Monthly Archives: May 2016

SCOTUS: Illegals can be Deported for Minor Crimes

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High court rules non-U.S. citizens can be deported if convicted of minor crimes

WASHINGTON (AP) –  The Supreme Court is making it easier for the government to deport or otherwise remove people who are not U.S. citizens if they are convicted of seemingly minor state crimes.

The justices ruled 5-3 Thursday that a man who spent 23 years living in New York as a lawful permanent resident can be barred from re-entering the country because of a 1999 conviction for attempted arson.

George Luna Torres had served one day in prison and five years of probation after pleading guilty in state court but otherwise had a clean record since his parents brought him into the country from the Dominican Republic in 1983.

But the government argued that the state law conviction was equivalent to an aggravated felony for purposes of immigration law.

Under immigration law, a lawful permanent resident can be deported or denied re-entry to the United States after being convicted of an aggravated felony. Those offenses include certain federal crimes as well as state offenses that share the same elements.

Luna argued that the federal crime of arson is different from the state version because it must involve interstate commerce.

Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said that is simply a technical difference needed to give Congress authority over arson crimes and not a meaningful distinction. She said Luna’s argument would also exclude more serious state crimes, such as kidnapping, from affecting immigration status simply because a kidnapper failed to cross state lines.

“The national, local or foreign character of a crime has no bearing on whether it is grave enough to warrant an alien’s automatic removal,” Kagan said.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority was ignoring a strict textual reading of the federal law, which includes interstate commerce as part of the crime.

“An element is an element, and I would not so lightly strip a federal statute of one,” Sotomayor said.

She was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. *****

Mexican Airline Offering Migrants Free Airfare to Texas Border

Two foreign airline companies have begun offering steep discounts to Cuban migrants–set for border crossing into western Texas–as thousands rush to the United States in the aftermath of thawing relations with the communist island. Children under age 11 fly free of charge.

The Panamanian government confirmed to the Associated Press Wednesday that Panama City-based Copa Airlines and Mexico’s Global Air are now offering roughly 30 percent discounts for adult Cuban migrants hoping to cross into the United States with children enjoying complimentary seats. Since May 9, the airlines have reported that almost 2,500 have been shuttled to Ciudad Juarez for easy crossing into El Paso thereafter. An estimated 1,300 await flights booked in the weeks ahead under the promotion. More here from Breitbart.

****

Immigrants must pass stringent eligibility requirements in order to naturalize.  Naturalization is not an easy process.  In order to become a U.S. citizen, an immigrant must:

  • First reside in the United States continuously for five years as a Legal Permanent Resident (three years in the case of the spouse of a U.S. citizen).
  • Be of “good moral character,” as determined by a criminal background check with the FBI.
  • Be proficient in spoken and written English.
  • Demonstrate a basic understanding of U.S. government and history.
  • Take an Oath of Allegiance to the United States, its Constitution and laws, and renounce allegiance to any other nation.

Latino immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship in record numbers thanks to Trump

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign may actually be empowering the Latino vote.

No, really. At least that’s what a number of non-profit organizations and even the White House are working toward.

The Republican candidate’s harsh words toward immigrants and repeated campaign promises to deport millions of undocumented people and build an impermeable wall along the U.S.-Mexico border immediately propelled him to the front of the GOP pack, but it’s also driving a larger number of immigrants than usual to seek U.S. citizenship – and have a voice in whether or not Trump wins the White House this November.

Hortensia Villegas is a Colorado mother of two who immigrated from Mexico legally nearly 10 years ago. She never felt the need to become a citizen, she told the New York Times, until Trump rose in the polls.

“I want to vote so Donald Trump won’t win,” Villegas, 32, told the paper at a Denver union hall where volunteers were helping hundreds of immigrants to fill out citizenship applications. “He doesn’t like us.”

And Villegas is not alone. Her sister and parents, as well as the parents of her husband – Miguel Garfío, who is a U.S. citizen by virtue of having been born in Colorado –are part of the crush of Latino immigrants who are trying to naturalize in time to vote this year.

Applications for citizenship were up in the six months through the end of January by 14 percent over the same time frame the previous year, the Times reported. Activists say that the numbers are growing by the week, estimating that the total applications for fiscal year 2016, which lasts until the end of September, could wind up close to a million.

That’s a 20 percent increase over previous years.

