Navigators Tell Applicants To Lie Like Administration
Posted 12/17/2013 06:54 PM ET
James O'Keefe, the videographer who helped topple the community activist group Acorn, recently released a video showing ObamaCare navigators in Dallas advising applicants to lie about their income and otherwise evade legal procedures and requirements when signing up for health insurance in the Affordable Care Act's exchanges.
That ObamaCare navigators, who receive a minimum of training and escape the background checks common in the private sector for those handling sensitive consumer information, are encouraging ObamaCare enrollees to lie was confirmed Monday by a congressional field hearing held in Dallas and a subsequent scathing report.
The hearing by members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., found that navigators tasked with helping applicants enroll actively encouraged them to lie to obtain favorable premiums and government subsidies.
"Navigators from the Urban League of Dallas were captured on video, encouraging applicants to lie on their health insurance application so the applicants could qualify for tax subsidies," according to the committee report. "Navigators were also recorded advising an applicant to lie about her smoking habits to obtain a lower monthly premium."
In its ObamaCare sting, as National Review has reported, O'Keefe's Project Veritas undercover investigators targeted a National Urban League-run Texas navigator site that was paid $376,000 by the federal government to promote ObamaCare enrollment.
"There are many problems with the Affordable Care Act, but I don't think we ever expected it would be this bad," Issa said during the hearing.
According to the chairman, the potential for navigator abuse is big enough to warrant Texas insurance regulators taking more stringent action than they already have since the video first came out.
After Acorn disbanded following O'Keefe's first expose, members found new lives as, yes, ObamaCare navigators. As Matthew Vadum reported on the American Spectator blog, United Labor Unions Local 100 in New Orleans, which is run by Acorn founder Wade Rathke, announced on its Facebook page that it's gearing up "to do mass enrollment and help navigate people into the marketplaces in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas under the Affordable Care Act!"
"Local 100's role as a Navigator suggest(s) the program is less about health care and more about building a new progressive infrastructure," says longtime Acorn-watcher Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com.
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