Dude, where’s my Obamacare waiver?
My column today takes a closer look at the Obamacare Waiver-mania! phenomenon, which I spotlighted over the weekend. I’ve called dozens of companies and unions on the HHS waiver list. You won’t be surprised to learn that most refused to speak on the record or failed to call me back. Torquemada Sebelius sure knows how to keep them quiet. But, as you’ll see below, a few did respond to me and a few others have bravely spoken out about how the federal health care regulations would have shut down their affordable health care plans.
One company official expressed concern to me that media coverage was demonizing businesses who applied for the waivers. I certainly don’t see these waiver applicants as villains. They were potential victims of top-down government mandates and they did what they needed to do to survive. As for the unions who all pushed hard to ram Obamacare down America’s throat and then rushed to the front of the line for tax and regulatory exemptions, thanks for proving what an ill-fated scheme the federal health care takeover was from the get-go.
Now, it’s up to all of you to spread the word, call your congresscritters, and send some choice words to the White House: Dude, where’s my Obamacare waiver?
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Dude, where’s my Obamacare waiver?
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
More than one million Americans have escaped the clutches of the Democrats’ destructive federal health care law. Lucky them. Their employers and labor representatives wisely applied for Obamacare waivers earlier this fall and got out while the getting was good. Now, it’s time for Congress to create a permanent escape hatch for the rest of us. Repeal is the ultimate waiver.
As you’ll recall, President Obama promised repeatedly that if Americans liked their health insurance plan, they could keep it. “Nobody is talking about taking that away from you,” the cajoler-in-chief assured. What he failed to communicate to low-wage and part-time workers across the country is that they could keep their plans — only if their companies begged hard enough for exemptions from Obamacare’s private insurance-killing regulations.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website, at least 111 waivers have now been granted to companies, unions and other organizations of all sizes who offer affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits. Obamacare architects sought to eliminate those low-cost plans under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing.
It’s all about control. If central planners can’t dictate what health benefits qualify as “good,” what plans qualify as “affordable” and how health care dollars are best spent, then nobody can. The ultimate goal, of course: precipitating a massive shift from private to government insurance.
McDonald’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Jack in the Box are among the large, headline-garnering employers who received the temporary waivers. But perhaps the most politically noteworthy beneficiaries of the HHS waiver program: Big Labor.
The Service Employees Benefit Fund, which insures a total of 12,000 SEIU health care workers in upstate New York, secured its Obamacare exemption in October. The Local 25 SEIU Welfare Fund in Chicago also nabbed a waiver for 31,000 of its enrollees. SEIU, of course, was one of Obamacare’s loudest and biggest spending proponents. The waivers come on top of the massive sweetheart deal that SEIU and other unions cut with the Obama administration to exempt them from the health care mandate’s onerous “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health care plans until 2018.
Other unions who won protection from Obamacare:
– United Food and Commercial Workers Allied Trade Health and Welfare Trust Fund
– International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union No. 915
– Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
– Employees Security Fund
– Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
– United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227
– United Food and Commercial Workers Local 455 (Maximus)
– United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1262
– Musicians Health Fund Local 802
– Hospitality Benefit Fund Local 17
– Transport Workers Union
– United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund
– International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (AFL-CIO)
– Plus two organizations that appear to be chapters of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)
(The list of most recently approved refugees is here.)
Several of these labor organizations did not respond to requests for comment about their waivers. But Jay Blumenthal, financial vice president of the Local 802 Musicians Health Fund in New York, did explain to me: “We got grandfathered in” (his description for getting a pass) because “things were moving so fast” and “we need time now to prepare for the law.” In other words: Policy cramdowns first, political fixes later. A supporter of Obamacare, Blumenthal told me he “sees no irony, no,” in unions supporting the very health care “reform” from which they are now seeking relief.
Chris Rodriguez, director of human resources at Fowler Packing Company in California’s San Joaquin Valley, sees things a little differently. Fowler pursued an HHS waiver because their low-wage agricultural workers would have lost the basic coverage his company has voluntarily offered for years. “We take care of our employees, and we warned (health care officials that) if they imposed this, large numbers of workers would lose access to affordable coverage,” he told me. Rodriguez said he’s grateful the firm won a waiver, but he did not lose sight of the fact that the very policies passed to increase health insurance access are having the opposite effect: “That’s our government at work.”
Indeed, some prominent government officials who lobbied hardest for Obamacare are now also joining waiver-mania — including liberal Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who has been pushing for an individual mandate exemption for his state of Oregon, and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who is pushing to waive Obamacare’s burdensome 1099 reporting requirements of small businesses.
