These are the Insurance Cost Estimates From HHS.

You can view the full report at: The HHS Website

Congress's ObamaCare Exemption

WSJ

The President intervenes to give Members and staff a break.

To adapt H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the cynicism and self-dealing of the American political class. Witness their ad-libbed decision, at the 11th hour and on the basis of no legal authority, to create a special exemption for themselves from the ObamaCare health coverage that everybody else is mandated to buy.

The Affordable Care Act requires Members of Congress and their staffs to participate in its insurance exchanges, in order to gain first-hand experience with what they're about to impose on their constituents. Harry Truman enrolled as the first Medicare beneficiary in 1965, and why shouldn't the Members live under the same laws they pass for the rest of the country?

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Editorial page editor Paul Gigot on the latest ObamaCare exemption. Photo: Getty Images

That was the idea when Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley proposed the original good-enough-for-thee, good-enough-for-me amendment in 2009, and the Finance Committee unanimously adopted his rule. Declared Chairman Max Baucus, "I'm very gratified that you have so much confidence in our program that you're going to be able to purchase the new program yourself and I'm confident too that the system will work very well."

Harry Reid revised the Grassley amendment when he rammed through his infamous ObamaCare bill that no one had read for a vote on Christmas eve. But he neglected to include language about what would happen to the premium contributions that the government makes for its employees. Whether it was intentional or not, the fairest reading of the statute as written is that if Democrats thought somebody earning $174,000 didn't deserve an exchange subsidy, then this person doesn't get a subsidy merely because he happens to work in Congress.

But the statute means that about 11,000 Members and Congressional staff will lose the generous coverage they now have as part of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Instead they will get the lower-quality, low-choice "Medicaid Plus" of the exchanges. The Members—annual salary: $174,000—and their better paid aides also wouldn't qualify for ObamaCare subsidies. That means they could be exposed to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket insurance costs.

The result was a full wig out on Capitol Hill, with Members of both parties fretting about "brain drain" as staff face higher health-care costs. Democrats in particular begged the White House for help, claiming the Reid language was merely an unintentional mistake. President Obama told Democrats in a closed-door meeting last week that he would personally moonlight as HR manager and resolve the issue.

And now the White House is suspending the law to create a double standard. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that runs federal benefits will release regulatory details this week, but leaks to the press suggest that Congress will receive extra payments based on the FEHBP defined-contribution formula, which covers about 75% of the cost of the average insurance plan. For 2013, that's about $4,900 for individuals and $10,000 for families.

How OPM will pull this off is worth watching. Is OPM simply going to cut checks, akin to "cashing out" fringe benefits and increasing wages? Or will OPM cover 75% of the cost of the ObamaCare plan the worker chooses—which could well be costlier than what the feds now contribute via current FEHBP plans? In any case the carve-out for Congress creates a two-tier exchange system, one for the great unwashed and another for the politically connected.

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Associated Press

This latest White House night at the improv is also illegal. OPM has no authority to pay for insurance plans that lack FEHBP contracts, nor does the Affordable Care Act permit either exchange contributions or a unilateral bump in congressional pay in return for less overall compensation. Those things require appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed by the President.

But the White House rejected a legislative fix because Republicans might insist on other changes, and Mr. Obama feared that Democrats would go along because they're looking out for number one. So the White House is once again rewriting the law unilaterally, much as it did by suspending ObamaCare's employer mandate for a year. For this White House, the law it wrote is a mere suggestion.

The lesson for Americans is that Democrats who passed ObamaCare didn't even understand what they were doing to themselves, much less to everyone else. But you can bet Democrats will never extend to ordinary Americans the same fixes that they are now claiming for themselves. The real class divide in President Obama's America is between the political class and everyone else.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to Coptic Christians: Convert to Islam, or pay ‘jizya’ tax

From the Washington Times

The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have began forcing the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in Egypt to pay a jizya tax as indicated in Koran 9:29, author and translator Raymond Ibrahim reported on Sunday.

Jizya is the money, or tribute, “that conquered non-Muslims historically had to pay to their Islamic overlords ‘with willing submission and while feeling themselves subdued’ to safeguard their existence,” Mr. Ibrahim explained.

According to Fr. Yunis Shawqi, who spoke yesterday to Dostor reporters in Dalga, all Copts in the village, “without exception,” are being forced to pay the tax.

