Billionaire Swindlers Line Up for ObamaCare Cash

An information technology (IT) company in line to bid on billions in new contracts as a result of ObamaCare is the subject of a growing list of scandals and investigations in which its alleged that, among a number of abuses, the company has produced low ball bids in order to win Medicaid related contracts, only to create overages that balloon the expense of the project as it is implemented.
The name of the company is Client Network Services, Inc (CNSI) and it’s headquartered in Maryland. The company will be able to bid on billions in new ObamaCare-related IT contracts because, in order for states to receive new grants for expanded Medicaid rolls, ObamaCare requires states to have IT systems that are able to share data at so-called finger-tip access. Because most states have antiquated systems, such overhauls will often require the assistance of companies like CNSI.

In March, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal canceled one such contract between CNSI and his state after it came to light that a federal grand jury was investigating the relationship between one of his top aides and CNSI.
Front Page Magazine interviewed Tom Aswell, a blogger and author from Louisiana with more than three decades of news experience. Aswell has been writing about the case from the beginning.
Aswell said he first became aware something was amiss in June 2011, when Bruce Greenstein went before the Louisiana Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to be confirmed as the secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), the equivalent of the US Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.
During the proceedings, things became contentious and confusing when Greenstein refused to divulge the recipient of a contract to upgrade the State of Louisiana’s antiquated computer system, which electronically processed Medicaid health care claims.
Greenstein went back and forth with lawmakers for quite a while before he finally admitted it was CNSI, his own former employer. He assured the state legislators at that hearing that he created a firewall between himself and his former employer during the contractual process.
That turned out not to be true, and, instead, in March 2013, news was leaked that a federal grand jury was investigating the potentially illegal relationship between Greenstein and CNSI during the process in which this contract was awarded.
Once that came to light, not only did Jindal cancel the contract, but Greenstein resigned shortly after. Aswell said that all sorts of issues were raised with CNSI’s bid ($194 million), and a number of people in the media raised concerns that CNSI would not be able to achieve the contract for the pre-arranged price.
In 2012, Southeast Michigan Healthcare Information Exchange (SEMHIE), a multi-stakeholder initiative trying to integrate a health information exchange throughout southeast Michigan, sued CNSI for breach of contract after CNSI allegedly failed to provide SEMHIE with prior agreed upon software. An email was left unreturned by SEMHIE for this story. Jennifer Bahrami, press secretary for CNSI, also didn’t respond to an email for comment for this story.
In 2011, CNSI was accused of lowballing a contract in South Dakota, only to have expenses increase exponentially as the project wore on. A local story on the affair explained:

The South Dakota Department of Social Services has paid $49.7 million so far for a new Medicaid processing system that at this point remains inoperable.
The original contract was for $62.7 million, but the new system is now expected to cost far in excess of $80 million to complete and will take two to three more years to get running, according to court documents filed as part of a lawsuit between the contractor and the department.

The most in-depth investigation of CNSI occurred in Maine in 2006, and it was conducted by the magazine CIO, a journal for IT professionals. In that piece, CIO concluded that not only did CNSI’s system end up costing 20% more than the company’s originally bid, but its implementation was a logistical nightmare.

The department’s Bureau of Medical Services, which runs the Medicaid program, was being deluged with hundreds of calls from doctors, dentists, hospitals, health clinics and nursing homes, angry because their claims were not being paid. The new system had placed most of the rejected claims in a ‘suspended’ file for forms that contained errors.
Tens of thousands of claims representing millions of dollars were being left in limbo.
About 15 IT staffers and about 4 dozen employees from CNSI, the contractor hired to develop the system—were working 12-hour days, writing software fixes and performing adjustments so fast that Hitchings knew that key project management guidelines were beginning to fall by the wayside. And nothing seemed to help.

