MyGovCost News & Blog

Covered California is the wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. As we noted, Covered California offers tax credits to those who enroll, but when those people reach 65 and go on Medicare they are no longer eligible for the tax credits. Trouble is, they find it practically impossible to cancel their Covered California plan and therefore get hammered with penalties. As Emily Bazar of the Center for Health Reporting observes, this does not mean Covered California fails to cancel coverage in other situations.

Obamacare tax credits are based on income, which does not remain constant. Freelancer Maryann Hammers, 59, had a good year and duly updated her income, with the help of Covered California’s “customer service.” But then, Hammers told Emily Bazar, “I found out that Covered California instead told Anthem Blue Cross to CANCEL my current coverage when my income was updated.” It took Hammers more than three months to get insured again, shortly after she endured surgery and chemotherapy.

Hammers is hardly alone, and Bazar’s quest to find answers is revealing. It is not possible simply to call Covered California or go to its website, report the change, and have the plan updated. Rather, when someone reports an income change Covered California terminates that person from their plan. The reason, as Bazar learned, is “Covered California’s nearly half-a-billion-dollar computer system apparently can’t handle that kind of complexity.” So as with the refusal to cancel, nobody is to blame and it’s all a computer glitch. With no answers in the system, Bazar recommends declining some or all of the tax credits, increasing the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks, boosting quarterly tax estimates, and having medical procedures done quickly, before Covered California can cancel. Do all that, says Bazar, “and keep your fingers crossed.”

How’s that for a ringing endorsement of the system? Here’s the deal: Obamacare is a wasteful, inefficient system based on lies and designed to take away Americans’ freedom to choose and subject them to the sort of abuse Emily Bazar regularly describes. So have a happy new year in 2015, but don’t forget to cross your fingers, knock on wood, and grab that four-leaf clover.

The federal government’s bureaucrats are getting the rush delivery of a new and fully paid holiday from Santa this year! President Barack Obama signed an executive order back on December 5, 2014 giving all federal government employees an extra paid holiday this year on Friday, December 26, 2014.

Federal employees will be delighted to receive a Christmas present, of sorts. President Obama has signed an executive order Friday giving federal employees the day after Christmas off….

This means that most federal offices and agencies will be closed on December 26th. Since Christmas is on a Thursday this year, the executive order means that federal workers will have an extra paid holiday on Friday, December 26th.

That is in addition to the other 10 Federal Holidays for which federal employees were compensated for not working that were actually approved by the U.S. Congress. The Washington Post reports more about the bonus holiday for federal workers:

Most federal employees who will get a bonus day off on Dec. 26 due to an order from President Obama will be paid as if they had worked a normal schedule that day, and those who had already scheduled annual leave for that day won’t have to burn a vacation day.

President Obama’s executive order follows an online petition that claimed that one major benefit of awarding the additional paid holiday to the federal government’s very handsomely compensated bureaucrats would be to boost their morale:

“Federal Employees have dealt with pay freezes and furloughs over the past few years. Giving federal employees an extra holiday on Dec. 26th, 2014 would be a good gesture to improve morale of the federal workforce.”

In 2013, all federal government employees whose work was determined to be nonessential and who were temporarily furloughed as part of the partial federal government shutdown in October of that year were fully compensated for not working on any of the 16 days during which the federal government was partially closed, making the event something of a two-and-a-half week long paid vacation for those federal employees.

The perks of being a federal government bureaucrat just keep on rolling out!

As we have noted, the federal Social Security Administration has not been hesitant to hand out money to old Nazis, or to the dead. But as Mark Fisher of the Washington Post confirms, Social Security bosses are now mounting a surge to grab money “from the children of people who were allegedly overpaid benefits decades ago.”

Fisher is aware that the Obama administration said in April that it would stop this practice. Indeed, after the Washington Post reported the story, acting Social Security boss Carolyn Colvin said the practice would stop immediately. That turned out to be false.

“Some people whose refunds were seized were reimbursed in recent months,” writes Fisher, but “some of those same taxpayers have since received new demands from Social Security, asserting that the debts remain and seeking repayment.” These include Mary Grice, 58, who “received a new bill from Social Security, seeking the same $2,997 that the agency had refunded to her four months earlier.” And in her case, Social Security wasn’t even sure which member of Grice’s family had been overpaid. She was 4 years old in 1960, when her father died and her mother began receiving survivor’s benefits.

Fisher charts the case of Daniel Asmus of California, whose father died when he was 9. He sent letters reminding Social Security of Colvin’s announced freeze. But then “the agency pushed ahead with its effort to collect a $2,094 debt that it says stems from overpayments of survivor’s benefits to Asmus’s long-deceased mother in the 1970s.” And Social Security is after Jessica Vela “for $16,888 that the government claims she owes for overpayments made to her mother in child support benefits when Vela was 1.”

Robert Vogel, an attorney for taxpayers whose refunds were seized, told the Post, “Deep down, they believe it’s the right thing to go after children.” Social Security is pressing the courts “to force a child to pay a debt incurred by the parents. It’s really quite disgusting.” That is putting it mildly.