“[The] value of the tribute and method of payment differ from one place to another in the village, so that, some are being expected to pay 200 Egyptian pounds per day, others 500 Egyptian pounds per day,” Mr. Shawqi said, according to the translator.

In some cases, families not able to pay have been attacked. As many as 40 Christian families have now fled Dalga, Mr. Ibrahim reported.

The taxes are not unique to Egypt either.

Just over the weekend Syrian rebels went into a Christian man’s “shop and gave him three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000 as a tax levied on non-Muslims, known as jizya; or be killed along with his family,” Christian Science Monitor reported.

Qatar Smuggles Weapons to Al Qaeda, Obama Turns a Blind Eye

From Frontpage Mag

Consider this yet another one of the New York Times articles which document briefly how Qatar is arming Al Qaeda and other Islamists while Obama Inc. turns a blind eye.

The entire affair carries with it the stench of plausible deniability. That was true in Libya, where the Times documented that US personnel were told to turn a blind eye to Qatari smuggling ops. And it’s the same thing now.

The Times tries to claim that Obama has no control over Qatar and needs Qatar. But is that really the truth or is he aligned with the masters of Al Jazeera and using that supposed lack of control as an excuse to let them do what he wants them to do anyway?

Qatar, the tiny, oil- and gas-rich emirate that has made itself the indispensable nation to rebel forces battling calcified Arab governments and that has been shipping arms to the Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Since the beginning of the year, according to four American and Middle Eastern officials with knowledge of intelligence reports on the weapons, Qatar has used a shadowy arms network to move at least two shipments of shoulder-fired missiles, one of them a batch of Chinese-made FN-6s, to Syrian rebels who have used them against Mr. Assad’s air force.

The Times gently understates what Qatar is actually doing and where those weapons are going. Until we reach this formal “warning” from Obama.

Mr. Obama, during a private meeting in Washington in April, warned Sheik Hamad about the dangers of arming Islamic radicals in Syria, though American officials for the most part have been wary of applying too much pressure on the Qatari government. “Syria is their backyard, and they have their own interests they are pursing,” said one administration official.

Obama backs the FSA, so we’re not talking FSA here. We’re talking hard core Islamists. Harder even than the FSA’s brigades. But parse this phrasing, “American officials for the most part have been wary of applying too much pressure on the Qatari government. “Syria is their backyard, and they have their own interests they are pursing,” said one administration official.”

Syria isn’t really Qatar’s backyard. And Iran and a dozen other countries are also pursuing their own interests in Syria. What makes Qatar special.

What makes Obama Inc. so afraid of applying pressure beyond a minor formal warning?

The United States has little leverage over Qatar on the Syria issue because it needs the Qataris’ help on other fronts. Qatar is poised to host peace talks between American and Afghan officials and the Taliban, who have set up a political office in Doha, the Qatari capital.

Really? We’re turning a blind eye to Qatar arming terrorists because we need their help appeasing the Taliban? If you want the absurdity of Obama’s appeasement policies in one snapshot, there it is.

“They punch immensely above their weight,” one senior Western diplomat said of the Qataris. “They keep everyone off balance by not being in anyone’s pocket.”

“Their influence comes partly from being unpredictable,” the diplomat added.

Let’s reword that.

Qatar is entirely predictable. Qatar supports Islamists terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood on up. Its pet propaganda network, Al Jazeera, gave Bin Laden a forum. It helped push the Arab Spring. It supports Hamas.

Qatar isn’t in anyone’s pocket, but plenty of American diplomats are in Qatar’s pocket.

In Mr. Obama’s meeting with Sheik Hamad at the White House on April 23, American officials said, he had warned that the weapons were making their way to radical groups like Jabhet al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, a Qaeda-affiliated group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization.

Plausible deniability established. Proceed on course.

Taking Outsize Role in Syria, Qatar Funnels Arms to Rebels

From The New York Times

Fadi Al-Assaad/Reuters

Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, right, the emir of Qatar until last week, with his son and successor, left, in Doha in May.

By MARK MAZZETTI, C. J. CHIVERS and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: June 29, 2013


WASHINGTON — As an intermittent supply of arms to the Syrian opposition gathered momentum last year, the Obama administration repeatedly implored its Arab allies to keep one type of powerful weapon out of the rebels’ hands: heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles.

The missiles, American officials warned, could one day be used by terrorist groups, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda, to shoot down civilian aircraft.

