ObamaCare Enrollment Week Six - Enrollment Plunges As Does the Viability of the Law

As predicted, activity on the state and federal healthcare exchanges declined after the December 15th deadline passed but nobody thought the drop off would be so drastic!

Week 6 ended just a few days shy of the halfway point for the 2015 enrollment period and produced the mere 102,000 new enrollments, the lowest of any week so far.  In contrast, the previous week drew over 700,000 new enrollments as customers rushed to the state and federal exchanges to beat the December 15th deadline.

It is unlikely that ObamaCare will experience another weekly enrollment boom, such as it did in week 5, and the enrollment figures record in week 6 are likely indicative of what can be expected during the second half of the 2015 open enrollment period, at least until the very final days.


Enrollment So Far

Factoring in a 27% increase in plan selections to account for state exchanges, which are not included in the HHS report, and a 17% attrition rate, at the half way point new enrollment looks to have broken the 2 million mark. 

This will come as great news to the Obama Administration who will soon be touting that enrollment has already exceeded their expectations for 2015.  Of course there will be no mention that, at the direction of the White House, HHS lowered the enrollment bar by 4 million nor will there be mention of the fact that new enrolment is likely being driven by much stiffer penalties being imposed on those who fail to secure a federally mandated healthcare insurance plan in 2015.  And of course the Obama Administration will fall completely silent regarding the latest round of insurance policy cancelation that have many transferring from their private healthcare plan to one purchased through the state and federal exchanges.  

There will also be those who will claim that signing-up 2 million during the first half of the 2015 enrollment period sets the trajectory to have 4 million enrolled up by February 15, the final day of open enrollment.  This is as likely to happen as Obama signing repeal legislation for his signature law as the drop-off experience in week 6 will likely trend through the remainder of the open enrollment period.


A Look at Enrollment Week By Week

The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has been gracious in their providing timely enrollment updates however, the figures they publish do come with a few caveats, some they explain in their updates, others they do not.

First is understanding exactly what it is that is being reported.  The figures provided by HHS are data collected from the federal exchange, operated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  State exchange data is excluded from the HHS reports as the states operating their own exchanges cannot be relied upon to make this data available in a timely manner.  As the states operating their own exchanges make up only 27% of the total, increasing the federally reported enrollment by this amount creates a figure accurate enough to make general assumptions regarding enrollment. 

HHS also makes it very clear that the numbers they are reporting are “selected” plans not actual enrollments.   A selected plan simply means that a customer has placed a plan in their shopping cart but has not necessarily filled out the enrollment forms nor made payment.  Failing to make this distinction got the Obama Administration in a great deal of hot water earlier this year when it was learned that 1 million of the enrollments they were claiming had either canceled their policy or never paid.

Selected plans encompass both new enrollments as well as renewals however, in most cases HHS has provided the percentage of which are new verses renewals.

Another distinction that should be noted regarding selected plans is while they are described as ‘plans’, HHS states clearly that the figure they are publishing accounts for the total number of members named on those plans.

The attrition rate is not mentioned by HHS of course as the attrition rate cannot be determined until it actually happens.  However, over the past year we did learn that of those who selected plans on the exchanges for 2014, 17% did not follow through with payment or canceled their plans a short time later.

Now for the numbers:

Week 1  -  462, 125 plans selected, 51% new enrollments
Week 2  -  303,010 plans selected, 49% new enrollments
Week 3  -  618,548 plans selected, 48% new enrollments
Week 4  -  1,082,879 plans selected, 47% new enrollments
Week 5  -  3, 927, 484 plans selected, 17% new enrollments
Week 6  -  94,446* plans selected, no distinction of new enrollments provided

There are a few trends that are easily identified at quick glance:

 Weeks 1 through 3 there was a pretty even split between new enrollments and renewals.

Weeks 3 and 4 saw a big uptick in enrollment as the December 15th deadline neared.

Week 5 saw significant re-enrollment as well as a surge in new enrollment, both likely a result of the December 15th enrollment deadline.

Week 6 experience a massive drop-off in enrollment due to the passing of the December15th enrollment deadline, the ending of the auto-reenrollment cycle and the week falling in the middle of the Christmas Holiday period.

Week 6*  HHS stopped reporting the distinction between new enrollment and renewals as the auto-renewal cycle had ended.  Customers are still able to and are renewing manually however.


Putting ‘New’ Into Perspective

One final caveat in the HHS reporting is the distinction between ‘new customers’ and ‘customers renewing coverage’. 

The latter is simple and encompasses those customers who returned to renew their coverage or auto-renewed their coverage after having purchased a qualified healthcare plan through the federal exchange during the 2014 open enrollment period. 

‘New customers’ is a little less straight forward.  Essentially, HHS identifies a new customer as anyone who is new to the federal exchange.  This means that for those who were formerly insured on the private insurance marketplace and let’s say for example they had their insurance policy canceled and sought out a new plan on the federal exchange, they will count as a new customer.  The same holds true for those who transferred over from a state exchange on to the federal exchange, such as the 100,000 customers from the now defunct Oregon and Nevada state exchanges.

It is important to understand who HHS includes as “new customers” as far too often it is assumed that “new” means ‘formerly uninsured’ which is by no means the case.  The liberal media will assuredly distort the meaning of ‘new customers’ working on the now infamous Gruber Principal that due to the “stupidity of the American voter” they can get away with claiming ‘new’ to be the same as ‘formerly uninsured’


Enrolling the Uninsured is Everything and it's Failing

It would be nice if concern for the success of enrollment from those within the Obama Administration stemmed from the human desire to know that the millions of uninsured will no longer be without quality healthcare, but sadly this is not the case.  

ObamaCare became the number one priority of the presidents from the moment he set foot in office and after 6 years remains his single major achievement.  But the law is in trouble and its success or failure very much relies on the number of qualified healthcare plans put in the hands of the uninsured via the state and federal healthcare exchanges.   This is what is most concerning to the president and his administration.

Let us not forget that the insurance marketplace is still privately owned and operated and their participation on the healthcare exchanges is purely voluntary.  Insurers agreed to participate on the healthcare exchanges under the condition that healthcare would be made affordable enough to ultimately attract 24 million new customers for them by 2017.  Insurers have little control over holding down the cost of healthcare plan as the ObamaCare law mandates that all plans include a number of essential benefits which runs up the cost.

Standing on their own, literally all healthcare plans offered on the exchanges cost more than comparable plans offered prior to the ObamaCare mandate, plans that were not littered with unnecessary benefits.  Now insurers were relying on government {taxpayer} provided subsides to offset the higher cost of premiums so as to make insurance affordable to the millions who have for years opted out of obtaining insurance.  Roughly 85 to 90% of all insurance plans sold through the state and federal healthcare exchanges receive some level of federal subsidy.

