USA: HHS grants 500 new healthcare waivers

This is what happens when you get play-play politicians saying that you "have to pass a bill to find out what's in it". Apparently, 222 organisations (covering 2.1 million people) have had a look and decided that they don't like what's in the Obamacare present. Surprisingly, many of the 222 organisations are......unions (and other pro-Obama companies). So, one question is begging: if Obamacare is so wonderful - supposed to be effective, special, deficit reducing with progressive benefits - then why all the waivers?? Wouldn't unions and companies rush to implement a law that is supposed to benefit them and reduce their costs? Guess not.

A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is granting temporary waivers to organizations that would not be able to meet the reform law’s new requirement for annual coverage limits.

As of last week, HHS had granted waivers to 222 organizations covering 1.5 million individuals. Though the number of groups receiving waivers has now more than tripled, the number of individuals covered by the waivers increased just 600,000 to 2.1 million.

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 or proof that the reform law isn’t working. However, a large number of businesses, in addition to unions, have received waivers.

The waivers have been granted to plans offering one kind of insurance and hundreds of so-called "mini-med" plans that offer limited health coverage to employees. The waivers are designed to preserve stability in the insurance market until new state-run insurance exchanges open in 2014.

Source