Because CNSI is a private company, their financials aren’t published, and thus, the exact amount of business it does with our government isn’t known. Furthermore, because most IT-related Medicaid contracts are done on the state level, tracking the amount of IT business that ObamaCare will create is also very difficult to do. It is clear that one company that should be happy with the implementation of ObamaCare is CNSI because it is without a doubt a boon to a company like it. The company’s behavior before and during the implementation of ObamaCare should therefore be watched very carefully and Front Page Magazine intends to do so.

200 families on brink of homelessness being treated like 'rats in lab experiment'

The city has told 200 families on the brink of homelessness to fend for themselves in an experiment that has cruelly turned them into virtual lab rats.
In an attempt to test how well a one-stop assistance program is working, the Department of Homeless Services split 400 struggling families into haves and have-nots.
The "haves" get rental assistance, job training and other services through a program called Homebase.
The other half wasn't so lucky.
Those people - chosen at random - were dubbed the "control group" and shut out of Homebase for two years. Instead, they were handed a list of 11 agencies and told to hunt for help on their own.
The city will still be watching them, but for a whole different reason.
For two years, researchers will track the separate groups by their Social Security numbers to see how each "uses city services ... such as shelter, public assistance, foster care," city documents state.
Some advocates for the homeless called the $368,000 taxpayer-funded analysis a study in callousness.

"These are real parents and children, not rats in a lab experiment," said Patrick Markee, a senior analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless.
City Councilwoman Annabel Palma, who heads the General Welfare Committee, said vulnerable New Yorkers "should never be steered away from the services and benefits for which they are eligible."
Starting in August, letters went out to 400 families and individuals applying to join Homebase, telling them they would be part of the study. Those picked make up about 5% of the 7,700 families that used the program last year.
The city defended the plan.
"We serve thousands of people through this program, and this study is only looking at 400 people," Deputy Homeless Services Commissioner Ellen Howard-Cooper said.
Researchers will watch both groups to see if the "control group" families find help through other agencies or wind up in shelters, officials said.
Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond said the study could reveal flaws in the Homebase program, which costs $23million a year. Improved homeless-prevention programs would, in the end, keep families or individuals out of shelters, he said.
"Not doing it would risk putting the city in a position where it's building shelters and condemning communities to building shelter when there's a better way to serve people," he said.
Single mother Angie Almodovar wasn't too pleased when she got the one-page form letter in August.
"It was like playing Russian roulette," said Almodovar, 27, who is pregnant and lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Mount Hope in the Bronx with her 8- and 1-year-old daughters.
She said she has called the agencies listed in the letter, and none could help.
Almodovar lost her job at an alarm company in 2008 and ran out of unemployment benefits over the summer. She went to Homebase in August while facing eviction because she owes $3,400 in back rent, she said. "Homebase was my only chance," she said.
Researcher John Mollenkopf, director of CUNY's Center for Urban Research, is managing the study. He said for the test to work properly, it had to be random.
"By doing the research, we learn something that's going to be extremely valuable for a much larger population," he said.
tmoore@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/200-families-brink-homelessness-treated-rats-lab-experiment-article-1.443806#ixzz2iZj4IhqR

Michael Savage Reveals Bilderberg Put Barack Obama in Power!

Michael Savage talks about Bilderberg putting Obama in power. Talks about the secretive Bilderberg group taking over the world. Also talks about Henry Kissinger (Bilderberg member).

Obama Takes $100M Africa Trip..While His Sequester starve's American Families..

On Thursday Representative John Barrow (D-GA-12th District) blasted Obama’s proposed $100 Million African vacation. He called upon the obvious stating that the money could be put to better use and urged Barack Obama to lead by example.

 

When President Obama goes to sub-Saharan Africa this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances.Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents will be dispatched to secure facilities in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
A Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, will be stationed offshore in case of an emergency.
Military cargo planes will airlift in 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines and three trucks loaded with sheets of bullet­proof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the first family will stay.
Fighter jets will fly in shifts, giving 24-hour coverage over the president’s airspace, so they can intervene quickly if an errant plane gets too close.
The elaborate security provisions — which will cost the government tens of millions of dollars — are outlined in a confidential internal planning document obtained by The Washington Post. While the preparations appear to be in line with similar travels in the past, the document offers an unusual glimpse into the colossal efforts to protect the U.S. commander in chief on trips abroad.

