Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of November 14, 2013. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.

Supporters of Affordable Care Act hold signs
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Obamacare Failure

Numbers have finally been released by the Obama Administration regarding Obamacare and how many people have signed up. According to Breitbart the numbers aren't encouraging for Democrats. In fact, they are embarrassing.

On Wednesday, the Obama administration finally released it's first numbers for Obamacare health insurance exchange enrollment dating from October 1 to October 31. The numbers were not pretty: just 106,185 people “selected a Marketplace plan” using the exchanges, after the administration predicted that 494,620 people would do so.

Even the Associated Press was forced to lament the “dismal numbers.” The federal health care exchange signed up less than 27,000 people. Meanwhile, nearly 7 million people are expected to lose the insurance plans President Obama said they could keep. So far, five million have lost their insurance.

The state numbers were far from encouraging. Overall, the states signed up 79,391 people. California led the way with 35,364 people who have selected a plan (as opposed to 1 million who have lost a plan); New York came in second at 16,404 (at least 100,000 New Yorkers have lost their insurance); Washington came in third at 7,091 (290,000 have lost their insurance in Washington); and Kentucky came in at 5,586 (280,000 lost their insurance in Kentucky).

The Department of Health and Human Services attempted to spin the numbers as a victory, proclaiming, “The first month enrollment experience in the Marketplace exceeds comparable first month enrollment in the Commonwealth Care program in the Massachusetts Health Connector.” But even the HHS was forced to admit that the total number represented just “1.5 percent of the estimated enrollees at the end of the 2014 open enrollment period.”

Just as shocking, while HHS reported that 846,184 applications were completed using the marketplaces, which would have covered over 1.5 million people, just 106,000 actually enrolled. But HHS reported its attempts to give Americans information as a victory: “The Marketplaces have helped a total of 1,477,853 persons by determining or assessing that they are either eligible to enroll in a Marketplace plan…with or without financial assistance, or in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

According to reports, roughly 3,000 people in Texas signed up using of of the websites. Overall though you can tell that Obamacare is a complete disaster. Healthcare.gov is terrible and we have a President who is lying about what he said.

Wendy Davis Heads to Washington

Wendy Davis can't raise much money here in Texas so that means she has to raise money in other places. According to the Dallas Morning News, Davis is heading to Washington to meet with donors.

Democrat Wendy Davis, who is expected to be heavily outspent by Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, heads to Washington this week to meet some of the Democratic Party’s biggest campaign donors. Davis will be introduced on Thursday at the Democracy Alliance conference. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, chairman of the Democratic Governor’s Association, will present Davis and fellow Democrat Mary Burke, who is running for governor in Wisconsin.

Abbott is being challenged by former state GOP chairman Tom Pauken in the Republican primary next year. The nominee will likely meet Davis in a general election race in which some experts say the Fort Worth state senator will need as much as $40 million to compete. Abbott, who’s been in elected office for a decade, has developed a network of big-dollar donors, including a top tier of campaign givers capable of donating $100,000 apiece. His Washington-based donors include the Republican State Leadership Committee, the Union Pacific railroad and the political committee of the billionaire Koch brothers. As attorney general, Abbott has fought the Obama administration over energy and environmental regulations opposed by the Koch brothers. Many of Davis’ donors in her latest report are small-dollar givers.

Davis became a national Democratic figure after an 11-hour filibuster against an abortion-restriction bill. Like Texas Republicans Ted Cruz and Rick Perry, Davis hopes to tap donors outside the Lone Star State. The Republican Governor’s Association was a big out-of-state donor to Perry and there’s a question how much money Davis, who is considered a long-shot candidate in a state where Democrats haven’t won the governor’s office in 20 years, can get from the Democratic governor’s group and the national Democratic Party.

The Democracy Alliance advises liberal mega-donors and coordinates progressive fundraising activities. Members pay $30,000 in annual dues and pledge to contribute $200,000 a year to groups the Democracy Alliance has endorsed.

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