ObamaCare Website Contractor Awarded for Failure, Keeping People Away From 'Creepy' Exchanges
Generation Opportunity (GO), a conservative group focused on youth issues, will present an award to CGI Federal, the main contractor behind the failing website HealthCare.gov, to applaud the group for unintentionally hurting Obamacare with its poor job.
"We're just so proud of everything that CGI Federal has done to keep young people away from these expensive and creepy ObamaCare exchanges, and we're honored to give them this award," David Pasch, communications director at GO, told The Christian Post on Wednesday. "CGI Federal has created a website that literally no one can use," Pasch explained.
Pasch credited CGI Federal, the American subsidiary of Canadian multinational CGI Group, for doing "more than any other single individual person or organization to prevent young people from signing up for ObamaCare."
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To support his argument that Obama's health plans cost a great deal for young people, Pasch pointed to two studies by the American Action Forum. The research suggested that "the price of the lowest-cost health insurance coverage for a 30 year old single male nonsmoker is set to increase by 260 percent between 2013 and 2014." The number for ladies ranked slightly better – an increase of only 193 percent.
The rate hikes varied state to state, but each demonstrated a more expensive health care coverage offered under the "Affordable Care Act."
Pasch also pointed to "high youth unemployment and the failure to launch of our generation" as "a huge economic and social issue." He cited Generation Opportunity's Millennial Jobs Report, compiled from government data, which puts unemployment for those aged 18-29 at 15.9 percent. Pasch also highlighted a Pew study which found that 34 percent of Americans between 18 and 32 still live in their parents' homes.
"When you're talking about record numbers of young people not being able to start new families, delaying making major life decisions like getting married and raising children," just due to economic difficulty, "that's going to devastate all communities," Pasch forecasted.
With Millennials facing these troubles, the last thing they need is expensive healthcare, the GO spokesman said. According to him, "a lot of young people are realizing that if you can't trust government to even create a website to get you healthcare," you shouldn't "trust them with your medical decisions."
Meanwhile, Anne Bradley, vice president of Economic Initiatives at the Christian non-profit Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, talked about the problem with cronyism in connection to ObamaCare. "Cronyism doesn't prop up the best people, it props up the most politically connected people," she told CP on Wednesday. Bradley argued that certain government contracts with businesses may provide an unfair advantage that impedes our God-given creative abilities and hurts the poor.
"Cronyism is when a firm or a group of firms goes to the government and seeks a favor at the expense of someone else," Bradley explained. It violates the biblical theme of justice, she argued, listing various passages: John the Baptist's ordering tax collectors to take no more than the government requires, and Deuteronomy's reference to "just weights and measures."
Citing Genesis, Bradley argued that men and women were made to be creative, like God, and "use their gifts and talents to serve each other." Cronyism distorts that process, she claimed, pointing to sugar subsidies as an example.
The United States government "writes a check to U.S. sugar producers, essentially lowering the cost of doing business." This is unfair, the economist said, because it makes it easier for some companies to produce sugar than others. It reduces the need for those companies to compete for customers by offering better sugar at a cheaper price.
Bradley argues that innovation and discovery encouraged by free market contribution best fits God's intention for human beings, made in His creative image. But "mom-and-pop shops and startups don't even have a chance at the bargaining table" for government contracts, "because the large firms have spent so many dollars on K Street," the lobbying capitol of Washington, D.C.
When it comes to healthcare.gov, "there's about 47 subcontractors and 17 of them spent $128 million in 2011 and 2012, lobbying for government contracts," Bradley explained. Since the politically connected companies, rather than the best ones, get on top, the system won't produce efficiency. Due, at least in part, to cronyism, "we have a website that's pretty much non-operational."
Bradley encouraged young Christians to ask "what did God build me to do?" and pursue a job that best fits their passion and talents. She also emphasized the importance of Christians fighting for economic freedom, against cronyism, and for a society where people have the most opportunity to be as creative as possible.
