Solyndra blew all of the money it borrowed, but a key Obama supporter and investor was in for $70 million before the loan came in--and his loan was given priority over the government's loan.
Excellent Legal Points! THANK YOU!
*IF the said filing was in the form of a Class Action Suit on behalf of the 60 % of Legal American Citizens who do not want to receive the irreparable harm of the consequences of the Mandatory Insurance Tax Federal Law commonly called Obama’care;’
*And IF the great harm done to the personal privacy by the effect of the no privacy clause of Obama’care’ which is in violation of pre-existing Federal Law HIPPA;
*And IF it is shown that the Bill approved by both Houses of Congress was not the same Bill as re-written by the SCOTUS, and thus qualifies as a clear right to relief;
* THEN would the filing with the SCOTUS of said proper legal document, pursuant to being granted a delay period, be of merit to pursue? IYHO, of course.
For example, an insurance company might seek relief from a regulation of Obamacare or more particularly claim that extending the deadline for signing up either individuals or corporate accounts somehow adversely affects them and is done without any statutory authority whatsoever. More likely, some party might be fined for violation of some regulation which is ultra virus the statute perhaps arising out of this make-it-up-as-you-go-along rollout of the law and a court holds that the regulation is unconstitutional or unconstitutionally arrived at. If the regulation is fundamental to the practical success of Obamacare, the whole thing could crash.
Rather than attempt to get a delay through litigation my thought is to try to find the Achilles' heel of Obamacare and get the whole monstrosity declared unconstitutional. This is a bit different than the question that was put before the Supreme Court which Chief Justice Roberts sodomized.
There is such a vast net cast by this law attempting to regulate one out of every 15 dollars that changes hands in America, that there must be whole provisions that ultimately will be struck down. If this were a matter that is currently in favor, the legal flavor of the year as it were, such as civil rights in the 1960s and homosexual rights today, you can be sure that our activist courts would scour the law on any excuse to find a way to make history. One of our big problems is that this is seen by the courts as a economic matter which they have decided to leave to the political branches of the government since the court caved during the new deal. The court turned its attention to the rights of the criminally accused, civil rights, women's rights, and homosexuals' rights. A smart lawyer will change the nature of the game away from economic issues to something more sexy.
Maybe a selective way is best, but I prefer: “The winnah is the one thet gits thar fustest, with the mostest!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.