The Obama administration is preparing to give free health care to
Pakistanis even as Americans who cannot get health insurance because of
pre-existing conditions soon will be rejected by domestic programs due
to a lack of funds.
Pakistani nationals working at several U.S. embassies soon could get a
boost in health care benefits as the U.S. State Department has begun
shopping for top-tier services.
Their paychecks will not see so much as one Pakistani rupee deducted as they receive a broad variety of medical services, according to a solicitation U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via routine database research.
The document also made clear that the selected vendor “shall insure
that health care under this contract does not exclude HIV/AIDS care, or
preexisting conditions.”
The State Department will subsidize an estimated 1,222 family plans
and 190 single-employee plans. The family plans cover children of
Pakistani employees to age 18, or age 23 if a full-time student and
unmarried.
Coverage could apply to a variety to individuals and their families for local employees of the:
- U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, its consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar, and its “presence” in Quetta.
- Department of State.
- Defense Attaché Office .
- Drug Enforcement Administration.
- Legal Attaché Office.
- Foreign Agricultural Service.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
- Office of Defense Representative in Pakistan.
- Public Affairs Section.
- Refugee Office.
- Library of Congress.
- Foreign Commercial Service.
- Kabul Support Unit.
- Department of Homeland Security.
- Voice of America.
- Narcotics Affairs Section/International Narcotics and Law Enforcement – Pakistan.
- Office of Overseas Building Operation.
- US Agency for International Development.
- Department of Treasury.
- Department of Energy.
- Office of the Inspector General (OIG).
Although it is standard practice for State to offer health-care
benefits to locally employed staff worldwide, the Pakistani package is
noticeably more generous than coverage offered in other nations, such as
Venezuela.
Citing prevailing practices in and around the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, State will foot the bill for just 90 percent of the monthly premium
for those workers. Similarly, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas also prevents
providers from excluding HIV/AIDS care and preexisting conditions,
unless excluded by the human resources department.
On the other hand, Venezuelan staff can elect to include coverage for
the employees’ parents up to 80 years old, though they must full cover
the premium. Furthermore, while children of Pakistani staff only are
potentially eligible for coverage until they are 23, unmarried
college-bound Venezuelan dependents can stay on the plan until they turn
25.
Additionally, Venezuelan family-plan members each may receive funeral-coverage costs of 6,000 Bolivars, about U. S. $1,000.
Meanwhile, Obama administration officials said, according to the
Washington Post, that the state-based “high risk pools” set up under
Obamacare will be closed to new applicants over the next few days
because funding is running low.
And the Washington Times reported Obamacare will push 7 million
Americans out of their job-based insurance coverage due to limited
funding. The report said the incentives for businesses to provide health
care are being minimized, so more employers are expected to choose to
pay a penalty to the government and not provide health care.
At the same time, there are reports the lowest cost health plan for a
family soon will cost $20,000, and the Obamacare mandate fine for
Americans is hitting $695 soon.
A similar version of this article was published via WND on Feb. 19, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.
CNN Rips Off U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor Story on Biden's Plush Parisian Jaunt
Over a month ago U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor broke the story on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's pricey trip to Paris, during which time taxpayers shelled out $585,000 and $322,000, respectively, for hotel rooms, limos, and other vehicles. VPOTUS Biden and his staff spent those taxpayer funds during his one-day Parisian journey to meet French President Francois Hollande.
CNN this past week reported on the trip -- using the same documents that the Monitor had discovered via painstaking database research -- and tooted its own horn on international TV as if that were its own discovery.
CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer talked about this "amazing, amazing discovery" (of theirs) and how shocked they were to have found these rare documents. Blitzer asked CNN White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar about her unparalleled reporting skills in uncovering this rarity, and they both speculated that the government perhaps did not mean to upload the documents to the federal database.
From the broadcast:
Couldn't find any contracts, eh?
I went back into FedBizOpps to see if the White House or State Department has sanitized the site of any traces of such documents (similar to what was done to the controversial USAID/Kenya Strategic Communications Plan 2012-2013 I had reported on).
I figured that maybe she may have missed, for example, the documents I previously found specific to President Obama's and Biden's million-dollar stay in Colombia (the scandalous one when Secret Service agents were caught hanging out with hookers). In that instance I was smarter about my research, and had uploaded those contracting documents to the Monitor website rather than linking from my page to the government site (which I had done, not so coincidentally, to prevent other media from stealing my story!)
A quick search today of FedBizOpps reveals that Keilar was less than forthcoming about her supposed "research." The Colombia documents are indeed still publicly available. Here they are:
1) Acquisition of vehicle rental in support of Presidential and VIP travel.
2) Acquisition of hotel accommodation in support of presidential and VIP travel.
3) JOFOC [Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition] for Hotel Accommodations in Support of Presidential and VIP Travel.
I would link to additional, existing procurement data, but I have other more productive things to do instead -- such as performing some good old-fashioned reporting without ripping off some professional blogger-journalist and claiming it's my own work. -- Steve Peacock
Posted at 09:26 AM in Commentary, France, Media, U.S. State Dept., White House | Permalink | Comments (0)
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