Obamacare Waivers Now Total 2,000
How's That Obamacare Waiver Workin' Out for Ya?
Michelle Malkin - Exactly two years ago this week, the Obama administration announced it had issued more than 100 waivers en masse to a select group of companies, unions and other health insurance providers seeking relief from the onerous federal health care law. The Obamacare waiver winner's club now totals 2,000. Where are they now?
Answer: In the same miserable boat as every other unlucky business struggling with the crushing costs and burdens of the mandate.
Among the first and most prominent recipients of the Obamacare waivers
for favors were large restaurant chains that provide low-wage, seasonal
and part-time workers with low-cost health insurance plans called
"mini-med" plans. An estimated 1.7 million workers benefit from such
plans. Obamacare forced companies carrying such coverage to raise their
minimum limits on coverage to no less than $750,000 annually. Another
Obamacare provision forces all employers to spend at least 80 percent to
85 percent of their premium revenue on medical care.
The social justice Democrats' goal was to dictate insurance provider spending not just on coverage amounts, but also on executive salaries, marketing and other costs. The regulation punished companies with mini-med plans whose high administrative costs were due to frequent worker turnover and relatively low spending on claims — not "greed." Complying with the provision would have meant tens of thousands of low-income workers would lose their benefits altogether.
Darden Restaurants, the Florida-based parent company of Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster
and other chains, was a member of the Obamacare waiver early bird
special. Their get-out-of-Obamacare card helped spare the company's
health insurance benefits for nearly 34,000 employees. Breathing a sigh
of relief that it would allow chains to continue offering all employees
access to affordable health insurance, Darden said in a statement in the
fall of 2010 that "the waiver allows us to continue to do that as the
various phases of the health care law are implemented."
Fast-forward to 2012. Darden announced last month that it would begin shifting full-time workers to part-time status to save money, cut health costs and circumvent Obamacare's coverage mandate scheduled for full implementation in 2014. The move would reduce full-time employees' hours to less than 30 hours a week; part-time workers are exempt from the insurance mandate. McDonald's, another big Obamacare waiver recipient, is considering the same move.
In fact, a survey of members of the Chain Restaurant Compensation Association
(CRCA) conducted last year by Hay Group reported that a whopping 77
percent of "quick serve" restaurant operators said they were considering
reducing employee hours to change their status from full-time to
part-time. At least one Denny's restaurant franchise owner in Florida is
cutting hours and has openly contemplated an Obamacare surcharge. Jimmy
John's and Papa John's are also slashing work hours. Applebee's is
mulling a freeze on both hiring and expansion.
"There's no such thing as a free
lunch" is a race-neutral truth. But economically illiterate Obama
supporters have now called for boycotts of these businesses and accused
them of vengeful "racism" against the president. Instead of sympathy and
gratitude for private businesses trying to do right by their workers,
customers and shareholders, the corporate-bashers inundated Twitter this
week with profanity-laced condemnations of the restaurant service
industry. One protester tweeted: "@Applebees Your CEO is a racist piece
of (redacted), he not hiring because Obama was elected...U WILL LOSE CUSTOMERS."
"Red Lobster, Olive Garden (are) using Obama re-election as an excuse to deny employees benefits and living wages," Jon Marquis fumed.
Twitter user Daphine Walker sent
unhinged, ungrammatical messages to Red Lobster and Olive Garden in
all-caps: "I WILL NEVER SPEND ANOTHER CENT ON THIS RACIST COMPANY WHO
DOESNT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEIR EMPLOYEES."
The CEO of Red Lobster and Olive
Garden is black. But no matter. Regardless of the actual facts, economic
realities and entirely predictable and inevitable consequences of
command-and-control government mandates, it's always about identity
politics for the Obama grievance mob. In good times and bad, the left
never grants waivers from the race card.