Insurers participating on the exchanges developed their initial rate structures based on the same enrollment predictions that the White House used to determine funding of the law, those 18 new taxes and surcharges.  And due to the uncertainties of these early years of implementation, insurers are protected from losses through safety net provisions built into the law.  Without such a safety net, insurers would be unwilling to take on the risk of such a new and untested idea.

But enrollment went astray from the start as before the first person enrolled on the healthcare exchanges, insurers had to send out millions of cancelation notices to existing customers whose insurance plans did not include the essential benefits package now mandated by law.  Once the 2014 enrollment numbers were sorted out, HHS reported that 6.7 million individuals selected and paid for a healthcare plan from the exchanges and in a round-about way, claimed that 4.5 million of those enrollment were made by the formerly uninsured, a number that has come under great scrutiny and is in all likelihood is significantly lower than stated.

The 2014 enrollment figures were very concerning to insurers who were expecting to add 7 million new customers to their books and not kick several million off in the process.  Also concerned was President Obama who feared that the poor enrollment would force insurers to increase premiums in 2015.  Subsequently, the president struck another deal with insurers to hold premiums down and in exchange he would ensure that any losses they realize would be covered.

And now, all are watching closely as we reach the halfway point of the 2015 open enrollment period.  So far no really so good as all indication are that enrollment will fall far short of the 6 million new customers that insurers were initially told would arrive when they agreed to participate on the exchanges.  New enrollment at the halfway point looks to be just over 2 million, many of which are transfers from the private marketplace after receiving their cancelation notices. 

There is little reason to believe that enrollment over the next six weeks will be as robust as the first.  In all likelihood enrollment will end up somewhere in the vicinity of 3 million and it must be kept in mind that all will not be from the pool of America’s uninsured as was intended.

All indications are that by the close of the 2015 enrollment period ObamaCare will have put a qualified healthcare plan in the hands of no more than 8 million of America’s long term uninsured.  That’s a far cry from the 13 million that insurers were expecting and based their due diligence of this experiment on.

And what happens next year?  The 2016 enrollment period was originally projected to move 11 million more of America’s uninsured on to the rolls of the insured, bringing the total to 24 million.  Fat chance of that happening, the Obama Administration will be lucky if 12 million uninsured Americans will have gain healthcare insurance through one of the exchanges by that time!

It would be hard to imagine that there are any more deals that the president can strike with the insurers to prevent them from significantly raising their rates come 20016, assuming they stick around at all.  And even if the president were able to pull off this small miracle, the safety net currently protecting insurers from losses expires on January 1, 2017 at which time insurers will simply pack their bags and walk away, knowing that the only way to become profitable again is by the removal of ObamaCare, be it through congressional repeal or the law failing on its own.

ObamaCare Enrollment Week 5 – A Big Surge But Will It Last?

Just before Christmas, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) released the ObamaCare Week 5 enrollment figures, in their HHS blog, and the numbers look pretty impressive.

The week of December 13 through 19 drew almost 4 million individuals selecting a healthcare plan on the federal healthcare exchange, 3,927,484 to be exact, bringing the total number of those selecting a plan during the first 5 weeks of the 2015 open enrollment period to just under 6.4 million.

So let’s take a look at the numbers and see how they stack up against Week1, Week 3 and Week 4.


Turning Oranges into Apples

Just as we did in the previous weeks, we will have to take the total number of selected plans on the federal exchange and make it more reflective of nationwide enrollment.  The one thing we will do different than in previous weeks is we will us the week 5 totals instead of the accumulative total.  The reason for this is due to a significant change in the percentage of new and returning customers during week 5 as compared to previous weeks.

As the federal exchange enrollment accounts for 73% of the 50 states and DC, increasing the number who selected insurance plans on the federal exchange by 27% will give us a fair representation of the total number of plans selected on the state and federal exchanges nationwide.  In doing so, the number of those who selected a plan during week five yields a total just shy of 5 million.

With just under 5 million plans selected, next we will need to determine how many of those plans were “new” selections verses those made by returning customers.  The HHS blog indicates that during week 5, 17% of the plans selected were made by new customers which equates to about 848,000 selections.

Last we need to factor in attrition.  As we did in previous weeks, we will use the 2014 attrition rate of 17% brining us to a week 5 projected new customer enrollment of 704,000, more than double that of previous weeks.


Reasons Behind the Boom in Enrollment

Enrollment during week 5 has certainly been robust and leaves little doubt that new enrollment will surpass the significantly lowered goal of putting a qualified healthcare plan in the hands of an additional 2 million uninsured Americans, a goal revised by the Obama Administration.  But let’s not throw a victory parade just yet as enrollment is still on target to fall well short of the original forecast of 6 million to which the fiscal viability of the law was built around.

The week 5 enrollment surge was both predicted and temporary.  Facing significantly higher penalties than last year, many of the uninsured who opted out of obtaining healthcare insurance in 2014 found themselves compelled to adhere to the federal mandate which subsequently drove them to the exchanges in order to beat the December 15th deadline required for January 1st coverage.  The penalty increase for not having insurance in 2015 vs. 2014 jumped from $100 to $325 per individual and from 1% to 2% of the household income for families.

Another group that wished to beat the December 15th deadline were those who received an insurance cancelation notices in the mail.  The number of non-ACA compliant cancelations sent out this year is claimed to be significantly lower than what was experienced in 2013 but still number in the hundreds of thousands.  We will not know the exact number until some independent group performs a study as HHS not likely to produce this information for public consumption.     

An anomaly that accounts for at least part of the last minute surge in enrollment comes from those who purchased qualified healthcare plans through the Oregon and Nevada healthcare exchanges last year.  Both of these states have thrown in the towel trying to fix their states exchanges and have instead moved over to the federal exchange, bringing with them roughly 100,000 customers in total.  While these customers are actually renewals, they are recognized as “new” on the federal exchange and therefor counted as such by HHS.

And with the temporary surge of enrollment now in the rear view mirror, we can expect to see a sharp drop in enrollment, likely much lower than what has been experienced in the earlier weeks.


ObamaCare Renewals

The largest portion of the 2015 sign-ups are being made by those renewing or replacing their plans purchased through the healthcare exchanges last year.

At the close of week 5, approximately 5.7 million renewals were selected and there is little reason to believe that the majority of the renewals will not advance and become full and paid for enrollments.  There does seem to be some concern from within the Obama Administration however, that this may not be the case. 

Fearing that those who selected the auto-renewal feature in 2014 may be surprised by premium increases and subsequently cancel their plans, HHS and the president himself have been encouraging those who are set-up for auto-renewal to still take the time to visit their exchange and shop for better deals.  Most concerning by the administration are those who have the low tier Silver plans.  These plans are by far the most popular and as well have experienced the greatest rate hikes.


