posted November 18, 2010 04:56 PM            

So far, O'Bomber's excretable administration has issued 111 O'BomberCare waivers.

posted November 18, 2010 05:06 PM            

My column today takes a closer look at the Obamacare Waiver-mania! phenomenon, which I spotlighted over the weekend. I’ve called dozens of companies and unions on the HHS waiver list. You won’t be surprised to learn that most refused to speak on the record or failed to call me back. Torquemada Sebelius sure knows how to keep them quiet. But, as you’ll see below, a few did respond to me and a few others have bravely spoken out about how the federal health care regulations would have shut down their affordable health care plans.

One company official expressed concern to me that media coverage was demonizing businesses who applied for the waivers. I certainly don’t see these waiver applicants as villains. They were potential victims of top-down government mandates and they did what they needed to do to survive. As for the unions who all pushed hard to ram Obamacare down America’s throat and then rushed to the front of the line for tax and regulatory exemptions, thanks for proving what an ill-fated scheme the federal health care takeover was from the get-go.

Now, it’s up to all of you to spread the word, call your congresscritters, and send some choice words to the White House: Dude, where’s my Obamacare waiver?
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/17/dude-wheres-my-obamacare-waiver/

More than one million Americans have escaped the clutches of the Democrats’ destructive federal health care law. Lucky them. Their employers and labor representatives wisely applied for Obamacare waivers earlier this fall and got out while the getting was good. Now, it’s time for Congress to create a permanent escape hatch for the rest of us. Repeal is the ultimate waiver.

As you’ll recall, President Obama promised repeatedly that if Americans liked their health insurance plan, they could keep it. “Nobody is talking about taking that away from you,” the cajoler-in-chief assured. What he failed to communicate to low-wage and part-time workers across the country is that they could keep their plans — only if their companies begged hard enough for exemptions from Obamacare’s private insurance-killing regulations.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website, at least 111 waivers have now been granted to companies, unions and other organizations of all sizes who offer affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits. Obamacare architects sought to eliminate those low-cost plans under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing.

It’s all about control. If central planners can’t dictate what health benefits qualify as “good,” what plans qualify as “affordable” and how health care dollars are best spent, then nobody can. The ultimate goal, of course: precipitating a massive shift from private to government insurance.

McDonald’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Jack in the Box are among the large, headline-garnering employers who received the temporary waivers. But perhaps the most politically noteworthy beneficiaries of the HHS waiver program: Big Labor.

The Service Employees Benefit Fund, which insures a total of 12,000 SEIU health care workers in upstate New York, secured its Obamacare exemption in October. The Local 25 SEIU Welfare Fund in Chicago also nabbed a waiver for 31,000 of its enrollees. SEIU, of course, was one of Obamacare’s loudest and biggest spending proponents. The waivers come on top of the massive sweetheart deal that SEIU and other unions cut with the Obama administration to exempt them from the health care mandate’s onerous “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health care plans until 2018.

Other unions who won protection from Obamacare:

– 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

– Musicians Health Fund Local 802

– Hospitality Benefit Fund Local 17

– Transport Workers Union

– United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund

– International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (AFL-CIO)

– Plus two organizations that appear to be chapters of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA)

(The list of most recently approved refugees is here.)

Several of these labor organizations did not respond to requests for comment about their waivers. But Jay Blumenthal, financial vice president of the Local 802 Musicians Health Fund in New York, did explain to me: “We got grandfathered in” (his description for getting a pass) because “things were moving so fast” and “we need time now to prepare for the law.” In other words: Policy cramdowns first, political fixes later. A supporter of Obamacare, Blumenthal told me he “sees no irony, no,” in unions supporting the very health care “reform” from which they are now seeking relief.

Chris Rodriguez, director of human resources at Fowler Packing Company in California’s San Joaquin Valley, sees things a little differently. Fowler pursued an HHS waiver because their low-wage agricultural workers would have lost the basic coverage his company has voluntarily offered for years. “We take care of our employees, and we warned (health care officials that) if they imposed this, large numbers of workers would lose access to affordable coverage,” he told me. Rodriguez said he’s grateful the firm won a waiver, but he did not lose sight of the fact that the very policies passed to increase health insurance access are having the opposite effect: “That’s our government at work.”

