Free Captain Elliott's Party Boats (cont.)

The hits... they just keep on coming.

The number of waivers the Obama administration has awarded for a provision of the year-old healthcare reform law grew by 128 in March.

With the new waivers, that means 1,168 businesses, insurers, unions and other organizations have received one-year exemptions from a healthcare reform provision requiring at least $750,000 in annual benefits.

The administration says the temporary waivers are granted to help stabilize the insurance market until a fuller package of reforms takes effect in 2014, but the growing number of waivers have exposed the White House to heavy criticism from Republican opponents of the law.

This is on top of the 126 new waivers that were granted back in February so the pace of those heading for the exits does not appear to be slowing down any. Awesome.

The list of waivers granted at the HHS website still shows 729 business and union entities representing just under 2.2 million Americans so it's as if Sebelius and her gang at the Dept. of Health and Human Services aren't even bothering to keep track of things anymore.

More importantly however, in this month alone, the employees of 128 more businesses and union locals will be deprived the full benefits of ObamaCare. The injustice of it all.



(UPDATE #1): 6 = 429


Ahhh, perhaps we now know why Kathleen Sebelius and her elves have not had the time nor the interest to update the aforementioned waiver roster: they be writin' rulzzzz...

Giving proof to Main Street's worries that President Obama's healthcare reform will lead to thousands of new and costly regulations, the Department of Health and Human Services has taken one small section of the law and written enough new rules to every page of Obama's campaign book, The Audacity of Hope—plus another 45 pages.

Section 3022 of the law, which is about the Medicare shared savings program, take up just six pages in the 907-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But HHS has turned that into 429 pages of new regulations

And as predictably as the Sun rises in the East, a law this complex, though providing no incentive to get into practicing medicine, most certainly guarantees a boon to another sector of the economy:

For months, said Washington health-care attorney Rene Quashie, his phone has been “ringing off the hook,” with hospital and doctor clients wanting advice on how to reorganize themselves to get new Medicare bonuses under the health-care law. Handling such questions, said Quashie, an associate with the firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, is sure to be “a growth area” for his firm.

And a lucrative one.

From Washington to California, the year-old health law, with its layers of complexity, is setting off a gold rush for high-priced lawyers and consultants. It’s “a full employment act for health-care consultants,” said Ian Morrison, a founding partner of Strategic Health Perspectives in Menlo Park, Calif.

Because nothing screams efficiency, lower costs and better patient care than getting lawyered-up.