Traditionally, Mexican immigrants have sought citizenship at lower rates than others – according to Pew Research Center data, 36 percent of eligible Mexicans in recent years have become citizens, compared to 68 percent of immigrants overall.

That may be changing, thanks to Trump.

FoxLatino: Maria Polanco, a Honduran migrant who has lived in Nevada for 26 years but is only now applying for citizenship, told the Guardian recently, “We [immigrants] are not perfect, but the majority of us are not what Donald Trump says. We came looking for better opportunities for us and our kids. My great pride is that my daughter graduated from college – I don’t think she could’ve done that in my country.”

“People who are eligible are really feeling the urgency to get out there,” Tara Raghuveer, the deputy director of the National Partnership for New Americans, told the Times. “They are worried by the prospect that someone who is running for president has said hateful things.”

“This is a big deal,” Jocelyn Sida of Mi Familia Vota, told the Guardian. “We as Latinos are always being told that we’re taking jobs or we’re anchor babies, and all these things are very hurtful. It’s getting to the point where folks are frustrated with that type of rhetoric. They realize the only way they can stop this is by getting involved civically.”

Labor unions and NGOs like the National Partnership are the main actors providing assistance to those of the 8.8 million non-citizen immigrants who may want to naturalize, but they are not alone.

The White House launched a national campaign in September to help people apply for citizenship, setting up “citizen corners” at public libraries and recruiting prominent immigrants like 1980s pitching star Fernando Valenzuela and Spanish chef José Andrés for ads.

Last week, $10 million dollars in federal grants were promised to NGOs helping immigrants through the application process.

Many conservatives see it as a blatant effort to expand Democratic support in battleground states with large numbers of immigrants like Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

“I certainly don’t care what party they register with; I just want them to become citizens,” said Leon Rodriguez, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), told the times.

The candidate himself has long suggested that he’ll win the Latino vote, and his campaign spokesperson, Hope Hicks, told the Times, “No one will benefit more from Mr. Trump’s pro-worker immigration reforms than the millions of immigrants who already call America home.”

Mary Victorio, 22, a Mexican-born student at the University of Colorado Denver, told the newspaper that while she didn’t support him politically, she was grateful to Trump. “He gave us that extra push we needed to get ready to vote, to prove to people who see us negatively they are wrong.”

Dubai’s Floating Homes

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Surrounded by 300 deserted man-made islands, Dubai’s newest real-estate wonder has all the amenities of a luxury hotel — plus views of the bottom of the sea.

The Floating Seahorse villas feature submerged bedrooms whose curtains open up to transplanted coral and the waters of the Persian Gulf. Wide-mouthed groupers and other fish dart past its over 15-centimeter-thick (6-inch-thick) acrylic windows.

 

But the Seahorses, part of an ambitious larger hotel development called The Heart of Europe — which will be built on reclaimed islands — have an even more grandiose-sounding aim. They want to save The World, as the long-stalled Earth-shaped island project off the Dubai coast is called, by providing a major development that jumpstarts building on its other sandy islands.

“We wanted to be the first one. We always knew it’s a risk and a chance,” said Josef Kleindienst, the chairman of Kleindienst Group, which is building the Floating Seahorses and the Heart of Europe.

He added: “The World has started to move.”

Dubai is already home to the world’s tallest building, an indoor ski slope and man-made islands viewable from space. But while the machine-crafted frond of the Palm Jumeirah archipelago flourished, The World stopped spinning with Dubai’s financial crisis of 2009.

Together with several other state-linked firms, Nakheel, the government-owned builder behind both projects, found itself at the time unable to repay billions of dollars in loans. Those defaults triggered a collapse that forced neighboring oil-rich Abu Dhabi to give Dubai a $10 billion bailout.

Other projects have restarted in the years since, nudged by improving investor confidence and Dubai hosting the upcoming 2020 World Expo, or world’s fair. But The World project as envisioned by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has languished.

Today, only two of the 300 islands are being actively used. One is a day-use beach resort on Lebanon island, another is an island with a luxury villa and a helipad believed to be used by Dubai’s ruling family. The Dubai Media Office did not respond to a request for comment about the island.

In a statement, Nakheel acknowledged only two islands are developed, but said that financial deals involving the project are resuming on the project.

