Feds are building a detective squad to target consumers and companies that don’t follow Obamacare’s rules

Daily Mail – by DAVID MARTOSKO

More than 1,600 new employees hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources in the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage include just two described as ‘consumer safety’ officers, but 86 tasked with ‘criminal investigating’ – indicating that the agency is building an army of detectives to sleuth out violations of a law that many in Congress who supported it still find confusing.  

On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, HHS received authority from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to make as many as 1,814 new hires under an emergency ‘Direct Hiring Authority’ order.

The Obama administration ordered that employment expansion despite a government-wide hiring freeze.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, left, discusses the Affordable Care Act at a news conference on Aug. 13, 2013

A total of 1,684 of those positions were filled. An analysis by MailOnline shows that at 2010 federal government salary rates, the new employees’ salaries alone cost the U.S. at least $138.8 million every year.

Had the agency filled all its available jobs, that cost would have been a minimum of $159 million.

The hiring began in May 2010 and continued through June 2013, making the later hires eligible for higher salaries as a result of annual cost-of-living increases.

The difference between what HHS spent on new Obamacare-related employees and what it was authorized to spend is explained by its failure to hire most of the 261 ‘consumer safety officers’ it was authorized to bring aboard. Only two such employees were hired.

But while OPM authorized HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Resources Denise Carter — later renamed Denise Wells — to hire 50 criminal investigators, the agency increased that number to 86 on its own.

After MailOnline lodged a Freedom Of Information Request with HHS, the agency sent a spreadsheet containing records of the positions it filled, along with the salary level for each one on the government’s ‘GS’ hiring scale.

On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, HHS received authority to make 1,814 new hires. Obama is pictured here on August 15

The lowest salary on the list was for a single contracting officer at Grade 7, Step 1, an annual rate of about $42,350, including a so-called ‘differential’ payments. Those increases are given to all federal employees in order to adjust for regional cost-of-living differences.

The highest salary in 2010 dollars, including that differential payment, was about $161,450, earned by a total of 29 new employee. They include health insurance administrators, contracting officers and information technology managers.

The fleet of 86 new criminal investigators are earning a range of compensation between $51,800 and $89,350, according to the 2010 salary tables and differential payment guidelines.

Judicial Watch, a nonprofit that has told MailOnline it files ‘hundreds’ of FOIA requests, first published evidence in July of the HHS hiring binge.

‘Sounds like we now have the Obamacare police,’ said the group’s president, Tom Fitton, after MailOnline showed him the new data.

‘Given the confusion and problems of the law’s implementation, we would need a small army to police all the waste, fraud, and abuse that is already evident.’

Heritage Action for America, a conservative lobby group that opposes implementation of the Affordable Care Act, told MailOnline that it sees the hiring of criminal investigators inside HHS as a sign that its position is more and more defensible.

‘The Obama administration continues to assert near unilateral power when it comes to Obamacare,’ said Dan Holler, the group’s communications director.

‘This blatant disregard for the rule of law raises serious questions as to how these new criminal investigators will behave, what guidelines they will follow and who will provide much-needed oversight.’

Heritage Action is circulating a letter this week, penned by freshman GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, calling on 100 House Republicans to ‘take the steps necessary to defund Obamacare in its entirety, including on a year-end funding bill like a continuing resolution.’

The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but it responded to MailOnline’s FOIA request within the number of days the statute permits.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2399612/Feds-building-detective-squad-target-consumers-companies-dont-follow-Obamacare.html#ixzz2cikU0iKn
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