Fearful of retribution by HHS Secretary and chief inquisitor Kathleen Sebelius, who has threatened companies speaking out about Obamacare’s perverse consequences, many business owners who obtained waivers refused to talk to me on the record. One said tersely: “We did what we had to do to survive.”
A new House GOP majority now has the chance to protect the rest of America from this regulatory monstrosity. We want out.
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Why, I’m shocked !
And fear of regulations yet to be written ““as the Secretary deems are … “if the Secretary determines necessary”; and “the Secretary has the authority” (Obama Care 101) has made it economically impossible for my sister and her husband’s company to obtain insurance for their workers fiscal year 2011-12. Coupled with new 1099 Reporting Rules and other uncertainties they will close for the Christmas Holiday and not reopen-ever.
Approaching 60 they did not want to take a whole lot more chances. They were able to sell their contracts to one company and CNC machines to another-and a whole lot of pretty good men do not get to keep their insurance. Bambi Lied, Jobs Died. One more Phoenix Industrial Park will sit empty.
HHS Secretary and chief inquisitor Kathleen Sebelius, Bambi and a whole lot of Congresscritters are the Grinchs Who Stole Christmas.
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Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Did you notice that some of those who got the “Free-Pass” card had only one or two employees?
WTH …. ?
Obamacare nothing. I want my IRS waiver. Who do I apply to for that? Timothy Geithner?
Thanks again, Michelle, for all you do exposing this corrupt and misguided administration – especially at this hour!!!
I wonder if that also included the necessary political contributions….
Waiting for the full list of applicants, waiver grants and denials, which will probably require a FOI request to receive. Of course the most important comparison to the FEC list of contributions. I don’t think there will be any surprises, I think most of these companies bought and paid for their waivers, and we pay the bill in higher prices to make up for it. Gotta love a corrupt government.
Yo
AsDonks (and some idiot rebubs needing payola), you rushed to pass this steaming pile ofShidung just to “see” what was in the plan. Now that we know what is in it, time to wipe yourAsbutts and move on (lest you forget what we did toFucpols who supported this stinker).P.S. I tried hard not to clean this post up.
Do not worry.This will be the headline story of all the major newspapers in the country.I will be glued to the TV tonight to watch the networks inform the American people of this./
If I am paying into Obamacare right now I should be getting the benefits? What? You say not ’till 2014? Where’s my Obamamoney? I need it now!Yaknowwhatumsayin’?
Michelle …
Do you know if there is any listing of the companies or other groups whose waiver applications were not granted?
I would be very interested in seeing whether or not there is any indication of verifiable bias in determining which applicants waiver requests are rejected and which are granted.
Any way to check that out?
“There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere.”
– Commander Buzz Lightyear
OK … did some heavy searching … took a lot of clicking and drilling to locate but here is a listing on the HHS website of the currently approved 111 waivers …
Granted Obamacare Waivers Listing
Note that there is a statement at the top of the page indicating that:
“All Applicants Listed have had 1 or more plans/policies approved”
Based on that statement it appears that some of these listees got numerous waivers meaning that actual number of waivers is more than the 111 reported.
However … this still does not tell me how many nor whose applications have been rejected as I asked in my earlier post (#10). Haven’t found anything on that … yet …
Maitre D: And finally, monsieur, a waiver-thin mint.
Mr Creosote: No.
Maitre D: Oh sir! It’s only a tiny little thin one.
Mr Creosote: No. @#$% off – I’m full… [Belches]
Maitre D: Oh sir… it’s only waiver thin.
Mr Creosote: Look – I couldn’t eat another thing. I’m absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.
Maitre D: Oh sir, just… just one…
Mr Creosote: Oh all right. Just one.
Maitre D: Just the one, sir… voila… bon appetit…
[Mr Creosote somehow manages to stuff the waiver-thin mint into his mouth and then swallows. The Maitre D takes a flying leap and cowers behind some potted plants. There is an ominous splitting sound. Mr Creosote looks rather helpless and then he explodes, covering waiters, diners, and technicians in a truly horrendous mix of half digested food, entrails and parts of his body. People start vomiting.]
Maitre D: [returns to Mr Creosote's table] Thank you, sir, and now the check.
I spoke with Rep. Paul Ryan at a political event earlier this year and asked if the HC law could be repealed. He said not until 2013. He added, that the best we could expect is to defund and/or break-apart provisions until then.
Now I’m beginning to wonder. This HC law is coming under attack so frequently, by so many, some Dems may decide it might be in their best long-term interests to repeal and start over.
Or, maybe that’s just silly wishful thinking.
Gee, I thought that it was just bho unable to sell the stupid public on how great the plans was going to be. There’s no need for waivers unless……. the plan was not designed to fix healthcare. What a surprise that would be.