To Sum It All Up

The surge to get enrollment before the December 15th deadline occurred just as expected and if the trend follows that of 2014, enrollment will decline significantly until the closing minutes of the 2015 enrollment period.

As for how enrollment my finally play out, it is pretty hard to tell at the moment however, it is fairly safe to say that new enrollment of the uninsured nonelderly should easily exceed the lowered bar of 2 million.  How much it will exceed the lowered projection would be pure speculation but my less than scientific number crunching will call the final tally someplace between 3.1 and 3.5 million which is significantly less than the 6 million needed to help ensure the fiscal wellbeing of the struggling healthcare law.

If my projection comes to fruition, ObamaCare will have placed a qualified healthcare plan in the hands of roughly 8 million uninsured nonelderly since the opening of the healthcare exchanges in October of 2013.  That is a 38% shortfall or 5 million shy of the 13 million uninsured the Obama Administration once claimed ObamaCare would have insured by 2015.  This leaves an awful lot of ground to make up if the Obama Administration still expects to hold to its word of putting a qualified healthcare plan in the hands of 24 million uninsured Americans by 2017.

The number of those renewing their 2014 healthcare plans looks really good.  At the end of week 5, enrollment renewals are only 1 million shy of the 2014 enrollment which is a strong indication that most who purchased a qualified healthcare plan through one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges will do so again this year.


UPDATE:  12/30   4:10pm pst

HHS just released the Week 6 enrollment numbers.  Week 6 yielded the lowest number of new plans selected in any week and by a significant amount.  More alarming however, is that for the first time since they began reporting enrollment figures, HHS failed to differentiate the percentage of new verses renewed plans.  HHS claims that the data was not available at the time of release however, if history is any indicator, the information is likely being withheld as the news does speak well for new enrollment.  Time will tell if they reveal the information or not.

And a quick crunching of the numbers, using the same factors as has been used in past weeks, and assuming all selected plans reported for week 6 are new enrollments, I arrived at a 6 week accumulative total enrollment of just over 2 million.

It must be noted that week 6 did fall in the middle of the Christmas Holiday week so this would attribute to a lower enrollment turn out.  A sharp drop in enrollment was also expected, having passed the December 15 enrollment deadline to be insured by January 1st.

After a quick review of the numbers. I stand by my prediction of a final new enrollment between 3.1 to 3.5 million although I am leaning to the lower side of this prediction.  It also should be noted that the new enrollments include those who may have been formerly insured and transferred to the healthcare exchanges after having their insurance policy canceled.

ObamaCare Enrollment Week 4 – How Are Things Shaping Up?

The latest ObamaCare enrollment figures for the 2015 open enrollment period have been released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Let’s take a look and see how things are shaping up!

In their December 16^th blog post, HHS indicated that 2,466,562 consumers selected a qualified healthcare plan by the end of the fourth week of the open enrollment cycle.  Week 4 alone experience just over 1 million plan selections on the exchanges, large in part due to the December 15^th deadline that would ensure coverage come January 1.  We should see the same robust enrollment in the early days of week 5 as well, as last minute shoppers and procrastinators race to beat the deadline.

It’s Time to Sort out the Numbers Again

As was done in our Week 3 Enrollment Update, we have to make oranges in to apples to get a clear perspective as to how well enrollment is or is not progressing.

First, the figure provided by HHS represents only those who selected plans from the federal exchange.  The federal exchange covers only 73% of the states and so, all things being equal, there would be roughly 3.1 million plans selected on the state and federal healthcare exchanges over the first 4 weeks of enrollment.  Man, that is a lot of plans selected!

Included in these 3.1 million selections are plan renewals which accounts for 52% of the selections, as reported by HHS.  The remaining 48% or 1.5 million selections can be attributed to new customers to the exchanges, not all of which were formerly uninsured.

Next we need to take into account attrition.  The 2014 enrollment period yielded a 17% attrition rate when all was said and done and there is no reason to expect the rate to fall this enrollment period.  In fact, some industry experts are suggesting that, due to the increase in premiums and deductibles, the attrition rate for 2015 may actually increase.  But for now, we will stick with 17% which drops the estimated enrollment down to 1.2 million over the first 4 weeks.  Not bad, not bad at all. 

At the current pace, some would speculate that 2015 enrollment will be in excess of 3.5 million however, this is highly unlikely.  Week 4 enrollment expectedly outpaced the previous 3 weeks due to the December 15^th deadline to be insured by January 1.  The high volume of individuals who selected plans in week 4 will likely not be seen again, except possibly in the final week, as was seen in 2014.
   
Those Pesky Cancelation Notices

During the 2014 enrollment period, at least one in every three qualified healthcare plans purchased on the state and federal healthcare exchanges came from an individual transferring off of their old insurance plan.  Will the same hold true for 2015?

In a USA Today article published back in October of this year, it was stated that the number of cancelation notices to be {have been} mailed out are expected to be significantly lower than during the first enrollment period but cancelations are coming none the less.

While those in the private individual insurance marketplace are not expected to suffer as bad as in the previous year, the small employer marketplace is about to get its butt kicked by cancelations.  This is due to the coming expiration of the delay to the employer mandate which was unilateral imposed last year by President Obama.

Where Do We Actually Stand on Insuring the Uninsured?

The inaugural enrollment period did not get things off to a very good start for ObamaCare and little seems to have improved in the realm of enrollment since then. 

To date, HHS has failed to produce the actual number of uninsured nonelderly that selected, paid for and retained a qualified healthcare plan however, through various other enrollment admissions HHS has made, the number can be no greater than 4.5 million and in all likelihood is much less.

Add 2014 enrollment to the extremely optimistic 3.1 million uninsured nonelderly that may purchase, pay for and retain a qualified healthcare plan during the current open enrollment period to arrive at a total of 7.6 million.  This very very best case enrollment figure barely surpasses the 2014 projection and is well shy of the 13 million the Obama Administration originally forecasted by close of the  2015 enrollment period.

It does look as though the current enrollment will in fact surpass President Obama lowered expectations for 2015, having dropped the prediction by 4 million from its original goal of 6 million but having to do so tells its own story.  And dropping the enrollment expectations of ObamaCare has no bearing in the laws fiscal obligations made to insures in agreement for their participation on the healthcare exchanges.

The end game for ObamaCare was to put a qualified healthcare plan in the hands of 24 million of America’s uninsured nonelderly by 2017.  If they are lucky, they will achieve half of that but so far luck has not been on the side of the troubled healthcare law.

Putting the Benghazi Investigations in to Perspective

Since the September 11^th, 2012 attack on the US Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi Libya transpired, there have been five congressional oversight investigations and one internal review conducted by the State Department, each related to the tragic incident which took the lives of four brave Americans and left many others wounded.

