Another week, another round of Obamacare waivers. One has to wonder at this point if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act applies to anyone anymore. It certainly doesn't seem to apply to friends of President Obama.
They’re all getting waivers.
The Obama administration granted 204 new waivers nationwide in April, and almost 20 percent of them went to fancy restaurants and hotels in San Francisco. It's probably a coincidence that San Francisco is former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s district. Ms. Pelosi, along with her Senatorial counterpart Harry Reid, was one of the biggest pushers of Obamacare when the president was trying to get it passed.
The other 80 percent of the waivers went to the usual recipients: labor unions, large corporations, financial firms, and local governments. How nice it must be to be in bed with big government. Sarah Palin had a succinct response to the Pelosi waiver revelation:
“Unflippingbelievable! No, wait, it is believable,” Palin said in an email to TheDC (The Daily Caller). “Seriously, this is corrupt. And anyone who still supports the Pelosi-Reid-Obama agenda of centralized government takeovers of the free market and the corresponding crony capitalism is, in my book, complicit.”
What about Harry Reid? As it turns out, he got a pretty sweet piece of the pie for himself. He got his entire state of Nevada an Obamacare waiver. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, it would be detrimental for Nevada to abide by certain aspects of the new health care law because it “may lead to the destabilization of the individual market.”
Right. That’s exactly what opponents of Obamacare have been saying since 1993 (back then it was known as HillaryCare). Just because the government mandates health care, it doesn’t mean anyone is going to get better or cheaper care. It’s only going to put needless financial strain on individuals and small businesses in an economy that can’t afford it.
If Obamacare really is as magical as Santa’s insurance plan for his elves, then why are all of President Obama’s friends getting waivers?
Image via Leader Nancy Pelosi/Flickr
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Comments 8
Blech! If it is so good and such a great value - they ALL should have been the first in line, instead of the first running away from it.
Obamacare is a BIG FAT ANCHOR ON AMERICA. I will do the biggest, most obnoxios jig to celebrate the repeal of this law. I really hope the people who supported Obama and his ilk are paying attention to this, and understanding just how dangerous that man is to this country.
This may start a big to do but where are the Obama supporters?!?! I can't wait to see the first comment on how this article is racist.
A few facts:
The waivers are for one year to allow businesses, unions etc., time to implement the changes.
You apply for them through the Health and Human Service Dept.
They are not handed out by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or any other scary individual you may have in mind.
Here's a clip:
As of late February, CCIIO has approved 94 percent of waiver applications received from employers, insurers, and other applicants. The vast majority of waivers, more than 95 percent, were granted to health plans that are job-related. These include self-insured employer health plans, health reimbursement arrangements, collectively-bargained multiemployer plans, and health plans sold by issuers to fully-insured employers.
It is important to note that these limited benefit plans that have received waivers cover an extremely small proportion of the people covered by private health plans in the United States. Since setting up this program, CCIIO has granted waivers to plans covering approximately 2.6 million people, out of the 160 million people who have employer-sponsored health coverage. This figure is less than 2 percent of all covered lives in the private insurance market
Go to the HHS website to learn more.
http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2011/03/t20110315a.html
Some more facts:
The sky is blue.
Water is wet.
Those seem about a important, I think, since there's NOTHING to stop companies for re-applying and receiving waivers again when the year is up.