What’s interesting in the news today?

It just gets worse.

From CBSNews  “CBS News has learned that the project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website’s security. Those failures could lead to identity theft among buying insurance. The project manager testified to congressional investigators behind closed doors, but CBS News has obtained the first look at a partial transcript of his testimony.

Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov’s chief project manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), gave nine hours of closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee in advance of this week’s hearing. In excerpts CBS News has obtained, Chao was asked about a memo that outlined important security risks discovered in the insurance system.

 Chao said he was unaware of a Sept. 3 government memo written by another senior official at CMS. It found two high-risk issues, which are redacted for security reasons. The memo said “the threat and risk potential (to the system) is limitless.” The memo shows CMS gave deadlines of mid-2014 and early 2015 to address them.

But Chao testified he’d been told the opposite.”

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A former Obama advisor is warning that without significantly more sign-ups, the premiums could rise much higher.

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ObamaCare effect on individual healthcare plans is getting worse by the day.

From SacramentoCBSLocal  “More than 1 million cancellation notices have been sent to Californians as the Affordable Care Act begins allowing individuals to buy insurance through exchanges, Jones said. The federal law requires policies to offer minimum levels of coverage, forcing companies to terminate many existing plans. But Jones said that under the law, insurers have another year to do so.”

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But thankfully people are wising up. Those responsible should be getting nervous, like this Senator. Looks like consequences and repercussions may be coming from voters. Lets hope so.

From Politico  “Incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) is near the top of national Republicans’  target list for 2014 — and a new poll shows her lead over her potential GOP  challengers has all but evaporated.

Against state House Speaker Thom Tillis, Hagan leads by only 2 points, 44  percent to 42 percent, according to the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. She  leads the Rev. Mark Harris by 2 points as well, 43 percent to 41 percent, and  nurse Heather Grant by 3 points, 43 percent to 40 percent.

Hagan trails physician Greg Brannon, the Rand Paul-endorsed candidate in the  race, by 1 point: He leads 44 percent to 43 percent.

That’s a huge difference from PPP’s September poll, which gave Hagan leads of  anywhere from 12 points to 17 points against all possible GOP challengers.”

Ruh-Roh…… 🙂

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And that Project Veritas video of the ObamaCare navigators engaging in fraud has already brought consequences.

From FoxDallas/FtWorth  “The Urban League of Greater Dallas fired one person and suspended three  others after a video from a conservative activist reportedly showed the workers  encouraging health care applicants to lie.

An edited video was released Monday that seemingly shows so-called health  care Navigators encouraging people to lie on forms signing up for health care to  get better rates.”

“The Urban League said the person fired was a “part-time receptionist trainee”  who was not authorized to speak on behalf of The Urban League or act as a  Navigator and said it supports decertifying three “Navigators-in-training” in  the video.

The Urban League also called for the unedited video of the incidents to be  released. It said the undercover applicants were told the people they were speaking to were Navigators-in-training and “the full context of these comments  is not reflected in the video.”

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And here’s a pretty lengthy piece on the consequences of the green energy push, especially when it comes to ethanol production. As with many govt ventures, the cure is worse than the illness.

From APNews  “The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America’s push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply.”

“With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country “stronger, cleaner and more secure.”

“As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found.

Five million acres of land set aside for conservation – more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined – have vanished on Obama’s watch.”

It’s caused the expansion of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico as well. Read the whole thing, it’s worth the time.

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