Obamacare waivers: Torquemada Sebelius spares McDonald’s, unions
After an embarrassing leak about the dire potential consequences of forcing one of America’s largest companies to abide by onerous Obamacare coverage mandates, HHS Secretary Kathleen “Torquemada” Sebelius decided that McDonald’s, a major teachers union, and several other firms deserved a break today.
Old promise: Everyone gets to keep their health insurance.
New promise: You can keep your health insurance…if you BEG hard enough for an Obamacare waiver.
Will only high-powered, politically connected corporations and Big Labor groups be spared? Where’s the transparency in how these decisions are being made?
Almost a million workers, a third of them members of New York’s teachers union, were left out of a consumer protection in U.S. health law meant to cap insurance costs after the government exempted their employers.
Thirty companies and organizations, including Jack in the Box Inc. and the United Federation of Teachers, won’t be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low- cost health plans covering seasonal, part-time or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services said it granted waivers in late September so workers with minimum plans would keep coverage without major premium increases. The agency provided the list of exemptions.
“The big political issue here is the president promised no one would lose the coverage they’ve got,” Robert Laszewski, chief executive officer of consulting company Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said by telephone. “Here we are a month before the election, and these companies represent 1 million people who would lose the coverage they’ve got, so the administration can’t fall into that trap.”
The biggest single waiver, for 351,000 people, was for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union providing coverage for city teachers. The United Agricultural Benefit Trust, the California-based cooperative that offers coverage to farm workers, got to exempt 17,347 people. San Diego-based Jack in the Box’s waiver is for 1,130 workers, while McDonald’s Corp. asked to excuse 115,000.
Yep: The only way for hundreds of thousands of workers to keep their health insurance is to give them an emergency escape hatch from Obamacare.
Heckuva job, Democrats.
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The whole thing was so poorly put together by people who don’t understand the system at all.
Again, this program was put together by unions who only know health care benefits because they demand Cadillac plans or they’ll strike and bring the company down.
Having health insurance doesn’t make you any more or less healthy. Do Yoga, eat well, exercise and you’ll lower health care costs. . . but you don’t need government spending for it.
I pray to goodness the judge in FL will find for the 20 state AG’s that brought suit against this hc bill. This information on these waivers should get thoses that don’t get the waivers so mad! I am sick to death that ‘some’ are more equal than others in our country.
L
zerocare is heavily supported by unions and the waivers sebelius has granted proves only parasite groups don’t have to follow zerocare mandates.
‘There’s trouble at the mill!’
‘Oh dear, what kind of trouble?’
‘Flywheel’s gone out of skewer on the treadle.’
Let me get into the weeds here on why the unions thought this was so important. They know that they can’t afford to provide health care benefits for their members. When they squander the dues money, they need a government plan to drop their members on.
Why is Ford such a good buy? Because what people don’t understand is why they have such a huge debt to pay. Their debt is from an agreement with the Unions called the VEBA trust fund.
What is VEBA? It is an account that the unions and management of the big 3 agreed to. They were going to fund an account and let the union determine how to administer the benefits.
It wasn’t a small amount and it crippled the big 3. Most of the bailout money going to the unions in the bailout went to this VEBA fund.
The UAW knows there is no way they can afford the benefits they have promised. When they go through the ridiculously high amount of 100 B dollars or so, they won’t have any left and they won’t have pull with management to demand more.
They need the public option or Obamacare so that when they run out of money, their members go on the government system.
Ford will pay off their health care debt and be scott free of a major cost for American industry within the next couple of years. Buy Ford for future growth.
Who thought crony capitalism would be pretty.
I just did a search and it looks like Ford has just paid off the final 4B of their obligation this summer. Imagine having to pay 4B in cash for a private company for nothing but future benefits for your workers. You can’t invest it or use it to grow your business. That’s why it’s been slow going for Ford, but those days are over now aparently. I thought they owed another 10B at least, but it looks paid off now.
What’s the problem? I believe all the decisions regarding our lives should be at the mercy and whim of an unelected bureaucrat.
/53% of the population.
I hate it when that happens!
I guess I should say full disclosure that I own F stock. But I don’t own enough to make a difference. I don’t have a lot of extra money.
But here’s hoping they start their dividend back up and give that 4B to shareholders instead of retiree benefits. It’s been impressive how they have managed this debt. Mulally should be CEO of the decade really.
