The Obamacare Comedy of Errors

The slow motion train wreck of Obamacare is picking up speed.

Every few days, there’s another ugly story highlighting conservatives’ warnings about the unpopular boondoggle. Friday brought two more shockers that would cause the President deep embarrassment were he capable of it.

The scandal-plagued IRS was chosen as the enforcement arm of Obamacare, so you think they would love their latest excuse to dig into Americans personal records and bully accordingly. But their highly partisan union has launched a letter-writing campaign to get out of its onerous requirements.

The National Treasury Employees Union is urging members to write their congressional representatives so they can avoid coverage from President Obama’s signature initiative.

The NTEU’s suggested form letter states, “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”

The ghost-written missive adds, “The primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act was to provide a marketplace for the sale and purchase of health insurance for those who do not have such coverage – not to take coverage away from employees who already receive it through their employers.”

Join the club, federal employees. Since Obamacare was forced through Congress, those of us in the private sector have seen our insurance plans jack up rates, reduce coverage and sometimes disappear completely. 

Public sector unions have been feeding the crocodile, hoping it would eat them last. But as government dreams run out of other people’s money, the beast is turning on those who enabled it. You can’t say we didn’t warn you.

Several Democrats still insist that health care reform was passed with the purest of intentions, to provide insurance to long-suffering workers and promote fairness to all. Even better, it would create thousands of high-paying jobs from coast to coast. 

On the left coast, one bay area county fought for and won a coveted Obamacare call center. Local pols trumpeted the 200-plus jobs and a mini economic boom.

On Friday it was revealed that half the jobs are part-time — with no health benefits.

The Contra Costa County supervisor whose district includes the call center called the whole hiring process — which attracted about 7,000 applicants — a “comedy of errors.”

“The battle for the call center was over jobs with good working wages and benefits; I never dreamed they would be part-time,” said Karen Mitchoff, who has heard from complaining constituents and expressed her “extreme displeasure with how it was handled” to call center supervisors.

One recent hire, who last week learned the job would be part-time, said the new “intermittent” employees feel like they’ve been used as a political tool, and many now regret applying for the positions.

“What’s really ironic is working for a call center and trying to help people get health care, but we can’t afford it ourselves,” said the worker, who asked for anonymity out of fear of losing the job.

Not only is Obamacare failing miserably in its advertised goal of near universal coverage, even the folks implementing the law can’t get coverage. 

Every day reveals a new reason we need to get rid of this legislative malpractice. If you want to defund Obamacare, click here to join the effort.

Follow Jon on Twitter at @ExJon.

Related Content