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Marilyn Tavenner's crystal ball didn't foresee the initial epic flop of HealthCare.gov when she actually ran the agency in charge of the website. Now, as an insurance lobbyist, she sees big jumps in Obamacare insurance premiums next year. ... HealthCare.gov was a disaster when it launched in the fall of 2013, and was essentially unable to sign up meaningful numbers of customers ... customers, and new ones, could be hit with sticker shock when it comes to enrolling in 2017 plans, which go on sale next fall. ... Tavenner also noted that there has been "churn" among plan customers, with...

Marilyn Tavenner, the Obama administration official who presided over Obamacare’s worst debacles and most devious deceptions, has finally made an intelligent decision—she resigned. Tavenner ran the government bureaucracy responsible for the inept rollout of HealthCare.gov, the promulgation of phony PPACA enrollment figures, and the handout of legally dubious waivers to Democrat-friendly donors. And, when Congress subpoenaed her emails—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—she discovered that they had somehow been deleted. Having thus committed as many blunders as can be reasonably expected of any incompetent apparatchik, she announced last Friday that she will depart next month. The “news” media...

Marilyn Tavenner, head of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, plans to step down at the end of February, she told her staff in an e-mail.As Bloomberg reports, Tavenner didn’t say why she was leaving.In November, she acknowledged that her agency had made a mistake in its calculation of the number of people enrolled under Obamacare. As a reminder... from November The Obama administration said it erroneously calculated the number of people with health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, incorrectly adding 380,000 dental subscribers to raise the total above 7 million. The accurate number with full health-care plans...

The leader of the agency charged with the ObamaCare rollout is stepping down after five years on the job. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), announced her departure Friday, which will take effect next month. "It is with sadness and mixed emotions that I write to tell you that February will be my last month serving as the administrator for CMS," Tavenner wrote in an email to staff. Tavenner is leaving after five turbulent years overseeing the agency. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the government’s HealthCare.gov website as well as, most recently,...

"Voters are stupid" economist Jonathan Gruber and Marilyn Tavenner face Issa and the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee today on C-SPAN 3. FOX News reports that Tavenner has asked that she be seated anywhere but next to Gruber. Apparently, Gruber is radioactive. Time will tell whether this affliction is covered under Obamacare.

In mid-November, conservative news outlets posted multiple videos of Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health economist who worked on Romneycare and Obamacare, crediting the "stupidity" of American voters as one reason that the health law passed. The videos were not flattering for Gruber; Democrats have moved quickly to distance themselves. And, perhaps more consequentially, they have breathed new life into the Obamacare opposition effort. Today, the House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing with Gruber titled "Examining Obamacare Transparency Failures." ... Here'a a quick guide to who Jonathan Gruber is, why he's at the center of this controversy, and what it...

A key ObamaCare official engaged in a “cruel and uncaring march” to launch the federal health care website last year and wasn’t open to seeking a delay despite concerns, according to a newly revealed email from her former second-in-command. The damning email from Michelle Snyder, the then-chief technology officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was released to FoxNews.com ahead of a Wednesday House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee hearing on the security and botched rollout of Healthcare.gov. In the September 2013 email to Todd Park, the former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., Snyder characterized her then-boss,...

A key ObamaCare official engaged in a “cruel and uncaring march” to launch the federal health care website last year and wasn’t open to seeking a delay despite concerns, according to a newly revealed email from her former second-in-command.The damning email from Michelle Snyder, formerly the No. 2 official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was released to FoxNews.com ahead of a Wednesday House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee hearing on the security and botched rollout of Healthcare.gov.In the September 2013 email to Todd Park, the former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., Snyder characterized her then-boss, CMS...

Full title: Judicial Watch Uncovers HHS Documents Detailing “High Risk” Security Problems with Obamacare Internet Site Less than one month before Healthcare.gov rollout, top Obama administration official highlights risks of malicious code being uploaded into the system through Excel macros; other “high risk” findings (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 94 pages of documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing that in the days leading up to the rollout of Obamacare, top Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials knew of massive security risks with Healthcare.gov and chose to roll out the...

