Judicial Watch Battles Obamacare Secrecy, Corruption in Court

Withthe Obama administration’s ignoring or rewriting Obamacare seemingly on a dailybasis in violation of the law, Judicial Watch attorneys have turned up the heat on theWhite House. JW filed two newlawsuits designed to break the Obama stonewall – both on his abuse of power andon the threats of Obamacare to the welfare of the American people.

OnMarch 18, 2014, Judicial Watch filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) toobtain government records about Obamacare.

One lawsuit seeks informationabout the December 19, 2013 decision by the Obama administration to establishnew “hardship exemptions” that could allow most consumers to escape theObamacare individual mandate without penalty. The second suit seeks recordsabout security and privacy concerns surrounding the Obamacare healthcare.govweb portal, which has yet to recover from its disastrous roll-out.

JWfiled its “hardship exemptions” lawsuit after a December 20, 2013, JudicialWatch FOIA request to HHS that was ignored. The lawsuit seeks the followinginformation:

Any and all records of communicationsincluding, but not limited to, electronic communications (e-mails), between anyofficer or employee of the Centers for Consumer Information and InsuranceOversight (CCIIO), and any other employee or officer of CMS, the Department ofHealth and Human Services, and/or the Executive Office of the President,regarding the December 19, 2013 policy guidance issued by the CCIIO. For purposed of clarification, this policyguidance establishes a hardship exemption for consumers whose health insurancepolicies have been cancelled and allows those consumers to purchase

OnDecember 19, 2013, the Obama administration announced it would grantcontroversial “hardship exemptions” to millions of Americans to allow them toavoid paying tax penalties for failing to comply with the Obamacare individualmandate.

Mostobservers agree that the “hardship exemptions” may be the most significantunilateral change that the Obama administration has made in its governmenthealthcare takeover. The changes wouldgrant broad exemptions to anyone who “believes” that Obamacare coverage optionsanyone who finds the law unpalatable. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, “these shiftinglegal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.”

Andwhy would the Obama administration create exemptions to a mandate it hasdescribed as essential to the entire purpose of the healthcare overhaul?

ClearlyBarack Obama feels the need to “protect” Democrats from the unpleasantramifications of his healthcare monstrosity. Obamacare has thrown the countryinto chaos and Democrats do not want to suffer the consequences at the ballotbox. This is all about politics.

TheJudicial Watch lawsuit regarding healthcare.gov’s web portal security was filedafter HHS also ignored a December 20, 2013, FOIA request asking for:

Any and all records related to, regardingor in connection with the security of the healthcare.gov web portal including,but no limited to, studies, memoranda, correspondence, electroniccommunications (e-mails), and slide presentations from January 1, 2012 to thepresent.

InNovember 2013, web expert David Kennedy testified that the Obama administrationhad failed to secure the site from its inception and that adequate securityprotections were not built into the system. “Based on our findings,” Kennedy told theHouse Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, “we are confidentthat the security around the application was not appropriately tested prior torelease, that the safeguards to protect sensitive information are not in place,and that there are and will continue to be for a significant amount of timeserious security concerns with the website unless direct action is taken toaddress these concerns.”

Inadditional testimony provided to the House Committee on Science, Space, andTechnology in January 2014, Kennedy said that the Obama administration had donevery little to address the web portal security concerns. “Since the Novembermeeting, there has been a half of one issue fixed … of the 18 issues identifiedthrough passive reconnaissance,” Kennedy told the committee. “Some issues stillinclude critical or high-risk findings to personal information or risk of lossof confidentiality or integrity of the infrastructure itself.”

Thisadministration is in full stonewall mode on Obamacare.

Thispresident thinks he can change, ignore, and rewrite Obamacare with zeroaccountability.

Andthis administration’s illegal secrecy about the threats to the privacy ofAmericans who use the Obamacare website ought to make taxpayers very nervousabout sharing personal data through healthcare.gov.