White House Issues Obamacare Waivers to Political Allies and Unions

White House Issues Another 200 Obamacare Waivers

May 13, 2011

The Hill - The Obama administration approved 204 new waivers to Democrats' healthcare reform law over the past month, bringing the total to 1,372.

The waivers are temporary and only apply to one provision of the law, which requires health plans to offer at least $750,000 worth of annual medical benefits before leaving patients to fend for themselves. Still, Republicans have assailed the waivers as a sign of both favoritism and of major problems with the law.

Administration officials say the law allows the Health and Human Services Department to grant the waivers to avoid disrupting the insurance market before the law overhauls the insurance system in 2014. They say the waivers are granted through a transparent process.

Click on the links below for a list of approved waiver applicants organized by type:

Persons using assistive technology may not be able to fully access information in this file. For assistance, please email HealthInsurance@hhs.gov.

• Self-Insured Employers (631)
• Health Reimbursement Arrangements (491)
• Multi-Employer Plans (378)
• Non-Taft Hartley Union Plans (30)
• Health Insurance Issuers (41)
• State-Mandated Policies (5)
• Association Plans (2)

Obamacare Waivers Reach over 1,000

March 7, 2011

Cubachi - This is the one bill that the Democrats and the Obama administration said it must be passed into law in a hurry, and that it’s a one-size-fits-all kind of deal.

However, those who are not blinded, know that Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. Thousands of pages of new taxes, mandates, and laws.

If you play your cards right, you can get a waiver from the administration to avoid the mess that this law will bring. Who is taking these waivers? Unions of course!

Via The Hill:

The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday, bringing the total to 1,040 organizations that have been granted a one-year exemption from a new coverage requirement included in the healthcare reform law enacted almost a year ago. Waivers have become a hot-button issue for Republicans, eager to expose any vulnerabilities in the reform law.

In order to avoid disruption in the insurance market, the healthcare overhaul gives HHS the power to grant waivers to firms that cannot meet new annual coverage limits in 2011. The waivers have typically been granted to so-called “mini-med” plans that offer limited annual coverage — as low as $2,000 — that would fall short of meeting the new annual coverage floor of $750,000 in 2011.

Republicans are rightfully calling out the administration for granting these waiver to their political allies, the unions. They also pointed out that this law is heavily flawed and these waivers are proof of that. If their most ardent supporters don’t want it, why force if for the rest of the country?

Not to mention how Rep. Michele Bachmann exposed how mysteriously, $105 billion is already appropriated to Obamacare [story below].

Michele Bachmann 'Exposes' $105 Billion 'Legislative Fraud' in Health Care Law

March 6, 2011

Associated Content - Michele Bachmann, to the point of exasperating NBC's David Gregory on "Meet The Press," pointedly reiterated that the Obama administration had, along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, deceptively hidden away more than $105 billion in health care appropriations in the budget. It is also a claim she made in a video posted on Thursday on her own website.

"Practically no member of Congress even knew that $105 billion of funding was contained," Bachmann said in the video, then repeated on "Meet The Press."

Taking a page out of Sarah Palin's interview strategy book by hedging and misdirecting, then speaking about whatever topic she wanted (which was for the most part the $105 billion in health care reform appropriations), Bachmann avoided many of the questions put to her on "Meet The Press." But there was one topic she was clear on: Obamacare.

She accused the Obama administration and Democratic leaders of deception and "legislative fraud," and that such acts should be met with defunding or repealing of Obamacare. Bachmann noted Republicans (and implied that other congressmen were equally unknowing) just recently found out about the "deception."

But how was the deception kept up for so long? If it was so important to the congresswoman (and given the amount of time she devotes to deriding health care reform, one gets the impression that it is important to her -- at least for reelection purposes), how come she just "recently learned" of the "hidden" appropriations in Obamacare? One should think that someone so opposed to something, someone constantly denigrating its benefits and pointing out its "socialist" and/or wasteful factors, would have been more educated on the subject. (She's a tax lawyer, is she not?) Especially after having a copy of it for nearly a year.

Bachmann and other politicians use facts and figures only when it suits their needs, helps support their opinions, or when they believe they can potentially sway votes. Truly hidden is the fact that she admits to her ignorance of the bill made law, not to mention her ignorance for an entire year of what the bill/law she despises so much and constantly rails against actually contains.

Bachmann is also being disingenuous in her outrage. She would have listeners and potential voters believe that the "deception" pulled off by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama completely hoodwinked the Republicans, when she knows that bills appropriate funds for the programs that they make law. Bachmann wants Americans (especially voting Americans) to think that the federal government is perpetrating what amounts to criminal fraud against the people after having fully duped Congress to get the bill passed into law. So... she thought the bill would create health care reform, make it law, but not pay for the changes in law or for the programs it created? Easily, no, she did not.

"This is done," she says in the video, "this money will be spent unless we pull it back. It's not enough to shut off the spigot of new money for Obamacare, we also need to drain the pool of money it already received."

And yet, Bachmann gives no specific reasons for cutting off funding, except that it was appropriated under what she refers to as "legislative fraud."

Still, whether one favors a repeal or a defunding of portions or all of the Obama health care reform legislation, it is also important to know how much of what gets to the public is accurate. Bachmann's cries of ignorant outrage and her misleading remarks about the funding of Obamacare might appropriately be labeled "legislative fraud" as well.