A key official overseeing the ObamaCare launch last fall asked a subordinate to “delete” an email exchange on the matter, according to newly released records, fueling Republican concerns that the administration may be hiding internal discussions from Congress. “Time and again, the self-proclaimed 'most transparent administration' has been anything but,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement. “And now we know that when HealthCare.gov was crashing, those in charge were hitting the delete button behind the scenes.” Upton and other GOP committee leaders on Friday released an email exchange from Oct. 5, 2013, shortly...

It has been widely reported that the latest Obama administration official to delete emails requested by congressional investigators is Marilyn Tavenner, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Far less coverage, however, has been devoted to the ironic fact that Tavenner’s agency administers the Physician Payment Sunshine Act. The “Sunshine Act,” as it is generally known, is a provision of Obamacare meant to ensure that physicians conduct business transactions with complete transparency. In other words, the very bureaucrat whose emails have conveniently gone missing oversees the agency tasked with keeping your doctor and his business associates honest.

Just a few things to wrap up before packing for the Vineyards: President Barack Obama stepped in front of the cameras on Thursday to utter words he hoped he would never say as commander in chief."I've therefore authorized targeted airstrikes if necessary to help forces in Iraq," Mr. Obama said in a statement from the White House. "Today America is coming to help." That would be as opposed to the last time we came, under George W. Bush, to kill people and break things and…Halliburton!And don’t think for a minute that this decision was an easy one for Val Jar....

A key ObamaCare official involved in the rocky rollout of Healthcare.gov likely deleted some of her emails that are now being sought as part of an investigation into the problems by a House committee, Fox News confirmed Thursday. The Department of Health and Human Services informed House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a letter Thursday that some of the emails belonging to Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, may not be “retrievable.” The missing emails belonging to Tavenner, whose agency runs the ObamaCare exchanges, were first reported by msnbc.com. Issa, whose...

The revelation that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Marilynn Tavenner did not retain her e-mails means that more than 20 witness in the Obama administration to lose or delete e-mails without notifying Congress, according to the top House investigator. “The Obama administration has lost or destroyed e-mails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said of Tavenner’s lost e-mails. “It defies logic that so many senior...

Marilyn Tavenner testimony today. Began at 10:15AM EST

CBS News has learned the website failed with a small test pool of 200 to 300 people that included employees from the government and insurance companies. CMS employees were provided fake personal information to enter into HealthCare.gov rather than their own data and were given a date that testing would begin. However, on that date, the employees were told it was being postponed. When the testing finally took place in late September, the testers started trying to create an application. Just a couple of pages into the process, everything "ground to a stop," said one source. "It froze. It couldn't...

Marilyn B. Tavenner, the official in charge of President Obama’s health insurance marketplace, apologized on Tuesday to millions of Americans who have been frustrated in trying to buy insurance under the new health care law. She repeatedly refused to say how many of those people had actually enrolled in health insurance plans since the federal and state marketplaces, or exchanges, opened on Oct. 1. “That number will not be available until mid-November,” Ms. Tavenner said. “We expect the initial number to be small.”

Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on Tuesday that the Obamacare enrollment system is “working.” “So what I can guarantee is we have a system that’s working. We’re gonna improve the speed of that system,” she said at the hearing on Obamacare enrollment. The Obamacare website, healthcare.gov, has been rife with problems for those trying to enroll in the health care insurance program. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) had asked Tavenner if she could guarantee that “no American will experience a gap in their health care.” Brady...

President Obama said on Wednesday he plans to nominate Marilyn Tavenner as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to replace Dr. Donald Berwick, who has never won the support of Congress. Obama sidestepped the traditional confirmation process in July 2010 to make a recess appointment of Berwick. Tavenner, Berwick's principal deputy, was the Virginia secretary of health and human resources. "Before entering government service, Ms. Tavenner spent nearly 35 years working with healthcare providers in significantly increasing levels of responsibility, including almost 20 years in nursing, 3 years as a hospital CEO and 10 years in various...