“We continue to see a renewed interest in The World, and have reached settlement agreements with third-party developers on payments worth over 1 billion dirhams ($272 million), allowing work there to recommence,” it said, without elaborating.

Some construction material and machinery can be seen entering The World by boat from Dubai’s coastline. Earth-moving equipment rattles over the sandy dunes of one of the first islands after The World’s circular breakwater, which offers the project its globe-like shape and stills its currents.

The rest of the islands are deserted until reaching the dock of the development run by Kleindienst, a former Austrian police officer and one-time member of the far-right Freedom Party who has written about making his fortune in stocks. He also wrote a book about his party obtaining classified police files on its political opponents, something its leaders denied in an ensuing political scandal in Austria in 2000.

  

At the dock, a sign painted in black, red and yellow announces in German: “Welcome to Germany: Passport Control.” Behind it, the initial cement-block frames of two planned Bentley-branded villas stand on Sweden island. Plans call for 10 similar villas to be built there, as well as hotels, restaurants, bars and other attractions on empty surrounding islands as part of The Heart of Europe development.

The real star, however, is the Floating Seahorse anchored alone in a nearby channel.

Weighing 240 tons, the villa on the sea smells of the Myanmar teak adorning its walls. A wet bar on its top floor is both open-air and air conditioned, with a hot tub. Below, the glass walls of its living room and dining room open out on blue beach chairs and netting allowing a look at the water below.

Below deck, automated curtains in the bedroom open out onto an under-the-sea view. Coral transplanted from the site of the Burj Al Arab, Dubai’s iconic sail-shaped luxury hotel, sits on the lip of the Seahorse under shade, drawing the sea life.

“It’s amazing. It attracts a lot of fish,” said Gianni Malerba, the director of hospitality operations for The Heart of Europe. “It fits very well with the ‘wow factor’ of Dubai.”

So far, Kleindienst said his organization has sold Floating Seahorses to both people who will use them and others who will rent them out as part of the planned hotels at the site. The latest models of the Seahorses have a list price of 12 million dirhams ($3.2 million).

Kleindienst said they plan to open the heart-shaped St. Petersburg island by October, with dozens of Seahorses connected to water, electricity and other utilities on the island via gangplanks.

For now though, the area runs off a generator and the model sits alone, drawing curious customers. Dubai’s skyscrapers are visible on the horizon.

“If this would happen in any other country, even if it is done in 50 years, nobody would consider it as delayed,” Kleindienst said. “Only in Dubai, everyone expects it needs to be done in one day.”

Debris Found for EgyptAir #804

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Missing EgyptAir Flight Likely Downed by Terror Attack, Minister Says
Airbus A320 carrying 66 passengers, 10 crew lost by radar while flying at 37,000 feet above the Mediterranean; EgyptAir vice president tells CNN wreckage found.

 Previous flights for the same day.
Haaretz: An EgyptAir jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean south of Greece on Thursday, with Athens saying the plane swerved in mid-air before plunging from cruising height and vanishing.
Egypt’s aviation minister said a terrorist attack was more likely to have taken down the aircraft than a technical failure.
EgyptAir Vice President Ahmed Adel has since said in an interview with CNN that the wreckage of the missing plane has been found.

“There are so many reasons why a plane can fall from the sky and crash. We have no explanations at this stage. We need more investigation,” he said.
Egypt’s envoy to France said Greek authorities had informed his counterpart in Athens that they had found blue and white debris corresponding to EgyptAir’s colors.
Later, Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry said that Greek authorities have found “floating material” that is likely to be debris from the missing aircraft.

Greece deployed aircraft and a frigate to search for the missing Airbus and officials said they had found pieces of plastic and two life vests that appeared to have come from an aircraft in the sea 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Crete.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said it was too early to rule out any explanation, including an attack like the one blamed for bringing down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula last year.

Egypt said it would lead the investigation and that France would participate. Other countries also offered to help, including Britain and the United States.
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama received a briefing on the disappearance from his adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism, the White House said.
Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos said the Airbus had first swerved 90 degrees to the left, then spun through 360 degrees to the right. After plunging from 37,000 feet to 15,000, it vanished from Greek radar screens.
According to Greece’s civil aviation chief, calls from Greek air traffic controllers to flight MS804 went unanswered just before it left Greek airspace, and it disappeared from radar screens soon afterwards.
There was no official indication of a possible cause, whether technical failure or sabotage by hard-line Islamists who have targeted airports, airliners and tourist sites in Europe, Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries over the past few years.
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers — with one child and two infants among them — and 10 crew, EgyptAir said. They included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, along with citizens of 10 other countries.


