Originally published July 3 2014
Cover Oregon spending over half a million in tax dollars to give bonuses to employees doing nothing after healthcare exchange failure
by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
(NaturalNews) After spending more than $250 million on a healthcare exchange website that has since been abandoned due to systematic failure, the state of Oregon is now handing out cash bonuses to the employees responsible for the debacle. According to OregonLive.com, government contractors who agree to stick around and essentially do nothing while the site is transitioned over to the federal system will be included in a massive $650,000 divvy to be disbursed in the coming weeks.
Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent over the past year trying to get the "Cover Oregon" Obamacare exchange up and running. These efforts ultimately failed, resulting in an announcement by the state government that the federal government would be taking over and putting the Oregon exchange on HealthCare.gov, the official portal for socialized medicine.
Immediately following this announcement, one-third of the Cover Oregon workforce quit, presumably to look for work elsewhere. But rather than scrap the other two-thirds and let the failed project die, Oregon officials instead sought to retain the remaining employees by offering them cash incentives. Reports indicate that 38 employees are being given bonuses equivalent to between one and three months of pay, while 163 others are eligible for bonuses equaling two weeks of pay.
"Many of the employees who voluntarily left Cover Oregon had key skills that are not easily replaced both in IT and in health care laws and regulations," stated Clyde Hamstreet, the interim director of the exchange's board. "We cannot afford to keep losing valuable employees if we are to complete the workload for the remainder of 2014 and the IT transition project."
Obama handing out taxpayer dollars like candy to his cronies across the country
The timing of the announcement is curious, as the bulk of the $305 million in federal taxpayer funding that was given to pay for Cover Oregon just so happens to be running dry. Now, the last of it is being given to workers who will essentially just be twiddling their thumbs while earning a free paycheck from the government.
Back in May, it came out that millions of taxpayer dollars had been awarded to a company known as Serco that was supposedly responsible for processing Obamacare applications. The company turned out to be a complete scam, of course, hiring employees to literally sit around and do nothing all day on the taxpayer dime.
Similar fraud has taken place in the "green energy" sector as well, which was awarded billions of dollars by the Obama administration to supposedly come up with new clean energy solutions. As you may recall, most of these companies turned out to be fraudulent shell corporations controlled by Obama's cronies, a fact that was largely swept under the rug by the mainstream media.
But this is all just business as usual for the Obama gang, which has bilked taxpayers out of billions of dollars and funneled it to their friends and family. The "failed" Obamacare exchanges are simply the latest front for this massive swindle of the American people, which unless Americans decide to stand up and resist it will only continue to intensify.
"The incriminating evidence and stink emanating from the White House keeps increasing," wrote one commenter at TheBlaze.com concerning $340 million in fraudulent spending for phony healthcare exchanges in New York, New Jersey and Oregon. "[C]ongress should conduct full committee hearings on each and every piece of garbage, waste, fraud and other illegal actions coming from Obama's crew."
Sources for this article include:
http://dailycaller.com
http://www.oregonlive.com
http://www.cbsnews.com
http://dailysignal.com
http://www.theblaze.com
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