Indeed, some prominent government officials who lobbied hardest for Obamacare are now also joining waiver-mania — including liberal Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who has been pushing for an individual mandate exemption for his state of Oregon, and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who is pushing to waive Obamacare’s burdensome 1099 reporting requirements of small businesses.

Fearful of retribution by HHS Secretary and chief inquisitor Kathleen Sebelius, who has threatened companies speaking out about Obamacare’s perverse consequences, many business owners who obtained waivers refused to talk to me on the record. One said tersely: “We did what we had to do to survive.”

posted November 18, 2010 05:13 PM            

quote:

---

Musicians Health Fund Local 802

---

I'm sure they were able to easily afford like $5 collectively!

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out though.

Did you see my post about the new congressperson that was complaining that he had to wait a month for his fed. insurance to kick in?

posted November 18, 2010 10:51 PM            

Indeed I did see that AD.

On the count of three. let's all give this moron twit a crotch kick...and don't hold back.

One
Two
Two and a half
Three..show time...

posted November 20, 2010 11:16 AM            

here is an innovative scheme that could bring the cost of medical care down drastically, making the healthcare reform even MORE meaningful than it already is.

why are you moaning about people using the system as it was written? you too could keep the plan you want as has been explained already ad nauseam. it's hardly a heinous crime for the unions to look out for their members...working people who actually make it possible for the rich to get and STAY rich.

posted November 22, 2010 11:36 PM            

That's one of the most absurd statements made on this forum.

People are already losing their insurance plans...the ones they have and want.

posted November 23, 2010 12:19 PM            

Can all of us exempt ourselves like the 111 corporations and unions did? Good Question!

Let me get this straight . . . .
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,
Which purportedly covers at least ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but
exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,
for which we’ll be taxed for four years before any “benefits” take effect,
by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,
and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!

What the @$&* could possibly go wrong?

posted November 23, 2010 01:20 PM            

not mine, since i don't have one. i will happily pay 50 bucks a month so that insurance will be available to everyone. if i can afford it. if not i won't have to will i?

on the other hand i have been paying into medicare for some years now and in a few more will be eligible...but oh, wait, the repubs and tea baggers want to take over and hopefully delete medicare...and all the contributions taxpayers have made over the years down the tubes - how is THAT okay?

plenty of healthy people smoke or are obese. i share your opinion on mr geithner, wall street stooge. if the republicans had not been so busy exercising their right to be in denial, perhaps they would have had time to read the bill and make REALISTIC objections to it BEFORE it passed.

posted November 23, 2010 11:12 PM            

30 million new bodies on Medicare IS NOT a few.

When added to Medicare where half a trillion dollars are being withdrawn by the feds that means health care rationing...which was always the plan under O'BomberCare.

Think of all the money O'BomberCare will save the government.

First, they ration care to seniors...deny them drugs, surgery and life saving medical procedures AND...when senior citizens die due to government rationing of health care...they also save by eliminating senior citizens from the Social Security rolls.

Now, isn't that a fine way to cut the cost of government...and make O'Bomber a superstar?

posted December 07, 2010 04:50 PM            

If this piece of trash bill isn't good enough for O'Bomber supporters...like the trade unions...it sure as hell isn't good enough for any other Americans.

posted December 08, 2010 10:39 AM            

Now, where's my Waiver from O'BomberCare?

Surely, I and others who opposed O'BomberCare all along are more deserving of a "Waiver" than those who were down with O'bomberCare but are now applying for and receiving their "Waivers".

posted January 25, 2011 10:45 AM            

January 25, 2011
Chicago SEIU chapter granted Obamacare waiver
Rick Moran

You can tell Obama still has a lot of Chicago in him just by watching how blatant the cronyism and favoritism is in his government.

In Chicago, they just don't care who knows how crooked they are. In fact, a sneering comeback heard often in the windy city from Machine pols is "prove it" - as in, you can't touch me legally.

