ObamaCare Nightmare: 111 Waivers Approved for DHS “Opt Out” List… Left-wing Media Burying That ObamaCare Is a Jobs Killer (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 15, 2010
Team Obama is handing out more exemptions from ObamaCare, and the numbers have increased from the 33 of a few weeks ago… many of the now 111 “escapees” from ObamaCare are unions to whom Obama owes favors. Outrageous.
But unless you or your company are big enough, or have high-priced lawyers at your disposal, or have established crony connections with the Chicago White House, as the unions have — especially ACORN’s SEIU — and you’re able to effectively beg for a waiver from the trillion-dollar Democrat nightmare of socialized medicine, you’re out of luck and will be forced to swallow the bitter, job-killing pill of government-run health care.
Hope has met change and has vomited all over the American public.
MSNBC and other left-wing Obama-bot media won’t be reporting on this, you can bet your spleen on that.
Here’s the link to the list of approved waiver applications buried on the Department of Health and Human Services website. (UPDATE: Since the time of this post being written in November 2010, waivers have increased from 111 and now number more than 700 granted waivers).
From YouTube summary provided by jackohoft:
The Obama Administration has already handed out 111 Obamacare waivers to US companies… And, they’re hiding this from the American public. It takes 6 clicks to find out this information on the Health Care website.
Unfortunately, if you’re a small business or don’t have connections you can’t get a waiver for your company. That’s the new reality under the Obama-Pelosi regime.
FOX News: Obama White House Hands Out 111 Obamacare Waivers – Hides It on Website
From Michelle Malkin, Waiver-mania! The ever-expanding Obamacare escapee list:
In early September, I noted the push by Obamacare promoter and Democrat Rep. Ron Wyden for a special state waiver from the very federal mandate he advocated for everyone else.
A few weeks later, McDonald’s finagled its own Obamacare waiver after warning federal regulators that it could be forced to drop its affordable health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 restaurant workers unless it got a pass.
In early October, the Obama administration announced it had granted waivers not only to McDonald’s, but also to several other firms and labor unions.
Now comes word that Torquemada HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has approved a whopping 111 waivers for businesses of all sizes, along with more unions and other providers of health insurance. The escapees include employers of many low-wage and part-time workers whose health insurance plans would otherwise be dropped, including Darden Restaurants — the parent company of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster and other chains, which employ some 34,000 people.
[...]
Make no mistake: Team Obama isn’t granting the waivers out of bleeding-heart compassion for the affected workers, but out of a panicked urgency to avoid a public relations disaster.
As I’ve boiled it down before:
Old Democrat promise: Everyone gets to keep their health insurance.
New Democrat promise: You can keep your health insurance…if you BEG hard enough for an Obamacare waiver.
Yep: The only way for hundreds of thousands of workers to keep their health insurance is to exempt them from the government-imposed “fix.”
From Gateway Pundit, Unreal. SEIU Local 25 and 12 Other Union Groups Receive Obamacare Waivers:
So who made the list so far?
The Service Employees Benefit Fund (#10 on list) with 1, 297 enrollees gained a health care waiver from the Obama Administration.
Lets’ see who else is on the list:
#12– UFCW Allied Trade Health & Welfare Trust
#14– IBEW No.915
#19– Asbestos Workers Local 53 Welfare Fund
#33– Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 123 Welfare Fund
#35– UFCW Local 227
#52– UFCW Maximus Local 455
#55– Local 25 SEIU
#60– UFCW Local 1262
#78– Local 802 Musicians Health Fund
#83– Local 17 Hospitality Benefit Fund
#89– International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT)
#91– Transport Workers
#92– UFT Welfare Fund (United Federation of Teachers)So there you have it. The SEIU and 12 other union groups were given waivers.
How’s that for hope and change?
From RedState, ObamaCare: Union Waiver Favors Pile Up:
Union bosses fought tooth and nail to nationalize America’s health care—even, in many cases, to the detriment of their own members. Now, instead of chewing on and swallowing what they bit off, unions are getting waivers to the very plan that they shoved down everyone else’s throat.
[...]
While some of us are seeing our health care costs go through the roof, union bosses are getting waivers. This isn’t just wrong, it is grossly hypocritical.
