In what should be viewed as nothing less than a pure indictment against this whole attempt by Barry to seize control of our healthcare system, is the growing number of waivers that are not only being sought, but being approved. Republicans charge the scores of waivers approved by Barry's administration very clearly reflects the fatal flaws contained in the legislation. “I think it tells you everything you need to know about this law,” so says Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. He adds, “The very fact that they had to immediately grant these waivers so that these people wouldn’t lose their health insurance tells you that if they should be exempt from the law, the rest of us should be exempt from the law too.” Of course there is a bit of obvious political favoritism going on here when it comes to whose waivers are approved and whose are denied. In what is fast becoming pretty much a weekly event, the Barry "Almighty" administration just recently granted 200 more companies waivers from the Democrats' sweeping health care law. That brings the number of companies receiving waivers to 1,372. (You can get a full list of the companies exempted here.) Not surprisingly of course, it does help dramatically if you happen to be a Democrat ally when seeking a waiver. The Republican Policy Committee reports that over half of the workers that have been exempted so far belong to unions. Now there's a shocker! Here's another, the largest single waiver was granted to the United Federal of Teachers Welfare Fund, which covers teachers in New York. The waiver shielded some 351,000 of its members from the premium hikes that many experts say Obamacare will bring.
The plans newly approved for waivers cover more than 160,000 people, bringing to nearly 3.1 million the number of individuals in plans exempted from the requirements of Barry's healthcare "reform" law. Of the participants receiving waivers, more than half, that would be over 1.55 million, belong to union plans, raising the very obvious questions of why such a disproportionate share of union members are receiving waivers from the law’s requirements. The percentage of participants receiving waivers that come from unions is also very much on the rise, the number was 48% in April, and 45% in March. Unions already received a generous concession in the health care bill. Their generous plans, commonly referred to as "Cadillac" insurance plans, were exempted from being taxed until 2018, adding about $120 billion to the bill’s total cost over ten years. The reason the Barry "Almighty" administration says it has given out waivers is to exempt certain companies or policyholders from “annual limit requirements.” They claim that the applications for the waivers are “reviewed on a case by case basis by department officials who look at a series of factors including whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan because the coverage would not be offered in the absence of a waiver.” The waivers don’t allow a company to permanently refrain from implementing Obamacare’s stipulations, but companies can reapply for waivers annually through 2014.
Constitutional scholar and patient advocate Ms. Betsy McCaughey says that, “The key issue is that under our system of government, the law is supposed to apply equally to everyone. But unfortunately, the Obama administration is moving in the totalitarian direction: It’s who you know, rather than whether you are duty-bound to obey the law." Republicans must repeal Obamacare because it shreds your constitutional rights, says Betsy McCaughey. But then I think as we all should know by now, Barry's not a big believer or supporter of our Constitution. Ms. McCaughey says opposition poll numbers may have dropped some but that's only because Obamacares congressional supporters, in government and the state controlled media are so busy blatantly lying about what it does. “So some companies get waivers, other companies don’t,” McCaughey says. She goes on to say that, “There’s no rhyme or reason or way to describe why some deserve it, and some don’t. And that is really the end of the rule of law in our system of government.” And what should as come as no surprise to anyone with at least half a brain is that with at least 44 of the waivers granted to unions were granted for no other reason than that they contributed substantially to Democrats and the Obama campaign specifically, and that would include that gem known as the Service Employees International Union SEIU). But major corporations such as McDonald’s, Darden Restaurants, and over a dozen health-insurance companies, are included as well. McCaughey, who has been an ardent opponent of the president’s healthcare reforms, says that granting the waivers to some companies but not to others may be unconstitutional. Well, what part of this entire "reform" isn't unconstitutional?
I'm sure we all remember like it was only yesterday how, how all during the healthcare charade that was referred to as being a "debate," Barry promised time and again that under his proposals people could keep their current insurance coverage. He attempted to laugh off all of the criticism, claiming that all of the "chatter" heard to the contrary was nothing more than "scare tactics." But it wasn't very long before McDonald’s Corp. announced that it might have to drop coverage for 30,000 of its workers due to onerous ObamaCare provisions. Just days later, however, HHS announced it had granted the company a one-year waiver from implementing the reforms. Edmund Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies for the Heritage Foundation, says the administration issued the waiver to avoid the pre-election political nightmare of “30,000 workers at a business that everyone already knows, because there’s one in every town, suddenly losing their coverage.” He is an obvious critic of the whole waiver process, saying, “It’s entirely arbitrary and discretionary.” Adding, “This is what we mean by the rule of law. The rule of law says that law is there, accessible to everybody, and it is clear that everyone is treated equally. This is not the rule of law. This is arbitrary government.” Large restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, often offer workers basic “mini-med” policies, which have strict limits on payouts. Those policies don’t meet certain minimum standards established in Obamacare, including the percentage of premiums that must be spent on benefits.
Just a little side note here, and something that very clearly reveals the obvious hypocrisy of this whole so-called waiver process is that of the 204 new Obamacare waivers that Barry "Almighty" approved just this past April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in, of all places, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. Perphaps it's just a coincidence? 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. Ms. 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 old "Botox" Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare. For instance, Boboquivari’s restaurant in Pelosi’s district in San Francisco got a waiver from Obamacare. Boboquivari’s advertises $59 porterhouse steaks, $39 filet mignons and $35 crab dinners. Must be a big hangout for Liberal Democrats. Then, there’s Café des Amis, which describes its eating experience as “a timeless Parisian style brasserie” which is “located on one of San Francisco’s premier shopping and strolling boulevards, Union Street,” according to the restaurant’s Web site. “Bacchus Management Group, in partnership with Perry Butler, is bringing you that same warm, inviting feeling, with a distinctive San Francisco spin,” the Web site reads. Somehow, though, the San Francisco upper class eatery earned itself a waiver from Obamacare because it apparently cost them too much to meet the law’s first year requirements. Imagine that!
Many have sharply criticized the administration’s apparent failure to foresee the unintended consequences of how the legislation would affect some 1.5 million policyholders. Mr. Haislmaier has also said, “If you’re going to put something in that’s going to have the effect of abolishing mini-med plans and you didn’t realize that you were doing that, then you were incompetent.” Haislmaier and Rep. Rogers warn that giving some companies waivers to keep their premiums down thwarts the stated objective of spreading health costs across the entire population. Remaining policy holders, they say, are more likely to see the costs of their premiums go up. And McCaughey says premium costs are already rising sharply. “Certainly, it has forced up premiums,” she says. “Look, there’s no tooth fairy. When the law requires insurance companies to cover more, or in this case to eliminate lifetime caps on what they’ll pay out when you’re sick, or annual caps on what they’ll pay out when you’re sick, you have to pay more." “If insurance companies eliminated the cap on what they’d pay out under your homeowner’s policy, or your auto policy, you’d have to pay more for those policies too. The more you get, the more you pay,” she says. The health care reform bill passed by the 111th Congress gives the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, broad latitude in setting rules to administer the program. This whole thing was, and continues to be, nothing but a sham, or scam, and an outrageous abuse of power initiated by the most corrupt politician to come along in my lifetime. He looked us straight in the eyes and repeatedly lied to us, and continues to do so to this very day. The voice of the American people was, quite simply, ignored for no other reason than this seizure of our healthcare system has been the dream of these twisted, power hungry people for decades.
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