This is government agency indulging in child abuse to cover its own mistakes. But remember, government cares for you, bureaucrats and politicians always tells the truth, and of course it’s all for the children. Happy holidays, everybody.

Want to know what it’s like to work for the part of the U.S. Treasury Department that is responsible for managing the public debt of the U.S. government? The Washington Examiner‘s Luke Rosiak broke a big story earlier this year:

Officials in two Treasury Department bureaus fraudulently enriched themselves at taxpayer expense, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Public Debt who supervised 108 employees in the bureau’s West Virginia office “was committing egregious time and attendance fraud,” depriving taxpayers of nearly $100,000 in salary for hours she did not work, according to one of several Treasury Department inspector general documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, most of which had previously gone unreported.

The official, despite being paid an average yearly salary of nearly $170,000, “arrives at work approximately two hours late and/or takes two-hour lunch breaks and departs work at approximately 4:00 P.M. and does not take leave,” and “consistently conducts personal business involving the Humane Society during work hours,” IG investigators found after verifying a tip from an employee who said the top official “abuses her power by being absent whenever desired.”

Her supervisor, the deputy commissioner, knew about the absences but did nothing, the investigators said.

Since the story originally broke on February 27, 2014, there has been no indication of the officials in question having made any restitution to the U.S. government or of having their employment terminated, which suggests that they’re being permitted to get away with the fraud. The Inspector General reports into the misconduct indicate that the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to pursue a criminal case, despite the documented and confirmed multiple violations of federal law.

Just consider it another perk of being a federal government bureaucrat!

California’s vaunted $68 billion “bullet train” is a big hit with politicians eager as always to spend taxpayers’ money. The bullet train, however, will be slower and more expensive than air travel, and in a high-tech state few if any commuters are panting for an essentially 19th century form of transportation. Sold as a conduit from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, the first stretch aims to connect Bakersfield and Fresno, which makes little sense. The massive project is also drawing environmental lawsuits, but as Tim Sheehan observes in the Fresno Bee, the federal government is doing its part to derail environmental objections.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board, composed of three Obama appointees, has ruled that California’s High-Speed Rail Authority trumps California’s Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). As it turns out, this is a turf fight.

STB chairman Daniel Elliott III, a former railroad union attorney, and vice chairwoman Deb Miller, former secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, ruled that CEQA, “could be used to deny or significantly delay an entity’s right to construct a line that the (federal) board has specifically authorized, thus impinging upon the board’s exclusive jurisdiction over rail transportation.” Therefore, the ability of California judges to issue injunctions halting the work are barred by a federal law that “expressly pre-empts any state law attempts to regulate rail construction projects.”

Dissenter Ann D. Begeman, a former Senate staffer, said the high-speed rail authority has asserted its commitment to CEQA and the federal National Environmental Policy Act. Therefore, “The authority should live up to its commitments and the board should refrain from undermining them.” More obviously, Begeman’s dissent said the ruling removes key decision-making abilities from the very state residents whose interests are at stake.

That matters little to federal bureaucrats out to help politicians degrade the environment and waste billions. So even if you don’t like your state’s bullet train, you have to build it anyway. Taxpayers in all states should recall this ruling every time the federal government claims to support environmental quality and fiscal responsibility.

As we noted, the U.S Social Security system has been sending millions of taxpayer dollars to former Nazis, including death-camp guards and members of the SS. Congress has responded with the No Social Security for Nazis Act. The Social Security Administration has also dished out some $30 million to at least 1,546 dead people, and carried on some of these payments to the dead for 20 years. But while enriching the dead and handing out money to Nazis, the system has been punishing American retirees for the crime of working.

Those who take Social Security at 62 get lower payments not likely to meet their needs. They can still work, but Social Security imposes an income limit of only $15,480. If retirees exceed that amount, the government reduces their benefits $1 for every $2 they earn, a tax of 50 percent. At full retirement age the government lets Social Security recipients earn $41,400, and docks the retirees $1 for every $3 dollars they earn, a tax of 33 percent. After the full retirement age the income limit disappears, but that does not help those who take Social Security at 62 and are trying to survive in a weak economy.

This federal poverty enforcement does not apply to all Americans. Those in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) can retire at the age of 55, a full seven years earlier than Social Security allows. By all indications, they are not subject to income restrictions and the government even helps early federal retirees get more money through a secretive Special Retirement Supplement (SRS) “designed to help bridge the money gap for certain FERS who retire before age 62.” SRS “will supplement your missing Social Security income until you reach age 62.”

For privileged federal workers this is a Dream Act guaranteed to keep the ruling class far ahead of the masses. The double standards do not disturb the Obama administration, which shows no interest in the liberation of American retirees. Meanwhile, Congress is investigating weather Carolyn Colvin, President Obama’s nominee for Social Security boss, directed SS employees to withhold a report about a dysfunctional $300 million computer system for processing disability claims.

What do the people who work for the government really do?