Politically, the eight hour attack could not have come at a worse time for President Obama as he and Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney were in the midst of a heated run for the White House.  A major component of the Obama campaign was the liberation of Libya after he {President Obama} authorized the successful killing of Osama bin Laden.  The Obama campaign and the president himself came under heavy attack by Team Romney who argued vehemently that Libya was anything but stable and liberated and the foreign policy put forth by the Obama administration in this region was failing.  Mitt Romney could not have been more correct!

As photos and information began to trickle in to the news media, the White House response to the Benghazi attack was limited to say the least.  In his now infamous Rose Garden Speech, President Obama spoke for over five minutes however, his carefully crafted speech spoke very little of the attack itself, was unforceful in the manner to which it denounced the attack and was void of ever calling the tragedy that just took place a “Terrorist Attack”, a failure which enraged millions upon millions of Americans and raised both the eyebrows and curiosity of the political community.  The soft footedness of his words and failure by President Obama to address what happened that evening as a Terrorist Attack made absolutely no sense and set the wheels in motion of those who demanded a better explanation.

It did not appear odd at the time but once we learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remained inside the private walls of her office and residence at the State Department, just as the president did at the White House, neither of them ever joining their teams inside the situation room during the ordeal, to see Hillary standing quietly next to the president during the Rose Garden speech now seems out of place and even staged to give the appearance that they had been together throughout the ordeal.

The Rose Garden speech video

The Investigations

Over the course of the past two years, four of the five congressional investigations that were set in motion have been concluded and their findings released, along with the State Departments Accountability Review Board (ARB) Report on Benghazi.  The fifth congressional investigation remains open but may likely yield to the Special Investigation now being conducted by the Select Committee on Benghazi headed up by Rep. Trey Gowdy.

So what have the investigations concluded?  Let’s take a look!


No. 1 - The Accountability Review Board on Benghazi

Up until recently the most widely publicized of the investigation was not one of congressional oversight but one conducted by the State Department.  The Accountability Review Board on Benghazi (ARB) was an internal review set in motion by Secretary Clinton most likely at the direction of the White House.  The ARB was in no way an investigation into the attack on Benghazi, it was never intended to be.  The objectives of the ARB, as specified by Secretary Clinton, were to audit State Department’s internal procedures and practices, as they pertained to Benghazi, to identify any shortcomings and make recommendations where improvements were needed.  The review revealed many failures in the handling of security matters surrounding Benghazi, from within the State Department, and most have since been corrected. 

The ARB was successful in its intended mission which was in no way to look into why the internet video was blamed for the attack, who floated the idea and why the president was not in the situation room managing the crises.  The investigation to those questions was outside the jurisdiction of the State Department. 

Democrats and the left leaning media were quick to make point that the finding the ARB, while quite critical of the State Department, revealed no wrong doings from within the White House, conveniently ignoring the fact that the ARB was merely an audit of the State Department and had no authority or jurisdiction to investigate the White House.     The White House was just as guilty in portraying the ARB as something it is not as it was politically advantageous for them to do so even though it is misleading and deceptive.


No. 2 - Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Investigation

The only Benghazi oversight conducted at the Senate level was by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  Chaired by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and vice chaired by Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the committee was tasked to scrutinize the Intelligence Community’s roll in the events leading up to, during and after the attack on Benghazi.  It was NOT the intent of this investigation to ferret out who floated an internet video as being the cause of the attack or who and why it was floated.

The investigation and subsequent report have been deemed to be fair and impartial and in summary states that the attacks were PREVENTABLE based on the known security shortfalls.  The report also indicates that analysts inaccurately referred to protests without sufficient intelligence or eyewitness statements, causing confusion for policymakers.  It must be noted that while the report summary did state that the intelligence community inaccurately referred to the attack as a protest, this portrayal came long after the attack had concluded and Secretary Clinton had released her news brief stating that the attack was due to an internet video.

Like the ARB, this senate investigation does not try to answer the questions as to why the internet video was blamed for the attack, who floated the idea and why the president was not in the situation room managing the crises.

No. 3 - House Armed Service Subcommittee Investigation

The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation investigated the DoD response to Benghazi.  In its February 2014 report the committee concluded that the White House failed to comprehend or ignored all together the rapidly failing security issues faced at the US Consulate and that personnel had known, almost from the onset, that Benghazi was a terrorist attack.  Like the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation, which focused only the intelligence community’s role in Benghazi, this investigation looked only at the DoD’s role and in no way was seeking out the answers as to why the internet video was blamed for the attack, who floated the idea and why the president was not in the situation room managing the crises.


No. 4 - House Committee on Foreign Affairs Investigation

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs investigation was less targeted on the events surrounding the Benghazi attack and focused more on State Department accountability.  Their investigation failed to obtain answers to the questions as to why the internet video was blamed for the attack, who floated the idea and why the president was not in the situation room managing the crises.  The committee reported that documents were difficult to obtain from the White House often sidelining the investigation.

However, over time, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs investigation was eventually completed and resulted in a less than flattering report on the lack of accountability from within the State Department.  The Executive Summary of their report draws out all the key issues that were discovered during the investigation.

View the Report

No. 5 - House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Investigation

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence focused largely on putting the “Talking Points” chain of events together.  The committee held over 18 mostly closed session hearings, due to the secure nature of the witnesses and testimony, but has been open with their overall frustration to get a clear and concise answer from anyone.  Stemming from this frustration, the last hearing to have taken place once again put Mike Morell, CIA Director at the time of the Benghazi attack, front and center in an open hearing.

What the general public was finally able to hear was that despite over one dozen indicators that the Benghazi event was a terrorist attack, the CIA still made it their opinion that the source of the attack was based on an internet video.  Morell’s testimony was clear that the information that they used to draw this conclusion did not follow that of what was reported by direct witnesses on the ground but instead followed the narrative of what was happening in other parts of the world.  More damaging to the video narrative pressed by the White House came when it was disclosed in the open hearing that the day before Susan Rice went on her Sunday Morning Show sweep, Morell told senior members within the Obama Administration that the chief of station in Benghazi reported that there was NO PROTEST!

The House Permanent Select Committee has recently concluded its investigation and subsequent report.   The findings of the investigation are well explained in the executive summary of the report which makes clear that the committee found no fault in the actions of the intelligence community to which the investigation was focuses.  While it was not this committees charter to investigate the actions of the State Department, in the execution of its investigation it did in fact find a number of shortcoming from within the State Department which are also stated in the Executive Summary of their report. 

Here is the report!  

No. 6 - House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Investigation

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been the most diligent in seeking out the truth behind the numerous inconsistencies in documents and testimony that has been provided in regards to the events surrounding Benghazi and advancing its investigation closer to revealing the truth to the American people.  As a result, push back on this particular oversight body has been immense.  Democrats on the committee have been non-cooperative throughout the process and as the investigation edges closer to the truth the push-back intensifies.