But one country ignored this admonition: Qatar, the tiny, oil- and gas-rich emirate that has made itself the indispensable nation to rebel forces battling calcified Arab governments and that has been shipping arms to the Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad since 2011.

Since the beginning of the year, according to four American and Middle Eastern officials with knowledge of intelligence reports on the weapons, Qatar has used a shadowy arms network to move at least two shipments of shoulder-fired missiles, one of them a batch of Chinese-made FN-6s, to Syrian rebels who have used them against Mr. Assad’s air force. Deployment of the missiles comes at a time when American officials expect that President Obama’s decision to begin a limited effort to arm the Syrian rebels might be interpreted by Qatar, along with other Arab countries supporting the rebels, as a green light to drastically expand arms shipments.

Qatar’s aggressive effort to bolster the embattled Syrian opposition is the latest brash move by a country that has been using its wealth to elbow its way to the forefront of Middle Eastern statecraft, confounding both its allies in the region and in the West. The strategy is expected to continue even though Qatar’s longtime leader, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, stepped down last week, allowing his 33-year-old son to succeed him.

“They punch immensely above their weight,” one senior Western diplomat said of the Qataris. “They keep everyone off balance by not being in anyone’s pocket.”

“Their influence comes partly from being unpredictable,” the diplomat added.

Mr. Obama, during a private meeting in Washington in April, warned Sheik Hamad about the dangers of arming Islamic radicals in Syria, though American officials for the most part have been wary of applying too much pressure on the Qatari government. “Syria is their backyard, and they have their own interests they are pursing,” said one administration official.

Qatari officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The United States has little leverage over Qatar on the Syria issue because it needs the Qataris’ help on other fronts. Qatar is poised to host peace talks between American and Afghan officials and the Taliban, who have set up a political office in Doha, the Qatari capital. The United States Central Command’s forward base in Qatar gives the American military a command post in the heart of a strategically vital but volatile region.

Qatar’s covert efforts to back the Syrian rebels began at the same time that it was increasing its support for opposition fighters in Libya trying to overthrow the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Its ability to be an active player in a global gray market for arms was enhanced by the C-17 military transport planes it bought from Boeing in 2008, when it became the first nation in the Middle East to have the durable, long-range aircraft.

The Obama administration quietly blessed the shipments to Libya of machine guns, automatic rifles, mortars and ammunition, but American officials later grew concerned as evidence grew that Qatar was giving the weapons to Islamic militants there.

American and Arab officials have expressed worry about something similar happening in Syria, where Islamists in the north have turned into the most capable section of the opposition, in part because of the weapons from Qatar. Saudi Arabia recently has tried to wrest control from Qatar and take a greater role in managing the weapons shipments to Syrian rebels, but officials and outside experts said the Qatari shipments continue. The greatest worry is over the shoulder-fired missiles — called man-portable air-defense systems — that Qatar has sent to Syria since the beginning of the year. Videos posted online show rebels in Syria with the weapons, including the Chinese FN-6 models provided by Qatar, and occasionally using them in battle.

The first videos surfaced in February and showed rebels wielding the Chinese missiles, which had not been seen in the conflict previously and were not known to be in Syrian government possession. .  

Western officials and rebels alike say these missiles were provided by Qatar, which bought them from an unknown seller and brought them to Turkey. The shipment was at least the second antiaircraft transfer under the Qataris’ hand, they said. A previous shipment of Eastern bloc missiles had come from former Qaddafi stockpiles.

The shipments were small, the Western officials and rebels said, amounting to no more than a few dozen missiles. And rebels said the Chinese shipments have been plagued with technical problems, and sometimes fail to fire. The first FN-6s were seen in the custody of groups under the Free Syrian Army banner, suggesting that they were being distributed, at least initially, to fighters backed by the United States and not directly to extremists or groups with ties to Al Qaeda.

American and Arab officials said that Qatar’s strategy was a mixture of ideology — the ruling family’s belief in a prominent role for Islam in political life — and more hard-nosed calculations.

“They like to back winners,” one Middle Eastern official said.

In meetings with Mr. Obama, the leaders of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have expressed a host of grievances about the Qatari shipments and have complained that Qatar is pursuing a reckless strategy.

In Mr. Obama’s meeting with Sheik Hamad at the White House on April 23, American officials said, he had warned that the weapons were making their way to radical groups like Jabhet al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, a Qaeda-affiliated group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization.