Last year, we featured the first of three fun videos put together by BankruptingAmerica, which was inspired by the television comedy The Office. Set in the Department of Every Bureaucratic Transaction (or D.E.B.T.), the videos provide a funny take on how the government’s bureaucrats cope with having to spend every cent they’ve been authorized to spend by law by the end of the federal government’s fiscal year, or else have to have their budget to spend cut in the next year.

Since BankruptingAmerica was still rolling out their web series’ episodes when we introduced it last year, we thought it might be fun to group them all together, starting with revisiting the first episode. Enjoy!

If you think about it, these videos explain quite a lot about how the U.S. government really works….

Seldom does government waste, fraud, and abuse emerge in the kind of three-legged race Americans recently witnessed on C-SPAN as Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber teamed with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services boss Marilyn Tavenner to enlighten congressional watchdogs on the subtleties of Obamacare.

In riveting testimony, Gruber confirmed that Obamacare was sold on a fraudulent basis, so the Congressional Budget Office would not score it as a tax. Gruber recast his statements about stupid and economically ignorant voters as glib comments intended to make himself look smarter. Federal and state governments had paid him millions of taxpayer dollars to fake out politicians and voters, but Gruber, an MIT economist, couldn’t recall the amount he had bagged from taxpayers, not even a ballpark figure. For the Obama administration, that was money well spent, but with Obamacare a complete bust, it all amounts to waste for the American public.

CMS boss Tavenner said it was a “mistake” to inflate the Obamacare numbers by including those on dental plans. She served up boilerplate ad copy to Obamacare acolytes but, like Gruber, she proved agnostic on critical points. She could not say, for example, how many federal workers had signed on. In the hearing, Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis said she and her husband did sign up, but the system then told them they were not covered. Lummis’s husband then skipped a critical test and subsequently died of a heart attack. So Obamacare emerged as potentially fatal abuse, as well as institutionalized waste and fraud.

On many points the criticisms from the oversight committee were detailed and devastating. That is good for viewers but bad for an opaque administration whose media manipulations include the bullying of C-SPAN, as Sharyl Attkisson outlined in Stonewalled. The hearing also exposed ample government incompetence, but Obamacare holds no monopoly on that. As we noted, on Tavenner’s watch CMS has been paying out benefits to dead people.

We’re always on the watch for neat and visual ways to describe the U.S. federal government’s spending and debt problems, which is why we were really impressed by the work that the Heritage Foundation’s Romina Boccia, John Fleming, and Spencer Woody put together to visualize just how much money is involved in human terms. Here’s one example from many:

The really funny thing is that the stack of $308,800 worth of cash representing the amount of U.S. national debt per family would be on top of the median family’s own debts, like for their mortgage ($115,000), student loans ($16,000), credit cards ($2,300), et cetera!

Next week, the Federal Reserve is expected to send a clear signal that it will end its policy of holding short-term U.S. interest rates low sooner rather than later. Here’s coverage from the Wall Street Journal:

Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering an important shift in tone at their policy meeting next week: dropping an assurance that short-term interest rates will stay near zero for a “considerable time” as they look more confidently toward rate increases around the middle of next year.

Senior officials have hinted lately that they’re looking at dropping this closely watched interest-rate signal, which many market participants take as a sign rates won’t go up for at least six months.

“It’s clearer that we’re closer to getting rid of that than we were a few months ago,” Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week. New York Fed President William Dudley has avoided using the “considerable time” phrase in recent speeches and instead said the Fed should be “patient” before raising rates.

The Fed has been running simulations on how fast and how much it is likely to increase the U.S. interest rates it controls. The chart below shows the results of their simulations.

In this chart, the green curve for the 2014 simulation, based on the Fed’s most recently run simulations, represents what the Fed today would believe is the most desirable future trajectory for interest rates, which would have interest rates begin rising immediately and very rapidly from near 0% to 4% in the next three years before stabilizing a bit below that level.

However, the blue trajectory for the Fed’s 2012 simulation can be considered to represent the path the Fed will most likely take in hiking interest rates, based on statements made by Fed Chair Janet Yellen and other senior officials. Here, we see interest rates begin rising from near 0% in mid-2015 to a peak near 5% over the next five years before stabilizing.

These interest rates matter for the U.S. national debt because of how it is structured. Over the next five years, over 72% of the public debt that has been issued by the U.S. government will mature and have to be rolled over at much higher interest rates than they are today.

And that means that the portion of the federal government’s annual budget that goes toward paying the net interest on the national debt to the nation’s lenders will increase dramatically if the Fed executes its plan to increase interest rates. The Mercatus Center’s chart below shows how that fits in to the federal government’s projected spending over the next 10 years.

Veronique de Rugy describes the Congressional Budget Office’s projections for the net interest that must be paid on the national debt, and spells out the bottom line:

Spending on net interest payments constitutes the largest single categorical increase. In 2013, interest payments equaled roughly $221 billion. CBO projects that interest payments will steadily grow at an average annual rate of 11 percent to $722 billion by 2024, a 227 percent increase.

These charts show that the federal government will not be able to provide the same level of services without significant reforms to entitlement programs that drive the bulk of spending and compound future interest payments on the federal debt.

And now you know why!