The SEIU spent tens of millions of dollars to get Obama elected and the Chicago Way says, you don't forget your friends when it comes time to hand out the goodies:

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 waivers allow health insurance plans to limit how much they will spend on a policy holder's medical coverage for a given year. Under the new health care law, however, such annual limits are phased out by the year 2014. (Under HHS regulations, annual limits can be no less than $750,000 for 2011, no less than $1.25 million in 2012 and no less than $2 million in 2013.)

Recall that Daniel Stern, former President of the Union, was Obama's most frequent guest at the White House in 2009. Access to the most powerful office in the world also gets you special treatment by government when needed.

posted January 31, 2011 08:53 AM            

If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there’s an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.

Backroom deals have become par for the course for proponents of Obamacare. Senators were greased with special favors, like Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and his Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and her Louisiana Purchase. Even the American Medical Association was brought in line under threat of losing its exclusive and lucrative medical coding contracts with the government.....Not to mention the deal AARP made with O'Bomber to push his wet dream Socialist Health Care System.

Not only are the payoffs an affront to our democracy and an outright assault on our taxpayers, the timing itself of the latest release makes a mockery of this administration’s transparency promises. More than 500 of the 733 waivers, we now know, were granted in December but kept conveniently under wraps until the day after the president’s State of the Union address. HHS is no stranger to covering up bad news; in fact, this is becoming a disturbing pattern. Last year, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hid from Congress until after the Obamacare vote a damning report from the Medicare and Medicaid Office of the Actuary showing Obamacare would cost $311 billion more than promised and would displace 14 million Americans from their current insurance.

For this administration, transparency promises last only until the teleprompter is unplugged.

Backroom deals and cover-ups may be business as usual for Washington, but understanding why the Obama administration protects its friends from Obamacare offers special insight into what the purveyors of the mandate themselves think about their own law. This is key: The waivers aren’t meant to protect victims from unintended consequences of Obamacare; they are meant to exempt them from the very intentional increased costs of health insurance that the law causes. Under Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, Obamacare increases the annual cap of insurance benefits, which sounds great - as does everything else in big government - until the bill comes due, in this case, in the form of higher insurance premiums.

In short, the administration has decided that you will face increased health insurance premiums, but special friends in the unions will not. Look closely, and you’ll see not only the White House‘s duplicity but also what the Obama administration really thinks of its crown jewel, Obamacare. White House words say that the annual insurance benefit cap is a feature of the program, but its actions say that it’s a bug.

The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?

Our democracy cannot allow a president to exercise the unholy power of picking and choosing winners and losers, of choosing who must follow his flawed laws and who gets a free pass. If any American deserves a waiver from Obamacare, then all Americans do.

It was Mr. Obama himself who infamously said, “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.” This president speaks anything but softly, and Obamacare is his big stick.

It’s time to give every American his own waiver: Repeal Obamacare.

Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist, medical director and cousin of President Obama. He blogs daily at miltonwolf.com.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/28/tawdry-details-of-obamacare-420960137/

posted March 09, 2011 10:36 AM            

This just shows that some are more equal than others...especially when they're O'Bomber's butt kissing corporate buddies or O'Bomber's equally corrupt union boss thugs.

So, what about the 14th Amendment? You know, THAT 14th Amendment which "Requires" equal protection of the laws for all citizens!

Our "Constitutional Scholar In Chief O'Bomber" must have been AWOL from class the day his law professor covered the 14th Amendment...and AWOL most other days when provisions of the US Constitution were covered in class.

No wonder O'Bomber is equally baffled by the meaning of his "Oath of Office".

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

March 09, 2011
'Waiving' goodbye to the Constitution
Jon N. Hall

The grounds for the states' suits against ObamaCare have to do with states' rights, states' sovereignty, the Tax and Spend Clause, and, especially, whether the Commerce Clause trumps the Tenth Amendment. Valid grounds all. But in its implementation, ObamaCare is violating yet another constitutional guarantee: equal protection. Two recent articles at National Review Online address this issue. In "Unequal Protection You Can Believe In," Hoover Institute fellow Deroy Murdock writes:

Obamacare is not being enforced equally at all. As of February 9, the Obama administration had granted 915 waivers, mainly to influential organizations, major companies, and pro-Democratic labor unions. Those less lucky or less well connected have a different option: Obey Obamacare.