“It was very important for the Qataris to understand that Nusra is not only an organization that destabilizes the situation in Syria,” said one senior Obama administration official. “It’s a national security interest of ours that they not have weapons.”

But Charles Lister, an analyst with the IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center in London who follows the Syria opposition groups, said that there was evidence in recent weeks that Qatar had increased its backing of hard-line Islamic militant groups active in northern Syria.

Mr. Lister said there was no hard evidence that Qatar was arming the Nusra Front, but he said that because of existing militant dynamics, the transfer of Qatari-provided arms to certain targeted groups would result in the same practical effect.

“It’s inevitable that any weapons supplied by a regional state like Qatar,” he said via e-mail, “will be used at least in joint operations with Jabhet al-Nusra — if not shared with the group.”

At least some extremists have already acquired heat-seeking missiles and have posted videos of them, although the sources for these arms are not apparent from videos alone. And they appear to have been made principally in the Eastern Bloc, not in China.

‘We aired lies’: Al-Jazeera staff quit over biased Egypt coverage

From The Washington Times

By Jessica Chasmar

-

The Washington Times

The Qatari-owned media company Al-Jazeera saw 22 members of its staff in Egypt resign on Monday over what they allege was “biased coverage” of the events that unfolded in Cairo last week.

Al-Jazeera correspondent Haggag Salama was among those who resigned, accusing the station of “airing lies and misleading viewers,” Gulf News reported Monday.

Former anchor Karem Mahmoud said he left because of “biased coverage.”

“I felt that there were errors in the way the coverage was done, especially that now in Egypt we are going through a critical phase that requires a lot of auditing in terms of what gets broadcasted,” he told Al Arabiya. “My colleagues have also resigned for the same reason.”

“The management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries,” Mahmoud told Gulf News.

He added that the channel’s management would instruct staff members to favor the Muslim Brotherhood.

Journalist Abdel Latif el-Menawy, who was head of the Egypt News Center under ex-president Hosni Mubarak, said that Al-Jazeera was a “propaganda channel” for the Brotherhood.

“Al Jazeera turned itself into a channel for the Muslim Brotherhood group,” el-Menawy told Al Arabiya. “They are far away from being professional. When the Muslim Brotherhood collapsed, they continued to play the role.”

The network made headlines on Sunday when it called for the release of two staff members who reportedly were detained in its Cairo office earlier last week during a raid by the Egyptian military.

Obamacare installs new scrutiny, fines for charitable hospitals that treat uninsured people

From The Daily Caller

Charitable hospitals that treat uninsured Americans will be subjected to new levels of scrutiny of their nonprofit status and could face sizable new fines under Obamacare.

A new provision in Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code, which takes effect under Obamacare, sets new standards of review and installs new financial penalties for tax-exempt charitable hospitals, which devote a minimum amount of their expenses to treat uninsured poor people. Approximately 60 percent of American hospitals are currently nonprofit.

Charity for the uninsured is one of the factors that could discourage enrollment in Obamacare, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or else face new taxes themselves from the IRS.

“It requires tax-exempt hospitals to do a community needs survey and file additional paperwork with the IRS every three years. This is to prove that the charitable hospital is still needed in their geographical area — ‘needed’ as defined by Obamacare and overseen by IRS bureaucrats,” said John Kartch, spokesman for Americans for Tax Reform.

“Failure to comply, or to prove this continuing need, could result in the loss of the hospital’s tax-exempt status. The hospital would then become a for-profit venture, paying income tax — hence the positive revenue score” for the federal government, Kartch said. “Obamacare advocates turned over every rock to find as much tax money as possible.”

Additionally, the rise in the number of insured Americans under Obamacare will make it more difficult for tax-exempt hospitals to continue meeting required thresholds for treating the uninsured, driving more hospitals into the for-profit category and yielding more taxable money for the federal government.

“The requirements generally apply to any section 501(c)(3) organization that operates at least one hospital facility,” according to a “Technical Explanation” report of new Obamacare provisions prepared by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) on March 21, 2010, the day Obamacare passed.

Obamacare’s new requirements could slam hospitals with massive $50,000 fines if they fail to meet bureaucrats’ standards.

“The hospital must disclose in its annual information report to the IRS (i.e., Form 990 and related schedules) how it is addressing the needs identified in the assessment and, if all identified needs are not addressed, the reasons why (e.g., lack of financial or human resources). Each hospital facility is required to make the assessment widely available. Failure to complete a community health needs assessment in any applicable three-year period results in a penalty on the organization of up to $50,000,” according to the JCT report.