Contrary to the claims of many leading democrats, the committee has no more reached a dead end than it has received answers to all of its questions.  The committee continues to push for documents that the State Department has refused to turn over and has issued a number of subpoenas for both documents and persons to testify as more and more evidence continues to point to a cover up at the highest levels of the White House.

With the new congress taking over in January, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) will be taking up the Chairman duties from Darrell Issa.  While the committee’s investigation on Benghazi is still on going, Chaffetz has already stated that, due to the circumstances that prompted the formation a Select Committee on Benghazi being headed up by Trey Gowdy, his committee will stand down on the investigation.  It was through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, made by Judicial Watch  back in April, that emails were obtained directly linking the White House to the shaping of the talking points that Susan Rice used to mislead the nation as to the cause of the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi.  In her rounds on the Sunday talk shows, Rice concluded that the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was the result of an internet video. 

The new special committee has much greater jurisdiction and tools at its disposal that will prevent it from getting caught up in the procedural pitfalls of partisan congressional oversight.  


What Can Be Concluded from these Investigations?

If you believe the majority of the main stream media sources and the liberal social network hacks, these investigations have concluded, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there were no wrong doings by anyone in the events surrounding the handling of the Benghazi attack, both during and afterwards.  But we have learned to expect no less from those who have bent over backwards to protect the Obama Administration and their political brand, even if it means ignoring, misleading and sometime even lying about the facts!

To those who are familiar with the role of the various oversight committees, in reading through the various reports, they have found that each committee targeted the very specific subject matter that falls within their jurisdiction of oversight.  For example, the most recent report released by the Republican led House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence focuses almost exclusively on the role the intelligence community played before, during and after the attack on Benghazi.  The oversight committee found no wrong doings in the direct actions of the intelligence community and draws no other conclusions as to wrong doings or failures from others outside the their area of jurisdiction.

Regardless of the intended purpose of each of the oversight committees, the liberal media has made an art form out of picking a particular aspect of these reports, such as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence vindicating the intelligence community of any wrong doings, and transforming that aspect into a full pardon of all those involve.

There is however a common thread in the findings of all the completed reports, that being that there was a number of systemic failures that originated in the State Department.  Be it a documented fact, such as failing to meet security requests, the State Departments willingness to providing misleading statements or worst of all, the obstruction of the investigations by failing to turn over requested documents, all fingers point to something amiss inside then Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Where Do Things Go From Here?

There is without a doubt a cover-up that has been taken place pertaining to the events surrounding Benghazi, from within the Obama Administration, or else Trey Gowdy would not have accepted the appointment to be the Chairman of the Select Committee. 

Gowdy is taking a lawyer’s approach to the investigation, unlike Darrell Issa who seemed to be chasing each single piece of evidence, as they came to him, in hopes that it was the smoking gun that would blow the lid off of the cover-up.  Gowdy also has more tools at his disposal as well and is not constrained by certain procedural rules of congressional oversight that make it easy for obstruction to take place by those trying to create a smoke screen.

There will be a firm conclusion reached at the end of the Select Committee’s investigation which will reveal the full cover-up being perpetrated by the White House or the end of investigation will bring forth a laundry list of troubling questions created by a verifiable trail of evidence but left unanswered due to the administrations continued failure to cooperate in the investigation.  If the latter is the case then it will be up to the public to decide what they wish to see happen to the administration but either way, the conclusion will not bode well for the Obama Administration.

It’s hard to say how much push back Gowdy is receiving from the administration at this point as he is not making a public spectacle of the Select Committee’s work, and for good reason.  There will be push back but to what degree really depends on who can be hurt the most by the truth behind the cover-up being revealed.

For President Obama, as each day passes the lid getting blown off of the story matters less and less.  If it was in fact learned that Obama had direct involvement in the cover-up there will most certainly be Articles of Impeachment bestowed upon him but he does not have enough time remaining in office for the hearings and verdict to reach conclusion so it matters little.  The White House, with great help from the liberal media, has bought the president enough time.

Hillary Clinton is likely more concerned by what the Select Committee might uncover.  The investigation may in fact be the reason Hillary has not yet thrown her name in the hat for 2016.

But who has the most to lose by the findings of the Select Committee on Benghazi is the entire Democratic Party who has been all in on defending their social experiment from the day he was elected into office.  If the facts lead to the door of the Oval Office, it will be a major blow to the Democrats and will likely lead to the uncovering of the truth behind a number of other scandals surrounding the administration of which Democrats have just as much invested in. 

More important, if it is in fact learned that the White House covered-up the actions of the Commander in Chief during the Benghazi attack to protect the president from his own failed foreign policy in Libya, the deaths of four brave Americans will look to be a sacrifice for political gain to hold the presidency in 2012.  This is why learning the truth is so important and sadly as likely the reason there has been such an enormous amount of push back from the White House to suppress the truth! 

The Repeal of ObamaCare May be Key for Democrats in 2016

ObamaCare has already cost democrats both the House and the Senate and could be the unmitigated factor that drives voters to remove them from the White House in 2016.

Even back in the very early days, when it was still a healthcare reform bill, ObamaCare struggled to gain popularity amongst Americans and has never in its existence captured the majority by those in favor of the law verses the number who oppose it.  And it was the devious and highly unethical measures taken by Congressional Democrats to ensure ObamaCare’s passage in to law which caused the voter revolt that led to their subsequent loss of control over the House or Representative in 2010.

The burden of ObamaCare has never let up and Democrats trying to protect their majority in the Senate found themselves in a battle against the unpopular law again in the 2014 mid-terms.  Most Democrats distanced themself from the faltering law as they made their bid to hold their senate seat while, in an unprecedented move, a few broke ranks and spoke negatively of ObamaCare.  Even at the insistence by the president that ObamaCare was a positive campaign issue for Senate Democrats, those running for re-election refused to make the troubled healthcare law a part of their campaign message.

But try as they may, Democrats were unable to shake the people’s displeasure with ObamaCare and were ousted from power in the Senate this past November.

Loved by Republicans and Loathed by Democrats Come 2016

As they kick off the 2016 election cycle, both parties are looking for areas to gain political footing as well as to identify and remove any obstacles that might trip them up.  On the lists for both Democrats and Republicans is ObamaCare!  

For Republicans it will be business as usual as they will continue to put front and center the long list of burdens that have befallen upon our economy complements of ObamaCare.  Democrats will have a much greater challenge.  As ObamaCare remains troublesome and the public call for repeal increases, Democrats will have to do a great deal more than just distance themselves from the President’s namesake legislation if they have any hopes of holding the White House.