Republican Representative George Holding recently pointed out the hypocrisy of taking a trip that had the equivalent value of 1350 weeks of White House tours. Fox News reported:

“For the cost of this trip to Africa, you could have 1,350 weeks of White House tours,” Rep. George Holding, a North Carolina Republican, said last week. “It is no secret that we need to rein in government spending, and the Obama administration has regularly and repeatedly shown a lack of judgment for when and where to make cuts. … The American people have had enough of the frivolous and careless spending.”

Unfortunately the Obama family really doesn’t seem to care. As we reported last week, First Lady Michelle Obama took a trip to Ireland that was very unnecessary. Steven Ahle also reported that the government is cutting aid to women and children in favor of funding unnecessary programs. This is the reality of this administration and the current leadership of America.
These people have no sense of fiscal responsibility and no sense of priorities.
Attempting to rationalize with irrational people is very much the equivalent of this administration trying to negotiate peace with terrorists. I applaud John Barrow for having the courage to call out Obama from the other side of the aisle, but I am not sure it will help.
Nonetheless, when people cross party lines to attempt to do what is right then we need to, at the very least, acknowledge them for trying. Not many politicians have the courage to do that.
My hunch is that Barack Obama, being the petty man that he is, will not get John Barrow a souvenir after these comments.
I bet he doesn’t even get a postcard.

Obama Syndicate Plans Imminent Takeover of USA by Islam and Globalists

by: Sher Zieve
While Congress ignores it (or secretly supports it), the US courts continue to fall one by one towards accepting and utilizing Shari’a law in place of US law and the wholly-owned-by-the-totalitarian-Left-and/or-the-Saudis (same thing) media continue their mindless and largely irrelevant programming (to continue the mesmerization of the American people) Obama is openly supporting and assisting the Islamist takeover of the USA.  I have been writing about this since prior to the Obama syndicate’s usurpation of the White House.  However, it’s comforting to know that my more well-known brethren have at last gotten the message and are now, also, writing about it.  In the end, we are all in this together!
Recently, Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Soeren Kern wrote in his article “Caliphate Conference” Seeks to Islamize Europe, U.S.”: “The explicit aim of the Istanbul Process—currently backed by the Obama administration—is to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.  A Muslim fundamentalist group has organized a conference focused on turning Austria and other European countries into Islamic states.
“The “Caliphate Conference 2012”  which was held on March 10 in the Austrian town of Vösendorf, situated just south of Vienna. The main theme of the event was  “The Caliphate: The State Model of the Future.”
“The conference which was organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], a pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Sharia law.”
Shortly thereafter, WND published the article “Planning for Islamic Caliphate Begins” in which it exposes a December 2011 Islamist Conference held in Washington D.C.—also with support from Obama—at which Sec. of State Hillary Clinton spoke in favor of the Islamists’ plans to stop anti-Islam speech in the USA.  The “Istanbul Process” (also SURPRISE—SURPRISE is supported by the U.N.) would deny anti-Islamic speech, only, and if any anti-Muslim/Islam speech leads to said Muslims rioting and pillaging (which is what they do on a regular basis, anyway) the speaker would be held liable, jailed or worse.