Sadly, it is just wishful thinking. Every waiver makes it easier to keep obamacare from being repealed, since each waiver reduces the pain to the concerned individuals involved, transfering it to everyone else, most of whom are either Obama’s enemies or people who aren’t paying attention and/or have no clue how politics really works.
That is what the political vote buying game is all about. Placate and buy off your noisiest constituents, thereby screwing the great majority who are not paying attention.
Democrats are evil. No, I don’t mean they are mean people who disagree with me. I mean they are really evil. Their nature, as Democrats, is to raid the system. To bleed it dry. It’s who they are. It’s what they do. They have no mercy. They have no compassion. They have no concept of the general welfare. They could not care less about what the real consequences are to the country and the society.
Communist birds of a feather stick together. The rest of us need to file a civil suit on discrimination !
It’s simple. The application is the same one used for voter registration. You simply mark a “D” in the party affiliation box and send the $2400 fee to the Obama re-election fund. Waiver granted.
Exposing them is the FIRST step. Now we have to get them arrested and jailed. That is not so easy. How do we fumigate the WH???? It is so nasty and filthy, we may never be able to get it clean. The Obama administration with all his communist cronies and Chicago thugs has sullied OUR house, THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE for years to come. Every single one of Obama’s (or more accurately, Soros’) appointments must be investigated by an outside party who has some power and can cut through the cover-ups. Someone who is not afraid to die!! MM, Glenn Beck and Rush are doing a great job. But the corruptocrats are still there! I want them not only GONE, but IN PRISON. I pray I live long enough to see that happening!
So much for equal protection under the law…..
BNot tat he onstitution meas anythingto these people, ater all they nominatd an ineligible candiate and the GOP and everyone else just let it go…
While I do think repealing it before we can replace Obama in the WH is wishful thinking, I disagree that the waivers will significantly reduce the pain.
This time of year is the traditional time for many employers to have open enrollment for their health plans. Seeing the rising cost of their premiums is a very disturbing event for a lot of people, especially when the benefits of said plans are being reduced. Right now, I pay about 10% of my pretax income for insurance, and that cost is going up (which I knew it would) as the copays for just about everything covered under my plan. When it hits everyone’s pocketbook, the waivers aren’t going to cushion the hit, IMO.
What’s going to happen is people will stop electing to pay for their health care plans because they really won’t be able to afford it. My family doesn’t use enough of the medical benefits to justify paying as much as we do, but I’m one of those responsible citizens that prepares for the future when it will be needed. I can only imagine how many will drop their coverage because they think they’ll be able to get it when they truly need it.
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HI ARIZONANEANDERTHAL–#2. Excellent post on the real loss of employment due to ObamaCare imposing higher costs on business. Comrade Obama (PBUH) and his ilk think that they can mandate the costs on the businesses and that nothing else will be affected. They do not see any connection between their actions and the resulting economic damage caused by them.
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It never works out well when economically clueless clowns are put in charge. It’s O.K. with me when they shoot themselves in the foot–if I don’t have to pay for their medical care. But it sure sucks when they shoot business in the foot and don’t have to pay for the damage.
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Like Margaret Thatcher said, “Socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money!”
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John Bibb
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It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead
Just more reasons to vote Obama and the Dems out of office.
The battle lines are being drawn: On one side are ordinary Americans who love the American dream, freedom and responsibility. On the other side are the race baiters, anti-American busy bodies, bent on dismantling our freedoms, special interests, socialists, eco-fascists.
Let the battle begin.
Can anyone be this dense?
Yep. That’s the Democrat Party.
BTW, I guess it must be true crazy people (cough .. Cameron .. cough) do the most interesting art.
OK, off topic but really funny…..and sad at the same time.
Palin Derangement Syndrome causes death of innocent TV from gunshot wound:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/man-shoots-tv-over-bristol-palin-dancing
Continued confirmation that liberalism IS a mental disorder.
They bought off lawmakers to pass this BS law. Now they are buying off companies and unions to keep their law from being outed for what it really is.
When will the lawsuit be brought stating that these waivers violate the equal protection clause? If Ive got to be subject to this garbage then everybody else needs to be too. Im sick beyond words of this criminal administration.
Why is this scandal not getting more coverage on conservative outlets???
*If some get a waiver, all should get a waiver, it’s that simple, no exceptions.
*The House GOP needs to make and keep repeal as their top priority even while conducting other business; They need to take a sledgehammer to this monstrosity; The country will go belly up otherwise!
Quite possiblly the same reason conservative outlets and conservative talking heads won’t touch, “Who is Barack Obama” or his obvious ineligibility with a ten-foot pole?
Does anybody know how the Executive Branch can waive a Congressional law?
Just wondering…
Easy. Get Congress to write the law so it effectively gives the Executive Branch the power to waive it.