While no Democrat will say so publically, there are certainly those that are secretly hoping for ObamaCare to crumble and fall on its own, especially those Democrats who have been all in with their support and defending of the troubled law.  For those Democrats, speaking out against ObamaCare would be political suicide however, if they could run a campaign void of having to defend or denounce the President's healthcare reform law, their chances in 2016 become significantly brighter.

Helping To Repeal ObamaCare

While many Democrats may secretly be hoping for the self-implosion of ObamaCare the likelihood of this happening is virtually nil.  Short of a US Supreme Court decision to overturn a major aspect of the law, little can be done to inflict enough pain on ObamaCare for it to fail on its own, at least not until 2017 at which time the taxpayer funded safety net the protects insurers from losses expires and insurance rates will most certainly skyrocket as a result.  But this would happen too late to effect the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Of course any attempt by the new congress to repeal the law would be met with an instant veto by a President who cares more about protecting the single feather in his cap than the better good of the American people.  However, if ObamaCare did in fact take a turn for the worst, one cannot help but wonder to what point will Democrats continue let the law fail before they would be compelled to take action?

There is only so much distance that can be created between ObamaCare and those Democrats who are putting in a presidential bid for 2016 and you can be assured they will be taken to task regarding their past and current position on the law throughout the campaign season.  If ObamaCare continues to lose popularity, at some point it will simply become too controversial and unpopular for Democrats to overcome. 

ObamaCare is Already Walking on Thin Ice 

A challenge has been raised {King v Burwell} over the Federal Government’s authority to distribute tax subsidies for healthcare plans sold through the federal exchange and is under review by the Supreme Court.  If the plaintiffs were to win this challenge it would disallow subsidies to be distributed to those who have purchased healthcare plans through the federal exchange subsequently increasing their premiums, in some cases significantly.  This would likely cause a large number of individuals to seek out other forms of insurance off the exchange.  As well, many would find insurance unaffordable and would end up uninsured.  These loses would be a major blow to the fiscal well-being of ObamaCare.

Enrollment on the exchanges also remains to be a challenge as the long term uninsured individuals that the administration believed would flood the marketplace to take advantage of the affordable offerings provided by ObamaCare have so far failed to materialize.  As it looks now, enrollment might meet 50% of the administrations original projection for 2016 which would be devistating.  Democrats have remained quiet on the issue of ObamaCare enrollment but are watching closely in hopes that the weak participation by the uninsured turns around.  But in all honestly, there is little hope of an enrollment boom by the uninsured happening.

The bi-partisan supported repeal of the medical device tax could also spell trouble for ObamaCare.  While the revenue generated by the medical device tax is small potatoes in comparison to most of the other revenue streams that have been created to help fund ObamaCare, the fear is that a repeal of the medical device tax could set a precedence for the repeal of other much larger revenue streams of the law, revenue streams which would be significantly harder to replace if they could be replaced at all.

None of these issues could put an immediate end to ObamaCare however, they could certainly set the wheels in motion and make defending the law ever more difficult than it already is for those Democrats looking to the White House in 2016.

What Does This All Mean?

The day following the Democrat's defeat in the recent mid-term election, while acknowledging the new Senate, President Obama made it clear that the one thing that was off the table was the repeal of ObamaCare, so long as he was president.

Had the President made this claim a year ago, when nobody was really thinking about 2016 yet, most would have probably agreed that a repeal of ObamaCare would be impossible.  But 2016 is not all that far away now and ObamaCare still remains to be the single greatest obstacle Democrats have repeatedly had to face.

ObamaCare has been a thorn in the side of Democrats since before it was passed into law.  Not only will this nagging pain not go away but it continues to spread like an untreated cancer.  Left unchecked it will eventually kill any hope Democrats have in maintaining control of the White House.  And like any cancer, the best way to prevent its spread is by removing it as soon as possible.  Doing so to ObamaCare might not be as unlikely to happen as many might think.

Democrats have begun to turn away from preserving the president’s legacy and are becoming more involved with their own self-preservation.  In doing so, if Democrats find ObamaCare to be an albatross around their neck, do not think for a moment that they will not rid themselves of this burden.  It would take only 44 democrats in the House and 13 in the Senate to side with Republicans and override a presidential veto of an ObamaCare repeal.  This may have seemed an impossibility a year or even six months ago but with the growing unpopularity of both the president and his namesake healthcare law, the possibility of Democrats jumping on the repeal bandwagon grows stronger each day.  From a voter perspective standpoint, the sooner ObamaCare is repealed the better.  Siding to repeal ObamaCare as a last ditch effort to hold the White House would reflect poorly on Democrats who would, up until that point, have been defending the law through the campaign cycle.  There would be far more anger than forgiveness available from voters at the midnight hour.

2016 is still two years away which gives Democrats plenty of time to recover from the political tongue lashing that will ensue if they do turn on the law which they have so deeply invested themselves in.  The wounds will heal however, and with any luck a bi-partisan approach to healthcare reform will be well in the works come election time, which would score Democrats major points with voters who have been soured by the Obama Administration.  On the other hand, if Democrats lose the White House in 2016, ObamaCare will most certainly be repealed anyway so there is a great deal of incentive for Democrats to switch gears and work with Republicans now and remove this thorn from their side.

ObamaCare Week 3 Enrollment Numbers are In

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released their most recent figures for the 2015 ObamaCare open enrollment period so let’s take a look and see how things are shaping up!

In their most recent blog post on enrollment, HHS reports that for the period coving Nov. 15 through Dec. 5, 1,383,683 consumers have “selected” a healthcare plan on the federal marketplace.  As the federal marketplace accounts for only 73% of the total market (state and federal marketplaces combined), assuming all things to be equal, the total number healthcare plans selected on the state and federal healthcare exchanges looks to cover right around 1.9 million consumers at the end of the first three weeks of open enrollment.

Sorting out the Numbers

An estimated 1.9 million consumers have selected healthcare plans on the exchanges in 3 weeks, not too shabby, but let’s not get too excited just yet, we need to take a few things in to consideration.

First, as reported by HHS, only 48% of those who have selected plans are new customers while the remaining 52% are returning customers that have renewed or exchanged their plans for something different.  This means that of the estimated 1.9 million customers on selected plans only 912,000 are new customers, still not a bad figure.

But as we learned from the 2014 enrollment period, not all those who select a plan end up keeping a plan.  When all was said and done, 17% of those that selected a plan during the 2014 open enrollment period ended up backing out for one reason or another.  Chances are the 2015 open enrollment period will yield similar results thus dropping the new enrollment estimate of 912,000 down to 757,000 for the first three weeks of the 2015 open enrollment cycle.

In an earlier blog post (see section titled “Here are the Numbers”), first week new enrollment was estimated to be in the neighborhood of 303,000 making the combined total new enrollment for weeks two and three approximately 454,000.  HHS reported a significant drop in week two enrollment, likely do to the Thanksgiving Holiday period and a subsequent rebounded for week three.  From this information we arrive at an average weekly enrollment for weeks two and three of 227,000, a reduction in weekly new enrollment of 25% compared to week one.  This should not seem too unusual as with virtually every opening bell comes a boom.   