The above is happening now.  Source it for yourselves or take a look at the references below.  This would also be an excellent campaign strategy for Obama…jailing anyone who has spoken out against the Satanic Islamic cult.  That’s most—if not all—of we Constitutionalists.
So, we have a dictatorial group now ruling—not governing—us which has destroyed our jobs and is in the process of destroying the employers who provide those jobs.  It is, also, gutting our US Treasury, taking our money and spending it on the globalists, Islam and whatever other groups wanting and working with Obama to destroy what used to be our country.  This same Obama syndicate has ordered military drills (aka “urban warfare”) in many of our cities including, but not limited to, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston and Little Rock, has ensured that gasoline and energy prices are reaching unprecedented highs (how better to immobilize a population?), is beginning its takeover of raising our children (did you see the articles about the Obama Food Police checking 4-6 year olds lunches) and Michele Obama has even limited how large candy bars are allowed to be.  And, there’s always ObamaCare—which is much…much more than healthcare—looming darkly over us.  So many more tyrannical dictates have been commanded by Obama that it would take several books to include them all.
How much more will it take, America, for us to rise up against this massive onslaught?  Are we doomed to slavery, poverty and early death at the hands of the most corrupt and evil oppressors in human history or will we actually get off our collective derrieres and fight them?  By the way, there is no time left.  Decisions must be now or never.

America is now run by Liars,murderers,Warmongers and Profiteers of DEATH!

America used to be Respected and seen as Just,Trustworthy and Honorable,Those days are over.It is now run by Liars,murderers,Warmongers and Profiteers of DEATH!

How does the world feel about America? Here is one blog from the EU.

 

An appeal to the intelligence of
this world – WAKE UP. You know what America is by
now. To all foreign governments – WAKE UP, you know what America is by now. You
saw America use the weapons of mass destruction excuse in Iraq to justify that
war. THEY JUST GOT NAILED RAPING YOU WITH THE NSA. And ALL of your intelligence
agencies ought to know about the rogue the American government has become at
the hand of Israel. COME ON NOW, DO NOT support this illigitimate, pathological
lying, pathological spying, pathological murdering rigged election government
in a new war effort that could well end up being world war 3.

What do you want to
remember years from now? Would you like to remember laughing in the American
Government’s face regarding this new accusation against Assad, and remember
telling the U.S. to STUFF IT and to NOT go to war after learning what their
intelligence apparatus was really doing to you, or would you instead prefer to
remember being a no brained sissy, incapable of applying an ounce of thought to
anything, who then jumped on the bandwagon with a nation that freshly raped you
and become a murdering psychopath as well?
If you are stupid enough
to believe the Hollywood propaganda about American freedom after learning about
the latest stupid pet trick from the NSA, GOD HELP THE WORLD, and may those who can think join forces against
this psychopathical lying and murdering tyranny that was once the great United
States and kick it’s illegitimate unlawfully “elected” government’s
ass back to the stone age along with all other governments stupid enough to
ally themselves with that which has become so evil.
The world has a few tough
choices to make now. Obviously the U.S. government has gone full rogue, along
with Israel, and is NOT going to stop genetic manipulation via companies such
as Monsanto and Syngenta, and it is OBVIOUS that America one day intends to ram
it’s tainted GMO down the world’s throat, YOUR THROAT. It is also obvious that
tainted vaccines are part of the mix, as well as biological outbreaks, endless
psy ops, endless spying, and in the end, endless tyranny. You have a choice to make. Allow the American
government to issue false accusation upon false accusation against innocent
nations, while building to even greater levels of power that will one day be
used to subjugate you, or SAY NO TO THE LIES RIGHT NOW, and turn America
packing. Absent the wars for profit based on fronted lies, America is finished
and will not be able to threaten your future. DO NOT play the role of enabler
by going along with the latest lie. Even the bees will thank you for having a
backbone.
And in the end,
if it does come down to war, do not fear the monster. True, America has an
amazing war machine based on a multi trillion dollar budget, but when the cards
are on the table, the winner tells the tales and NUKES ARE CHEAP.

