US Senator Applied Pressure to Local Officials to Downplay Insurance Cancellation Numbers - Granite Grok

US Senator Applied Pressure to Local Officials to Downplay Insurance Cancellation Numbers

Jeanne Shaheen Wicked Witch
“I’ll get your Insurance cancelled my pretty — and I’ll raise your deductible too!”

Senator Shaheen is not beyond the  idea of applying pressure to ensure favorable outcomes.  The IRS Scandal continues unresolved after she and other Democrat Senators wrote repeatedly to the IRS to crack down on non-profits.

The IRS answered the call, with trails leading all the way back to the White House.   Dozens of conservative groups are still lined up waiting for approval thanks to Shaheen while left-leaning non-profits and groups like Hilltop Public Solutions commit vote fraud and coordinate dark money support for Democrats with little fear of action from the federal level and no press coverage when states try to respond.

So we have to ask.  Now that Democrat Senator Mark Udall from Colorado has been implicated in a scandal in which his office may have applied pressure to state bureaucrats to downplay estimates of people who received cancellation notices and lost coverage due to ObamaCare, has Democrat Jeanne Shaheen or any other Democrat made similar moves here in New Hampshire?

Denver Post

In e-mails first published by the conservative blog Complete Colorado and obtained by The Denver Post on Thursday, Jo Donlin, Colorado’s Division of Insurance director of external affairs, said in a Nov. 14 e-mail to colleagues: “Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong. Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people. They want to trash our numbers. I’m holding strong while we get more details. Many have already done early renewals. Regardless, they received cancellation notices.”

Another e-mail from Udall’s legislative director Joe Britton to Donlin said, “We need to move on this ASAP — or we’ll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves. It is wildly off or at least very misleading and reporters keep repeating it.

Congressman Cory Gardner, this week, sent out a press release regarding a letter he sent to Marguerite Salazar, Colorado’s Commissioner of Insurance.

“As of January 13, 2014, carriers reported 335,484 people with individual or small group coverage were affected by cancellation notices.” Click here to read the full letter to Gardner.

So while Udall was pressuring state bureaucrats to back off the 250,000 cancellations number, it rose to 335,000?

I guess the Senator was right.  250,000 was wrong after all.  It’s quite a bit higher than that, and let be honest–likely to grow.    And let’s be clear.  They were told if they liked their plan they could keep it.  One-third of a million canceled policies in one state  would suggest that this is not actually true.   Democrats lied.

Like Udall, NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen is up for reelection this year.  She’s taking heat for ObamaCare and its impact on coverage, access, and cost.  Is there someone on the Shaheen staff applying pressure to local bureaucrats in New Hampshire to down-play the bad news?

One more point.  Udall signed the same letter to the IRS that Jeanne Shaheen signed, asking them to step up enforcement and scrutiny of non-profits.  We all know how that turned out.  To the benefit of Democrats and Obama.  It’s almost like there is this trend line you can follow…

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