With only three weeks of enrollment reported so far, it is too early to formulate a reliable trend but one thing is for certain, the trend is pointing downward.  If the current weekly average were to hold, new enrollment will well exceed the HHS revised projection but will still fall far far short of the numbers ObamaCare was sold to us on.
 
HHS Lowered the Bar

As it is the intent of ObamaCare to reduce the number of the uninsured, the enrollment forecasts generated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and subsequently adopted by HHS are reflective of the uninsured nonelderly population.  This is a very important aspect of these forecasts that both HHS and the main stream media conveniently ignore.  

The long term CBO forecast used in the crafting of ObamaCare projected that 6 million uninsured nonelderly would purchase a qualified healthcare plan on one of the state or federal healthcare exchanges during the 2015 open enrollment period.  However, due to the extremely disappointing results stemming from the 2014 open enrollment period, HHS lowered the projection bar significantly, down to a mere 2 million.  A smart move on their part no doubt as failing to reach enrollment goals makes for terrible headlines.

Who is Really Signing Up?   

During the 2014 open enrollment period we learned that, with the aid of the main stream media, the Obama Administration demonstrated absolutely no desire to be forthcoming with the make-up of ObamaCare enrollment figures.  To this day HHS has not released the breakdown of those 6.7 million enrolments from 2014. 

A number of different left leaning think tanks, such as the Urban Institute and the Rand Corp., have conducted studies from which it can be concluded that no more than 50% of the 6.7 million qualified healthcare plans purchased from the healthcare exchanges in 2014 were done so by the uninsured nonelderly.  Even using enrollment figures that have been adopted by HHS (they do not publically publish their own numbers), the number of uninsured nonelderly that could have possibly purchased and paid for a qualified healthcare plan in 2014 can be no greater than 4.5 million, a far cry from the 7 million they projected.  The same result will hold true for whatever new enrollment figure HHS will ultimately claim for 2015.

There are two factors that contribute to the difference provided by HHS vs. those of the various independent studies.  While each of the independent organizations studied the effect ObamaCare has had in the reduction in the number of uninsured, HHS simply provided a total head count for the qualified healthcare plans sold on the exchanges.  The difference between the two being HHS’s count does not include those formerly uninsured who gained healthcare coverage off-exchange and most significant, HHS does not excluded those who were previously insured that transferred over to a healthcare plan purchased through one of the exchanges.  The latter group of course is made up in majority by those who received policy cancelations for not being ACA compliant.

It is estimated that 4.7 million policies were canceled in 2014 but no hard data has been published which indicates exactly how many individuals those 4.7 million canceled policies once covered.  What we do know however is that a large number of those whose policies were canceled ended up purchasing a new plan off of one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges.  Those individuals that did so HHS has conveniently included in the 6.7 million enrollments they routinely tout.  A misleading claim to say the least, considering HHS holds this figure next to the CBO projection which encompasses enrolment for only the uninsured nonelderly.

The 2015 cancelation notices have already been mailed and you can rest assured, in an effort to boost their enrollment figures, HHS will be taking full advantage of those who transfer from their canceled plans on to qualified healthcare plans just as they did during the 2014 enrollment period and beyond.

How Many Moved to a Cheaper Plan?

Maybe the most disturbing news we have recently received on ObamaCare came right out of the horse’s mouth.

A study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers indicated that premiums across all tier levels and all states increased by 5.2% for 2015 when compared to 2014 rates.  Hardest hit were the most popular low tier Silver plans which increased on average by 10% as reported by Avelere Health.  For an individual, these increases may equate to a few hundred dollars over the course of the year while a family could be faced with having to re-allocate well in excess of $1000 out of the household annual budget to pay for healthcare insurance.

Fearing a mass exodus from ObamaCare, the president has on several occasions openly urged those who have experienced these increases to “shop around”, claiming that there are plenty of good deals to be found on the exchanges, people just need to browse the various plans and find one that best fits their budget.  In other words, President Obama is suggesting that people trade in their now unaffordable Silver plan for a far less appealing but affordable Bronze plan.  Shopping for a new plan each year makes it difficult to form a relationship with your doctor as well.  So this is what having healthcare insurance has become in this country!

And moving to a new plan with more affordable premiums does not mean the insurance is actually affordable.  At the urging of President Obama, insurers agreed to keep their premium increases to a minimum and instead transferred the cost to the policy’s co-payments and deductibles which in some instances have more than tripled.  Holding insurance premiums down in this manner works out well for the policy holder so long as he or she does not get sick and actually has to use their healthcare insurance. 

As we continue on into the 2015 open enrollment period, to what extent HHS will provide enrollment figures we do not know.  The number who have enrolled on the different types of plans will eventually be release however, it is highly unlikely that HHS will provided sufficient data to determine how many transferred from a Silver to a Bronze plan vs. how many were new sign-ups.  One thing we can be sure of is that HHS will not disclose exactly how many of the new enrollees did so due to having their insurance policies canceled.  Doing so would not only speak poorly of 2015 enrollment but would also open up the gate to those that wish this same information for 2014, information that would be damning to the healthcare law.

Hands Up I Can’t Breathe!

For the second time in as many weeks, a grand jury decision to not indict a white police officer over the death of a black man was met with public outraged, protest and of course civil disobedience.
 
Is there a patter forming here?  There most certainly is, but not one of white police officers getting away with murdering black men.  The dangerous pattern emerging from these grand jury decisions is the unlawful disruption of the daily lives and livelihood of hard working men and women who fall victim to the antics of lawless protesters.  These so called protesters, whom disagree with the decision of the Michael Brown and Eric garner grand juries, have chosen to block traffic, interrupt commerce and in some cases, destroy property, all in the name of their perverted version of justice.

In the death of both Michael Brown and Eric Garner there was a segment of society that possessed the predisposed opinion that nothing short of an indictment by the grand jury, followed by a guilty verdict of the police officers in question, would be justice, anything less would be viewed as a corrupt and bias system against blacks, no matter the circumstance, evidence or the rule of law. 

Similarities and Differences in the Brown and Garner Cases

There are a large number of similarities between the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents; the greatest of course is that a black man died as a result of his interaction with a white law enforcement officer.

Minor infractions initiated the interaction between both Michael Brown and Eric Garner with law enforcement, a tragic similarity which yielded a deadly consequence for both.  For Brown, the innocent act of walking down the center of the street with his partner Darin Johnson set events in motion, for Eric Garner it was the sale of “loosies” {single cigarettes} on a neighborhood street in Staten Island.