'The truth is coming and can't be stopped'

Snowden takes to live web chat to defend leaking NSA secrets and slams Obama on broken promises over civil liberties

• Edward Snowden answers questions from readers in live web chat
• 'The government won't be able to cover this up by murdering me'
• Says civil liberties have worsened under Obama despite his promises

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has defended his disclosure of top-secret U.S. spying programs in an online chat as he attacks President Obama over his broken promises.
As he answered readers' questions online, Snowden lambasted U.S. officials for calling him a traitor and said the government won't silence him by 'jailing or murdering' him.
'The US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me,' he said in the live chat, which was launched on Monday. 'Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.'
The Guardian hosted the online chat with Snowden, who has been in hiding in Hong Kong since fleeing the U.S., as reporter Glenn Greenwald received and posted Snowden's answers.

Speaking out: Edward Snowden is taking part in a live web chat, where he is defending leaking information

Among his responses, he said he waited until after the election to release the information as he had been hopeful that Obama would make good on his promises about civil liberties.
In fact, Snowden said, privacy and civil liberties have actually worsened since the re-election.
'Shortly after assuming power, [Obama] closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge,' he said.

He said he saw no option but the flee the country as the administration would never have given him a fair trial.
'The U.S. Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason,' he said. 'That's not justice.'
But Snowden added that he did not think it was too late - that the leaks gave the president a chance 'for a return to sanity, constitutional policy, and the rule of law rather than men'.

Connection: Snowden is responding via Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who broke the story

He called for Obama to set up a special committee to review the surveillance programs and set up a special investigator to review presidents' policies for wrongdoing.
He added that he did not reveal any U.S. operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed that the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and businesses.
U.S. officials say the data-gathering programs were legal and operated under court supervision.
Snowden explained his claim that from his desk, he could 'wiretap' any phone call or email - a claim top intelligence officials have denied.
'If an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT (signals intelligence) databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want,' he said. 'Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same.'
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said that the kind of data that can be accessed and who can access it is severely limited.
His online chat comes after China denied that Snowden is working for them after former US Vice-President Dick Cheney branded the leaker a 'traitor and possible Chinese spy'.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing today, 'This is sheer nonsense,' when asked if Snowden worked for China.
Snowden himself added in the web chat: 'Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.'
Several nations, including U.S. allies, have reacted angrily to revelations by the ex-CIA employee that U.S. authorities had tapped the servers of internet companies for personal data.

National defense: Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke on Fox News Sunday in Washington about the need for surveillance

'We believe the United States should pay attention to the international community's concerns and demands and give the international community the necessary explanation,' Hua said.
The Chinese government has previously not commented directly on the case, simply repeating the government's standard line that China is one of the world's biggest victims of hacking attacks.
A senior source with ties to the Communist Party leadership said Beijing was reluctant to jeopardise recently improved ties with Washington.
Cheney said how the controversial surveillance methods used by the NSA could have prevented the September 11 attacks and said the revelations have done 'enormous damage' to America's security.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Cheney took credit for crafting the program of data collection, saying that he 'worked with [former Director of National Intelligence] Mike Hayden when we set this program up.'

'Traitor': According to Cheney, Snowden could be leaking U.S. security secrets to China. Supporters in Hong Kong have come out strongly in defense of the former CIA employee, as pictured

'As everybody who's been associated with the program's said, if we had had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego - two hijackers - had been able to use that program, that capability, against that target, we might well have been able to prevent 9/11,' Cheney told Wallace.
In the webchat, Snowden added: 'Journalists should ask: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicion-less surveillance that could not be gained via any other source?
'Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it.'
Cheney ridiculed the notion that the NSA was listening in to personal calls of ordinary Americans.
'The allegation is not that we get all this personal information on Aunt Fanny or Chris Wallace, that's not the way it works,' he said.

Anger: Snowden said civil liberties had worsened ever since President Obama was re-elected last year

'What information [was collected]?' he said. 'And the answer is phone numbers and who contacted who. But we don’t have any names associated with it. It’s just a big bag of numbers that’s been collected.'
Of Snowden, Cheney said the breach of security was one of the worst in history.
'I think he's a traitor. I think it's one of the worst occasions, in my memory, of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States,' he said.
He suggested that Snowden, who is thought to have fled to Hong Kong, could be working with the Chinese government.
'I am very, very worried that he still has additional information that he hasn't released yet, that the Chinese would welcome the opportunity and are probably willing to offer immunity - or sanctuary, if you will - in exchange for what he presumably knows or doesn't know,' said Cheney.