In "Are Health-Care Waivers Unconstitutional," Philip Hamburger, law professor at Columbia University, asks: "once a law has passed -- and therefore is binding -- how can the executive branch relieve some Americans of their obligation to obey it?" He then launches into a brief legal history of the Middle Ages forward on the subject of waivers, which were known as "dispensations":

Waivers can be used for good purposes. But since the time of Matthew Paris [A.D. 1251], they have been recognized as a power above the law -- a power used by government to co-opt powerful constituencies by freeing them from the law. Like old English kings, the current administration is claiming such a power to decide that some people do not have to follow the law. This is dangerous, above the law, and unauthorized by the Constitution.

One didn't need to wait for ObamaCare to go into effect to know that it treats folks unequally -- waivers were built into the law itself. ObamaCare exempts certain selected religionists from the "individual mandate" to buy health insurance. Find the provision in Chapter 48, Sec. 5000A, (d) (2), on page 128 of the 906-page PDF:

(A) RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE EXEMPTION -- Such term shall not include any individual for any month if such individual has in effect an exemption under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which certifies that such individual is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof described in section 1402(g)(1) and an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division as described in such section. [Emphasis added.]

But even if it were written into the Constitution, thereby overcoming the limitations of the Tenth Amendment, the individual mandate would still clash with the Equal Protection Clause -- even if there were no waivers. That's because the individual mandate puts an encumbrance on the exercise of a basic right.

A precedent can be found in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), which cites the Equal Protection Clause throughout. In finding Virginia's poll tax unconstitutional, Justice Douglas concluded the Court's opinion thus: "the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned." And what is it that ObamaCare's individual mandate burdens and conditions? It is something even more precious than the right to vote -- it is one's very existence. (For an earlier take on the individual mandate's violence to the Equal Protection Clause, read this 2008 article.)

In "Congress Rediscovers the Constitution," Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute writes:

[The 112th Congress must] reject without embarrassment the facile liberal objection that the courts have sanctioned what we have today, and thus all a member need do when introducing a bill is check the box that says "Commerce Clause," "General Welfare Clause" or "Necessary and Proper Clause."

If these clauses in the Constitution enable Congress to enact the individual health-insurance mandate, then they authorize Congress to do virtually anything. The Supreme Court was wrong in allowing Congress to exercise power not granted it by the Constitution, and courts today are wrong when they uphold those precedents.

On March 7 we learn that ObamaCare's waivers have broken 1,000. We would do well to consider the blurb from Hamburger's article: "The president cannot simply decide who does and does not have to follow the law."

posted April 04, 2011 09:55 AM            

The very same people and groups...government geeks, unions and union workers...who assured Americans we were going to just love O'BomberCare are the very same ones now seeking "waivers" and granting "waivers" from the provisions of O'BomberCare.

In the meantime, provisions of O'BomberCare keep popping up which enrage American voters and lots of others too.

Did you know a hidden provision in O'BomberCare is now paying for the health insurance of those well off enough to RETIRE early? Yep, that's right, O'Bomber has shoveled almost 2 billion dollars out the door so far on the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program with more to follow.

Surprise! Most of the money has gone out the door to unions and their city, county and state pension funds.

While most people have had to alter their plans for retirement; some have concluded they will have to work until they die, O'Bomber is throwing money at those well off enough to RETIRE EARLY.

What was it someone here said about O'Bomber? Oh yeah, now I remember. O'Bomber treats everyone equally! Right, Check!

Uncovered: New $2 billion bailout in Obamacare
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidenti al/2011/03/uncovered-new-2-billion-bailout-obamacare#ixzz1IUuvq3e2

April 04, 2011
Another day, several more Obamacare waivers
Ethel C. Fenig
If Obamacare is so wonderful, why are its advocates, mainly unions and other liberals almost daily continuing to jump ship, obtaining waivers , from having it inflected on them?

According to Jason Millman writing in The Hill

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

bringing the total of waivers granted to well over 1100, mainly unions.

As a result

the growing number of waivers have exposed the White House to heavy criticism from Republican opponents of the law."The fact that over 1,000 waivers have been granted is a tacit admission that the healthcare law is fundamentally flawed," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) last month.