Asked if he could rule terrorist involvement, Prime Minister Ismail told reporters: “We cannot exclude anything at this time or confirm anything. All the search operations must be concluded so we can know the cause.”

French President Francois Hollande also said the cause was unknown. “No hypothesis can be ruled out, nor can any be favored over another.”
With its archaeological sites and Red Sea resorts, Egypt is a traditional destination for Western tourists. But the industry has been badly hit by the downing of a Russian Metrojet flight last October, in which all 224 people on board were killed, as well as by an Islamist insurgency and a string of bomb attacks.
No response
Greek air traffic controllers spoke to the pilot as the jet flew over the island of Kea, in what was thought to be the last broadcast from the aircraft, and no problems were reported.
But just ahead of the handover to Egyptian controllers, calls to the plane went unanswered.
“About seven miles before the aircraft entered the Cairo airspace, Greek controllers tried to contact the pilot but he was not responding,” said Kostas Litzerakis, head of Greece’s civil aviation department. Shortly after exiting Greek airspace, it disappeared from radars, he said.
Greek authorities were searching the sea south of the island of Karpathos, Greece’s Defense Minister Kammenos told a news conference.
“At 3:39 A.M., the course of the aircraft was south and southeast of Kassos and Karpathos (islands),” he said. “Immediately after, it entered Cairo flight information region and made swerves and a descent I describe: 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right.”
The Airbus plunged from a height of 37,000 feet (11,280 meters) to 15,000 feet before vanishing from radar, he added.

Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi said authorities had tried to resume contact but without success.
‘No one knows anything’
At Cairo airport, authorities ushered families of the passengers and crew into a closed-off waiting area.
Two women and a man, who said they were related to a crew member, were seen leaving the VIP hall where families were being kept. Asked for details, the man said: “We don’t know anything, they don’t know anything. No one knows anything.”
Ayman Nassar, from the family of one of the passengers, also walked out of the passenger hall with his daughter and wife in a distressed state. “They told us the plane had disappeared, and that they’re still searching for it and not to believe any rumors,” he said.
The mother of a flight attendant rushed out of the hall in tears. She said the last time her daughter called her was Wednesday night. “They haven’t told us anything,” she said.
In Paris, a police source said investigators were now interviewing officers who were on duty at Roissy airport on Wednesday evening to find out whether they heard or saw anything suspicious. “We are in the early stage here,” the source said.
Airbus said the missing A320 was delivered to EgyptAir in November 2003 and had operated about 48,000 flight hours.
The missing flight’s pilot had clocked up 6,275 hours of flying experience, including 2,101 hours on the A320, while the first officer had 2,766 hours, EgyptAir said.
At one point, EgyptAir said the plane had sent an emergency signal at 04:26 A.M., two hours after it disappeared from radar screens. However, Fathi said later that further checks found that no SOS was received.
Egypt and France to cooperate
The weather was clear at the time the plane disappeared, according to Eurocontrol, the European air traffic network.
Under UN aviation rules, if the aircraft is found to have crashed in international or Egyptian waters, Egypt will automatically lead an investigation into the accident, assisted by countries including France, where the jet was assembled, and the United States, where engine maker Pratt & Whitney is based.
Russia and Western governments have said the Metrojet plane that crashed on October 31 was probably brought down by a bomb, and ISIS said it had smuggled an explosive device on board.
That crash called into question Egypt’s campaign to contain Islamist violence. Militants have stepped up attacks on Egyptian soldiers and police since Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, then serving as army chief, toppled elected President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist, in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man with what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.
EgyptAir has a fleet of 57 Airbus and Boeing jets, including 15 of the Airbus A320 family of aircraft, according to airfleets.com.