The government is particularly interested in how and why hospitals will be providing discounted or free care to poor patients, requiring each of them to “adopt, implement, and widely publicize a written financial assistance policy” and explain the methods they use to screen applicants for assistance and how they calculate patients’ bills.

A delegate working under the Department of Health and Human Services must review the innumerable reports charitable hospitals file every three years, along with copies of their audited financial statements.

After sifting through this massive amount of information, the delegate and HHS secretary must attempt to identify trends in the hospitals’ spending and send in a comprehensive report of their findings to Congress by 2015, according to the JCT report.

Healthcare experts warn that the Obamacare’s new requirements make it almost impossible for charitable hospitals to navigate treacherous new waters.

“Nonprofit hospitals should be advised that the new PPACA requirements will play a significant role in how they operate and report, specifically when it comes to billing and collections for services provided to the uninsured. The new law leaves many gray areas and hospitals themselves will have to establish eligibility criteria for financial assistance. Following the new procedures as best they can will ensure the best chance of maintaining their tax exempt status,” wrote D. Douglas Metcalf, partner at the law firm Lewis and Roca, in a 2013 op-ed entitled “Will nonprofit hospitals disappear under Obamacare?”

The White House did not return a request for comment.

ObamaCare ‘death panel’ faces growing opposition from Democrats

From The Hill

ObamaCare’s cost-cutting board — memorably called a “death panel” by Sarah Palin — is facing growing opposition from Democrats who say it will harm people on Medicare.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean drew attention to the board designed to limit Medicare cost growth when he called for its repeal in an op-ed late last month.

Dean was quickly criticized by supporters of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), who noted his ties to the healthcare industry as an adviser to a major D.C. lobbying firm.

But the former Vermont governor is not the only Democrat looking to kill the panel.

A wave of vulnerable Democrats over the past three months has signed on to bills repealing the board’s powers, including Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (Conn.).

All five are considered vulnerable in next year’s election, highlighting the stakes and the political angst surrounding the healthcare measure.

The four House Democrats faced criticism from their party in July after voting with Republicans to delay ObamaCare's individual and employer mandates — moves widely interpreted as political positioning ahead of 2014.

Two of the lawmakers explained their opposition by suggesting the board would limit care for Medicare patients.

But the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) blasted the four Democrats for “desperately trying to jump off the ObamaCare train.”

The cost-cutting board has been dogged with controversy over the last three years.

Major healthcare interests like the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the pharmaceutical lobby have supported IPAB repeal, saying the panel would cut providers' pay arbitrarily.

Public awareness of the board shot up last year when Palin called it a “death panel,” connecting the IPAB to her previous attacks on a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning in the Affordable Care Act.

“Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that ObamaCare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about healthcare funding,” Palin wrote on Facebook.

This claim experienced a revival on the right after Dean published his op-ed, which argued that the board would ultimately ration care for Medicare patients.

“The IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them,” Dean wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

“Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.”

The piece quickly went viral, prompting conservative bloggers and Fox News hosts to cheer: “Dean confirms that Sarah Palin was right!”

The IPAB is designed to kick in when Medicare cost growth grows above a specified rate. It is charged with making recommendations on how to reduce Medicare spending, and its proposals are required to be fast-tracked through Congress.

The Affordable Care Act prevents the IPAB from making recommendations that would directly ration care. But critics say reducing provider reimbursements would have the same result by making it difficult for healthcare professionals to make money in Medicare.

While it's unlikely the board will be convened soon, Medicare cost growth is not high enough to trigger its work, and any nominees would face long confirmation fights in the Senate, Dean's op-ed renewed focus on bills to repeal the IPAB.

The Senate and House measures currently have 32 and 192 co-sponsors, respectively, including 22 Democrats in the House. Co-sponsors include lawmakers like Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), a longtime GOP target.

But calls for repeal are not taking up the whole debate.

Dean’s piece also drew strong arguments in favor of the panel from supporters like Peter Orszag.

The former White House budget director said the IPAB is necessary in light of Medicare’s transition to new payment models that are meant to lower costs while improving care.

It's preferable to the “old way,” which saw Congress “simply slash Medicare payments” to providers, Orszag wrote in a column for Bloomberg.