Last night I heard Dom Giordano on Philly’s Big Talker 1210 say that local teachers who take early retirement at age 55 are going to be able to stay on their employer’s health plan until age 65 as part of Obamacare. I don’t know what their payments or copays are, but he, as a former teacher, didn’t think it was fair for tax payers to have to pay for this as part of their early retirement. I only heard a couple of minutes of the conversation as he laid into a teacher who called in. I don’t know if this is what he is referring to :
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2010/10/05/want-more-information-about-the-early-retiree-reinsurance-program/
To paraphrase the Ditsy Chicks, I’m ashamed Sebelius is from Kansas.
Jail time now. No exceptions or exemptions. Out in 20 for good behavior.
I thought she was from Venezuela.
Obamacare WILL NOT STAND. Period. Even if Obama vetos the laws to REPEAL that are sure to come next year…Obamcare will not be funded, doctors will be in vast shortage, and most companies will drop their employee’s coverage and there will be MASS revolt, even from the loony left. Obamacare is going nowhere and will put Obama smack dab on that big trash heap of failed presidencies.
Yeppers. Same as it ever was.
No need to wait for the update.
No news to the posters at this blog – excepting the trolls, of course – that this kind of c*@p is what always goes along with, and always happens when, the government has so much control, via legislative fiat and/or funding, over anything.
At hospital committee meeetings, I hear administration talk about how the hospital has to jump through bureacratic hoops; lobby the state government office/department(s) (whatever their names are) that control healthcare; follow this, that, and the other requirement from this, that, or the other state, federal, or quango-type entity; all in order to keep, or get more, funding.
Even more disheartening than usual at yesterday’s meeting:
1) The hospital is lobbying at a state commission/officedepartment/whatever against a neighboring, competing hospital that wants to expand a department/add a satellite, off-site service; by pointing out errors/inconsistencies/whatevers that the competing hospital has used in its “filing” to support its bid.
2) The hospital is being subject to a lookback sort-of audit of patient records, going back a few years by some agency or another; and, if ducks had not been lined up in a row, and all t’s crossed and i’s dotted, the hospital may very possibly have to pay a partial refund to the particular agency.
And this is why I went into medicine?
To beg, squabble, even get into a dogfight, over the size of the pie piece I/we get?
A pie being apportioned by bureacurats/politicians, who are picking winners and losers?
You would think that any lack of any kind of standards for waivers to the law would be enough to deem that it is a discriminatory law. The fact that one person has the power to determine if a waiver is granted without having to create a standard that covers all business, groups, or individuals is ripe for coruption.
What about 3M?
3M Co. will drop retirees from health plans, steer to Medicare
Screw it, why wait till after the elections? Lets go squirrel hunting now.
Yes. And once again, the small business owners are given unfair burdens. The playing field is not level, and the Socialists are intentionally trying to put small businesses out of business, while they nationalize the big businesses.
That has been the great fight for generations–the ever growing power and authority of endless Federal, state and local agencies-to make our lives better of course. Congress passes laws that give some faceless Torquemada power to make rules, assess fines, take property or any other nonsense that may pop into their heads. The unencumbered power this congress gave Secretary Kathleen “Torquemada” Sebelius is stunning: what ever the Secretary deems appropriate? We see the same with the EPA, Justice Department, Energy, Education and the rest.
It is truly a case of Power is the Problem. We have allowed this country to become a nation of rule by man and not the rule of law we claim to cherish. In the name of fighting organized crime the RICO laws were passed-RICO laws used to silence political dissent-laws that allowed the seizure of property and you have to prove it was not bought with crime money. The FCC passed the Fairness Doctrine to stifle political dissent, we have the Patriot Act to hold secret trials and self written search warrants.
We are letting fascism come at us at an ever increasing rate.
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An Armed Society is a polite society.
Hmmm… now the question becomes how does this fly under “equal protection of the law”?
Its like the idea that some Religions don’t have to do Obama care, which is a de facto Government preference of some religions over others, which should not fly under equal protection, or Sep of Church State.
Start the lawsuits on the grounds of Equal Protection under the LAW. I think ObamaCare can be defeated in the courts as well as through repeal.
Cerberus is from Hades, I’m certain.
