Obama Gets Desperate: Begs Cities to Enroll in Obamacare

President Obama has grown desperate to shore up his flagging legacy.

No one wants to be on Obamacare. Even those who try to stay in the program find that they cannot afford it anymore.

I had shouted at Rep. Maxine Waters two years ago: "Obamacare can go straight to hell!"

It's already there, and getting worse by the minute.

Now the President is putting pressure on the most liberal cities in one of the most liberal and populous states in the country to get more people ensured.

I doubt that these measures will be successful.

The Daily Breeze reports:

Obama to Long Beach: Get more people insured

Robert Garcia

By Josh Dulaney, The Daily Breeze

POSTED: 11/07/15, 5:14 PM PST | UPDATED: 8 HRS AGO

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President Barack Obama challenged Long Beach and 19 other cities across the nation this week to increase the number of residents insured under the Affordable Care Act during the open enrollment period.

In an interview Friday, Mayor Robert Garcia accepted the challenge. The winning city will get a visit from the president.

The mayor of Long Beach accepted the challenge. What about the remaining residents in the city? Robert Garcia is famous for being the first openly gay Hispanic mayor of Long Beach, or of any other city. The choice of sexual partners - that is the best thing that Garcia has to offer his residents. What kind of respct and notoriety does this really offer to Long Beach? The magnificent port, the large cultural diversity, the economic potential of this massive town should get more attention.

Problem is, arriving at an exact number of uninsured residents in the city proper is hard to come by.

And why is that? Is it the job of the city to provide health insurance to residents? Long Beach needs to focus on safety, prosperity, and infrastructure. Everything else is distraction.

According to a press release sent by the White House, there are 480,000 people in Long Beach “and the surrounding region” who are uninsured and eligible under Covered California. When asked for clarification, White House officials referred calls to the state Health and Human Services Department, which referred calls to Covered California, which provided the number of enrollees in its program, but not the number of uninsured.

How does the President know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the region who are not insured? How many people want to be insured under Obamacare? Apparently, people who have enrolled in Obamacare now want to get out of the program. The insurance rates have sky-rocketed, only getting worse.

The most recent data of uninsured from the city’s Health and Human Services Department is from 2013. The city at that time reported 22.3 percent of the population did not have insurance, which amounted to almost 105,000 people.

As of June, an estimated 12,420 Long Beach residents have signed up and paid for coverage under Covered California, according to the state agency.

Wow. Those numbers are pitiful.

Regardless, city officials say they look forward to enrolling more residents and competing with other cities, which include Oakland, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Seattle.

Has anyone noticed that these cities are heavily liberal, and in decline? Atlanta fired their fire chief because he was teaching men to abstain from sexual sin. Now the cities are taking charge of providing health insurance to the uninsured.

Lisa Rubino, a spokeswoman for Long Beach-based Molina Healthcare, said the issue of coverage is often confusing for residents, with so many options and plans available. Many people don’t know what benefits they qualify for, how much insurance they can afford, or that they could have the majority of their coverage paid for through subsidies, she said.

What is so confusing about Obamacare? Just about everything. The regulations never stop growing, and the burdens they place on individuals and businesses. The paperwork is onerous. The imposition of the state and the bureaucracy only makes the complex worse.

Continuous outreach is needed to educate communities about health care coverage available to them, Rubino said. That means teaming with a variety of groups, including charitable organizations, faith-based communities and schools.

Even when "the government" gives something away, there is no guarantee that people will step up to take it. How sad indeed. Why is it that individuals

“It’s a multipronged approach, and it usually is a multivisit communication,” Rubino.

Obama urged such a push in his letter, sent this week to the Press-Telegram editorial board.

“So maybe you’re a local official, a pastor, or a sports hero who can spread the word,” Obama said. “Maybe you’ve got a cousin or an uncle who’s been uninsured for far too long. Or maybe you’re between jobs and don’t think that affordable coverage is an option for you. No matter who you are, everybody can get covered or help their neighbors do so.”

Please get insured, President Obama pleads. Putin does not listen to the President. Congress does not listen to the President. Dignitaries do not heed or even recognize the President. What makes this President think that anyone else is going to listen to him?

The White House said they are challenging communities “that collectively include a significant number of the remaining uninsured and represent particularly high opportunity for impact due to geography, infrastructure and ongoing enrollment efforts.”

Obama had declared his goal that everyone would be insured. Hasn't happened.

Garcia acknowledged the political division in the country over the Affordable Care Act.

Those divisions have gotten deeper, and worse for Democrats and the President.

“I know there are people who have issues with that, and I get that,” he said. “But it’s here and it’s certainly in our benefit to make sure people are insured. Absolutely it’s a good thing, because having a healthy community makes for a stronger community.”

A healthy community is a strong community, but Obamacare is not making our communities safer or healthier. In fact, the excessive costs and expanded government intrusion frustrates the core responsibilities of our cities: public safety and strong infrastructure.

And there should be a healthy battle between the city and Oakland, the only other California town in the challenge.

Healthy battle? Oakland filled with riots and riddled with dysfunction? A semi-police state under the tenure of Jerry Brown should not serve as any example for anything. 

“I’m sure I’ll at least have a side competition with the mayor of Oakland (Libby Schaaf), because she’s a good friend and we’re both very competitive,” he said.

The White House said with open enrollment underway, sign-ups by Dec. 15 mean people will have coverage by the new year. Open enrollment ends Jan. 31.

Residents may sign up at CoveredCA.com, or call 800-300-1506, a toll-free number for assistance.

Final Reflection

Why is the President seeking desperate help from mayors in liberal cities? The President cannot save his signature program, which has turned into a miasma of government regulations and formulas hurting working families and businesses.

This Obamacare fraud is the worst thing to come out of Washington in modern times, a waste of wealth and resources which would have been better spent staying in the hands of individual Americans.

What is more astonishing and despressing, however, is that the Daily Breeze and associated Los Angeles News Group papers are promoting the President's agenda, without any regard or respect for the facts or the evidence.

The Affordable Care is affordable and uncaring. The President made his vanity and the regressive ideological agenda of his Stalinist mentors more important than the United States Constitution, his oath to serve his country, or the simple necessity to protect the citizens.

This desperation is beyond laughable, and a tribute to how far the President's stock and esteem have fallen.