“The point of having such a board — and here I can perhaps speak with some authority, as I was present at the creation — is to create a process for tweaking our evolving payment system in response to incoming data and experience, a process that is more facile and dynamic than turning to Congress for legislation,” he wrote.

In the meantime, the Democratic National Campaign Committee (DCCC) is warding off criticism of the anti-IPAB Dems with a push to turn the ObamaCare tables on the GOP.

The committee pointed to evidence Wednesday that resisting the healthcare law could hurt Republicans in the next election.

A new poll commissioned by the Service Employees International Union found that undecided voters prefer an anti-repeal Democrat over a pro-repeal Republican in a generic match-up.

“Instead of fighting old political battles on healthcare, polling shows that Americans want Republicans to work with Democrats to implement Obamacare and move on to focus on creating good jobs,” said Emily Bittner, a spokeswoman with the DCCC.

“The public strongly disapproves of Republicans’ plan to give insurance companies free rein over our health care.”

Me and My Obamaphones

From National Review Online

Not on welfare or below the poverty line? Never mind — here’s your free phone. 

By Jillian Kay Melchior

Confession: You’re paying my phone bill.

In the past month, I have received three shiny new cell phones, courtesy of American taxpayers, that should never have fallen into my hands.

The Federal Communications Commission oversees the so-called Lifeline program, created in 1984 to make sure impoverished Americans had telephone service available to call their moms, bosses, and 911. In 2008, the FCC expanded the program to offer subsidized cell-phone service, and since then, the expenses of running the program have soared. In 2012, the program’s costs had risen to $2.189 billion, up from $822 million before wireless carriers were included. As of June, there were 13.8 million active Lifeline subscriptions.

To be eligible for Lifeline, the applicant is supposed to be receiving some significant government benefit — food stamps, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, public housing assistance, etc. But because welfare eligibility has expanded under the Obama administration, more people than ever before are qualified to receive “free” cell-phone service — part of the reason why Lifeline mobiles have become commonly known as Obamaphones. Alternatively, applicants can qualify if their household income is less than 136 percent of the federal poverty line.

But as with any federal program with too much funding, too little oversight, and perverse financial incentives, Lifeline has become infamous for rampant fraud and abuse. There have been news reports about recipients flaunting dozens of subsidized phones. And in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on an FCC audit of the top five Lifeline providers, which found that “41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn’t demonstrate their eligibility or didn’t respond to requests for certification.”

The FCC supposedly buckled down on eligibility standards last year and established other safeguards aimed at reducing fraud. I was curious about how tough it was to get one of these phones, so last month, I hit the streets of New York. And out of respect for the law and my journalistic integrity, I did not lie to obtain a phone.

Now is the point, I suppose, where I should explain that I really, really shouldn’t have received a single phone. Despite what you hear, not all 20-something writers in the Big City are starving. Given my earnings, even if I were supporting a family of eight, my income would still rule me out. Nor do I receive any type of government benefit. By the Lifeline program’s standards, I am unambiguously ineligible.

My first task was figuring out where to register. The rule of thumb is that wherever you can sign up for food stamps, you can apply for an Obamaphone.

Representatives from SafeLink and Assurance, two of the leading New York Lifeline vendors, stand outside the food-stamp offices, paired like Mormon missionaries, young and polite and earnest. They carry electronic tablets and ask all passersby whether they’ve received their free phone “yet” — as if it were an inevitability.

They approached me for the first time outside the food-stamp office at Tenth Avenue and 216th Street, on the northern tip of Manhattan. The SafeLink vendor, a man probably in his mid 20s, asked me whether I was enrolled in any benefit programs.

“No,” I said, “but I’d certainly like to be. I’m hoping to be.” And indeed, while doing research for another story, I had gone through the motions of applying for New York City welfare, which I also don’t qualify for. I showed him my Human Resources Administration paperwork packet and the case number assigned to me. I reiterated that though I had once applied, I had never been approved for any sort of benefit.

He brought out his electronic tablet immediately to sign me up for phone service. He asked if I had an insurance card, so I pulled out my trusty Blue Cross Blue Shield. He looked at it for a second, puzzled, then asked if I had Medicaid. No, I told him, just private insurance through my work plan.

“Private insurance? What’s that?” he asked, maybe not facetiously. My BCBS card was nevertheless photographed, as well as the first page of my Human Resources Administration paperwork. He asked for my name and my home address, and that was about it. The whole process took less than five minutes, and I had to provide no documentation verifying my income level or (nonexistent) welfare status.