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta answered questions from members of 9/11 Truth Seattle.org about his testimony before the 9/11 Commission report.

Mineta says Vice President Cheney was "absolutely" already there when he arrived at approximately 9:25 a.m. in the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) bunker on the morning of 9/11. Mineta seemed shocked to learn that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed Cheney had not arrived there until 9:58-- after the Pentagon had been hit, a report that Mineta definitively contradicted.

Norman Mineta revealed that Lynn Cheney was also in the PEOC bunker already at the time of his arrival, along with a number of other staff.

  

Mineta is on video testifying before the 9/11 Commission, though it was omitted in their final report. He told Lee Hamilton:

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?

Mineta confirmed his statements with reporters, saying "When I overheard something about 'the orders still stand' and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down."

Norman Mineta made it clear to reporters-- who verified his quotes in written text alongside him-- that Mineta was indeed talking about a stand down order not to shoot down hijacked aircraft headed for the Pentagon.

After no shoot down took place, it became clear that Cheney intended to keep NORAD fighter jets from responding-- evidence that Cheney is guilty of treason, not negligence for allowing the Pentagon to be hit.

(Click each document for a larger image)

The idea that "the order still stands" matches up with a change in NORAD and Pentagon orders-- issued on June 1, 2001, only months before 9/11. The document revoked the default standing orders to shoot down errant or hijacked aircraft and instructed them instead to stand down until they were given orders by the President, Vice President or Secretary of Defense. 

Norman Mineta's Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission-- which was NOT included in the final report and which DISPUTES the Commission's timetable for Vice President Dick Cheney on 9/11  

Also, the two hour time delay is suspicious given the Vice President's own account of the dedicated video communications available that morning, as he told it to Tim Russert of Meet the Press on September 16, 2001.

"We had access, secured communications with Air Force One, with the secretary of Defense over in the Pentagon. We had also the secure videoconference that ties together the White House, CIA, State, Justice, Defense--a very useful and valuable facility. We have the counterterrorism task force up on that net. And so I was in a position to be able to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports and then make decisions in terms of acting with it."

At a bare minimum, this confirmation by Norman Mineta is in gross contradiction to the 9/11 Commission Report and poses serious questions about the Vice President's role in ordering NORAD to stand down on 9/11.

 

If a Marxist Regime was his Goal Then ... Yea --Obama: 'America Is Moving and It’s Moving in the Right Direction' 9:19 AM, Jun 13, 2013 • By DANIEL HALPER

At a Democratic fundraiser last night, Barack Obama praised the progress he's made as president. "Across the board, people are feeling like, all right, America is moving and it’s moving in the right direction," he said.

 Obama continued, "But what we also know --"
"Good job, Mr. President.  Good job," an audience member interrupted, before breaking out into applause, according to the official White House transcript.
"What we also know is, is that we’ve got a lot more work to do.  Because all across the country, we still have people who are looking for work and can’t find it.  We still have young people in schools that aren’t learning what they need to compete in the 21st century.  We still have young people who are burdened by massive college costs.  We still have infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt.  We’ve got research projects that could help to revolutionize our economy, but are not being adequately funded.  We have folks whose homes are still underwater and they’re still struggling.  And people are concerned about the possibilities of retiring with dignity and respect," Obama continued.

"So we’ve got a lot more work to do.  And the reason I’m here today is to ask for your help.  I’m very proud of the record that we’ve been able to put together over the last four and half years, making sure that every American in this country gets health care, and we are implementing health care reform so that every single American -- (applause) -- is able to get health care and won’t go bankrupt when they get sick."