The Powers That Be weighs in…
If this law actually had anything to do with affordability and quality health care, even its authors would be scrambling to repeal it and start over — the fact that nobody on the left is doing that provides the best evidence that the “Affordable Health Care” act has nothing to do with affordability or health care. The people at the lucrative end of the scam are getting their goodies — what happens to the rest of us is irrelevant to them.
From Legal Insurrection, Endowed By Our Waiver:
Hundreds of companies are getting waivers from Obamacare requirements, as reported by Michelle Malkin and others.
The issue, Dear Friends, is not the waivers. Or Obamacare itself.
The issue, Dear Friends, is that Dear Leader decides who gets a waiver.
Your rights no longer are endowed by your Creator.
Make everything illegal (okay, bit of an overstatement, but you get the point) and then require people to ask for permission. It’s about control, and from where power emanates
The wisdom of Thomas Paine:
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
— Thomas Paine
And this…
We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.
— Thomas Paine
Additional:
The Powers That Be: Number of Obamacare Waivers Granted Reaches 111, Over a Million People Now Exempt
Nice Deb: WH Tacitly admits Obamacare Hurts Business: Issues 111 Waivers
Big Government: Obamacare Waivers Prove Policy is a Jobs Killer, Unions Benefit Most
Liberty Central: Sebelius Waives Obamacare Rules for McDonalds, Teachers’ Union
The Weekly Standard: Kill It, Don’t Treat It
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Who’s Lovin’ It? McDonald’s Has Been Awarded ObamaCare Waiver by Czarina Kathleen, As Has Jack in the Box & Teachers’ Union and Boston Herald Rips ObamaCare: Hurts Seniors, Doctors, & Businesses, More Than 35 Million Americans Likely to Be Dumped Out of Their Employer’s Plan (video) and Former WH Budget Chief Peter Orszag: Says Doctors Should Work Weekends… Plus, Orszag Trashed by White House “Insiders” and POTUS Disaster: Will McDonald’s Be Dropping Company Health Plan for Thousands of Employees Because of ObamaCare? White House Is Quick to Deny It (video) and Bad News for Obama: 3 Times More Money Being Spent on Dem Ads AGAINST ObamaCare Than in Favor of It, Update on State Lawsuits Against ObamaCare (video)
Michelle Malkin: Obamacare waivers: Torquemada Sebelius spares McDonald’s, unions and The Obamacare Inquisitions: A brief, brutish history and Go ahead, Henry Waxman: Launch another Obamacare witch hunt and Wyden: For imposing the Obamacare individual health mandate before he was against it
Boston Herald: Obamacare’s ill effects leave few untouched
Motor City Times: Web Resource: Conservative Hideout 2.0 On ObamaCare
Gateway Pundit: Change!… Team Obama to Doctors: Start Working Weekends and Dem Senator: Libs Should Run On Obamacare – Tea Partiers Are Extremists and WOW, Democrat Jokes That Seniors Should Be Denied End-Of-Life Healthcare and 3M Says Up to 23,000 Seniors May Lose Coverage Thanks to Obamacare and WOW, Democrat Jokes That Seniors Should Be Denied End-Of-Life Healthcare
Doug Powers, Michelle Malkin: Obamacare Idealists Somehow Find Way to Be Even More Nauseating and Obamacare Milestone:What’s the Traditional Gift for the 6-Month Anniversary of an Industry Takeover?
The Blaze: ‘You Jackass’: Rush Rachets up Anti-Obama Rhetoric
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: ObamaCare: Will We Really Be Paying For Their ‘Health Insurance’?
Quipster: Democrat Flight From Health Care Reform Ownership
Hot Air: ObamaCare: The sum of all fears
Bloomberg: U.S. Waives Health Insurance Minimums for 1 Million
About the author
In the list of “Approved Applications for Waiver” are insurance companies (Cigna, 265,000 enrollees). If the government is granting waivers to the insurance companies, wouldn’t that waiver then apply to employers using that “waived” insurance company? Perhaps this is easy solution for small employers.
What if the insurance policy belongs to the employee not the employer? This could be an easy solution for those small companies who aren’t blessed by a Secretary Sebelius waiver and are being forced to drop employee coverage. Simply switching their healthcare payments into LyfeBank accounts where the employee purchases a policy of their choosing will get the employer out of the health insurance mess. LyfeBank accounts allow family members and part time workers to pool employer funds from each job, all with pretax dollars. (See LyfeBank.com)