As Millman noted, the most transparent administration ever

The new numbers were posted on an HHS website Friday night without an announcement from the department.

Friday night? Friday night is the beginning of the week end, when there is little business news. Oh.

Adding to the administration's non transparent transparency the website for Obamacare is titled

posted May 17, 2011 12:26 PM            

Gov. Sarah Palin on Pelosi district’s Obamacare waivers: ‘Seriously, this is corrupt’
By Matthew Boyle
11:25 AM 05/17/2011 | Updated: 11:37 AM 05/17/2011

In response to the revelation that about 20 percent of the latest slew of Obamacare waivers went to luxurious restaurants, nightclubs and hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told The Daily Caller the waiver process is “corrupt.”

“Unflippingbelievable! No, wait, it is believable,” Palin said in an email to TheDC. “Seriously, this is corrupt. And anyone who still supports the Pelosi-Reid-Obama agenda of centralized government takeovers of the free market and the corresponding crony capitalism is, in my book, complicit.”

President Barack Obama’s administration approved 204 new Obamacare waivers in April. Thirty-eight of them went to upscale businesses including four-star hotels, gourmet restaurants, day spas and hip nightclubs in Pelosi’s district. That’s in addition to 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) approved.

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 upscale, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.

The reason the Obama administration says it has given out waivers is to exempt certain companies or policyholders from “annual limit requirements.” 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.

UPDATE: 11:38 a.m.:

House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, spokesman Michael Steel told TheDC this is another “backroom sweetheart deal” for Obamacare.

posted May 19, 2011 11:56 AM            

Amidst the news that 38 of the 204 Obamacare waivers approved in April went to posh entertainment venues in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district, new questions about the Obama administration’s transparency pledge have arisen.

Although the administration has approved more than 1,300 Obamacare waivers and published the recipients’ application information online, it has not made public which companies and other entities have been denied waivers and why they were denied.

Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won’t release that information, nor will they publicly release the identities of those still waiting for a decision. HHS won’t even say how many applications are in the queue.

This lack of transparency has the administration’s conservative critics reeling.

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin told The Daily Caller she thinks this has a “stench of favoritism” that “can’t be removed until and unless such a list is released.”

“The most snort-worthy aspect of the White House spin on its health care waiver program is the idea that the administration is ‘promoting transparency,’” Malkin said in an email. “As usual, Team Obama is stonewalling on full disclosure of the waiver process. Americans deserve.

posted July 17, 2011 06:07 PM            

Now, where in the hell is MY O'BomberCare waiver?

Another day, another round of Obamacare waivers
By Michelle Malkin • July 16, 2011 10:03 AM

Congratulations to the 39 new recipients of coveted Obamacare waivers!

The latest batch was disclosed yesterday on the HHS/CMS website:

Updated July 15, 2011

As of the end of June 2011, a total of 1,471 one-year waivers have been granted. This update includes 39 new approvals. The number of enrollees in plans with annual limits waivers is 3.2 million, representing only about 2 percent of all Americans who have private health insurance today.

Waiver applications will no longer be accepted after September 22, 2011. As noted above, on June 17, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced a process for plans that have already received waivers and want to renew those waivers for plan or policy years beginning before January 1, 2014. The new guidance extends the duration of waivers that have been granted through 2013, if applicants submit annual information about their plan and comply with requirements to ensure that their enrollees understand the limits of their coverage. Existing waiver recipients must apply to extend their current waiver and all applications must be submitted by September 22, 2011; after that date applications for an extension will no longer be considered. Any plans that have not yet applied for a waiver also must apply by September 22, 2011.

Until a few months ago, the HHS/CMS waiver page allowed you to view the entire en masse list on an .html page in chronological order. The waiver recipients are now broken down by type and posted in a bit more unwiedly.pdf files. As far as I have been able to piece together for you based on their approval dates, these are 36 of the 39 new golden ticket holders whose applications were signed off in June. Not sure what the other three are. If anyone wants to spend a Saturday morning perusing the data to see whether you can find what I missed, give me a holler.