***** Other details include:

  1. Plane went through full maintenance less than a week ago.
  2. Plane departed about 25 minutes late.
  3. MS804 stopped in Tunisia, Cairo, Brussels, Eritrea prior to Paris.
  4. Passenger list included: 15French 30Egyptian 1British 1Belgian 2Iraqis 1Kuwaiti 1Saudi 1Sudanese 1Chadians 1Portuguese 1Algerian 1Canadian

Final summary: Debris has been spotted some 210 miles southeast of Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean that is believed to have been from EgyptAir Flight MS804. The passenger jet, an Airbus 320, left the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France at about 9:30pm local time. On board were 56 passengers, 7 crew and 3 air marshals. At around 2:30am Cario-time, Flight 804 was crossing into Egyptian airspace and being handed off from Greek air controllers. The last radio traffic indicated that there were no problems. At an altitude of some 37,000 feet, the Airbus 320 suddenly dove some 22,000 feet and began to swerve and turn, then, disappeared from radar. Search efforts were launched immediately.

‘Unsafe’ intercept over South China Sea

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Pentagon: ‘Unsafe’ intercept over South China Sea

 

Washington (CNN)At least two Chinese J-11 tactical aircraft carried out an “unsafe” intercept of a United States EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft that was conducting a routine mission in international airspace over the South China Sea, a U.S. defense official told CNN Wednesday.

The Chinese jets came within 50 feet of the American aircraft at one point, the official said.
The incident took place on Tuesday.
 
“We have made progress reducing risk between our operational forces and those of the People’s Republic of China by improved dialogue at multiple levels under the bilateral Confidence Building Measures and the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
“Over the past year, we have seen improvements in PRC actions, flying in a safe and professional manner,” he said. “We are addressing the issue through the appropriate diplomatic and military channels.”
A separate defense official told CNN this type of incident is not something the U.S. military frequently sees in that region with Chinese aircraft. Incidents with Russian aircraft in the Black Sea that have been well documented over the past year are much more common.
This is an incident that “definitely has people’s attention” at the Pentagon, the second official said.
“This is potentially part of a disturbing trend line as the Chinese try to push their military envelope into greater parts of the sea surrounding their mainland,” Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Murphy said that it is important that the U.S. does not overreact to these types of occurrences, which have recently involved Chinese and Russian militaries.
“What the Chinese and the Russians are trying to do is to provoke us into some kind of action that will feed into their domestic narratives, both in China and in Russia,” Murphy said.
****
What is China doing?
 

China’s Putting Anti-Stealth Radar in the South China Sea

Radar installed on an “artificial” island could detect the B-2, F-35, and F-22.

PopularMechanics: China appears to be building an anti-stealth radar system on an artificial island in the middle of the South China Sea, where a military-grade system would be useful in detecting stealth aircraft in the contentious and contested area.

Satellite imagery obtained by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative and DigitalGlobe (which provided the images above and below) shows the Cuateron Reef recently enlarged by dredging and now measuring about 52 acres. Beijing didn’t stop there. The imagery also shows that China has built or is building two radar towers, a lighthouse, a communications tower, bunker, and quay for the docking of supply ships. The most interesting development is a large field covered with evenly spaced 20 meter poles. This is the kind of thing you’d need for over-the-horizon high-frequency radar systems, which can detect objects at up to 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), including stealth aircraft.

While HF radars can spot stealth planes, they cannot guide missiles to targets—for now. Even so, the radars are useful in providing an early warning network, cueing Chinese fighter planes such as the J-11—also based on an artificial island in the South China Sea—to the probable location of stealth aircraft.

The position of the radar would be ideal for detecting American and allied aircraft operating from bases in the Philippines. The Philippines, embroiled in a dispute with China over the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals—has made its air and naval facilities available to the United States.

In recent years, China has laid claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea. While many countries claim part of the South China Sea, none have claimed—and seized—as much as China. To support its claim, China has taken several shoals and reefs and expanded them dramatically with sand dredged from the sea floor. China believes (or at least claims) that this bit of terraforming amounts to a legal transformation of these shoals from nuisance navigational hazards to full sovereign territory, complete with a12-mile territorial boundary and a 200 mile exclusive right to economic development.

The radar site, first noticed in 2015, became particularly newsworthy after last week’s announcement that China had deployed HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missiles on another artificial island in the South China Sea. Although the two systems are too far apart to support one another, together they do support the argument that China is fortifying the South China Sea.

Healthcare Provider Lawsuits v. Feds Begin

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Blue Cross insurer sues U.S. for funds owed under health care law

BusinessInsurance: Highmark Inc. and its subsidiaries have sued the federal government for failing to pay funds the insurers say they are owed through one of the Affordable Care Act’s public health insurance exchange safety net programs.

