Healthcare Waivers-Political Favors? [Reader Post]

Obama is hitting campaign mode full speed ahead as could be seen in his riding the Osama wave last week and his typical characterizing the mission as: “I wanted to make sure that if I sent them in, that I could get them out again.” Never mind the ‘we’, it has always been about Obama, and not the collective. The pandering last week however, became insufferably obvious.

Now comes the health care waivers…we find that a good percentage of the recent health care waivers issued by the Department for Health and Human Services have gone to businesses in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district, and not just any businesses, but swanky spas, restaurants and nightclubs.

In theory, 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.

“We don’t want to take away people’s health insurance before they have some realistic other choices,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview with The Hill earlier this year.

Republican lawmakers have seized on the waivers as proof that the law they want to see repealed is flawed, and they have accused the administration of giving them waivers as gifts to union allies. The administration has rejected both claims as Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have asked HHS for in-depth details about every waiver decision and request.

Most requests for waivers have been accepted, but dozens have been denied because they “did not demonstrate that compliance with the minimum annual limits requirements would significantly increase premiums or decrease access to benefits,” an HHS spokeswoman told The Hill in January.

Nearly 20 percent of new Obamacare waivers are gourmet restaurants, nightclubs, fancy hotels in Nancy Pelosi’s district

That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved.

Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers.

Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.

Really? 351000 members of the New York Teachers Assn, also received a one year waiver until they could be assured they wouldn’t see increases or loss of coverage. Congress and their aids are exempt. Obama and his cronies are exempt. SEIU files for exemptions every month for more members. More and more corporations are added monthly. Yeah, this is a really good deal isn’t it?

This would appear to totally invalidate the whole basis of the argument the executive branch presented to the Supreme Court that for the health care plan to work, all had to participate. So, are they now going to reopen that case and reconsider it? Even so, on top of this, some insurance companies are dropping coverage of children because they cannot afford to cover children with preexisting conditions.

Yeah, I’de like to see these 30 million illegals buy their insurance like of us, maybe they will be offered a wavier at the polls………………………and ‘ALL’ apparently means ‘all the rest of us.’