Flap’s Links and Comments for April 1st on 19:03

These are my links for April 1st from 19:03 to 19:31:

• Uncovered: New $2 billion bailout in Obamacare – Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire.

  The discovery came on the eve of an oversight hearing focused on the workings of an obscure agency known as CCIO — the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. CCIO, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the implementation of Section 1102 of the Affordable Care Act, which created something called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The legislation called for the program to spend a total of $5 billion, beginning in June 2010 — shortly after Obamacare was passed — and ending on January 1, 2014, as the system of national health care exchanges was scheduled to go into effect.

  The idea was to subsidize unions, states, and companies that had made commitments to provide health insurance for workers who retired early — between the ages of 55 and 64, before they were eligible for Medicare. According to a new report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, "People in the early retiree age group…often face difficulties obtaining insurance in the individual market because of age or chronic conditions that make coverage unaffordable or inaccessible." As a result, fewer and fewer organizations have been offering coverage to early retirees; the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program was designed to subsidize such coverage until the creation of Obamacare's health-care exchanges.

  ======

  Read it all.

  Just repeal ObamaCare already…..

• Sen Rand Paul Rankles Harry Reid on Libya – Reid Adjourns the Senate – Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), a Tea Party favorite, has boxed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) into a corner. After a quiet day of quorum calls and speeches, Reid abruptly adjourned the upper chamber Thursday and postponed votes until Monday. According to numerous Hill staffers, Paul deserves some credit for the impasse.

  Here’s the back story: On Wednesday, Paul, with little notice, attached an amendment to the small-business re-authorization bill. The amendment, which chastises President Obama for his actions in Libya, urges members to adopt the president’s own words as “the sense of the Senate.”

  To make his point, Paul quoted, in the legislative language, from Obama’s 2007 remarks on the subject: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” According to Paul’s office, “the measure aims to put the Senate on record affirming Congress as the body with constitutional authority on matters of war.”

  GOP sources tell National Review Online that Paul’s proposal flummoxed Reid, who does not want his members to have to weigh in on Obama’s dusty quote about congressional authority, even if the vote is only to table the measure.

  ======

  Dingy Harry has met his match for sure….

  And, where is Cindy Sheehan?