Pittsburgh-based Highmark, the fourth-largest Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurer, is demanding $222.9 million, which it argues it is owed through the ACA risk corridor program for 2014 losses, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington.

Highmark said the government has paid only $27.3 million of the total owed for 2014. In early April, Highmark President and CEO David Holmberg said during an analyst call that the insurer was owed more than $500 million from the risk corridor program for 2014 and 2015.

The risk corridor program is intended to help stabilize premiums by offsetting insurers’ losses during the first three years of the public health exchanges.

But the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last year said it would pay only 12.6% of the money insurers requested for 2014 losses. CMS said the rest of the tab would be paid in 2015 and 2016 if necessary.

The suit accuses the government of breach of good faith and fair dealing among other allegations.

CMS could not be immediately reached for comment.

“The United States has specifically admitted in writing its statutory and regulatory obligations to pay the plaintiff insurers the full amount of risk corridor payments owed to them for calendar year 2014, but it has failed to pay the full amount due,” the lawsuit states.

“Instead, the government arbitrarily has paid the plaintiff insurers only a pro-rata share — less than 12.6% — of the total amount due, asserting that full payment to the plaintiff insurers is limited by available appropriations, even though no such limits appear anywhere in the ACA or its implementing regulations or in the plaintiff insurers’ contracts with the government.”

In a statement Monday, Mr. Holmberg said the Highmark has a “fiduciary responsibility to our 5.2 million health plan members to seek payment.”

Still, Mr. Holmberg said the insurer “remains committed” to the public health exchanges.

Highmark said it tried to negotiate with CMS, which the insurer said refused requests for full payment. It also said CMS has taken the position that “none of the risk corridor payments” for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are due until fall 2017 after the program has concluded.

The insurers involved in the lawsuit, First Priority Life Insurance Co. Inc. et al v. USA, include First Priority Life Insurance Co., Highmark BCBSD Inc., Highmark Inc., Highmark Select Resources Inc., Highmark West Virginia Inc., and HM Health Insurance Co.

In February, Lake Oswego, Oregon-based insurer Health Republic Insurance Co. of Oregon, which now is out of business, filed a $5 billion class action against the federal government for failing to make the risk corridor payments.

**** Good news?

Sessions, Cassidy to introduce ‘The World’s Greatest Health Care Bill. Ever’

FNC: House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., plan to introduce what they are terming an “alternative” health care bill Thursday which will not repeal ObamaCare, but work alongside the existing Affordable Care Act and modify various parts of the system.

 

The legislation is technically called the HELP Act, short for “Health Empowerment Liberty Plan.”  Sessions however prefers a less clinical moniker with a title infused with a dose of Donald Trump-esque hubris. Instead, the Texas Republican calls the legislation “The World’s Greatest Health Care Bill. Ever.”

Sessions notes that the legislation allows people to keep ObamaCare if they so desire, noting that his measure does not entail a full repeal of ObamaCare.

“Someone who repeals (ObamaCare) is left with nothing,” he said.

That’s why his bill works in tandem with the existing law.

Meanwhile, it does get worse.

UnitedHealth Quits 27th Obamacare State as Insurer to Exit N.J.

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Group Inc. is exiting New Jersey’s Obamacare exchange, marking the 27th state market the insurer is quitting.

UnitedHealth’s Oxford Health Plans unit won’t participate in New Jersey’s individual market in 2017, on the Affordable Care Act exchange or elsewhere, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg through an open-records request. Another unit will continue selling plans outside of Obamacare, and the company will keep offering coverage to small businesses, according to Marshall McKnight, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Department of Banking & Insurance.

Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hemsley said last month that UnitedHealth would only offer ACA plans in a “handful of states” for 2017, though the company hasn’t listed them. The company is retreating from the markets created by the ACA amid mounting losses on the policies. Bloomberg has confirmed that the insurer is exiting at least 27 of the 34 states where it sold 2016 coverage.

The company will still probably sell ACA plans in at least three states next year: New York and Nevada have confirmed UnitedHealth’s participation and the company has filed plans to participate in Virginia.

In addition to UnitedHealth, several other insurers offered plans in New Jersey last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. They include Oscar Insurance Corp., AmeriHealth, Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.