Walking down the center of a public street is an infraction of the law in any city but more concerning than the legality of the act is for the safety of those individuals doing so.  Had Michael Brown and Darin Johnson complied with the police officer’s request to walk on the sidewalk, the entire sequence of events that followed would likely have had a much different outcome.  However, Michael Brown was confrontational causing what started as a simply request, made for his safety, into a life ending encounter.

Much like the choices Michael Brown had at his disposal, Eric Garner could have complied with law enforcement requests and subsequently walked away with a misdemeanor ticket.  Instead, an immediate escalation on the part of Garner ultimately led to a tragic ending.

Eric Garner was not new to encounters with law enforcement having run up a long list of arrests numbering over 30 in as many years including resisting arrest.  At the time of the incident that led to his death, Mr. Garner had three misdemeanor cases pending in the Stapleton Criminal Court for selling untaxed cigarettes.

If there is any similarity in the encounters with law enforcement for Michael Brown, we will likely never know.  Having recently turned 18, Michael Brown did not have an adult criminal record.  There has been both speculation and rumor that Brown had accumulated a substantial juvenile criminal record however, that record is sealed and will remain so pending a court action to release it, which is highly unlikely to happen.

What is known of Michael Browns criminal past is that just a short time before his demise, he was captured on a surveillance camera in the act of a strong arm robbery where he physically assaulted a store clerk and stole several packages of cigarillos.  Certainly a crime was committed by Michael Brown, as was admitted by his accomplice.  The question many are asking themselves is, was this Brown’s first unlawful act, his second or maybe just one of many that has taken place?  For certain, Michael Brown does not appear to be nervous or even concerned with the fact that he is breaking the law and seemed quite comfortable ruff-handling the store clerk.  Unless other evidence is release, whether or not Michael Brown had a behavior of criminal activity will be for each individual to form their own opinion, for now all we have is a video clip to base our opinion on.

And one final similarity, the size of these two men.  Both Michael Brown and Eric Garner were large men, very large men.  Be it they were gentle giants or crazed mad men would have little relevance to the fact that they were both larger men than any single law enforcement officer could manage in a physical confrontation.

Unlike the large number of similarities between these two incidents, the number of differences are very few, the most significant of which is that the police interaction with Eric Garner was captured on video, where there is no such video for Michael Brown.

The False Message

In Ferguson Missouri, it didn’t take long for the word to spread.  The account told by Darian Johnson, the young man who had engaged in the theft of the cigarillos and was with Brown when the police officer first made contact, claimed that “Big Mike”, as he refers to his friend Michael Brown, had his hands in the air and was telling the officer to stop shooting right before receiving a fatal shot to the head. 

Darian Johnson’s account of the shooting ran like wild fire through the small, predominantly black community of Ferguson and quickly became the major buzz across social media.  Derived from what later would be proven to be a complete fabrication of events, “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” was adopted as the symbol used by protesters and others calling for justice in what they were now claiming to be an epidemic of police officer shootings of black men across the nation.

Both eye witness accounts and forensic evidence disproved literally all of Darian Johnson’s account of what took place and concluded well beyond any reasonable doubt that Michael Brown did not have his hands in the air, in surrender to the police officer, at the time he was fatally shot.  And yet, raised hands and the Hands Up Don’t Shoot mantra continue to be used by those who believe that the justice system is bias against black men.

Much the same holds true in the “I Can’t Breathe” catchphrase that emerged out of what the public and media have falsely described as the choking death of Eric Garner.

Having well over 30 previous incidents with law enforcement, what may be best described as another routine encounter between Eric Garner and the New York Police Department turned into a wrestling match between the 400 pound Garner and several of New York's finest. 

Caught on amateur video, the words “I Can’t Breathe” where clearly repeated several times by Eric Garner as police officers struggled to place him in to custody.  In the act of doing so, one police officer did in fact momentarily placed Mr. Garner in some form of a chokehold.  And like those who took a fictitious claim of “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and turned it into a national symbol of police wrongdoing in the Michal Brown incident, those eager to place blame on law enforcement did the same with the Mr. Garner’s repeating of “I Can’t Breathe”.

Nobody knows what evidence was taken in to account by the Eric Garner Grand Jury but for the general public, all focus has been placed on the police officers chokehold.  Terribly false accusations against the police officer have stemmed from his use of the chokehold, many claiming that the officer purposely strangled Eric Garner to death because he was a black man.  These highly irresponsible allegations are responsible for what has led to the massive protests we are seeing in the streets of New York and across the nation.

But Eric Garner did not die at the hands of a racist police officer, his death occurred as a result of his poor health and a poorer decision to resist arrest.  The chokehold that Mr. Garner’s was placed in was released at his first plea that he could not breathe {watch the video} .  Eric Garner continued to call out that he could not breathe several times after the police officer release his hold on Garner. The medical examiner’s report indicated that the chokehold, along with a number of other factors, mostly poor health and Mr. Garner stressing himself while fighting with police officers, triggered the heart attack to which he died from several minutes after the confrontation with law enforcement officers.

Based on a very small number of incidents that happened over a similarly small length of time, somehow a national outrage has occurred, perpetuating the notion that there is some kind of long standing epidemic of white police officers killing black men.  Nothing could be further from the truth as was best demonstrated in exchange between Fox News’s Bill O’Reillyand Tavis Smily.  O’Reilly lays out some pretty damaging statistics at about the 7 minute mark that destroys the narrative that blacks are being targeted disproportionally by white police officers.

I Think Thou Doth Protest Incorrectly

The US Constitution guarantees each American the Freedom to Assemble and the Freedom of Speech which combined are viewed as the basic human right to protest.  Protest is a necessary part of our country, they provide the means to ensure that no one voice can be drowned out by another.  Protest is a powerful thing and as such is far too often abused.

Specifically referring to the Freedom of Speech, while the constitution does guarantee ones right to communicate their opinions and ideas, it protects the rights of others who do not wish to listen, i.e., a person does not have the constitutional right to force their freedom of speech upon another, which leads us to Freedom of Assembly.

The US Constitution makes clear the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government without fear of punishment or reprisal.  The constitution does not however bear free reign to those who assembly and is explicit that in exercising ones Freedom to Assembly, doing so must be compatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.  In simpler terms, the Freedom to Assembly does not grant the right to anyone to disrupt the lives, travel and routine of others, including the disruption of commerce.

The deaths of Michael Brown and the Eric Garner have sparked protest which spread across the nation after the grand jury decision, in both cases, to not indict the police officer said to be responsible for their deaths and rightly so.  For many, they truly believe that justice was not properly served and through peaceful protest they are able to air their grievance. For others however, the deaths of both of these men provides little more than an excuse to disrupt the lives of hard working men and women as well as commerce.  The latter sends the wrong message and only enrages those who do not share their views.