The only basic skill of a politician, outside of getting re-elected, is to pass the buck. If they delegate the power to the executive branch, they can claim later that “that’s not what we intended”, when of course it’s what they intended all along and were too cowardly to do themselves.
Then of course, there’s this.
That’s the first question that came to my mind, too.
But then I remember that we’re all living in an Orwell novel right now:
“But some are more equal than others.”
And now it all makes sense.
Cardinal Sebelius: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise! …Surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical
devotion to the Dope…. Our four…no… Amongst our weapons…. Hmf… Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surpr…. I’ll come in again.
Otherwise, there’d be no way to continue to cook the unemployment numbers to keep them under 10%. If that many people lose their jobs and unemployment barely goes up, there’d be hell to pay.
Private lives as with private property are not conducive to the collective are they?
As it was necessary to destroy the free market to save it it has become necessary to destroy liberty to save it. New Speak lives large.
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Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
So what your saying is, McDonalds is only getting tortured with the “Comfy Chair”?
Founding Fathers - “Equal protection under the law.”
Foundering Progressives – “Unegual protection from the law.”
The Progressive Socialist Marxists have unmasked themselves, as of this last weekend. As this, and the next election cycle unfolds,and these groups are exposed as domestic enemies, we will start hearing declarations from most of these people that, “no, we’re not that…”, and “no, what we’ve said is being taken out of context…”, etc.
No more! Me must take names, and begin purging this type of destructive ideology from all aspects of our society. It will take decades to undo the damage 100 years of progressive infiltration has caused, from education to the highest level of government. It MUST be done!
I believe in freedom of speech, however, ideologic speech that calls for the destruction of our form of government, from any source, cannot, and must not be tolerated. Our enemies know we can’t be destroyed from an outside force, but our tolerance of hate speech will destroy us from the inside, if we allow it.
We must protect everything that makes us a great nation, and deminish everything that tries to make us weak, and common.
The two-faced dog is discussed in a different thread.
At the moment, they may simply be getting poked with the soft pillow.
And how is this different than the back-room, UAW deal Obama tried to pull off before passing ObamaCare?
In principle, it seems to be the same type of deal. Favored entities get special treatment. Or “Unequal Protection” in their favor in this case.
Where’s the ACLU today? Shouldn’t they be screaming about small businesses and individuals that will have to deal with paying for more healthcare coverage they don’t want, while these “Friend’s of Barry” get special treatment?
Except the First Amendment, apparently. I find such speech as reprehensible as you, but restrictions on political speech work both ways. I’d rather have the twits out marching and carrying signs than planting bombs and robbing banks, as their parents and professors did.
My wife would tell you that is an accurate description of me on a daily basis.
If you behave you get a waiver. If you misbehave the DOJ shows up at your door, files a lawsuit, and then encourages 17 foreign countries to show up in a US Court and help them out.
They may as well just wear jackboots.
There is no Democrat at any level I will vote for. I go to church with a Dem who is running for county supervisor. I told him point blank he would never get my vote as long as he was a Democrat in the Democrat Party as currently constituted.
Flyoverman–that’s quite ok.
Better that, than the alternative: drooling in a corner with your sippy cup full of barack-aid.
if you waive, do you get a behaver?
Memo to Ms. Sebelius:
Please return phone calls from
Burger King
Taco Bell
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Subway
Quizmos
Domino’s Pizza
All of the other restaurants that compete with the list above.
Expect phone calls from every other large employer in the morning.
Your Obamacare waivers are about to become very popular.
…so now if you beg hard enough or are politically connected, ObamaCare magically changes for you.
SUUUHWWEEEEEEEET!
…for them. That must’ve been another provision they forgot to read…how it can change for certain situations. I guess the rest of us peons just get what we get shoved at us and like it.
Using Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals, what if we all just refused to get health insurance under OblahblahCare.
Under his stupid law, we would get fined for not having it.
Once I get a fine you can bet I’ll be demanding equal treatment and a waiver.
This is so much like Communism. The elites get whatever they want while the peasants toil away with scraps.
You might want to bear in mind that funding for Obamacare was made mandatory and automatic by the bill. Hence, it will not depend on future appropriations of money by Congress. It’ll be like Social Security and Medicare that way.
So it looks like about the only options at this point are repeal or defiance.