HHS grants 500 new healthcare waivers to corps & unions for ObamaCare

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HHS grants 500 new healthcare waivers
By Jason Millman - 01/26/11 04:50 PM ET    


A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is granting temporary waivers to organizations that would not be able to meet the reform law’s new requirement for annual coverage limits.

As of last week, HHS had granted waivers to 222 organizations covering 1.5 million individuals. Though the number of groups receiving waivers has now more than tripled, the number of individuals covered by the waivers increased just 600,000 to 2.1 million.

The law gives HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the flexibility to grant waivers to avoid disruption in the insurance market, but Republicans say the waivers are either gifts to Democratic allies or proof that the reform law isn’t working. However, a large number of businesses, in addition to unions, have received waivers.


The waivers have been granted to plans offering one kind of insurance and hundreds of so-called "mini-med" plans that offer limited health coverage to employees. The waivers are designed to preserve stability in the insurance market until new state-run insurance exchanges open in 2014.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee asked HHS last week for details on the waiver process. HHS said Wednesday night that it wants to make the waiver process transparent.


"We are committed to making the waiver process transparent to the public and to make sure workers with mini-med plans are informed about the limited nature of their coverage," Steve Larsen, director of oversght in HHS's Office of Consumer Information and Insurance, said in a statement. "For example, we have required plans that receive waivers to inform their enrollees that their coverage is limited. HHS also helps to ensure transparency by posting a list of the plans that have been granted waivers, so stakeholders understand how they are affected."

HHS said it was anticipating the huge bump in waiver requests because plans were required to file for waivers before their plan year began, which is Jan. 1 for many. The deparment was unable to provide the number of plans denied waiver requests, but an HHS spokesman said, "It's more than a handful, but not a big number."


This story was updated at 7:40 p.m.


Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/140533-hhs-grants-new-reform-waivers-amid-heightened-scrutiny

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The real snow job in D.C.: Obamacare waivers skyrocket to 729 + 4 states; 4 new SEIU waiver winners
Michelle Malkin ^ | 1/26/11 | Michelle Malkin



The nation’s capital is freaking out over a winter snowstorm.

But everyone else should be up in arms over the real snow job in Washington this week.

While the Democrats continued to extol Obamacare and the president defended the behemoth law during the Date of the Union, HHS was quietly presiding over a massive Obamacare Waiver-mania explosion.

When last we examined the growing list, privileged escapees topped 222.

Now: The list is at 729 — plus 4 states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennesse).

Among the many new union refugees are x new SEIU locals :

-SEIU Health and Welfare fund, 2000 with 161 enrollees


(Excerpt) Read more at michellemalkin.com ...


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[Skip8282]

Where are all the liberal tards to explain how the new healthcare law can be so great and so necessary, but everybody's getting a waiver?

haha

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Unions make up 40 percent of employees exempted from Obamacare
Washington Examiner ^ | 1/27/11 | David Freddoso


Yesterday, the Deparment of Health and Human Services announced it had granted more than 500 new waivers to Obamacare's requirement that health plans have annual limits of no less than $750,000. This annual limit requirement climbs to $1.25 million next year and then to $2 million. The reason these exemptions from the law are needed is that Obamacare forces all health insurance consumers to over-insure themselves and pay high premiums as a result. Without the waivers, many companies, non-profits and unions would simply drop their health plans.


(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


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[240 is Back]

:Michelle Malkin:

She was a truther... one of the earliest.  bashed america in the FOREIGN PRESS...

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Obamacare Waivers Mount, Still
The Heritage Foundation ^ | February 11th, 2011 | Alex Adrianson



Why does anybody need a waiver to a law that’s been ruled unconstitutional? We don’t know; ask the Department of Health and Human Services. On Wednesday, HHS updated its Web site to show that it has now granted 915 waivers to Obamacare’s requirements on benefit limits in health insurance plans. The waivers allow employers to continue offering plans with annual limits on the dollar amount of benefits provided. These so-called mini-med plans are an affordable option for many workers, but they would become unavailable without the waivers.

The waivers are certainly good for the 2.4 million folks who still get to choose an affordable insurance plan, but what about the other 99 percent of Americans with private insurance? If it’s generally acknowledged that this provision makes health insurance more expensive, why not let all consumers have the option of getting mini-med plans?
The answer, of course, is that if everybody could escape from government-designed health insurance, then everybody would. And besides, the HHS Web site explains, “Annual limits waivers are temporary.  In 2014 annual dollar limits will be prohibited and mini-med plans will no longer be necessary.” Viola. Since they’re prohibited, nobody will want them anymore.

At National Review, Philip Hamburger notices that the practice of giving favored constituents waivers to burdensome laws bears a striking resemblance to the granting of dispensations during the Middle Ages. This practice once belonged to popes and kings, but was restricted heavily following the English Revolution of 1688. Further, notes Hamburger, the U.S. Constitution “did nothing to authorize delegation of the suspending power to the executive” which raises the question of whether such waivers are even constitutional.


Of course, Judge Roger Vinson in Florida recently ruled Obamacare unconstitutional over a different provision of the law (the individual mandate), and if that ruling holds up on appeal, then nobody will need a waiver anyway.



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Direct link to the 915 waivers



http://www.hhs.gov/cciio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html

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CMS Official Confirms That Four States Have Been Granted ObamaCare Waivers
American Spectator ^ | 2/16/11 | Philip Klein



An Obama administration official on Wednesday confirmed that four states -- including Florida, Tennessee and Ohio -- have been granted waivers from the regulatory requirements of the national health care law.

Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed the news under questioning from Rep. Cliff Stearns at an oversight hearing for the House Energy and Commerce committee.


(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...