Cover Oregon -- The Criminal Cover-Up Awakens Congress

Before heading home for the July 4th congressional recess, members of the powerful House Government Reform and Oversight Committee dispatched a letter to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) demanding answers to questions relating to the shocking scandal of Oregon’s Obamacare web portal — Cover Oregon.  This is the second letter from the committee and a growing sign that investigators are hot in the trail of discovering what happened to over $300 million taxpayer dollars that were squandered by a corrupt governor and his political henchmen.

John Kitzhaber was the man who was supposed to “save” American healthcare.  The liberal emergency room doctor and health care administrator was also the longest serving governor in Oregon’s history, serving two terms from 1995 to 2003 and then from 2011 until earlier this year when he was forced to resign in disgrace.  Kitzhaber’s fall from grace is symbolic of his efforts and the pitfalls of government-run health care.

Kitzhaber’s first foray into government-run health care occured when he served in the state senate and was the primary author of Oregon’s Health Plan, the state’s version of Medicaid.  Among the “reforms” implemented by Kitzhaber included the rationing of health care. Nearly 25% of Medicare’s procedures and treatments were cut.  The media and progressive groups fawned over his every move.  

By the time Obamacare rolled around, Kitzhaber was prepared to create the model system and the Obama adminstration was ready to do anything they could to make it happen.  They gave $300 million to state bureaucrats to create “Cover Oregon,” the state’s Obamacare exchange.  It was going to be the crown jewel in Kitzhaber’s 2014 re-election campaign.  But the exchange faced difficulties from the start.

Like the federal exchange, it did not work right away — no one signed up.  Pressure began to build as election day came close.  The governor tasked his chief political advisor, Patricia McCaig, to oversee Cover Oregon.  She was informed that the site would be functional, but it would take more time to work.  That was not acceptable for McCaig, who had a re-election campaign to run.  The self-professed “Princess of Darkness,” decided to kill the portal and join the federal exchange.  $300 million was tossed aside, a sort of in-kind contribution to the governor’s relection campaign.  On her suggestion, the state then turned around and sued the IT contractors working on the site despite knowing it would have worked.

Soon after winning another term in office, things came crashing down.  The governor was forced to resign due to a scandal involving his girlfriend and green business interests looking to cash in on government grants and contracts.  Government workers became concerned an effort was underway to destroy emails from state servers, including some relating to the Cover Oregon fiasco.   

Citing reports that Kitzhaber staffer’s attempt to have thousands of emails inadvertently stored from the governor’s personal email account removed and deleted from state archives, the first letter from Congress was sent.  The letter stated, “If it is the routine practice of any state employee or contractor to destroy or otherwise alter such records, halt that practice.”  The letter also demanded all emails, records and communications between Kitzhaber’s re-election staff regarding Cover Oregon.

The second letter from June 15th suggest that federal government officials may have been “in the know” about McCaig’s efforts to save Kitzhaber’s re-election campaign by pulling the plug on Cover Oregon.  The letter signed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) notes that despite Cover Oregon having cost hundreds of millions only to be scrapped and have the state’s Obamacare customers turned over to the federal healthcare.gov site, CMS in February 2011 “identified Oregon as an ‘early innovator,’ one of only seven states granted large sums of federal dollars to design reusable IT systems in hopes of providing a state-based exchange model for other states to follow.”

Chaffetz is correct in following the evidence whereever it may lead.  Over a quarter of a billion dollars was squandered for political reasons and someone needs to be held accountable.  The time has come for hearings on this issue.  One of the pitfalls of putting life and death decisions in the hands of politicians is they will make decisions in their best interests, not yours.  That appears to have happened with Cover Oregon.