Waiver Wire: More Obamacare Exemptions Granted
Late on Friday, the Administration released its latest list of waivers granted from some of Obamacare’s onerous mandates. In the past month, another 62 plans covering 117,001 individuals received waivers, bringing to more than 3.2 million Americans who have received exemptions from some – but certainly not all – of the law’s mandates. Of those, over 1.58 million participants were in union-affiliated plans that received waivers – raising questions about why so many union members are being exempted from the law.
On a related note, the Administration announced Friday it would stop taking waiver applications in September 2011. This unexpected development raises additional questions about the way in which the Administration has been handling the waiver process:
- Is the waiver program being closed to new applicants due to political criticism, as some articles have suggested?
- Before closing the waiver program to new applicants, has the Administration bothered to survey small businesses as to whether or not they are even aware of the program? Given the disproportionate participation of union plan members in the waiver process, it’s obvious that Democrats’ labor allies are well aware of the waiver process – but small businesses many not be.
- What has the Administration done to raise awareness of the waiver process among small businesses? The IRS sent millions of postcards to small businesses to advertise the small business tax credit – why hasn’t HHS done the same regarding the waiver process?
The waiver process has proven how damaging and disruptive Obamacare’s onerous mandates have been to individuals’ health insurance coverage, even before most of the law’s major provisions take effect. What has been less clear – and what Friday’s actions do not explain – is why the biggest beneficiaries of the waiver process have been Democrats’ Big Labor allies.