The SafeLink vendor then referred me to his opposite number, a rep from Assurance. She too took down my information, registering me for another Obamaphone.

Traveling to several of the welfare offices in the city, I learned this was common practice. Obamaphone reps come in twos, and both will sign you up if they can.

That’s a very questionable practice, given the Lifeline program’s rules: Each eligible household may receive only one Lifeline subsidy, and obtaining multiple subsidized phones from multiple Lifeline carriers is “a flat-out violation of our rules,” says Michelle Schaefer, an attorney-adviser from the FCC’s Telecommunications Access Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau.

Schaefer also tells me that “consumers are, on their applications, required to certify under penalty of perjury that they will only be receiving one Lifeline discount.”

But when I went around New York signing up for multiple phones, I never even saw the applications; SafeLink and Assurance vendors filled out the necessary forms on their tablets on my behalf, clicking through so quickly that it must have been nearly muscle memory. And nobody mentioned perjury.

Granted, the first question the wireless reps asked was usually whether I was already enrolled in the Lifeline program. I told the truth: I had signed up recently, but the phone hadn’t arrived in the mail yet. Almost always, that got me re-entered into the system without hesitation.

When I did receive my SafeLink phone a few days later, I started informing vendors that I did have one Lifeline phone. They assured me that the Lifeline program permitted me to have one phone from each participating wireless provider — which simply isn’t true.

Maybe there’s a disconnect between the corporate offices of wireless providers and their men on the street; a letter I later received from Assurance mentioned that “a household is not permitted to receive Lifeline benefits from multiple providers. Violation of the one-per-household rule constitutes a violation of federal rules and will result in de-enrollment from the Lifeline program and potentially prosecution by the United States government.”

But the wireless providers aren’t doing much due diligence, if my experience is indicative.

At the Union Square location, a SafeLink rep noted that I was already approved for a phone and declined to re-enter my information — but the rep from Assurance, standing only a few feet away, readily signed me up.

At the welfare office on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn, a vendor hesitated when I told her that I’d already applied but the phone had not yet been delivered. “Surely your system will catch if I’m actually enrolled,” I told her. She shrugged and signed me up once more.

At the DeKalb Avenue office in Brooklyn, when I told the rep I wasn’t receiving welfare, I was signed up for a phone but cautioned that I might well be denied upon secondary review.

And at one Lifeline location in East Harlem, I walked up to the wireless representative talking very loudly on my own smartphone. I hung up only to answer her questions. Now, keep in mind that the program is supposed to provide cell-phone service to people too poor to afford any phone whatsoever — but my application for a subsidized mobile was happily submitted, even as I dinked around very obviously on my existing smartphone.

So here’s the final count: I was able to apply on the street for one SafeLink phone and seven Assurance phones. I received one SafeLink phone and two Assurance phones, no questions asked. For several other applications, Assurance sent me requests for more financial information.

Finally, I received one other letter, full of grammatical errors, informing me that “there is already an Assurance Wireless account established at this address” and requesting further information about my application. I find it curious that Assurance caught a duplicate only once, considering that I’ve got seven entries in their system, and that they have on file my name, address, HRA case number, and, in some instances, photos of my insurance card and driver’s license. SafeLink was slightly better about catching duplications on the street, but it still gave me a phone when it shouldn’t have.

Since receiving my undeserved phones, I’ve repeatedly tried to reach both SafeLink and Assurance press reps for comment, all to no avail. Their corporate offices have sent me the numbers of their customer-service centers, which are easily accessible and happy to offer plan upgrades to Lifeline clients.

Representative Tim Griffin (R., Ark.) has long opposed the Lifeline wireless subsidies, making it a pet cause. He reiterated the basic point I had learned from this experience: The problems began when the federal government got in the business of providing free cell phones, and the FCC’s recent reforms aren’t sufficient.

“I saw all the horror stories of people getting 10, 20, 30, 40 phones,” Griffin says, “the [wireless] companies not paying a lot of attention and in some cases no attention to who was getting them and whether they were getting duplicates.”

And if you’ve been wondering why the companies are so eager to hand out free phones, the incentive is built into the program. As Griffin explains, “Of course, the way the program was set up, [wireless companies] were getting money for every one they could give out, so they gave out as many as they could.”

And still do.

— Jillian Kay Melchior is a Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.