Self-insured employers

Tanimura & Antle Spreckels CA
UEA New Hire Murray UT
Acrux Investigation Agency, LTD Lakeview OH
Comcar industries, Inc its Affiliates & Subsidiaries Auburndale FL
Mays Housecall Home Health Inc. Antlers OK
Pecan Valley Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center San Antonio TX
Southwest LTC Frisco TX
Air Central Heating & Cooling Yuma AZ
Spanish Meadows Brownsville TX
Wesco Industrial Products Co. Lansdale PA
Cameron Mitchell Restaurant Columbus OH
Hadley, Inc. Thermal CA
Kovacevich 5 Farms Delano CA
Fresh Harvest, Inc. Somerton AZ
Pasquinelli Produce Co Yuma AZ
U. S. Security Associates, Inc.

Health reimbursement arrangements

Special Needs Program, Inc. Ghent NY
Health Care Compliance Minneapolis MN
Independent School District Rosemount MN
Iron Workers Local 33/440 Supplemental Benefit Plan Rochester NY
City of Eden Prairie Eden Prairie MN
SouthWest Transit Eden Prairie MN
Warren Washington ARC Queensbury NY
CSEA Strategic Benefit Trust Albany NY
Heaven’s Hand Community Services, Inc Brooklyn NY

Multi-employer plans (Taft-Hartley union plans)

Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union No. 43 Health and Welfare Fund Goodlettsville TN
Day Care Council Local 205 DC 1707 Welfare Fund New York NY
Roofers’ Local 195 Health and Accident Plan Cicero NY
Arkansas Pipe Trades Heath and Welfare Fund Oklahoma City OK
Chicago Laborers’ Welfare Fund Chicago IL
Insulators Local 112 Heath and Welfare Trust Fund Lake Charles LA
Southeastern SEIU Health and Welfare Fund Jonesboro GA
Western Teamsters Welfare Trust Seattle WA
Teamsters and Employers Welfare Trust of Illinois Springfield IL
International Brotherhood Electrical Workers Local 139 Welfare Fund Elmira NY

Non-Taft Hartley Union Plans

Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association Security Benefit Fund New York NY

GOP Sen. John Barrasso will introduce an Obamacare Waivers for All bill next week.

posted July 17, 2011 08:32 PM            

what do these "waivers" exempt them from? providing insurance? providing benefits they are already providing?

posted July 19, 2011 05:21 PM            

personally i agree with you, there should be NO MANDATE but a tax that covers contributions to EVERYONE's healthcare so EVERYONE can be covered whether the insurance companies get the money or not.

posted July 20, 2011 10:06 AM            

But poll after poll after poll tell a different story. Americans want O'BomberCare REPEALED, not fixed because it can't be fixed, but REPEALED.

In Massachusetts, those needing medical care have seen their wait times to see a physician GO UP...longer wait times...50 days. Imagine that, 50 days to get an appointment to see a doctor. Shades of the Socialist health care system in Britain.

They've also seen their insurance premium costs skyrocket under RomneyCare.

And now, Sarah Palin's Death Panel has come to light in O'BomberCare. It's got the innocent sounding accronym IPAB...Independent Payment Advisory Board..which consists of unelected bureaucrats who will decide what treatments..if any will be rationed out to those on the O'BomberCare plan.

IPAB is a straight health care RATIONING scheme cooked up by Socialist comrades in the Congress and that little drivel spouting Marxist O'Bomber.

Remember all the ridicule heaped on Palin when she said "Death Panel"? Well, Sarah Palin was right. The "Useful Idiots" of Socialism can't get over the fact O'BomberCare doesn't SAY "Death Panel" in plain English. O'BomberCare says..instead..Independent Payment Advisory Board..which will tell physicians what they can treat, how much can be spent and whom they can treat. And, there's NO APPEAL from the decisions of the Death Panel Board.

posted July 20, 2011 12:44 PM            

i believe that cutting FRAUD and overspending on wasteful treatment is a perfectly reasonable way to trim medicare. as you yourself point out, insurance companies balk at "experimental" treatments which often save lives, and i know plenty of older people who have private insurance who have been brushed off with "you're 89 (or whatever) do you expect to be perfectly healthy forever?" and such remarks from their very well-paid doctors.

eliminating the big extra medicine program that pays the pharmaceuticals 14% more for meds and charges the seniors for it is another big step in the right direction.