Mini-med plans have lower limits than allowed under the Affordable Care Act. While mini-med plans do not provide security in the event of serious illness or accident, they are unfortunately the only option that some employers offer. In order to protect coverage for these workers, the Affordable Care Act allows these plans to apply for temporary waivers from rules restricting the size of annual limits to some group health plans and health insurance issuers.
Waivers only last for one year and are only available if the plan certifies that a waiver is necessary to prevent either a large increase in premiums or a significant decrease in access to coverage. In addition, enrollees must be informed that their plan does not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. No other provision of the Affordable Care Act is affected by these waivers: they only apply to the annual limit policy.
President Obama told us that with ObamaCare, if we liked our health care plan, we could keep it. Well, we can keep it, if we're granted a waiver from the Department of Health and Human Services, that is.
When McDonald's applied for their waiver back in September, it was done so that they could keep their low-wage employees in their current plans and not be forced to dump them from their coverage because of the added expenses tacked on by the benefits McDonald's would be mandated to offer because of ObamaCare. (We blogged about that whole debacle here).
Once both McDonald's and Jack in the Box were granted waivers the flood gates have opened so that now 111 entities, representing 1,175,000 employees, have been exempted from ObamaCare (complete list, here). No information from DHS as to how many more companies are currently in the pipeline seeking waivers.
And how is it that you know a law has been thoroughly compromised and is so convoluted as to be completely counter-productive? When the groups that fought hardest for ObamaCare are themselves seeking exemption status. Count United Food and Commercial Workers, Allied Trade Health and Welfare Trust Fund, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union No. 915, Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund, Employees Security Fund, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 455 (Maximus), United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1262 and Musicians Health Fund Local 802 among those unions that have been freed from ObamaCare.
At the link above, it explains that the waiver only lasts one year at which time we are assuming you have to go through the whole process again. That will keep a few people busy, no?
Exit question: In keeping with the spirit of inquiry of the Obama administration prior to the midterms in seeking to find out just who was giving money to groups like the Chamber of Commerce who were, in turn, giving to Republican candidates, just what was exchanged by these groups in return for being exempted from ObamaCare? Surely, we can't be expected to believe that legislation fashioned in the sleaziest, back room manner is suddenly free of quid pro quo? That would require a suspension of disbelief of which we are just not capable at this time.
Here's a little red meat to wrap up your day - Michelle Bachmann and the One-eleven.
H/T: Michelle Malkin
Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California 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.
Before hanging up on TheDC, Tru Spa’s owner said new government health care regulations, both the federal-level Obamacare and new local laws in Northern California, have “devastated” the business. “It’s been bad for us,” he said, without divulging his name, referring to the new health care restrictions.(italics, ours)
But, the spa owner wouldn’t talk about it or the reason his company sought a waiver. He hung up after saying, “I’ve got clients on the other line, good-bye.”
Translation: "My phone's about to die"
The Obama administration approved 204 new waivers to Democrats' healthcare reform law over the past month, bringing the total to 1,372.
The waivers are temporary and only apply to one provision of the law, which requires health plans to offer at least $750,000 worth of annual medical benefits before leaving patients to fend for themselves. Still, Republicans have assailed the waivers as a sign of both favoritism and of major problems with the law.
"The fact that over 1,000 waivers have been granted is a tacit admission that the healthcare law is fundamentally flawed," Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in March. Upton is one of three House committee chairmen who has used new oversight powers to investigate the annual limit waivers.
The new health care law is supposed to fix the problem by guaranteeing access to affordable coverage for all. But many nursing homes and home care agencies, alarmed at the cost of providing health insurance to hundreds of thousands of health care workers, have started a lobbying effort seeking some kind of exemption or special treatment.
Mark Parkinson, president of the American Health Care Association, the largest trade group for nursing homes, says the problem is that reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare, set by government agencies, do not pay them enough to offer their employees medical coverage. “We do not have much ability to increase prices because we are so dependent on Medicaid and Medicare” for revenue, he said.
Mr. Parkinson acknowledged that when nursing homes do offer health insurance to employees, the benefits are often limited. The coverage “is probably not up to what will be required” by the federal law, he said.
Nobody professed to understand the question of the frozen railroad bonds, perhaps, because everybody understood it too well. At first, there had been signs of a panic among the bondholders and of a dangerous indignation among the public. Then, Wesley Mouch had issued another directive, which ruled that people could get their bonds “defrozen” upon a plea of “essential need”: the government would purchase the bonds, if it found proof of the need satisfactory. there were three questions that no one answered or asked: “What constituted proof?” “What constituted need?” “Essential-to whom?” …One was not supposed to speak about the men who, having been refused, sold their bonds for one-third of the value to other men who possessed needs which, miraculously, made thirty-three frozen cents melt into a whole dollar, or about a new profession practiced by bright young boys just out of college, who called themselves “defreezers” and offered their services “to help you draft your application in the proper modern terms.” The boys had friends in Washington.
The number of temporary healthcare reform waivers granted by the Obama administration to organizations climbed to more than 1,000, according to new numbers disclosed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday, bringing the total to 1,040 organizations that have been granted a one-year exemption from a new coverage requirement included in the healthcare reform law enacted almost a year ago. Waivers have become a hot-button issue for Republicans, eager to expose any vulnerabilities in the reform law.
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.Dozens!
One in a series that takes a look at some unsavory news being jettisoned from Washington D.C. right in front of the weekend.
Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.
Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.
By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.
The Department of Health and Human Services revised the rules governing applications for health reform waivers June 17, 2011, amid a steady stream of controversial news reports, including The Daily Caller’s story that nearly 20 percent of last May’s waivers went to businesses in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district in California.
The labor unions receiving waivers include those that are monitored under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, and those that are not. The waivers granted since June 17 are valid until 2013, but recipients must make sure their employees understand the “limits of their coverage,” according to HHS documents.
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.
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
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.
While some 500 groups got waivers for a healthcare reform provision setting annual coverage requirements, about 50 requests for such exemptions were denied, the Department of Health and Human Services told The Hill Thursday.
A week after Republicans announced an investigation into reform law waivers, HHS made public on Wednesday new waivers for more than 500 groups that would not be able to meet the reform law's new requirement for annual coverage limits in 2011.
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 in unions or proof that the reform law isn’t working. A large number of businesses have also received waivers.
The waivers are typically granted to so-called "mini-med" plans that offer limited annual coverage — as low as $2,000 — to employees. The waivers are designed to preserve stability in the insurance market until new state-run insurance exchanges open in 2014.
"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 oversight in HHS's Office of Consumer Information and Insurance, said in a statement.And that's a wrap. End of story. End of article.
Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.
The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.
The three SEIU locals, covering a total of 36,064 enrollees, are covered by the federal waivers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS gave a waiver to Local 25 SEIU in Chicago with 31,000 enrollees on Oct. 1, 2010; to Local 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund with 4,544 enrollees on Oct. 10, 2010; and to the SEIU Local 1 Cleveland Welfare Fund with 520 enrollees on Nov. 15, 2010.
So far, the Obama administration has issued waivers to 222 entities, including businesses, unions and charitable organizations. Of that total, 45 were labor organizations.
The Obama administration granted 39 waivers from part of the President’s health care law last month, bringing the total to 1,471, an announcement which is prompting one Republican Senator to introduce legislation that would allow all Americans to apply for a waiver.
Wyoming Republican John Barrasso said today that he plans to introduce a bill next week that “will deliver choice to Americans who want to get the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a price they can afford” by allowing all Americans to apply for a waiver from the president’s health care law.
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